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The new glitch is pretty neat! Great World 2 WIP. I tested Cresta Run (second stage) recently and it's possible to reach the top platform without the ballon transformation by jumping to the top platform with precise timing. For Snow Falls (fourth stage) wouldn't be faster cancelling the ballon transformation (X button) then dying by touching that enemy next to the puzzle piece? Amazing trick near the end of Brass Monkeys stage and nice Boss 2 battle :)
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Challenger wrote:
I tested Cresta Run (second stage) recently and it's possible to reach the top platform without the ballon transformation by jumping to the top platform with precise timing. For Snow Falls (fourth stage) wouldn't be faster cancelling the ballon transformation (X button) then dying by touching that enemy next to the puzzle piece?
I found this in Cresta Run too but much to my annoyance it lost around 30 frames due to the longer countdown and extra transitions - I've tried hard to get the puzzle piece without the balloon but to no success. In particular, it seems too far away from any of the platforms on the way down to jump to it, and I've been trying to clip through the floor at some of the slope boundaries with the new glitch but again no success. The flat snowy floors seem to only push you up out of them, and the slopes are built in a way that makes it hard to get into them at all. I'll probably keep trying a bit, because it would be very nice to make this work. Another thing I was trying was to skip to the final area earlier in Brass Monkeys. I had a couple of methods in mind - either the new floor clip by going back to the section before the treadmill, or simply by falling down the hole after the treadmill and using whatever gravity-lowering techniques I could (grabbing flamethrower, vertical speed reset on finishing flamethrower use, getting rid of flamethrower seemed best so far - still end up about 30 pixels too low) to land on the ice blocks below. I don't remember whether I tested this before or not, but I had a look just now at Snow Falls and it ends up about 10 frames slower because the dying by getting hit animation is so long. When I read your message I also expected it to be faster, but apparently not. Thanks for the feedback :) I'm glad the world 2 boss looks good to you - I'll still have more of a look at it to try to squeeze out a few more frames because I haven't tried too hard to optimise the height of the boss jumps yet.
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Exonym wrote:
Eventually it will push you back up once the un-transformation animation finishes, but you can use it to at least push yourself through small sections of wall.
The pushing you back up turns out to be the standard height gain after un-transforming, which can be negated by pressing B as the un-transformation finishes. If you are on the floor, this will usually jump. However, a jump can be negated by pressing Y on the same frame. It turns out that the two of these combined allow you to stay at the lower y-position, so you can zip indefinitely or sometimes walk through walls. Unfortunately not as useful as it sounds since the zip direction is usually unhelpful - I found a 1.5s timesave using it in Fire Pits (first level of world 4) but I'll keep looking elsewhere.
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Denial140 wrote:
However, a jump can be negated by pressing Y on the same frame. It turns out that the two of these combined allow you to stay at the lower y-position, so you can zip indefinitely or sometimes walk through walls.
Oh interesting, I never tested it to that degree. Yeah the game has a natural affinity for pushing you left, unless you're already on the very right-most block of the floor anyway, which doesn't help you. A zip to the right would be a godsend and skip a whole bunch of stuff. I watched the WIP and it looked good but I never got around to loading it in bizhawk myself. I might take a look at some stuff this week out of boredom. By the way, have you already routed out all the 1-ups and intentional deaths? Like, doesn't the order of the worlds matter for that, or are there plenty of 1-ups? [edit]
For the regular punch, the attack is too short so that this loses time even on the shortest slopes unless the punch hits something, which extends the attack by a few frames. For the blowtorch, the attack is essentially unbounded in length, and this has a very nice application at the end of Brass Monkeys in world 2.
I remember you said this so I was curious and did some testing. I couldn't find any way to like get the punch animation stuck or last longer, but I thought.. I wonder what would happen if we could trick the game into ducking since that animation lasts forever. Unfortunately the power of the duck was too much, as you just barely even slide down the slope. I forgot to record me doing this, but it didnt really get anywhere.
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Denial140 wrote:
I've tried hard to get the puzzle piece without the balloon but to no success. In particular, it seems too far away from any of the platforms on the way down to jump to it, and I've been trying to clip through the floor at some of the slope boundaries with the new glitch but again no success.
