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Introduction

David Crane's A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia is a puzzle adventure game featuring Boy and his partner in this adventure Blobert. Blobert transforms into different tools to help Boy navigate areas based on the different jelly beans Boy can feed him; however, today Boy is only going to use a handful of his jelly beans.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.0
  • Aims to beat the game as fast as possible
  • Uses game-breaking glitches

Comments

I first learned about this game when I heard the OCRemix of the main theme long ago and fell in love with it. When I got into speedrunning a few years back it was the first game I took seriously. After I routed the game I watched the TAS made by Kyman & SilentSlayers & Aglar and learned how to apply that route into the real time. A new trick was found to get out of bounds even quicker resulting in an improvement of 18.26 seconds (1096 frames) over the previous movie by Kyman & SilentSlayers & Aglar.

Thanks and Shoutouts

I just want to thank some people for things they've done to help the Blob community
  • Kyman, SilentSlayers, Aglar - For creating the first TAS of the game I watched and really helped me dig into this game more.
  • Jorf - For helping me push the RTA time down to below 2 minutes and really coming within 8 seconds of the old TAS run.
  • Unknown Guy - The guy that made us aware of the new strat. I don't know you, but thank you.
  • xcd - Thanks for making me realize the trampolines were wrong.

feos: Updated the submission file, also judging...
feos: Updated per author's request, 33 frames saved.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4427: Zephyrz's NES A Boy and His Blob in 01:23.50
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om, nom, nom
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Oops. I uploaded the wrong .fm2 file. What should I do to fix that?
Just doing my Blob.
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Zephyrz wrote:
Oops. I uploaded the wrong .fm2 file. What should I do to fix that?
I'm not an admin, but upload it to movie storage and update your submission text to indicate where the correct file is. Be sure that your movie beats the existing run, of course. Best of luck!
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
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Thanks. I've now done that. I accidently left in a large chunk of blank inputs after the final one in the uploaded with the submission so it added over 4k extra frames.
Just doing my Blob.
Spikestuff
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Oh so it's 1:24.05 run oh that's a sigh of relief. Entertaining and shorter so Yes.
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Sweet Zombie Jesus on a Pogo Stick.. that was mindblowing! I mean that looks ABSURDLY easy to pull off in real time... and without the precociousness of the last TAS with holes a plenty. This definitely has destroyed a childhood game in ways never thought imaginable. Definite Yes vote!! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
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That's a pretty big improvement! Good job, yes vote.
Patashu
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Gonna need an explanation for what happened here lol
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Voting yes cause I'm confused as to what actually happened.
xcd
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Patashu wrote:
Gonna need an explanation for what happened here lol
the run starts off pretty normal. you throw a root beer jellybean to make blob turn into a rocket and fly left. this isn't a glitch. when you land, things change a bit from the previous route. someone found out recently that if you throw a jellybean off screen while whistling the blob back (pressing b) and holding left, you can fall down to the next screen. clips like this have been known for a long time (see: the current published TAS in 1:41), but it required a different method where you had to fall down, land in the hole again, then quickly whistle and hold left. the difference is now you don't need to fall down into another screen in order to clip, you simply just need to throw the bean off screen. this is why we can clip earlier than the 1:41 TAS. not only does it save time there, but it also saves time when you fall (you dont have to go as many screens to the left), and at the end (we can clip instantly after exiting the final boss room, instead of going to the left for several screens). after passing through the credits, we enter the final boss screen. the problem is that the final boss is not loaded. we use a ketchup jellybean to spawn blob in the cage, and then use the tangerine jellybean to get over the wall. by the way, once you enter that room, you cannot exit back to the right, it just simply wont let you. after that, we do the same thing to get out of the screen. the reason we want to get out is because we can reenter quickly and load the final boss. but why not kill him right there? we can't get over the rock when we reenter the room. so we simply get out again, and do the same clipping method on the next screen so we can enter a glitched version of the final boss room. then we throw a ketchup to spawn blob in the room, and then throw an apple to kill the final boss with the jack. the reason you see the credits and stuff is because they are technically screens in the game data, but obviously you weren't supposed to access them. in the final screen where you cant see anything because the game is glitched out, this is what is actually happening http://youtu.be/QcWajywEfE0?t=23m10s you might also be wondering how do we know what bean we are throwing in the last screen because you cannot read what the bean is due to the glitched out text. there's two methods: memorize how many beans you are away from the apple, or look for something that resembles "kpp" in the glitched text (this is the method I use). i have tried doing this clip in the credits screen + when you first enter the boss room, and what ends up happening is you get blob into its hole form, and when you go into it, you just fall forever (you just fall from the top of the screen, and you can't do anything about it). but who knows, maybe someone will find a way :) i know im rambling at this point, but this makes runs of this game a lot easier. i haven't played the game since AGDQ and i picked it up again yesterday due to the new find and got a 1:46 (non-tas timing is start --> win screen). i further improved it to 1:44.93 today, which is about 9 seconds off this TAS. I think it can be brought down a second, but it was a solid run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdF8IRfD2dI
Post subject: Console verified!
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Zephyrz wrote:
Thanks. I've now done that.
I was able to console verify this using true's original replay board (video proof coming eventually, probably after this is published though unless true beats me to it). Congrats on the run!
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
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Thanks xcd!
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
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so someone coded the "tilting the cartrige" function in FCEUX.... impressive... yes vote
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Liked, Laughed, Yesvoted!
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.
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Thanks for the positive feedback everyone! xcd pointed out to me that my trampolines weren't exactly optimal and he was right. Ended up finding what I did wrong and saved another 33 frames! new upload: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/17322661248366697 If I find some time I'll actually write up a decent explanation of what's going on, but school and work are kind of killing me right now. xcd did a decent job explaining things for now if you want to know what's happening in the run.
Just doing my Blob.
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Yes vote for seemingly walking through the credits at some point.
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Congratulations to your first TAS, Zephyrz! Thanks to your movie, the mechanics are easy to learn from the input, so I've started to optimize it and will upload it once I'm done (as you wrote previously, you won't have much time soon) My latest attempt is 5001 frames.
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jlun2 wrote:
Is David Crane part of the game's name?
Yep: http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/david-cranes-a-boy-and-his-blob-trouble-on-blobolonia
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.
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Dang MESHUGGAH! I guess having more TASing experience under your belt helps out with optimizing. I didn't think there'd me much room for improvement, but you've proved me wrong. Haha. And yeah, this is my last year of undergrad so I've got a pretty serious course load eating up my free time.
Just doing my Blob.
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feos wrote:
jlun2 wrote:
Is David Crane part of the game's name?
Yep: http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/david-cranes-a-boy-and-his-blob-trouble-on-blobolonia
Huh. I wonder would the previous movies have to be renamed then (along with the encodes). :P
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Okay, I've learned the game so I'm going to implement every optimizations missing (trampoline "release", speed and pixel (subpos doesn't seems to be used by the game), blob positioning). Once I'm done, I will ask Zephyrz to add me as a co author and upload it to movie storage. Currently 4952 frames, probably ~8 frames will be saved more.
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I'm currently finishing the game in 4932 frames without a few new founds I discovered by randomly mashing buttons (and watching lua script) and speed controlling is a bit slow progress. So I'm going to make a new movie file and of course upload the 4932 frame long for this publication if you want to publish the movie until I complete the TAS from the beginning...
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...