This is a 35.45 seconds improvement over the
published run of this game. Most of the improvement comes from using a "leave bullet" bug that allows me to get to Auburn road (normally the last place you visit, where you get letter1 and memo). There are also a few other improvements - more details can be found below.
- Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.4a
- Genre: Adventure
- Genre: Storybook
- Heavy glitch abuse (at least I think so - I welcome other people's thoughts whether or not this run should have this tag)
Subtitles in the .fm2
I have added subtitles to this run in the hopes of giving you an understanding of why I do some seemingly strange things. The subtitles will both explain this new "leave bullet" bug, as well as other changes and strategies. If a moderator feels they need to be changed slightly, perhaps regarding formatting or timing, feel free to change them.
Improvements
Leave bullet bug
This bug was found by HHS, while I found how to use it to save time in the TAS. It is the cause of the most of the improvement (about 33 seconds). Here's how it works:
Inside the gun shop there are several bullets that you can buy for 1 coin each. If you have one of these bullets in your inventory, you can click on leave on any of these bullets and leave it in the same place as it is in. This might seem like it has no effect - you just pick up it and put it down again - but when you put it down, the game calls the "remove item from inventory" subroutine. The game gets confused since you're leaving an item you don't actually have (although you have a bullet it's not that exact bullet) so what happens is that the game removes an item anyway. The item that is removed is the first item on the inventory list above the one you're on. The order of the item pages is this:
| Addresses | Container | Inventory page 1 | Inventory page 2 |
|---|
| Sherman | Note2 | Key1 | Medicine2 |
| Westend | Snapshot | Card | Capsules |
| | | Coins | Map |
| | | Coat | Bullet |
| | | Gun1 | |
| | | Key2 | |
| | | Key3 | |
Notice that the last opened container, in this case the dashboard from the car, is stored between your adresses and your items. This is very important for the bug.
After leaving the bullet on the table, all items on the pages above the addresses page are moved one step down. The lists will then look like this:
| Addresses | Container | Inventory page 1 | Inventory page 2 |
|---|
| Sherman | Snapshot | Card | Capsules |
| Westend | | Coins | Map |
| | | Coat | Bullet |
| | | Gun1 | |
| | | Key2 | |
| | | Key3 | |
| Note2 | Key1 | Medicine2 | |
Two noticable things has happened. Note2 has been placed on the addresses page, and key1 has been moved to the container page. As soon as you opened a new container, this page will refresh, so basically key1 is lost. More importantly, Note2 is now on the address page. This brings us to the next part of the bug - any "unknown" value on the address list is treated as Auburn road when you tell the cabby to go there. This means that any other item would work too. By having note2 in the address list, I basically have the Auburn road address, without having to rescue miss Sternwood from the car trunk (lucky for me who needs to save time, unlucky for her).
It's worth adding that you cannot interact with the note2 in any other way when it's in the address list.
Other improvements
- New route when going to the casino: Instead of going there by elevator, I take the elevator down to the sewers, go up to the secret room and open the round door to the casino. I then go to the outside of the bar through the building, unlocking the bar door from the inside. This new route saved about 90 frames.
- Miscellaneous cursor improvements scattered throughout the run.
Miscellaneous info
- I found several other strange things you can do with the leave bullet bug: teleport to the first bathroom stall, have your current room treated as an item, etc. None of these interesting quirks seem useful, as they require me to loose all my items. Also, I cannot pick up any more items once I have done this. Still, they're interesting enough to warrant mentioning. See EDIT3 in this forum post for some input files.
- The rerecord count is not 100% accurate - I used a lot of bots that used lots of savestates. The rerecord count on the submitted movie file is my best guess at the actual rerecord count.
Closing words
Uninvited is the only storybook game now that doesn't have a known major bug now. Hopefully I, or someone else, can find something for that game!
I'd like to give a huge thanks to HHS for finding this bug, and also thanks to all you storybook TAS fans.
Enjoy!
Truncated: Looking good! Accepting. Subtitles are always nice, I wish more formats had that.