Sorry I wasn't planning on making another post so soon but I was playing through cresta run casually when I ran into this interesting clip. It was possible on the narrower slope too but it seemed harder if not impossible to clip completely through. At least playing through it in real time anyway, and I didn't spend much time trying. Link to video You might not even need to cancel the powerup, I'm not sure why I cancelled it. Could this be used to grab the puzzle piece without the balloon?
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Exonym wrote:
Could this be used to grab the puzzle piece without the balloon?
Yep it can be possible now =) Link to video
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Exonym wrote:
By the way, have you already routed out all the 1-ups and intentional deaths? Like, doesn't the order of the worlds matter for that, or are there plenty of 1-ups?
I had routed it, but the new discovery in Cresta Run (saved 12.8s on my first testing! Very happy this got found) will likely change the optimal route since there is no longer the life on the way back up with the balloon. The order of the worlds is quite important - there are nearly enough lives you can get without losing time for all of the deaths, but 3 or 4 extra will be needed. Previously, the order was going to be world 1, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3 but it now may end up being faster to end on world 5. More testing to be done :)
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I found a few new things: firstly a particularly nice application of the floor clip. Link to video Annoyingly, even with all the jump-extending techniques, the battering ram seems necessary to make the jump following the breakable wall, meaning that the second item must be collected while clipped into the floor. The end transformation height increase can't be avoided in the same way (attack + jump) as most transformations, since the battering ram attack causes a small jump. Luckily, it does allow for it to be delayed, which just allows you to pass through the breakable wall. Next, when you're fully clipped into the floor, getting hit by an enemy will push you down through it. This saves about 6 seconds in Brass Monkeys: Link to video Unfortunately this means the slope sliding is cut out, and I'm not sure it will make its way into the final movie. A bit of a shame, as I was quite fond of it, but 6 seconds is 6 seconds. I also tried to clip through using the gnome before the first set of ice blocks, which would probably save another 5 seconds or so, but wasn't successful. The floor pushes you left very quickly, and most of the ceiling to the right of the gnome is too low to clip into the floor at all, so the only option is directly under the springs with the flamethrower box. It's just about possible to clip into the floor to the right of the gnome this way, but the floor pushes you into the gnome before the transformation can complete. The only solution I see would be to spawn the gnome so that it travels left despite you being on the right of it when spawning, but it seems dubious that this is possible. Finally, the game gets confused if you try to duck with a transformation that doesn't have a duck animation. In normal cases I think this doesn't do much, but for textboxes that trigger on floor touch, it gives you a 30 frame window to jump instead. This allows a textbox skip in Marble Alley, for example by combining it with the puzzle piece textbox, even while collecting 100 cherries: Link to video The false ducking + textbox state is quite weird - it allows you to continue travelling off ledges, and even jump off these "extended" floors. This feels like it could be quite useful, but there are just so few of these floor-triggered textboxes. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Marble Alley (where I don't think it's useful), Drum Solo (ball transformation is very late on, and dubious if it would be useful since the ball already allows you to roll on extended floors for a bit. For now I will combine it with the puzzle piece textbox), Barmy Army (which is currently skipped using the puzzle piece, and would lose time to carry it into Blocks Away), and Fire Pits (the only reasonable transformation is the mini jelly boy ('jelly baby' transformation) which has a duck animation). This fact that you can carry textboxes over to subsequent levels is the one potential saving grace, but it still feels very unlikely.
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denial140 wrote:
I found a few new things: firstly a particularly nice application of the floor clip.
Nice one! Are the walls in this level segmented? As in, can you not wall jump up the very left wall using the turn around trick?
Next, when you're fully clipped into the floor, getting hit by an enemy will push you down through it. This saves about 6 seconds in Brass Monkeys:
Also nice, glad to see this trick getting more use. Now you have to look at every place you can possibly get damaged. If the floor was thicker than 1 block would it still work? Also I noticed with this flamethrower powerup, whenever you use the flame in midair your vertical speed gets reset to 0 when the animation ends. Unfortunately seems like the animation lasts too long to be able to spam it. If there was a way to cancel your flame really fast then maybe it could have been used for extended jumps or something, not sure.
