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I never thought about this until now, but is there a harder difficulty unlocked after you beat the game? I noticed that there are only "easy" and "normal" difficulties to choose from at the beginning. Also I never really bothered checking what changes with the difficulty so I'm not sure it would even matter.
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Exxonym wrote:
I never thought about this until now, but is there a harder difficulty unlocked after you beat the game? I noticed that there are only "easy" and "normal" difficulties to choose from at the beginning. Also I never really bothered checking what changes with the difficulty so I'm not sure it would even matter.
There is no hard mode, or at least, not aware of yet; after you beat the game, the file starts off like a new game, but you have all the stars that you've collected so far. As for the changes with difficulty, I haven't been able to find any info on it, so I'm going to play through it to see what's different.
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I don't know about you, but I've given up improving the first two levels because I can't find any way to make them faster. Should we just move on to the racing level now, unless you've discovered something interesting about the difficulty, or found an improvement.
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Exxonym wrote:
I don't know about you, but I've given up improving the first two levels because I can't find any way to make them faster. Should we just move on to the racing level now, unless you've discovered something interesting about the difficulty, or found an improvement.
I found a small 3 frame improvement in the first stage. I ended up with 1 extra lag frame, so I'm trying to see what could be done.
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jlun2 wrote:
I ended up with 1 extra lag frame
Yeah, it seems like the glitched jumping sections give quite a few lag frames. I couldn't really avoid many of them without going out of my way, but perhaps there is a way to avoid them without causing other problems.
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Nevermind, the laser at the end ruined it. But here's the .vbm on that part of the improvement. I think this trick could be applied to other places as well.
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Nice! That's pretty similar to what happened at ~5945 in the second level for me. I didn't think it could be applied to other places as well. Is the trick applicable to other parts of the first level (like at the beginning). If so maybe redoing the whole level could get to the end lasers in time to beat them. Edit: It seems this trick can be used when falling to accelerate. In this particular instance of the first level it saves 10 pixels, or about 2.5 frames: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1120989815/Test_SSLCP3.9fall.vbm
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It turns out the trick you found is more useful than I thought. I found a number of applicable places in level 1 and even though the lasers at the end caught me a bit, I still saved 32 frames. Here's the improvement: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/786521149/Test_SSLCP4.0.vbm The next level undoubtedly has places to use this trick as well, as tedious as it may be. :S
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Exxonym wrote:
It turns out the trick you found is more useful than I thought. I found a number of applicable places in level 1 and even though the lasers at the end caught me a bit, I still saved 32 frames. Here's the improvement: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/786521149/Test_SSLCP4.0.vbm The next level undoubtedly has places to use this trick as well, as tedious as it may be. :S
I'm wondering why the place where the jump glitch is first abused is not an applicable place for this trick. I kept trying, but I'm always ~1 frame behind. I wonder what makes a place "good" enough for this trick to be useful?
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jlun2 wrote:
I'm wondering why the place where the jump glitch is first abused is not an applicable place for this trick. I kept trying, but I'm always ~1 frame behind. I wonder what makes a place "good" enough for this trick to be useful?
I tried to use it at that same spot as well, and I was always behind at least 2 frames. I'm not sure why this place is really the only area where it's not faster. Even so, assuming the lasers at the end of the level stay on the same cycle, it would have to be more than a few frames quicker to beat the second laser. Of course my last update might not be perfectly optimized, so "maybe" it's possible but i'm skeptical. Unless another trick is found I think this is about as quick as the first level will be. Feel free to prove me wrong though :P. If I recall correctly, on my last update I was still able to save 5 pixels by optimizing the jump near the bottom of this same ledge. As it turns out jumping for an extended period to reach max height before glitch jumping is actually faster than immediately glitch jumping.
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I may have found some improvements in the first stage using the most recent trick. It all depends how the lasers at the end act. I'll update this post with info when I finish. Edit: GAH SO DAMN CLOSE! I was 15 frames ahead the whole level (from jumping over the spikes) and the lasers at the end beat me by 1-2 frames. I thought surely I would make it, but the damn thing barely catches me. Maybe another frame could have been saved at the jump glitching part at ~3920, being as that area gave a lot of inconsistent results. Maybe I'll try tomorrow, I feel like it should be possible to beat the damn lasers (and I really want to). Also, the rerecord count is getting pretty ridiculous, 16k for the first level. :P
Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.
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Exxonym wrote:
Edit: GAH SO DAMN CLOSE! I was 15 frames ahead the whole level (from jumping over the spikes) and the lasers at the end beat me by 1-2 frames. I thought surely I would make it, but the damn thing barely catches me. Maybe another frame could have been saved at the jump glitching part at ~3920, being as that area gave a lot of inconsistent results. Maybe I'll try tomorrow, I feel like it should be possible to beat the damn lasers (and I really want to). Also, the rerecord count is getting pretty ridiculous, 16k for the first level. :P
I've noticed at ~frame 3578, the jump didn't reach max height before the glitch jump was used. I'll check other parts as well to see what could be done.
