Uzebox B.C. Dash in 01:09.75 by Noxxa
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.0.1 git interim (syncs on BizHawk 2.1.0)
- Any% (reach the finish line; the game starts looping on from this point)
- Aims for fastest realtime rather than in-game time
- Aims for fastest input end
About the system and game
The Uzebox has a
wiki, describing what it is:
"The Uzebox is a retro-minimalist homebrew game console. It is based on an AVR 8-bit general purpose microcontroller made by Atmel. The particularity of the system is that it's based on an interrupt driven kernel and has no frame buffer. Functions such as video sync generation, tile rendering and music mixing is done realtime by a background task so games can easily be developed in C. The design goal was to be as simple as possible yet have good enough sound and graphics while leaving enough resources to implement interesting games. Emphasis was put on making it easy and fun to assemble and program for any hobbyists. The final design contains only two chips: an ATmega644 and an AD725 RGB-to-NTSC converter."
The Uzebox wiki also has a
page for this game.
B.C. Dash is a platformer game for the Uzebox, developed by Paul McPhee and released on October 25th, 2009. The goal is to pass through a single long hazardous stage, filled with tricky jumps, awkard terrain, and many different artifacts and powerups along the way. After reaching the finish line, your fastest time is recorded and the stage loops again for another run.
Your default form in this game is that of a fast-running panther, but with a powerup it is also possible to transform into a dragonfly, and entering the water transforms you into a turtle. Other powerups include one to walk on water, one to freeze the timer, coins that can be spent on powerups, and - of course relevant to this run - Reeboks that give a temporary speed boost. On the flipside, there are obstacles such as bombs which destroy terrain, fire which burns through the in-game timer, icicles that do the same, and potions with random negative effects.
Run notes
- Five coins can be spent (in the same way as using a powerup) to grant a walk-on-water powerup, dragonfly powerup, and speed powerup. Obviously the last one is very helpful (and so is the dragonfly powerup), so getting coins is important. There are 20 coins in the level, although a few of them are notably out of the way; so 16 coins are collected, good for three speed boosts.
- A dragonfly powerup lasts for about 4 seconds.
- A speed powerup lasts for about 5 seconds. Using a speed powerup when one is still active will extend the length of the current one; this is used throughout the run to maintain full super speed, without having to accelerate up to it for more than once.
- The panther's jump arc cannot be controlled. It is always a fixed height.
- There are a few moving platforms; it's important to walk along them to save frames if they go to the right, or jump past them if they move left.
- Right before the underwater section about a third into the run, a negative powerup potion gets in the way; it reverses directional controls for 3 seconds. This is not visible in the TAS itself, but you can see the difference with input display.
- The underwater section is forced to be done with the turtle. The turtle has quite weird movement physics, being controlled with slow, long lasting swimming motions that last about a second at a time. The turtle's horizontal acceleration and velocity depend entirely on its movement cycle - walls can be used to make it turn, but otherwise don't affect acceleration. There's slightly more control over vertical acceleration, but it is really slow and tough to offset momentum with. Combined with the nature of the moving platforms, this sometimes makes some movements seem slow, but it really is as fast as the turtle can change his momentum to navigate through the area.
- A bit after the underwater section, I activate the first speed boost. From here on, I can use four of them in a row, which is almost enough to reach the end of the stage. Because of how deceleration works after super speed ends (it's an immediate slowdown), it does not exactly matter when it is used, as long as no super speed time is wasted after reaching the finish.
- Around the time I start super speed I also grab a pogo stick powerup which allows higher jumping for a few seconds. This is used to grab some coins.
- A while later, I use a dragonfly transformation in order to grab a few more coins. The panther's jumping movement would not have allowed sufficient control to grab all the coins here, so that's why the dragonfly is used.
- Later on still, another dragonfly transformation is used to skip a platforming section that would have required going to a stop to get on a moving platform.
- Near the end, there are a pair of floating platforms going up and down; with very precise movement it's possible to jump right through them without losing any speed.
- I jump and end input before reaching the finish line; the jump will go just far enough to pass the finish line.
Final notes
Thanks to natt for screwing around with an UZEM core in BizHawk, resulting in this.
Screenshot:
Thanks for watching!
Fog: As per usual, the technical aspects of this run are solid.
The run was also surprisingly entertaining for me, with audience reception also being generally positive.
Accepting for Moons.