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Exonym wrote:
Nice one! Are the walls in this level segmented? As in, can you not wall jump up the very left wall using the turn around trick?
The walls are segmented, but I think these blocks can't be walljumped on when approached from the right. This varies by the transformation and also possibly by the blocks? For example, the lightbulb transformation has no trouble walljumping from the right in the Darkroom, but I haven't had any success at all walljumping from the right on the ice blocks in world 2 with the normal Jelly Boy*, or any success with walljumping at all with the flamethrower. Perhaps it's not so much "the hitbox is bigger behind you" as an asymmetry between the left/right-facing hitboxes. You also reminded me that I'm not sure I tested these blocks with the skateboard, so that's something I'll look into. *Actually with hacks I found that the walljump is possible if you can get 1 pixel further into the wall, and very occasionally I have seen jelly boy move an extra frame into a wall than normal. I'm not sure what causes this or if it's possible to manipulate. My main idea with this is to walljump up to the puzzle piece in Brass Monkeys, but this would likely require a chain of a few walljumps like this.
Also nice, glad to see this trick getting more use. Now you have to look at every place you can possibly get damaged. If the floor was thicker than 1 block would it still work?
I think getting hit just puts you in freefall, so if the floor is segmented and more than 1 block thick you would just fall until you reach that floor. One thing I tested was the elevator where you pick up the flamethrower in Brass Monkeys, although getting hit required hacking the position of the falling gnome. Either way, this just put you on the floor underneath the elevator, and unfortunately not through this floor onto the platform with strawberries below. I think this also rules out clipping straight to the end of Brass Monkeys as well, although I couldn't lure an enemy to hit me through the floor there either.
Also I noticed with this flamethrower powerup, whenever you use the flame in midair your vertical speed gets reset to 0 when the animation ends. Unfortunately seems like the animation lasts too long to be able to spam it. If there was a way to cancel your flame really fast then maybe it could have been used for extended jumps or something, not sure.
This was another idea I had for the strawberries platform. I briefly mentioned it in a previous post but I have a tendency to ramble unclearly sometimes :) Combined with resetting via transformation cancelling it was enough to make contact with the side of the strawberries platform, but a fair way off being able to land on it. It would be very cool if there was a way to cancel it more quickly but I haven't been able to find one yet. Falling or clipping to this platform would probably save 10 seconds or so over the clip in the video above. I feel like there was one more thing I wanted to say but it's slipped my mind :)
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Denial140 wrote:
Falling or clipping to this platform would probably save 10 seconds or so over the clip in the video above.
So after this comment I went and started playing this stage casually. Are you aware you can apparently just jump off the surface of the water? I didn't know this, but I fell by accident while holding jump Link to video
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This looks exactly like the walking on water glitch from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGfRnw9oO4A (see 2:25:17) - I haven't been able to replicate it and the uploader didn't respond when I asked if they knew anything about how to trigger it. Your setup is much easier to replicate though. It looks like ducking off the edge of the elevator is enough to trigger it. I guess ducks can swim :p The slightly strange thing is this looks like a completely different cause to the longplay. A first try saves about 28 seconds (!!) as we can skip the flamethrower and all subsequent sections completely. Ducking again removes the state but otherwise it seemingly lasts forever.
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Link to video Link to video Love the new glitch! And for my surprise, water works like "conveyor belts", gaining speed if you're facing right direction.
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Yeah I noticed the water giving you extra speed as well, it adds nice variation to movement in otherwise sometimes boring stages. For jungle gym, those pushable blocks dont float on water do they? Also, is that really the only way to reach that exit fast? it's a shame there is so much water below you could be boosting with For oil wells stage, nice it seems like there's an easy extra life now which should help with death routing a lot, maybe even cut out a 1-up grab completely from somewhere else. What is your speed while riding the giant sand snake? I assume it is worth it to ride all the way to the end, but it takes a while to start up, and there are a lot of water boosts. Did you test not riding the snake? Also, I found this and I'm not sure how useful it is yet... Link to video So if you are in the right position you can boost off of leftward slopes pretty far off of the slope by punching. I was not able to get this to work on rightwards slopes at all for some reason. The punch when going to the right pretty much always slows you down and I don't know why.
