(Link to video)

Movie objectives

  • Showcases FCEUX 2.2.0 TASEditor
  • Features new format .fm3
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Uses death to save time
  • Uses password
  • HP, lifes and items management
  • Second quest

Introduction

The Name is Bond, James Bond Jr.
The world's greatest scientists have disappeared and now it's up to you as James Bond Jr. to rescue them! Intelligence reports indicates that your old enemy S.C.U.M Lord has imprisoned them on his island fortress in the Caribbean. You head out on four dangerous missions to save the scientists and thwart S.C.U.M. Lord's plans!
The action never stops! Deactivate missile before they launch to disaster. Crack open safes that hold blueprints of the menacing World Domination Device and use your well-honed combat prowess against scores of enemy agents. Surprises wait around every corner!
Collect weapons and shields to become an unstoppable force of one! A special potion transforms you into a powerful Werewolf! Jet Pac feature brings your battles to the skies!

History

After finishing Battletoads and Double Dragon, I was looking for a good game that I'm familiar with and that can produce an interesting TAS (to make). James Bond Jr. matches it all - it has nice graphics and music, suggests variable gameplay and insane item management, and I played it in my childhood (solving color puzzles on black and white TV-set).
To handle the items better, I ripped complete maps of the game with all enemies and items. It allowed to plan the basic route. But the game still required tons of tests, that scared me when I realized the amount of necessary work. As always, this wouldn't ever be possible without TASEditor, as I'd have to run different parts of levels over and over from scratch, not having the ground to edit the previous attempt percisely.
This run was made several times over. The first was just a test, the second was already submittable, but we needed to time this submission to new FCEUX release, and I had time to fix some flaws (that looked minor before I dived into them, as always). So, I started the third edition and had more success than was expected. I saved about 600 frames up to the moment of entrance the third hostage room of Level 4.
Then I got some OS glitches right at the time of TASing. I saved the project, rebooted the computer and CheckDisc automatically ran, confirming that something went wrong. I opened my project to resume work and found it filled with nils. He-he-he-he-he. No backup copy was done due to bad luck.
I actually had even more time to TAS it for the 4th time, as I had an extra vacation right after the New Year holidays. And I finished watching all Jim Carrey's movies, so I said to miself: "What else can I do during the whole week?" And the result is here now.

Movie format

FM3 is a new format developed for a TASEditor and allowing to keep a huge amount of stuff in your project.
In this movie you can see many comments to every tiny feature used in the run. It's done via markers to certain frames and notes, written in a special field. First you can watch the run itself, and then navigate through marker notes by pressing ">>" button.
You also can use branches (they present savestate logic within TASEditor): leftclick on the left half to jump (or run) to a saved place, on the right half to load the state (if you use rightclick, the branch will be saved, don't use it). Branches 1-4 send you to the level starts, branch 5 is set on the end of the movie, branch 0 contains the jet pack glitch (explained below) and the rest slots keep the states left from my actual work. Branches contain preview screenshots.
I'd like to mention some TASEditor features, used in making of this run.
  • Autorestore cursor position (you keep cursor on a certain frame and keep editing the place above; each time you change input, cursor restores it's position showing your success)
  • History (backtrack any wrong action til rather long ago)
  • Markers and bookmarks (jump to a certain place and compare strategies, comment the movie)
  • Jump to Playback/Selection (navigate between the place you edit and the place you keep FCEUX on, watching the result via Autorestore function)
  • Lag display (fantastic improvement, now you have the exact idea of what's going on)
  • Greenzone (allows to navigate through the whole movie freely)
  • Rewind button (yep, you can set it to a hotkey and use along with Frame Advance!)
  • Copy/paste

