The evil witch Magica De Spell has stolen Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime and kidnapped his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald Duck embarks on a mission, traveling around the world to save his three nephews and recover Scrooge's lucky dime.

Game Objectives

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.4 / 1.11.7 (18:33 v2 TAS)
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programing errors
  • Manipulates luck (To get hammer weapon, not frizbee or diamond)
It's 1 minute & 36 seconds (96,7 seconds or 5176 frames) faster than ShinyDoofy's run.
This TAS of this game introduce some Tricks:
Jump Technique
As well as Ghouls'n Ghosts (Genesis & Arcade Versions), jumping is faster than walking! It's not exactly a trick, but saves time!
Ledge Glitch
After defeating a Boss of Stage 1, 2 or 4, if Donald there balancing on a ledge at right side, instead to go of center screen, Donald will at right corner of the screen, saving much time, depending of position.

Table of improvements:

StagesIn-game stageBossRescue cutscenesTotal
Stage 1 144 174 82 398
Stage 2 180 756 133 1069
Stage 3 262 10 13 285
Stage 4 479 83 52 614
Stage 5 278 85 16 379
Stage 6 475 3 24 502
Stage 7 1838 107 -- 1945
Total of improvements = 5192 frames.
Due of emulation differences, 1-2 frames is lost during transition cutscenes, resulting on 16 frames lost on Bizhawk. Total = 5176 frames.

Level-by-Level Comments (Tables includes only Screens, nor Boss not Rescue cutscenes):

  • Time saved with Jump in each stage.

Stage 1 - Forest

(No table because this is only stage that includes 1 screen and a boss)
  • A trampoline of this stage is skipped, saving 20 frames.
  • After grab the vine, jumping immediately on the land mantains the speed gained on the vine until Donald reaches on the land.
  • The boss is defeated attacking as soon as possible. After this, the Ledge Glitch is used, but swinging the hammer saves more frames than normally.

Stage 2 - River

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 10
Screen 2 114
Screen 3 34
Screen 4 22
  • Screen 2 - 114 frames is saved by a different route and a careful optimization on the waterfall descending.
  • Screen 3 - In the published run, taking damage on the only swimming path (GG version has 2 swimming paths), was a big flaw! It's horribly slower both on Screen 3 and on Boss. Fixed this problem.
  • Using a hammer on the boss does 2 damage than Jump, which does 1 damage.
  • It's not possible to control Donald after defeat this Boss, resulting on a normal Ledge Glitch. This problem occurs only in this stage.

Stage 3 - Aztec Ruins

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 42
Autoscroller 1 19
Screen 2 158
Screen 3 18
Autoscroller 2 22
  • Autoscrollers 1 & 2 - Jumping before of finish of autoscroller makes Donald to gain more speed until lands.
  • Screen 2 - Thanks for RNG Manipulation, I changed the 2 pig enemies to 2 vases, to destroy the 4 blocks much faster. After destroy the last block, it's necessary to wait for some frames, otherwise, Donald will get hit and loses a hammer.
  • The boss of this level has a stupid longer invicibility time after each hit.

Stage 4 - Hawaii's Island

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 95
Screen 2 88
Screen 3 89
Screen 4 274
Screen 5 28
Screen 6 14
Screen 7 -58
  • Screen 1 - A pause game is used to manipulate the fireballs of second statue enemy.
  • Screen 3 - After grabs the Key, pressing down for 1 frame saves 2 frames to a little faster turnaround.
  • Screen 4 - Taking damage on Statue's Tongue saves aproximately 134 frames. The rest of improvements is better optimizations.
  • Screen 5 - Better optimization near the end.
  • Screen 6 - The worst part of SMS version of this game. You must wait. No comments.
  • Screen 7 - Sadly, in Screen 7, I lost 117 frames to pick up this hammer again. Because taking damage on SMS version makes Donald to lose the hammer.
Due of this, taking damage improvement results on a very little timesaver.

Stage 5 - Pyramid of Desert

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 29
Screen 2 85
Screen 3 14
Screen 4 14
Screen 5 72
Screen 6 38
Re-Screen 5 26
  • Screen 3 - A very very little timesaver: walking on the second moving platform (right direction).
  • Screen 4 - A other boring part! 14 frames is saved on this path due of a different RNG. Unexpected!
  • Thanks again for RNG manipulation, the snake is manipulated to save time on the last 2 hits.

Stage 6 - Antarctica

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 370
Screen 2 10
Screen 3 9
Screen 4 58
Screen 5 28
  • Screen 1 - Wind direction is manipulated to right direction in all times.
  • Screens 2-5 - Better optimizations.

