• Heavy glitch abuse
  • Emulator settings:
    • Advanced Bus-Level Timing OFF
    • Dynamic Recompiler OFF
    • Rest default

About

Herbert's Revenge is a point-and-click adventure puzzle game. It's the sequel to Elite Penguin Force, which is based on the Flash game Club Penguin. In 2015 dekutony and solarplex released a TAS of this game, and since then various improvements have been found. With DSHawk seemingly going nowhere, I started work on a new TAS in July. I reused solarplex's inputs in several of the minigames, and also dekutony's in a few.

Improvement table

mission20152021differencecumulative
18135570424312431
29646794916974128
37393357338207948
4103327868246410412
589297354157511987
694677043242414411
79420891550514916
81234110732160916525
91110510020108517610
101254911363118618796

New techniques

Pause click/simultaneous click

Essentially clicking two things at the same time or in immediate succession. This is used many times throughout the TAS, for example to leave rooms early or to click on things during conversations. Usually a pause is required to click the desired object.

Fade-in click

When you are fading into an area, you can interact with objects to trigger some of their properties, but not all. This can be used on some minigame triggers to "activate" them without actually starting them, so they can be skipped by finishing a different minigame. It is also often used to skip phone calls as the phone will not open during a fade-in.

Whistle close

When the puffle whistle closes, you gain control of the cursor. The main use of this is during room transitions to have control of the cursor when you enter the room (in instances where it would usually be disabled). It can also be used when spawning puffles, as most of the time if you use the puffle fast enough, the whistle will close during their animation and you regain control of the cursor.

Minigame exits

Pausing and exiting a minigame in most cases saves a few frames, adding up to a couple of seconds overall.

Whistle item pick-up

This is not any sort of glitch but simply picking up items while the puffle whistle is open, to make use of some time that would otherwise be spent doing nothing.

D-pad scrolling

In this game you scroll at a faster speed with the cursor. However, there is a small wait before you start scrolling with this method. I found in many instances scrolling with the D-pad was faster because of the instant movement, despite the slower max speed.

Mission comments

Mission 1: The Elite Penguin Force

I tested various strategies on the puffle section, and ended up with a roughly 90-frame improvement. After that is a major sequence break found by weils which uses the whistle closing technique. Doing it upon exiting the training room allows you to skip the conversations in the next room, and then re-enter the room you just left, triggering a later part of the mission and saving about 40 seconds.

Mission 2: Secret of the Fur

This mission starts to show off the new techniques well. It uses pause clicks throughout, but the biggest timesave is right at the end, clicking the X at the same time as inserting the white fur, to skip a lengthy cutscene.

Mission 3: Questions for a Crab

Another major skip here, utilising a fade-in click, two pause clicks, and a whistle close. The fade-in click retains the map upon entering the Wilderness. The whistle close is used to click the cave door early, where a pause click is used to again retain access to the map. The last pause click escapes Herbert's conversation to leave the Wilderness early with the necessary progress to complete the mission.

Mission 4: Mysterious Tremors

Roughly 15 seconds are saved by using the soda barrel to lift the gift shop, rather than the helium balloon. The rest comes from multiple cutscene skips, and some fast item pick-ups.

Mission 5: Spy and Seek

Quite a complicated mission to route, while incorporating some cutscene skips on the tracking devices, and skipping the welding minigame with the duck minigame. There is also a skip at the Plaza, which interestingly glitches the door to the Stage, a room which should not be accessible in this mission.

Mission 6: Waddle Squad

At the start is a small but significant sequence break in the conversation, one of the few of its kind in the game. The cogs minigame is skipped using Rookie's minigame. Unfortunately neither Jet Pack Guy's nor Rookie's minigames are skippable as you must be in the room for the objective to complete. The lengthy cutscene at the dock is skipped using a whistle close.

Mission 7: The Veggie Villain

This mission has few timesaves. Exiting the wrench minigame additionally skips a cutscene afterwards, saving more time than usual.

Mission 8: Suspect at Large

The puffle section near the start of the mission had several route options, and I'm pleased with the result. It also features the first "jigsaws" of the run, which are quite fun to TAS when you get the hang of them. Later in the mission I use a variety of tricks to save time.

Mission 9: Herbert's Plan

Considering the lack of new techniques in this mission the improvement was quite good. I considered some other routes rescuing the penguins but they didn't pan out. Right at the end is a pause click on the mission log to save a few seconds.

Mission 10: The Ultimate Mission

A lot of items to pick up here. I use several transition pause clicks, some of which save very little time. Both Dot and Gary's minigames are skippable here but neither appear to be worth it. I exit the Ski Village early twice, and try to optimise my puffle spawns as much as possible.