About the game

This is a 'metroidvania' with some additional gameplay features and various finite items. Enemies use global timer to behave, so you can improve one part, but lose time in another, that makes this game almost impossible to make absolutely perfect (at least now), because you can't test all possibilities accounting all enemies, obstacles and lag frames. But the game provides almost no glitches, and is not popular, so it doesn't motivate many people to TAS it, as Mario, Metroid or Castlevania do. And here I come to try my best!
Normally the game needs to be beaten twice, second time it lacks continues and big hamburgers (refilling the whole energy). I use the password to start the second loop.
Level 1 is the most boring level, few enemies and obstacles, big empty rooms. The main goal is to disarm the missles by solving some puzzles. At first I thought they would be easy to bruteforce, but was wrong (ask Bobo the King), so now no bruteforce is used. X2poet appeared to be kind of a champion in solving the Rubik's Cube and he came up with good solutions, thanks bro.
Bullets damage 2 HP, Bombs - 8. The unique item is scuba, it allows to swim and shoot bubbles (damage 2 HP). If you keep it in air, it will slowly increase. While swimming you shall push Down to dive faster, or tap A every 30th frame to swim up. You need to be careful when you swim up over the ceiling corner - don't allow James to lose height.
At the end of the level we meet such feature as blue buttons, that need to be blown to spawn necessary objects (elevators, exits, items). These 2 spawn the exit teleport. But one button is near the exit, while another is on the opposite side of the level (even though it's on the same screen). I use the nuke bomb to blow both at once.
Level 2 is where some action starts. I need to go through the 2-storey house and pick papers from saves (some of them contain bombs). Each safe has a code lock, and though the method is quite simple (all numbers are encoded by anothers accordingly, 0-6 1-0 2-9 3-1 4-5 5-8(or 0) 6-7 7-2 8-4 9-3), entering the safe at different frames may affect the pattern. The funny thing here is when you test the entrance, the patterns sometimes change so that you exit the safe always at the same time.
Before the mid-floor elevator there is a moving platform that spawns only if you shot the cannons at the different side of the level. Again, I blow them with nuke bomb.
Level 3 offers tons of action. Here I need to shoot strange machines with one eye and 2 cannons each. Their bullets can be very, very DTUHHH-DTUHHH... DEADLY! (c) After you beat the machine room the cutscene starts. But it can be cancelled by keeping in air, jumping.
Here we see another unique item, jet pack. It's almost uncontrollable in real time, because players just hold the A button to fly and go up at high speed, losing fuel fast. It's charges are twice as weak as bombs, so normally jet pack is rarely used. But I found that it doesn't require to hold A, just to push it at certain frames:
  • Every 8th frame to boost up. After you gained some speed, only each 15th frame is required.
  • Every 9th frame to hover at one height. Presses may be delayed a bit to save the fuel, and you still would hover.
Huge sections of this level were TASed about 10 times over, because faults kept appearing here and there. The same can be said about Level 4.
In Level 4 you need to rescue scientists by killing their jailers. After they are beaten, you shall stay in the room until the items drop, oherwise the victory wouldn't count. But no too long, the cutscene here starts by time, not detecting your position. The final elevator spawns only if you kill the red monster, and I use the blue button for that.
New item here is a werewolf potion. Allows to jump higher and run faster (twice faster than normally). The 'User manual' says you can attack enemies by running into them, but I found no situation for that method. Potion is used rarely due to long morphing animation.
The Final Boss is all planning. I collect as many nuke bombs as needed to kill him instantly - six. I don't pick up needless lives or HP. But I need some HP to survive the agony of Scumlord: after he's dead, he still keeps flying up to fight me and only then he finds no HP in his ship and falls down. The problem here is that he keeps shooting all that time. I tried to go right to get less bullets, tried to jump, and only drinking the potion changed the behaviour of the boss (or maybe it changed my vulnerability or hitbox size?) and I didn't die. This ending even looks better and kinda weird.

Tricks

Ladder glitch

When you are at the top of the ladder, press Down for 1 frame and hold Up. James would climb through the air. This only works in sections where the screen can't scroll down. The speed during this glitch is full (1 ppf) instead of 0,5 on ladders.

Corner boost

Most corners can boost me forward increasing the speed twice for 1-3 frames. There are 1-block-size wholes that boost me with both corners when I jump onto them properly.

Damage boost

Some enemies bump me onto the desired platforms. But not all of them. Acid and electric obstacles also bump me when I have no time to wait for an elevator. Press A at correct frame to be bumped hither.

Item switch

In real time, player sits down, than taps the Select button to switch a single weapon. Actually you need just to stop moving for a frame, push D + S and resume walking. No sitting animation occurs. But you can switch several weapons at once if you press Down right before Select, and then D + S for a frame. It forces James to sit down, so I mostly use this method when I'm close to the enemy and switch bullets to bombs, throwing them instantly from the lower position.

Death/fall animation

If you fall from big height, you sit down and find stars spinning around your head. That lasts extremely long and shall not be allowed. But in some places you can plan you route and die from this very fall, overlaping fall animation by death delay. Death restart refills some weapons you carry at the moment.
Another cool trick is to enter a missle riddle and die at once (by getting a shot). This cancels death delay totally. Though was used only once.

Strange jet pack glitch

If you have just turned the jet pack off and jumped on a high platform, you may hang in midair if you match the necessary position. I coudn't think where to use it, so it wasn't studied. Load the last (zero) branch to see this glitch in action.

