Bugz (circa 1977-1999) was a famous rap artist that starred in the group D12 (aka Dirty Dozen). After an intense water gun fight, Bugz was hit by an SUV. I don't know why someone brought an SUV to a water gun fight, but clearly there's no way you can lose by doing so, as long as you spraypaint "NERF Subocean Underwater Vehicle" on the side. 16 years later, ArtcFox decided to pay tribute to this tragedy and created Bugz for the Uzebox (of course exercising a few artistic liberties). You can re-live the rough and tumble lifestyle of this troubled man by squishing bugs (not Bugz, as he was already squished by the SUV) and collecting cookies throughout 21 unique levels.
This game was chosen for Dream Team Contest 9, and it is a 19100 frame improvement to #6064: EZGames69's SNES A Bug's Life in 07:59.73. Wait, uh,
Goals
  • 2 players
  • Use death to save time
  • Genre: Platform

Controls

Left/Right - Move
Left+Right - Moonwalk to the right. Maintains current speed. Occasionally used for sub-pixel optimization when below max speed
Up/Down - Climb Ladders/Fall through platforms
B - Run while holding
A - Jump. Variable height
Select + Right Shoulder Button - Level Select - Not used in this run, but an identical effect happens when you collect all the cookies in each level

Notable Tricks

Death warping

Pressing any button after dying will cause you to respawn at your initial starting point. Conveniently enough, this is also where the final cookie spawns, so it's often faster for one character to die and spawn back at the beginning.

Partner boost

You can use your partner as an additional "enemy" to stomp to cross certain obstacles more efficiently. The vertical momentum of the stomped player gets carried to the stomper, which can allow for even bigger jumps.

Mid-air jumps

After walking off a ledge or ladder you have up to 6 frames to press the jump button. After jumping off an enemy you only have 4 frames to press the button.

Ledge Clip

Discovered by team 5. If (for example) the edge of a wall is at sub-pixel position 128 and you're at sub-pixel position 129, then you can rise vertically and clip into the wall by that 1 sub-pixel. Pressing any direction while in the wall will eject you back to the 128 position. BUT, if the wall you're clipping into is only 1 block high, and you're over halfway up, AND your vertical momentum is 0, then pressing any direction will eject you to the top of that block. This usually takes a couple frames to set up correctly, and your x-speed is 0 afterwards. It's only useful when you can't jump to a certain ledge normally.

Pressing B

Useless. Don't listen to the haters, Team 2.
Level times by DTC team, with the fastest time in bold.
LevelTeam 1Team 2Team 3Team 4Team 5Team 6
Menu626262626262
1584567563592566582
2390379369386366412
3640637642707614701
4613626594592582623
5447499434532440434
6579596529625589559
7602498524507500492
8436440390451425392
9467453453488425556
10566563559596501563
11327326317368315328
12309306305307306307
13681681678710676690
14502500496525495499
15371364346396348354
16498503501509489548
17494521448555501515
18496549455574453556
19630674603680601671
20417381374429415388
21368403374408373420
Total104791052810016109991004210652
Note: the levels were timed using a script that Dacicus made.
Here's the number of levels for which each team had the best time.
TeamLevels with best time
Team 121
Team 2(None)
Team 31, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 17, 20
Team 4(None)
Team 52, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19
Team 65, 7
Since then, here's the time saves that have been found:
LevelBest DTC timeFinal SubmissionFrames SavedDetails
Menu62620So far so good
15635612Maintaining good sub-pixel positions while turning around is one of the trickiest things in this game due to momentum. Many improvements were the result of optimizing turns better
236634818New routing with pink going up top along with blue
361459222Pink and Blue swapped routes in the second half of the level
45825793Better movement
54344295Better movement. Better ladders. Apparently walking off the side of a ladder and then jumping is faster than directly jumping from the ladder
65295263Ladders in this game allows you to climb into the walls which allowed the first and only use of a horizontal ledge clip.
74924893Better movement
83903891Something about this level is not perfectly symmetrical. It was 1 frame faster to swap the routes that pink and blue took
94254241Better Movement
105015001Better Ladder Movement
113153096Introduced a sub-pixel-perfect partner boost at the end to have a quicker death warp
123053050Team 3 too good to improve on
136766697Clipped into the final ledge in order to jump on the grasshopper much earlier
144954951*Saved a frame on the level transition by having less bugs on screen at the end of the level
153463460Team 3 too good to improve on
164894881Better movement
174484471Better movement
184534530Team 5 too good to improve on
1960157922Optimized movement at the beginning to just barely beat the ant cycle with both players
203743731Better movement
213683680Team 1 too good to improve on (Samsara: HAHA GET DESTROYED)
Total9829973198Thanks to everyone for helping push this game to its limit!

Suggested Screenshot

RIP Bugz

Actual Suggested Screenshots


feos: Good run, great feedback, found no problems overall. Accepting to Moons.
fsvgm777: Processing. Added the branch label as well.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14855
Location: 127.0.0.1
Judge, Skilled player (1278)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1645
Location: Italy
Wow, this was pretty intense for a short movie. Yes vote!
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"
Editor, Player (67)
Joined: 6/22/2005
Posts: 1041
During the contest, there were a few levels that I thought would be mostly completed by one player while the other did little, but you all proved me wrong with the routing. Nice work. Yes vote.
Current Projects: TAS: Wizards & Warriors III.
Editor, Skilled player (1938)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3246
I heard about this game early on (as being possibly the best Uzebox game) when Uzebox was first released in BizHawk. Obviously it obviously looked like a nightmare to optimize. It's great that you got so many people interested in collaborating to make a TAS for this game. Also TASes on co-op modes are way more than twice as good as a TAS on a single-player mode. I like this page.
xxezrabxxx
He/Him
Joined: 7/15/2017
Posts: 199
Location: Kentucky
Oh my god. It's wonderful! I was literally on the edge of my seat for almost the entire run. You guys outdid yourself, I cannot simply imagine the amount of time, effort, and dedication it took to create such a magnificent work of art. You guys/girls are simply amazing, this game is also amazing and the console is also the most amazing console ever released. One of my favorites ever, you guys definitely are getting my Yes vote.
I like to comment on submissions and look around the site. You have probably seen me before (if you have been around for a while) either on the site, Discord, or any other social media. I recently took up making temporary encodes for new submissions. Also, I never forget to greet Tompa wherever I find him! "when resyncing stuff sucks it's called Resuccing" - EZGames69 “If an emulator stops being accepted to the site it should be called an emuLAMEr” - EZGames69 "oh no discord, everything I say will now be logged forever, sdfsdf, time to hide" - Masterjun "just had to give therapy to a taxi with daddy issues" - psx Current Projects: Mother 3 (75% complete)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
I like how you used death to respawn on the giant cookie in some levels. This was a lot more entertaining than I expected. Yes vote.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Editor, Player (163)
Joined: 4/7/2015
Posts: 329
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Dacicus wrote:
During the contest, there were a few levels that I thought would be mostly completed by one player while the other did little, but you all proved me wrong with the routing.
Yea, this is a great "2 TASes in 1" experience, i had to watch two times to feel the entire thing. Definitely a yes, and definitely an amazing result of a Dream Team Contest, congratualtions to all the teams!!
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Post subject: Re: #6926: WarHippy, g0goTBC, Really_Tall, Samsara, The8bitbeast, Malleoz & TASPlasma's Uzebox Bugz in 02:42.14
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Very pretty. Yes votez.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14855
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4339] Uzebox Bugz "2 players" by WarHippy, g0goTBC, Really_Tall, Samsara, The8bitbeast, Malleoz & TASPlasma in 02:42.14