Game objectives
- Emulator used: FCEUX 2.10.20
- Aims for fastest time
- Heavy death abuse
- Abuses programming errors
- Manipulates luck
About the game
Spelunker is a simple adventure game, but a difficult one. Much of the game's difficulty arises from the fact that the explorer cannot jump high or fall far, and therefore dies
extremely easily. In Japan, this game's explorer is known as the most weakest hero in all action games. Among Internet users in Japan, the word "Spelunker"
is used to mean " too weak" or "injure oneself frequently".
Sumarry
I gave up saving time before Level 4 because boat in Level 3 moves by 17 seconds frame rules, so you need 10 seconds or more improvements
to take eariler boat.
All improvements comes from speed upgrades and lag reduction in Level 4.
Tricks
- "jumping up the ropes" glitch
- If you jump at the moment you catch the ropes(ladders) before descending, you can jump up the ropes(ladders).This is mere techniques, but surprisingly, this weak hero never dies unless you fall below the point you start to jump ! I used this trick to ride barrel in Level 3.
- "jumping over the stones" glitch
- you can jump over the stones by pressing left+right and jumping.You can use this tricks only in "left to right" direction because you always jump to right by this method.
- Endless speed upgrade glitch
- Generally, When you take drags in red vials, you get speed upgrades until remainig time of drug effect(RAM Address 0x00A5) become 0. However, if you take second drags when remaining time is 1, you can get Endless speed upgrade. Details of this glitch is here (Japanese) http://www.spelunker.jp/okure2.htm
- Death management
- When you die, you are respawned to the location of the last item you picked up or last vehicle you took, or starting point of level. So, you can manipulate your location after death by avoiding items. This is abused quite heavily in this movie.
Lag reduction
Large difference of Y positon after you die generates Lags.
This lags leads to delay of boats in Level 3 or elevators and poison gas in Level 4, so you need minimize these lags.
In the current published run, author get the endless speed upgrades in this level.
However, I didn't do that beacause that makes it impossible to maintain speed upgrades till level 4.
First blue key - I jumped up the ropes and died after I got the key in order to prevent lags after death.
Second blue key - manipulates Miracles(random item) to get 1UP for death abuse.
In this level, I get endless speed upgrades. However, you can't go up the staris with speed upgrades.
Therefore, I got the blue key on the stairs before getting endless speed upgrades.
First blue key - I jumped and died by Flash (item like firworks) after getting the key.This is lag reduction, but still 26 frames lag occured.
Second blue key - manipulates Miracles(random item) to get 1UP for death abuse.
Third blue key - After getting the key and dying, 3 frames lag occured though I made effort to minimize lags by manipulating location after death.
Second blue key - Normally, you can't ride barrel with speed upgrades because of jumping too far,but I could ride by using "jumping up the ropes" glitch!
you can't go up the stairs, so can't get the key directly. I got the coin and died to respawn to the coin and get the key.
All improvements comes from this level as I noted, but this level is pretty simple, so no need to plan route or death management.
Special thanks and references
- hisatoki - Most of the tricks in this run are firstly used in TAS by hisatoki.
- http://www.spelunker.jp/ - detailed explanation of Endless speed upgrade glitch
Sorry for my poor English.
I hope you enjoy my run !
Baxter: Nice improvement over the published TAS. Accepting.