Special thanks

  • weils for constant support and suggestions.
  • Olivercomet for making EPFExplorer. While I didn't get much use out of it, it's a great tool to have.
  • nhaar for never watching the videos I made of skips. (nhaarBlackPuffle)
  • PASRC for making the encode and providing some technical support.
  • Anyone else who watched my stream or progress videos.

Suggested screenshots

15207, 28109, 33232

feos: Judging...
feos: Updating the file with the most recent improvement.
feos: Almost 2 weeks of no news about further improvements. Probably safe to accept this, to obsolete [2875] DS Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert's Revenge by dekutony & solarplex in 27:40.09.
EZGames69: It may be a bit before I get to this one but Processing

TASVideoAgent
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Player (5)
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I’ve been watching this TAS be made for a long while now. It utilises all of the new discoveries we’ve made since the publishing of the last TAS back in 2015, and improves other slight aspects further to save as much time as possible. Overall, it’s a solid movie, and I’m glad to see it finally completed and submitted!
Experienced player (670)
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Wow. I'm simply stunned. Over 6 years ago, I would've never thought sub 25 was possible, let alone SUB 23! Over more than 5 minutes of time save! Watching this TAS was a blast in my eyes. I have a huge attachment to this game and it's history, so I naturally voted Yes. I genuinely hope people will at least appreciate what was done here. This TAS really pushed a point and click game to its limits, and it shows. Congratulations on finally finishing this, Randomno. You made a wonderful job.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
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"Notable Improvement"?
PASRC
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I'm happy I got to spend a good chunk of my summer watching this great TAS be crafted. Great job Randomno!
Active player (469)
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Great improvement!
Active player, Editor (394)
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I improved the first jigsaw in m8 by 10 frames. Unfortunately because of resyncing it's only 2 frame improvement overall. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/73891347439225766
Active player, Editor (394)
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104 frame improvement from the Ski Village in mission 10. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/73963126994578952 This probably won't be a regular thing. I'm focusing on the 100% TAS and had a few ideas in the meantime.
Active player, Editor (394)
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-14f from keeping the inventory open while using the keys in mission 8. Another one I considered while doing the 100% TAS. I don't think there are any other instances I can do this inventory trick that I don't already. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/73986975422888903 Didn't have to resync which was nice.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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Since the improvements are still coming, should I set this submission to Delayed? By the sound of it, the chance of finding even more is quite high. Which is why I'm not replacing the movie just yet.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I can't predict what I might find but I'm not actively trying to improve it.
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-134f from rerouting Rookie's section in mission 9. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/74122613379829144 If this were to be set to delayed I think there's a good chance I would have no further improvements. I'm sure they exist (even if only minor frame improvements from inexperience and resyncing) but I haven't been combing through the entire TAS and I don't plan to. It's quite easy in this game to edit earlier sections and a few times during making the 100% TAS (which is almost entirely copied from this TAS) I've had a few ideas for different strategies. Ultimately I can't guarantee if I will or won't have any further improvements, so all I can say is I'm not specifically looking for them. If there is a new strategy found I will attempt to incorporate it but otherwise I won't be making any changes. EDIT: Videos of the larger improvements for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWhk1O5XWs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXocaIrBUps
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Randomno wrote:
EDIT: Videos of the larger improvements for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWhk1O5XWs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXocaIrBUps
These aren't in the latest movie, right? How much time do they save?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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feos wrote:
Randomno wrote:
EDIT: Videos of the larger improvements for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWhk1O5XWs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXocaIrBUps
These aren't in the latest movie, right? How much time do they save?
The first one is the 134 frame, and the second is the 104 frame. I double-checked and all the improvements posted in this thread are in the current submission.
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. ---- [4532] DS Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert's Revenge by Randomno, dekutony & solarplex in 22:25.92
Active player, Editor (394)
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I do have a few thoughts about the description/categories in the publication, but the most significant would be the "Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs" tag. This was carried over from the old TAS (where it was used somewhat dubiously), but I did not lose any time for entertainment purposes in this movie.
EZGames69
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I have removed it
[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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Randomno wrote:
I do have a few thoughts about the description/categories in the publication
I avoided listing any more back then at the risk of sounding ungrateful, but I feel like now is as good a time as any.
  • It's a bit misleading to say Herbert's Revenge is "based on the online Flash game with the same name". This comes from dekutony's original submission where he said "This is a game based on the online Flash game with the same name", but the online game is Club Penguin. The current description implies the online game is Herbert's Revenge.
  • The description says "It also beats the previous movie by about 05:14.18 minutes." because of a holdover from the previous description. Either "about 5 minutes", or no "about ... minutes".
  • I'm not sure Uses warps is an applicable tag. It was brought up in the judgement of the original game. I was leaning towards Notable improvement and Heavy glitch abuse, but I don't know what the expectations for those tags are and I'm not too fussed about it.
Thanks