Link to video
This is my first attempt at a TAS. Orb-3D is a puzzle game in the style of Pong where you must complete 30 levels of varying challenges. While the gameplay is very simple, determining the most efficient course to take can be time consuming. There's about 5 levels where I can see easy improvements with not that much work, but I'd first like to understand how certain elements are determined by RNG as seen on the bowling (getting a strike on the first hit), chess (layout), card match (layout), and a few other stages. Perhaps somebody may be able to help me find what causes this?
The addresses I've already figured out are:
03FA: Flipper Y Position
03EB: Ship X Position
03E0: Ship Y Position
03F3: Ship Depth
03EF: Ship Speed
03EC: Clone X Position
03EE: Clone Y Position
03F4: Clone Depth
03F0: Clone Speed
03D6: Gas Counter
03FD: Gas Level
046C: Gas Level (Duplicate?)
04A0: Speed again? (It's slightly off sometimes)
And here's a quick breakdown of the levels:
Level 01 "Bubbles" Pop all of the bubbles
Level 02 "Bowlling" Knock down all pins within 2 moves
Level 03 "Shields" Destroy all shields
Level 04 "Metamorphosis" Help caterpillars change into butterflies
Level 05 "Cheshire Cat" Hit the Chesire Cat before he disappears
Level 06 "Dice" Get 24 points
Level 07 "Tic-Tac-Toe" Beat the CPU at Tic-Tac-Toe
Level 08 "Connect 5" Connect 5 dots in any direction
Level 09 "Billiards" Sink all balls in the order specified
Level 10 "Skulls" Destroy the skulls in the order specified
Level 11 "Fireworks" Destroy all of the fireworks
Level 12 "8-puzzle" Simple slider puzzle
Level 13 "Mask Flip" Destroy all masks
Level 14 "Animals" Choose the active animal's adversary
Level 15 "Ducks" Align the ducks in a row
Level 16 "Magnets" Destroy all magnets
Level 17 "Bombs" Defuse all bombs
Level 18 "Eyeballs" Poke out all of the eyeballs
Level 19 "Spelling" Spell the word shown
Level 20 "Arrows" Destroy all arrows
Level 21 "Bingo" Collect a Bingo
Level 22 "Balloons" Burst all balloons
Level 23 "Targets" Destroy all targets
Level 24 "Bunnies" Fill the screen with bunnies
Level 25 "Ring Toss" Get each ring around the pole
Level 26 "Chess" Defeat the CPU at Chess
Level 27 "Race" Have the blue car win
Level 28 "Slot Machine" Match 3 of a kind
Level 29 "Ball Maze" Get the ball out of the maze
Level 30 "Match Game" Match up all sets of cards
End Boss "Krohn" Defeat the boss
I chose to work on this game since I played it for quite awhile as a child and I have many fond memories trying to beat it. I'm also surprised at how little this game appears across the internet so I guess I'm trying to bring attention to it in case others may find it enjoyable.
---------------------------------------------
Objectives
Emulator used: BizHawk 1.9.1
Aims for fastest time
Takes damage to save time
Clone Ships
Proper use of a clone ship can save a ton of time by being able to juggle two ships simultaneously. Since more than one clone can be uncovered on the same level, it's good to keep it alive as you can't hit targets for a few frames when one does appear. You just can't have more than one clone active at a time.
Speed Boost
When the ship misses a paddle, it loses some fuel and immediately enters full speed from the right at the same vertical position. Exploiting this behavior becomes a time-saving technique.
Speed Loss
I believe paddle movement and/or the presence of a clone ship slightly may affect ship speed every few frames. This can help when you need to make a tighter depth transition than normal.
Exit Stage Left
You can save well over 100 frames by setting up your ship to exit the left side of the screen right as you complete the level.
Bowling
I manipulate a strike by first hitting two specific pins to set up what I assume is an ideal RNG. I'm guessing it may be possible to set up this shot in one go by changing how earlier levels are played, but I have yet to figure out how.
Chess
I manipulate the opponent's final placement of the Queen to my advantage by bumping the piece with my ship before their turn.
Bonus Points
During the later levels, the count down of remaining bonus points really starts to drag on. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to reduce these points any quicker than running out the time which is slower either way.
Vern's Gas Station
You can refuel gas by pressing B to go to Vern's. There's no reason to waste time going here in a speed run.
---------------------------------------------
Eventually, I'd like to submit this, but feel I may be able to improve it just a little more. Unfortunately, it's pretty easy to de-sync later sections after fixing something earlier.
EDIT: Here's the movie file in case anybody is interested.
---------------------------------------------
EDIT#2: I've since saved 371 frames on Level 12 and 1 frame on Level 13, but it desynchs on the very next level. This was a common problem when I first started TAS'ing this game and unfortunately makes splicing levels together from different runs incredibly time consuming. Level 16 with the magnets is another one I can see easy improvements from, but that would still leave almost 50% of the game left to fix again.
So I will submit the run as-is in the hopes it's at least worthy enough for Vault status. It would take many hours to shave even a few seconds off in my opinion.
---------------------------------------------
EDIT#3: Here's a comparison chart between the various revisions:
Unless more interest is shown, I think I'll leave this run for somebody else to try improving.
Revision #2 is what I submitted.
Unless more interest is shown, I think I'll leave this run for somebody else to try improving.
Revision #2 is what I submitted.