About the game:

Crack Down (クラックダウン) is a 2D game created by Sega and published in arcades in 1989 first and on Megadrive/Genesis in 1990. This is a 2D Run and Gun game where you need to plant bombs in designated locations then escape. It has a 1 and a 2 player mode. This is an improvment of my previous 1 Player TAS of 7496 frames due to a glitch which allow me to cross some very thin walls. ([3307] Genesis Crack Down "1 player" by Arcree2 in 11:19.27)

Game objectives:

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 1.11.8.2
  • Hardest difficulty
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Luck Manipulation
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Use death to save time
  • 1 Player mode !

Important things to know:

  • There are 2 weapons: Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher. You can do melee attacks too.
  • The Rocket Launcher is mainly used in this run because I can kill more than 1 enemy with 1 rocket.
  • Every corner, I try to be stuck for 1 or 2 frames against the wall while walking. This teleports me forward a few pixels, saving a lot of time.
  • You can clip into a wall in your right by pressing Right Left and Up at the same time: But When you are on, you get stuck on exept if the wall is very thin.
  • The camera follows you but you are a bit displaced compared to the camera when you do the corner strat or when you press R L and U at the same time, and it stacks each time you do it.
  • The game sometimes lags: In 1 or 2 levels, this is due to the emulator (= The console) which drops a ton of frames, but on some other levels, this is because the game is very badly optimized.
  • 2 Players mode makes the game very laggy and slow ! That's not an emulation problem. This is why the 1P run is faster than the 2P ([3326] Genesis Crack Down "2 players" by Arcree2 in 09:37.16)
  • When you plant a bomb, You are invincible for a while and you automaticly kill enemies when you approach them. This is the same when you spawn after a death.
  • The big bomb item kills all the enemies on screen and gives you a bit of invincibility, but this is very slow (+300 frames). This is why I didn't use it

Explanation:

-About "Useless" kills:

On a few places, I've chosen to kill "useless" enemies. Sometimes there are not even in my way. I've killed them for various reasons. Mainly because they will move in a very problematic place and if I don't kill them at this moment, I will need to lose a ton of frames later to kill them. But on 3-2 I kill the "drones (I have no idea of what are these enemys) because when they are on screen, they makes the game drop 1 frame / 2.

-About "Useless" moves:

These moves are most of the time for RNG manipulation. Sometimes, you can see me walking to the right while having the up walking sprite. This is because I walk with R + L. When I walk like that, I can pass through some enemys and threw some hitbox (When you kill an enemy, his hitbox will stay during a certain time).

-About the 2-3 door:

I need to shoot 7 times on the door to open it with the blue character.

-About Death Warp:

On Stage 3, Act 2, there are 3 Death Warps which saves me a bit of time. The first one teleports me to a place soon to a mark. The second one teleports me soon to the level's end (Normally you have to get around too). The third one teleports me soon to a mark (Normally you have to get around). On Stage 2, Act 2, I die here to be teleported close to a mark. On Stage 2, Act 1, I die here to get the invulnability to save a lot of frame after.

-About Boss Fight:

On the path to kill the boss, there are invisible walls. To destroy them, you need 5 shots. You can just go through all invisible walls and go to the end but the little robots will not spawn so you will be softlocked here. You can just go through all invisible walls and kill the boss at the start but this will be the same situation. To activate the trigger that will spawn the robots, you need to do 1 shoot on every walls (except for the last one) and you need to kill the boss because if you don't kill it, you can't exit the level to finish to game.
If you see some problems in my submission, say me it :)
Thanks to Patashu who corrected my first 1 player submission text (I've used it for this text) and Thanks to Dimon12321 who helped me to route the start of the TAS !

Masterjun: Judging.
Masterjun: First of all, great improvements! With that it's obvious that this run will obsolete the previous 1 player run. However, the 2 players run was accepted into the Vault with the goal of the fastest completion of this game. Now keep in mind that "playing with 2 players" was not a goal of the 2 players run, since such a run isn't allowed in the Vault. A real 2 players movie has to qualify for Moons to be able to be accepted. Thus, as this run has the same goal and is faster, it is going to obsolete the 2 players run as well.
This run also has enough tricks, timesave strategies and an overall short duration to be entertaining enough for Moons. Accepting to Moons with a double obsoletion, obsoleting both the previous 1 player run and the 2 players run.
feos: Pub.
feos: In agreement with Masterjun, I'm setting the branch "1 player", as both already exist now, and another 2p run might appear anytime, so to prevent any possible confusion, we'll be spelling the branch out for this game.


TASVideoAgent
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Posts: 15585
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5407: Arcree's Genesis Crack Down "1 player" in 09:14.18
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1359)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Good job optimizing this game! You get another Yes vote from me ;) By the way, I still wonder if a 2-players run would be able to beat this new record.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Arcree2
He/Him
Player (148)
Joined: 8/30/2016
Posts: 138
Location: France
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Good job optimizing this game! You get another Yes vote from me ;) By the way, I still wonder if a 2-players run would be able to beat this new record.
Thanks for the Yes vote ;) A 2P run will sadly be always slower than a 1P. We can maybe beat this record with 2P but if we could, we could beat the new 2P record with another 1P TAS :3 But the 2 player run is not very optimized, I'm pretty sure, we can save ~20 seconds if we optimize well. If you want, you can try to do another 2 player TAS, I can give you all the information I have ;)
Projects: Genesis Crack Down 1 Player - Work In Progress
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1359)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Arcree2 wrote:
A 2P run will sadly be always slower than a 1P. We can maybe beat this record with 2P but if we could, we could beat the new 2P record with another 1P TAS :3 But the 2 player run is not very optimized, I'm pretty sure, we can save ~20 seconds if we optimize well.
If it's possible to save ~20 seconds in the 2-players run, then it will be faster than this new 1-player run.
Arcree2 wrote:
If you want, you can try to do another 2 player TAS, I can give you all the information I have ;)
I'm sorry but I'm already flooded with games I want to TAS, and I also have little free time for working on them... By the way, if you want, you may open a forum thread for sharing with everyone all your knowledge and theories about the game, in the Genesis forum category.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Arcree2
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Player (148)
Joined: 8/30/2016
Posts: 138
Location: France
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
If it's possible to save ~20 seconds in the 2-players run, then it will be faster than this new 1-player run. I'm sorry but I'm already flooded with games I want to TAS, and I also have little free time for working on them... By the way, if you want, you may open a forum thread for sharing with everyone all your knowledge and theories about the game, in the Genesis forum category.
Maybe not 20 seconds. I don't really know how many times we could save with big lag optimisations on the 2P TAS. (The only problem of 2P is lag). But 2P could be faster than 1P. I should maybe try when I will get some motivations. I will write all my knowledge on the Crack Down thread.
Projects: Genesis Crack Down 1 Player - Work In Progress
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Posts: 409
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ho,it's more fun with this all of new optimizations.Yes vote
GAW sms... Totally destroyed
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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Posts: 15585
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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. ---- [3346] Genesis Crack Down "1 player" by Arcree2 in 09:14.18