Stage 7 - Magica de Spell's Castle

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 22
Screen 2 34
Screen 3 6
Screen 4 70
Screen 5 238
Screen 6 24
Screen 7 416
Screen 8 (skipped) 503
Screen 9 30
Screen 10 138
Screen 11 158
Screen 12 160
Screen 13 38
  • Screen 1-3 - Better optimizations.
  • Screen 4 - Avoiding Magica de Spell's Paintings is very difficulty.
  • Screen 5 - Thanks for a ghost (I stopped Donald for some frames to manipulate this ghost), I take a shortcut without waiting for a second vertical platform. Some seconds is saved!
  • Screen 7 - New shortcut in this screen! More several seconds is saved!
  • Screen 8 - Skipped part thanks for hitting on the spikes on the final of previous room.
  • Screen 10 - Taking damage on a spear allows Donald to bypass this spear without waiting. More tive is saved!
  • Screen 11 - Green ghost is manipulated to appear faster and Jumps to reach on a wrong vertical exit.
  • Input ends with a bigger Jump to destroy the Orb. NOTE: Any movement of Donald will changes RNG attacks of Magica de Spell. Caution with this strategy without a weapon.
Special Thanks to
  • ShinyDoofy, for this published run.
  • wwmarx, for some improvements.
  • KrazyRasmus, for two screenwraps on Stage 7.
Suggested Screenshots

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
It should be noted that as this game has an official PAL-M (Brazil) release, it is acceptable to play this game with NTSC settings for the increased framerate. However, any improvement to this run that uses this should still beat it on a technical level in order to obsolete it.
fsvgm777: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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Former player
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 716
I'd truly love to see the improved TAS, but alas BizHawk doesn't compile for me on Linux. Anybody up for a quick and dirty encode?
Challenger
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Skilled player (1637)
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Posts: 1035
Not encoded yet? Three days have passed. EDIT: Temporary Encode (Not good encode): Part 1/3 Link to video Part 2/3 Link to video Part 3/3 Link to video
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
Jungon
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Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
Aside from the freezing slow 50hz (I grew up playing the 60hz usual for all brazilians) @_@ .... I see this as a good improvement, those parts near the end are tricks I already knew but had problems putting them together, in a TAS they're very well used, ... Yes vote ^_^
*Jungon*/*Johnnyz* smilie weirdo =P ^^ o.o @__@ +D
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Is there a reason why the European version is used? The submission doesn't say anything about it.
Noxxa
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evknucklehead wrote:
Is there a reason why the European version is used? The submission doesn't say anything about it.
The SMS version of the game was only released in PAL regions (Europe and Brazil).
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1235)
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Posts: 11264
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For the publisher, the latest Bizhawk has overscan option for SMS that makes the aspect ratio correction result in an accurate picture.
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.
Former player
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 716
Thanks for the encode! Happy to see somebody improve my shoddy work :)
Joined: 7/17/2014
Posts: 13
Location: Norway
Mothrayas wrote:
evknucklehead wrote:
Is there a reason why the European version is used? The submission doesn't say anything about it.
The SMS version of the game was only released in PAL regions (Europe and Brazil).
Brazil had 60hz consoles (with the PAL palette). So there is no reason for this TAS to be PAL, and not NTSC. It's the same ROM because on SMS, it's the console that decides the speed, not the cart.
Noxxa
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KrazyRasmus wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
evknucklehead wrote:
Is there a reason why the European version is used? The submission doesn't say anything about it.
The SMS version of the game was only released in PAL regions (Europe and Brazil).
Brazil had 60hz consoles (with the PAL palette). So there is no reason for this TAS to be PAL, and not NTSC. It's the same ROM because on SMS, it's the console that decides the speed, not the cart.
I'm aware of this. That doesn't mean that it's not still a PAL version and that no non-PAL/European/Brazilian version of the game exists. The TAS itself could indeed be run on NTSC settings and still be considered valid (because of the official Brazilian release), per precedent. I'm guessing that the reasons for not doing this were either historical (taking after the published run), or being unaware about the Brazil release/situation. (It can be confusing sometimes.)
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3229] SMS The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck by Challenger in 18:33.01
Former player
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 716
The mkv is 284x288 with a black border around the SMS's native 256x192. Any reason for that?
fsvgm777
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Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1185
Location: Luxembourg
This is overscan, and it's supposed to be present for proper aspect ratio correction. Previous SMS publications were not properly aspect-corrected at all (or just kind of), because overscan was never implemented in either Dega or earlier versions of BizHawk. But....yeah, you can also read the discussion from this thread, ultimately culminating into implementing overscan in BizHawk.
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