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Buahaha I've DONE IT! By optimizing the trick near the end, I managed to clear all the stone blocks with a midair jump, saving enough frames to bypass the damned lasers at the end. About the max height glitch jumping, I think that's only to be used when you're timing your jump to just miss the ceiling. Since the slide passes the point where you have to worry about the ceiling, immediate glitch jumping is faster I would assume.
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I've managed to save 2 pixels, but the jellyfish somehow blocked me. >.> .vbm of the slight boost.
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I saved 3 more frames at the last jumping section by skipping the middle floating platform. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/5945822/Test_SSLCP4.1laser3.vbm I'll probably be busy the next week or so, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work on this.
Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.
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Exxonym wrote:
I saved 3 more frames at the last jumping section by skipping the middle floating platform. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/5945822/Test_SSLCP4.1laser3.vbm I'll probably be busy the next week or so, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work on this.
Um...I'm sorry, but I was, and still am very busy due to IRL family events. I won't be able to TAS as much as well until I get more free time. To make sure this post isn't useless, here's a game-freezing glitch I found last night.
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jlun2 wrote:
Exxonym wrote:
I don't know about you, but I've given up improving the first two levels because I can't find any way to make them faster. Should we just move on to the racing level now, unless you've discovered something interesting about the difficulty, or found an improvement.
I found a small 3 frame improvement in the first stage. I ended up with 1 extra lag frame, so I'm trying to see what could be done.
Easy, means infinite life, so you can win times in the spikes :P, but I improved weirdly.... 1 frame by lags by choosing normal dif.
Current: Rayman 3 maybe? idk xD Paused: N64 Rayman 2 (with Funnyhair) GBA SMA 4 : E Reader (With TehSeven) TASVideos is like a quicksand, you get in, but you cannot quit the sand
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got4n wrote:
Easy, means infinite life, so you can win times in the spikes :P, but I improved weirdly.... 1 frame by lags by choosing normal dif.
Guidelines say the choose hardest difficulty unless it only serves to prolong the game with increased enemy health. Also, isn't "TAS" mean Tool-Assisted Superplay/Speedrun? Using "easy" difficulty isnt exactly "superhuman". :P
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jlun2 wrote:
got4n wrote:
Easy, means infinite life, so you can win times in the spikes :P, but I improved weirdly.... 1 frame by lags by choosing normal dif.
Guidelines say the choose hardest difficulty unless it only serves to prolong the game with increased enemy health. Also, isn't "TAS" mean Tool-Assisted Superplay/Speedrun? Using "easy" difficulty isnt exactly "superhuman". :P
Ok loooks, i reduced 1 frame lags somehow o_o... i'm not TASing this game for the moment, I'm TASing super mario bros deluxe and Creature from the krusty krab ^^'
Current: Rayman 3 maybe? idk xD Paused: N64 Rayman 2 (with Funnyhair) GBA SMA 4 : E Reader (With TehSeven) TASVideos is like a quicksand, you get in, but you cannot quit the sand
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KABUMP! I did a short test of 1-2 some tricks used, like cancel jump for better landing: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1581610479/Test_SSLCP4.1-2testrun.vbm Improvable Oh! It's dangerous to go alone, take this !
while true do
  gui.text(176,112,"   pixelX: " .. memory.readshort(0x03002B86),"orange")
  gui.text(176,120,"   pixelY: " .. memory.readshort(0x03002B92),"orange")
  gui.text(176,128,"   speedX: " .. memory.readbytesigned(0x03002B8E),"orange")
  gui.text(176,136,"   speedY: " .. memory.readbytesigned(0x03002B9A),"orange")

  vba.frameadvance()
end
Lua. Thanks to mtvf1 for the lua source
Current: Rayman 3 maybe? idk xD Paused: N64 Rayman 2 (with Funnyhair) GBA SMA 4 : E Reader (With TehSeven) TASVideos is like a quicksand, you get in, but you cannot quit the sand
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Hey, if you're interested in this game, good luck! The run can be synced back to BizHawk, since it's "only" 1 stage, but I had trouble on the first menu last I checked.
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jlun2 wrote:
Hey, if you're interested in this game, good luck! The run can be synced back to BizHawk, since it's "only" 1 stage, but I had trouble on the first menu last I checked.
I'm actually working on SuperSponge. I posted this video as a guide just in case anyone wants to work on this game someday, also I've been posting in many Spongebob threads because I'll forget to post them for another 3 years if I didn't.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
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Link to video Not sure if this is optimal or not but at least a TAS of this game now exists at least.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
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From what I recall you can mostly just keep spongebob for a large portion of the stages, since swapping takes so long. However, that squidward zip is pretty interesting we never really fiddled with the other characters much.
Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.