(Link to video)
Inspired from I Wanna Be The Guy along with other classic platforming games, Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril is the newest platformer game to grace the NES in almost 15 years...
almost 10 years ago on February 22, 2010, that is.
  • Emulator Used: Bizhawk 2.3.2
  • Genre: platforming
  • Game version: 1.0 (Note: The database incorrectly labels this version as "Battle Kid - Fortress of Peril Demo1 by Sivik (PD)")
  • Abuses one glitch, for the entirety of the run
  • Easiest difficulty for fastest completion
  • Warpless; as in, no warp room is ever entered
  • Pacifist; in fact, only 4 enemies are ever killed during the run, all of which are bosses
  • Gets the bad ending because why not

Version choice and THE GLITCH

In version 1.0, there is a glitch so that pausing the game when a text box is about to be displayed makes you invincible for the rest of the game, unless you pause the game again after reaching death condition in a room. This glitch makes the player invulnerable to EVERYTHING. This allows us to skip the feather item and the infinite oxygen item because now the only obstacles that can prevent our progression are high cliffs.

Difficulty choice

The only difference between Easy and higher difficulties is the time it takes for each boss to die. Since I don't even need to dodge their attacks, I decided to choose Easy for the damage amplifier so that they die even sooner.

Game controls

There are only two note worthy aspects of the control of this game.
First, it usually saves time to jump before falling off an edge to build up your falling speed early when vertical distance is the bottleneck.
Second, sometimes you can jump on the frame when the number of jumps left is being restored, and you have to wait for the next frame to jump again at other times. I haven't figured out how this works exactly, but it seems you usually can jump again earlier when you land on the very edge of the platform from your last jump.

Lotus

You simply can't get very far without fighting the first boss. The way I jumped when I entered the room saves a frame somehow.

High jump item

Again, you can't get very far without it.

Owlbot and Key I

For some reason, the author of the game decided to place one single I block that you need to destroy in order to get Key II. For that one single I block, I have to go through the top part of the map and fight Owlbot to get Key I.

Key II

With Key I in hands, I then head to the underwater maze to get Key II in order to enter the area where the double jump item resides.
As you can see, spiky blocks are not considered water blocks by the game so it's faster to fall through them.

Seahorses and double jump item

Double jump is required to enter the final area of the game, and thus I have to defeat Seahorses and get double jump in the room that follows.
Yes, the entrance to the final area is blocked by 6 pair of instant kill spikes that despawn after each corresponding boss is defeated. What could possibly go wrong? :P

The final area

I can go straight to Supermech's room after losing all items, but I won't be able to get to the exit on the right without high jump and double jump so those two items need to be reacquired.
Yes, the right exit of Supermech's room does not have a door at all because Supermech is blocking it. Again, what could possibly go wrong? :D

Special Thanks

  • caitsith2: for the lua scripts: Userfiles/Info/60045844721779290
  • Dwedit: for mentioning the pause glitch on the forum.
  • Aglar: for the 100% run.
  • Sivak: for making this awesome game.
  • YOU, for reading the submission text and watching the movie.
Merry early Christmas and...
happy 10th birthday, Battle Kid!

ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 30 frames improvement.
ThunderAxe31: While the glitch itself could be the result of debug leftovers, it doesn't seem to me to be triggered by any in-game password or otherwise secret input combinations, so it doesn't count as a cheat. I did also check that the game version used is an official release version, though a revision version exists beside it.
This game is known for being intentionally made to be challenging, but the usage of this glitch resulted in a very plain movie that literally skips the challenges that this game has to offer. Having the main trait of the game overshadowed, I understand why the audience response was mixed.
Accepting for Vault as fastest completion.
feos: Pub.

