Then, let's clarify my position.
The question:
is this game eligible for vault?
Even a simple glance could tell you that it is not entertaining enough to be in Moons. In fact, if this game was interesting enough, we wouldn't even be speaking at all!
To answer this, it's interesting to look at why Vault was made. Before Vault, TASes were made to show mastery over a target (as I developed earlier), but there were also TASes which, when made, simply ended less interesting than others. Unfortunately, these TASes were rejected because they were not entertaining enough, by the standard of the judges.
There are flaws with this (mostly that games which a small body can judge non-entertaining can be entertaining to some), which, among other things, led to creation of the Vault.
However, the important thing is that the Vault, as stated, is "for record-keeping purposes."
Even the Vault - which, by its design, is a "dumping" tier for less entertaining games; scary black icon, separate portion for vault and moon/stars - still needs the criteria of the game
actually being a game. There's no acceptance of bad games that don't even qualify as games in the vault.
So, our criteria here is a game which qualify as a real game. What's a real game? It's defined a little
in the Vault rules, under Game choices. I'll cover some other criteria as well, but the main idea is justifying if this game is a real game or not. Why do we need this distinction? Because otherwise, there is no limit to what kinds of "games" you can submit; whether they be even games or just simple program with no goals, educational games, visual novels (which are not games), choose-your-own-adventure. Or, more closely to this case, games which masquerade as one but are not (Barney's Hide and Seek, for example.)
And, since Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was brought up, I'll try to evaluate it as well along with this game. Let's evaluate the two main points needed for this game to get in Vault:
Game is definable as a game
Both of these are definable as games; they have a start, an ending, with gameplay throughout.
Non-trivial
Here, I'll cover the two other points:
* the game must be non-trivial. That would mean, a game that consists only of going right would be rejected (trivial.)
* the game needs to
stand out from unassisted play.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is non-trivial. Can the same be said from this game?
Well, the game is certainly easy, it's certainly slow, but it's also non-trivial. There is no "trivial strategy" that can be used here; it's a platformer with goals, you can die, there are parts with difficulty.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stands out from unassisted play. The majority of the run is very different from even the best speedrun. Is this game the same?
We are answered: it stands out from unassisted play, because there are hard things, and you can fail at doing these hard things. We are also answered: there are tricks you can do TAS-only, therefore it is different from unassisted play.
For hard things that you can fail at: this is a rather weak argument. If I spent some time training at this game unassisted, then speedrun it, I would not fail at those glitch segments, even if they are frame perfect. Because the rest of the game is very easy anyways, with only those parts to train, it would be easy to match a TAS.
So, let's give the author the benefit of the doubt, and say that, the second argument, there are tricks you can do TAS-only (and not without a real human getting enough practice) is true. Does that make the game different enough from unassisted play?
My answer is no. Maybe the judge's answer will be different, who knows? The vast majority of the game is either autoscrollers or very easy movement. The only thing that would distinguish a TAS and a non-TAS run would be these small TAS-only segments. But otherwhise, the runs would be the same! Here there is no difference between TAS and non-TAS. The game/program simply doens't allow enough variance that speedy runs differ in any way.
Conclusion
So, I can say: this game is trivial. And this brings us to the very first point I made in my first post. There is no point in TASing these games. Even TAS does not separate from unassisted play, the games are just too bad to be able to give TASing material, let alone entertainement material.
I think it would be better to focus on TASing real games, for improving as a TASer and for the audience. Don't TAS for the sake of TASing, TAS a game instead. These rules were made for a reason, to avoid exactly these kinds of bad games while allowing the original intent of the Vault. And the reason why; read my first post again.
And, if it's not clear enough what I am really arguing against here: I'm arguing against TASing bad games in general. It goes against the spirit of TASing, and has no real point. The rules we have (notability notably) are a nice cutoff point now, because if we accept games that just have some things different enough in TAS, that have some cool tricks, as in, we follow RSY's definition, then what stops me from making a game that just walks right on a platform with some holes in the ground, and then say "but this TAS is different from a would-be unassisted play, because my jumps were optimal"?
What stops me from taking a hundred garbageware games with a same engine and different branding, one or two glitches that make them "stand out" according to RSY's definition, and them submit them in droves? It's actually worse than useless, because people might expect something useful and waste 30 seconds of their lifes. People looking at submissions may not even see good runs because of all the bad games. And if they get accepted because of some dumb "following the rules" because, well, technically, these are games for RSY, then we just end up with a bunch of wasted time encoding and 100 new TASes that nobody has interest about, not even the maker. This is hyperbole, but it illustrates my point a little.
