As of yet, there have been no TASes accepted into Stars in 2020. That all changes with this movie! In an enthralling and lightning-fast 3 minute long TAS, Bobby wanders across 8 dangerous screens until he reaches his house two times! With a plot like that, what is there not to like?
Gameplay:
Bobby Is Going Home was a game released for the Atari 2600 in 1983 in Europe. You play as Bobby, a boy who is trying to get past obstacles to get home. Unlike most platforming Atari games like Pitfall!, Bobby can change the direction of his jump in midair, which allow for some fluid movement. Unfortunately, however, the game only allows Bobby to move forwards or backwards once every 4 frames, which results in extremely sluggish controls which make the game difficult to play. Additionally, Bobby's jump has one fixed height, which limits the flexibility that being able to change jump directions in midair would afford. In the game, Bobby moves at the same speed whether he's walking or jumping.
Timesaves:
I saved 2 frames in the first level by not having blank input to start off the TAS (compared to the currently published run). Additionally, I made a tighter jump over the bird that's on the seventh screen of the game to save a little extra time. After this, I did the second level of the game, since this is the last level of the game where the difficulty increases, so this should have been included in the currently published run of the game (the current movie ends after reaching Bobby's house once - which is the end of level 1).
Since there are so few possible places to save time, I will list all of the places in the run where I slowed down here:
1. In level 1, screen 7, I hold neutral for 1 frame in the middle of my jump over the bird to avoid hitting the bird.
2. In level 2 screen 2 I pause to let the bird fly past me before jumping over the plant
3. In level 2 screen 3, I delay my movement several times in order to avoid hitting the flying bird or the ostriches.
4. In level 2 screen 4, I delay my jump to wait for the bat to pass me
5. In level 2 screen 6, I hold neutral for 1 frame of my jump over the bird to avoid hitting it.
Conclusion:
With all of that out of the way, I hope that you are able to get some small amount of enjoyment out of this TAS... I recommend watching it with the sound off and on 2X speed. In any event, here is an encode of my TAS:
ThunderAxe31: Replacing file with a 959 blank frames trimmed version.
ThunderAxe31: I did check if there is any new content after the second loop, and the only difference I've noticed is the position of the stationary obstacles, but it seems it's just reusing previous level layouts with some aesthetic changes. The different movement of the flying enemies seems to be timer-dependent, so it can't be considered as a new content either, even if their movements in later scenes eventually turn out to be less favorable for the player.
I also wanted to check if there were releases for NTSC format. I've found some, but those seem to be ports done by different companies than the one who did originally develop the game, so in this case using the PAL version is appropriate.