TASVideoAgent
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EZGames69
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Jennifer dumped me
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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Dude nice. Watching when I get the chance
Player (26)
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Nice glitch, but I find the resulting run not very entertaining. Since the glitch can be duplicated without tool assistance, I wonder how much this run stands out from an unassisted run. It doesn't really feel like a superplay to me, more like playing with godmode.
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No vote from me. Just because tricky game turned out to be just run asap.
Fortranm
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Radiant wrote:
Since the glitch can be duplicated without tool assistance, I wonder how much this run stands out from an unassisted run.
Admittedly, much less so than a run that doesn't use the glitch does. However, to my surprise, this seems to be the very first any% run of any kind done on v1.0 of the game, possibly due to the limited number of existing v1.0 cartridges. Therefore, until RTA runners start doing this category, this run is actually unique. :P
CoolHandMike
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Take away the threat of death And all you're left with is a round of make-believe;
Amazingly useful glitch but it hurts entertainment.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
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I had to say, I didn't see you going straight through the final boss coming. That part got a laugh out of me. Otherwise, yeah, the glitch is neat, but there's no setup, and all that's left is precise platforming. I'm kinda reminded of Street Fighter 2010 and the level exit glitch. I'd like to see the run on the site, as the fastest completion of Battle Kid, but on the other hand, I'd hate to see this obsolete the published movie. Maybe both should be published. Yes vote at any rate.
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In version 1.0, there is a glitch so that pausing the game when a text box is about to be displayed makes you invincible for the rest of the game
Yeah, this answers my question about how you got 17:05.78. I was trying to figure out how you did that before I read this sentence.
EZGames69
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I would be ok with this movie being a separate branch compared to the publication.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Fortranm
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This movie was made with the intention to serve as an any% category parallel to the existing all items run. If someone makes a new all items run on version 2.0 of the game at some point in the future and that obsoletes the existing all items run, the two categories will be even more different.
Ford
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To be honest, the loss of the threat of death makes this seem a bit less interesting than the current movie. Regardless, it demonstrates a pretty massive glitch that greatly changes the routing in the game. For this reason, I vote yes.
Post subject: Question about warps
Judge, Skilled player (1275)
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
  • Warpless; as in, no warp room is ever entered
How do warps work in this game, exactly? And would these allow to beat the game faster than this submission?
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"
Fortranm
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The warp rooms in this game are similar to the ones in newer Castlevania games. This movie was made to serve as the fastest completion of the game. It just turned out that no warp room was ever needed. That "warpless" bullet point was mostly written as a joke.
Fortranm
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/60135952797048068 A 30 frames improvement has been made on the screen seen around the 4:02 mark in the temp encode.
Post subject: problem solved
Judge, Skilled player (1275)
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
  • Game version: 1.0 (Note: The database incorrectly labels this version as "Battle Kid - Fortress of Peril Demo1 by Sivik (PD)")
What evidences are there that point out that this isn't a demo version? Edit: nevermind, I solved it myself. From the relative Wikipedia page:
Wikipedia wrote:
There have been three U.S. releases of Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril. The first one was a limited edition run of 33 copies for early pre-orders, game play testers and production staff, with each copy being uniquely numbered. February 2010's version 1.000 was the second, main, and currently most common release. A third release of version 1.100 was released on July 2, 2010. The main differences between the 1.000 and 1.100 releases of Battle Kid was the fixing of a glitch discovered in the 1.000 version of the game. This allowed the player to become invincible, therefore being able to beat the game with ease. Also fixed was a sound effect and the letters "D" and "V" of the game's font, which were sometimes confused with "O" and "U" respectively. Exclusive to the 1.100 release as well is an extra level originally showcased at the 2010 ScrewAttack Gaming Convention which can be accessed by typing "SGCLEVEL" into the password screen.
Edit 2: Additionally, the game version used for this submission features the developer logo right after booting the game, just like like for version 1.100, which highly suggests that it was used as a release version as well. Differently, any other ROM found are either non-release versions or unofficial hacks. That's enough evidence for me.
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"
Dwedit
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During the first run of the 1.0 cartridges, a small number of cartridges had the wrong ROM version on the cartridge. Instead of having 1.0, they had "Version Proto" instead. "Version Proto" is still a full version of the game, playable from beginning to end, with the same bugs as 1.0. And due to a mistake, it is a valid retail release of the game.
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i consider this as a case of "DKC 1.0" run seems solid; yes vote for me
Post subject: Re: problem solved
Fortranm
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
While the glitch itself could be the result of debug leftovers
This is highly unlikely. As you can see with the linked lua script, the player is actually still considered dead when anything fatal is done. The pause glitch only stops the death sequence from happening, and that's why if you press the pause button after doing something that would kill the player character in a room, he will die.
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. ---- [4093] NES Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril "pause glitch" by Fortranm in 17:05.28