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Exonym wrote:
For jungle gym, those pushable blocks dont float on water do they? Also, is that really the only way to reach that exit fast? it's a shame there is so much water below you could be boosting with
Unfortunately they don't float on water. Also, the previous version of this stage I posted here has a better optimization near the end. I wish walljumping could be possible :\ For oil wells stage, nice it seems like there's an easy extra life now which should help with death routing a lot, maybe even cut out a 1-up grab completely from somewhere else.
Exonym wrote:
What is your speed while riding the giant sand snake? I assume it is worth it to ride all the way to the end, but it takes a while to start up, and there are a lot of water boosts. Did you test not riding the snake?
I didn't use ram watch at all, but not riding the snake was around 30~40 frames slower at the end, for my surprise.
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Exonym wrote:
For oil wells stage, nice it seems like there's an easy extra life now which should help with death routing a lot, maybe even cut out a 1-up grab completely from somewhere else.
The water where the first life is in the oil wells stage is actually a mirage - the water always disappears if you jump into it. So this life was already planned :) I finished the life reroute after looking a bit more closely at world 3 due to key shenanigans, and the only lives I expect to get that lose any time are marble alley (cherries) and cresta run. Both lose 40ish frames. In fact now that I am more familiar with world 3, there are enough lives to skip these, but unfortunately the bottleneck is currently lives by the end of world 2, and reordering the worlds would lose 128 frames in movement between doors.
What is your speed while riding the giant sand snake?
Iirc you move at 3 pixels per frame, which should be the same as the boost as with the water boost. The water boost should depend on the body of water itself. For example, the water in Brass Monkeys doesn't give a boost, but the ones where you would usually have to float with the bottle will push you forward, since the bottle normally has no movement speed at all. The only exception to this is the water at the start of Temple of Gloom, which for some reason still pushes you forwards.
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New WIP! Worlds 1-3 complete: Link to video Edit: Reencoded at 720p50. Apparently I failed to tick the setting last time :)
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Good job once again. I noticed some stuff while watching the new WIP: 1 - On Barmy Army, it's possible to grab that puzzle piece then lost a life some frames faster by taking advantage of the punch attack hitbox (I played this game again). 2 - Nice Cresta Run routing! When I found a way to clip and reach the puzzle piece, initially I tried using that slope but almost worked for me. Glad you found a proper solution :) 3 - I thought you were planning to choose world 5 before worlds 3 and 4. The extra lives were helpful after all. 4 - The walljumps during Rain Forest were magnificent, considering this stage takes too much time to reach the key. 5 - The puzzle piece grab on Sun Rise stage was great too! 6 - For the world 3 boss battle, it's possible to shorten the punch attack by being closer to the enemy. You can also take advantage of the punch attack hitbox and attack him while facing right direction.
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Challenger wrote:
1 - On Barmy Army, it's possible to grab that puzzle piece then lost a life some frames faster by taking advantage of the punch attack hitbox (I played this game again).
The current strategy walks on the ground for one frame before dying to trigger the textbox from this level without it actually appearing. It may be possible to keep this timesave and use backwards hitbox (or possibly even punching backwards hitbox, but I'm struggling to see how at the moment), I'll look into it.
3 - I thought you were planning to choose world 5 before worlds 3 and 4. The extra lives were helpful after all.
I was originally planning to end on world 3, but I realised that I miscalculated with the overworld movement, so it ends up faster to end on world 5 instead. Indeed it's close enough that without these walljumps in Rain Forest, ending in world 3 would still be faster :) I also realised that I didn't walljump from as high up as I could, so I have since saved around 15 frames there.
6 - For the world 3 boss battle, it's possible to shorten the punch attack by being closer to the enemy. You can also take advantage of the punch attack hitbox and attack him while facing right direction.
I tested being closer before uploading the WIP, but wasn't able to make it faster just by doing this. However, facing right indeed made the attack shorter, and saves around a second overall. Thank you again for all your comments and kind words :)
Current TAS: [SNES] Jelly Boy [NES] Street Fighter 2010