Possible improvements

  • Using corners I missed to boost
  • Bumping ceilings I missed
  • Working out how to use glitches (especially jet pack one)
  • Better handling with timers
  • More items/HP testing
  • Better lag management
  • Some entertainment

Special thanks

  • AnS for developing that germ TASEdit to a divine instrument, a true TAS Machine! No one knows how insanely much it helped improving the run (because I can't describe all the experience)
  • X2poet for solving the puzzles in the first level
  • Lapogne36 for showing the level of optimization I haven't expected
  • Evilchen and Daltone for posting WIPs
  • Sting20031959 for testing weapons for me and providing the movie that I used to map all items
  • Bobo the King and Spolan for bruteforce attempts (fruitless though)

Screenshots


Nach: Nice improvement, accepting.
feos: Improvement? What is it supposed to obsolete then? Processing so far...
Nach: Sorry, I meant to say that for SMB2j which I claimed earlier. Just accepting.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3773: feos's NES James Bond Jr. in 18:29.84
Skilled player (1148)
Joined: 5/11/2011
Posts: 425
Location: China
I have watched wip, easily vote yes.
Joined: 7/24/2007
Posts: 74
I beat the game this year, it's pretty challenging. It's one of those games where every enemy takes a ton of hits to kill and you have to take each one out slowly to survive. So it's great to see it destroyed like this.
Active player (266)
Joined: 9/14/2011
Posts: 349
Lots of damage boost were impressive, especially like this moment. Yes vote from me, of course.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
These images explain the route decisions in levels 1 and 2. http://oi49.tinypic.com/ap9s1x.jpg http://oi49.tinypic.com/zisufn.jpg EDIT: How to watch: Drag-n-drop the file onto FCEUX screen. Watch the movie. Then go to the beginning, and pressing the upper >> button, read all Marker comments.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Player (50)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
Awesome music, awesome game. Yes vote.
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
The game is a little slow, but the density of enemies keeps things tense. There's great damage management. James Jr. is surprisingly much more violent than his father, it seems, even though it doesn't produce particularly interesting fights. Entertainment-wise, I'd say this is somewhere between Meh and Yes. The first stage is definitely too long, and the layout gets fairly repetitive. Stage 3 was especially awesome though.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 2/27/2010
Posts: 11
Location: Canada
Yes vote, Thanks for finishing this, good stuff!
Player (33)
Joined: 3/8/2012
Posts: 398
Location: Windfall Island
Very nice, and holy shit can be take a lot of damage before dying lol. Crazy damage boost strats, very entertaining for walking so slow, yes vote.
IronSlayer wrote:
Your counterargument would be like me saying that the Earth is round and then you telling me that I need to show it's flat so I can "prove us all wrong".
Seems legit.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
Did anyone watch it reading the comments, huh?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
feos wrote:
Did anyone watch it reading the comments, huh?
I saw the encode, and I didn't see any option for closed captions in that video. The YouTube comments weren't very informative to me; two of the three are in Russian, which I don't know how to read. If there are comments in the movie file itself, then I'll try to get a chance to watch this in the emulator.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Expert player (2578)
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
The music in this game is nothing short of amazing! Also, watching it with the TASEditor with all its features is kinda cool. I'm voting Yes wholeheartedly.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Skilled player (1173)
Joined: 11/13/2011
Posts: 87
Location: Celestial Empire
Oh, yes.
The king is always lucky.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2212] NES James Bond Jr. by feos in 18:29.84
Joined: 6/9/2006
Posts: 614
Location: Mettmann
thanks for naming me :) good run i enjoyed it
Joined: 2/21/2008
Posts: 255
feos wrote:
Did anyone watch it reading the comments, huh?
If you want people to read comments make them available in ass, ssa, srt, or ttxt. I guess sub is fine too.
"The guy was fatally injured and wants to be covered by God's tears (rain) before he dies. God is too busy to bother because it wastes frames." Frames 16:26
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
If you want to respond on something, read the whole thing.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 2/21/2008
Posts: 255
If you're gonna refuse to use a standard format for subs, just say so.
"The guy was fatally injured and wants to be covered by God's tears (rain) before he dies. God is too busy to bother because it wastes frames." Frames 16:26
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
If I wanted regular subtitles I would just make them obviously. But here you don't have text formatted for regular subtitles. It was wriutten to watch in taseditor.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 2/21/2008
Posts: 255
Didn't you author this run? Why would you want any subtitles? You already know what's going on.
"The guy was fatally injured and wants to be covered by God's tears (rain) before he dies. God is too busy to bother because it wastes frames." Frames 16:26
Guga
He/Him
Joined: 1/17/2012
Posts: 838
Location: Chile
Good logic.
Skilled player (1468)
Joined: 12/30/2007
Posts: 485
Location: Hubei,China
I saw your WIP years ago. And the last puzzle you waste 2+2 steps. There is no change from frame 24279 to 24283. And 24305 to 24310 , press down instead of up you can save 2 steps.
Do the work.