Ah, King & Balloon! A game ported from the arcade, only to MSX. Clearly based on Galaxian and perhaps the predecessor of Galaga.
Talking about Galaga: this run has the same goal as my earlier Galaga run: finish the first bonus stage as quickly as possible. A run going beyond that would not be very entertaining, as the game repeats (mostly) after that, very similar to Galaga indeed.
This time I also put more serious effort in making the run entertaining. Here are some things you may have noticed:
- very close shaves
- letting a balloon land (at the same time it can be easily shot when it goes back up)
- shooting some balloons in a bonus stage before they entered the screen (I didn't do it always, to make it look a little less mechanical)
- hitting some balloons in the back, because of the way they move sideways
- shooting a bullet which disappears in mid-screen
The latter is an interesting one: the already fired bullet disappears in mid-screen when the game enters "bonus stage mode". You see the cannon-guys ("the player") become red and suddenly you can shoot more than one bullet at a time, just for the bonus stage. This is being used in that stage of course.
You'll notice that sometimes there is a tiny little pause before the bullet is fired. This is game lag, unfortunately.
Despite the entertainment, I optimized the run as far as I could:
- no shots are missed
- no waiting between shots (except lag). This was particularly tricky in this game. Near the end of a stage, the balloons start to take off. If one flies too far away, it is not possible anymore to shoot as soon as the bullet is available again, as it would mean a missed shot... So special management is needed to keep the balloons close enough together to keep firing away at them without missing any shot.
- moving and shooting is done early enough to work ahead
- when balloons are near enough and shooting is possible, they are shot of course, because the shorter bullet travelling time means a faster run
I hope you enjoy this little movie. I certainly enjoyed making it.
