Gameboy The Humans Hard mode
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.5.2
- Hardest difficulty
- Aims for fastest time
- Very glitched
- 6/110185 frames speed entertainment tradeoffs
Skill levels
Hard: 8 lives
Med: 10 lives + 250 seconds to the time limit
Easy: 12 lives + 500 seconds to the time limit
I choose Hard to get big challenge for the tool-assisted TAS. With Easy I can spend four more lives on summoned items, in levels 12, 16, 10 and 17. That would save about 4000 frames. On Easy skill 60 frames per level are spent on longer score screen. With 28 levels that is 1680 frames. So the Easy run would be 2320 frames faster. The Med run would be almost the same. Hard is best.
Gameplay
You are humans. You can make a tower to climb. Jump with spear. Any item can be dropped and thrown. Rope gives climbing. Wheel gives riding. Your torch destroys burning bushes. Switches remove blocks and are acitaved by weight. Dino and saber tooth cat eats you. Neanderthals can kill you with spears, so be careful to not go extinct.
Cursor movement is slow and you can switch humans only clockwise. You need a plan to not waste time on cursor or cooldown. After switching a human there is cooldown of 44 frames, so you cannot switch. If you are a pro tas editor and see a big mistake, then it is proably the cursor delay or some other delay that cannot be avoided, so please try to improve it yourself. Killing dinos gives a long delay. The moving platform can hold only one human at a time.
Summoning
With Hard skill you have 8 lives. Reserve lives are lost when a dead human is respawned. Another use for lives is to transform them to items. Each level requires that you have some number of humans alive. Summoning an item takes 328 frames, so it is usually faster to grab a nearby item. Each level has a limited set of items available, so you cannot summon any item in any level. The best route requires that you find the summons that save most time without losing too many lives to get game over.
Glitches
Spear: Normal biggest jump power is 9. With glitched double jump you can get +3 power levels.
Spear: go inside wall
Rope: Rope can push humans inside walls. Rope can also give endless climbing, until the human hits a ceiling.
Diagonal throw: If falling item is grabbed, then the downward force is saved in memory. Next throw will have wrong angle.
You can jump through dinos and saber tooth cats unharmed, if your timing is perfect.
Stage by stage
Level 01 XXXX (have 8, need 4)
No comments.
Level 02 CVBM (have 8, need 5)
Go one pixel inside wall. Then jump to the opposite direction. Now you get pushed deep into the wall. The human is forced to drop the spear after every push. The insides of the walls are not what they look like, so it is not easy to move in there.
Level 03 QWSD (have 8, need 4)
Double jump saves 16 seconds, because you do not need the third human. Very difficult wall push, almost not possible to climb.
Level 04 PLKP (have 8, need 4)
Spear is summoned, so you now have 7 humans.
Level 05 MNBV (have 7, need 5)
Double jump can skip most of the level. After this level you get +1 life.
Level 06 VBCD (have 8, need 1)
No comments. After this level you get +1 life.
Level 07 ZXVZ (have 9, need 4)
No summon, but you can skip everything with the rope.
Level 08 KJHR (have 9, need 2)
It is required to summon a wheel or a spear to complete this level. Lost 1 life for that. A few pixels of fall damage can be avoided with the wheel. You can glitch the dino walking cycle, but it is about 130 frames faster to jump through it.
Level 09 PYST (have 8, need 5)
Double jump skips the whole level. Summoned a spear and lost 1 life.
Level 10 LKLQ (have 7, need 5)
At some point it is necessary to switch humans with the slow cursor to avoid the switching cooldown. The rope to the exit works by one pixel and you avoid fall damage by one pixel. You can summon torch to save 500 frames, but then you will run out of lives at level 20.
Level 11 HDZW (have 7, need 5)
Lost one life to summon a spear.
Level 12 NBGF (have 6, need 1)
It is not possible to reach the last dino in time to throw a diagonally glitched spear to glitch the walk cycle, so instead you need to wait for one more walk cycle. Standing near the ladder prevents damage. You can hunt T-Rex with two spears, but it is 300 frames slower. You can summon torch to save 2040 frames, but then you will run out of lives at level 20.
Level 13 SWQR (have 6, need 5)
You need a plan to avoid cursor movement when switching humans. Fall damage is barely avoided and the double jump has just enough reach. The walls are like water, so it is almost impossible to reach the exit.
Level 14 TYTL (have 6, need 1)
No comment.
Level 15 XRTD (have 6, need 2)
Summon torch saves more than 3000 frames, so this is a good place to use a life.
Level 16 CDSR (have 5, need 1)
The moving platforms have bad cycles. You need to wait 945 frames. You can wait at the home hut to prevent 6 frames of lag, but then the viewer has no idea why the player is not moving for a long time, so it looks bad. I make a speed/entertainment tradeoff and wait on the moving platform, so that you can see the platform cycle. You can see the moose too, so I think it is very worth the 6 frames. If you do not like the decision, then you can edit it easily. You can summon a spear to save 1037 frames, but you must save the life for a bigger save elsewhere.
Level 17 JHYT (have 5, need 2)
You can drop the torch and quickly pick it up. Now it has glitched angle. The diagonal throw puts the torch in a good place. Again the platforms have bad timing, so you need to wait.
Level 18 MJHN (have 5, need 4)
No comments.
Level 19 TRWM (have 5, need 3)
Double jump saves time, because you do not need the third human. After this level you get +1 life.
Level 20 PLMN (have 6, need 5)
Summon spear for a big shortcut and lose 1 life. You must have 6 lives at this point or it is a big loss or game over. This is why you cannot summon torch in level 12.
Level 21 SSXC (have 5, need 3)
With perfect timing the deadly spear can be caught.
Level 22 KLLY (have 5, need 5)
The platform cycles are almost perfect, so that the route works by a few frames at every point. Make one mistake and you die from a fall or need to wait for a very long platform cycle. After this level you get +1 life.
Level 23 QRWS (have 6, need 4)
First you get spear from the Neanderthal. Then you do a very human tower double jump. Then a rope trick that barely works. There is some friendly alien up there that prevents the human from being lost in heaven.
Level 24 VBSR (have 6, need 4)
No comments.
Level 25 TVYP (have 6, need 2)
Again the deadly spear can be stolen.
Level 26 LKMV (have 6, need 3)
The platform cycles rule the first half of the level. Then you can steal a spear from the Neanderthal and do a wall push. You get +1 life after this level.
Level 27 QVCX (have 7, need 4)
No comments.
Level 28 PMHR (have 7, need 3)
You can avoid almost everything with two double jumps.
Possible improvement: Remove lag and find more glitches. Think outside my belief box.
Samsara:
File replaced with a 1702 frame improvement. File replaced once again with a further 313 frame improvement.
While there are some interesting glitches and clever solutions in this run, the gameplay is long and slow. For the average viewer, this is probably not enough action to hold interest for too long.
Accepting to Vault.
