Crazy Climber
A daredevil climber has decided to scale some skyscrapers. Various obstacles impede his progress including some that at least make a degree of sense (randomly closing windows that will pinch his fingers, girders falling from higher up on the buildings, and frayed electrical wires from signage); while others which make less sense are also present (a giant condor rapidly laying multiple eggs that fall onto the climber; and a mad doctor trying to pelt the climber with various objects like flower pots, buckets of water, and baskets of fruit from open windows). If the climber successfully scales a building, a helicopter is waiting at the top to give him a ride to the next building.
Gameplay
Movement: the climber can move Up, left, or right but not downward on a building. Left and right controls move him left and right. To move upward however is a 2-step process. Pushing up on the control causes the climber to raise his arms to the next ledge, then pushing down on the control causes him to pull up to that ledge. Cycling up and down is required for progress.
Obstacles:
- Windows - These randomly close. The climber can grab a ledge under a closing window and climb over one, but will lose his grip if the window fully closes while either hand is still on the ledge.
- Mad Doctor: This red smiley face throws stuff out open windows that falls straight down onto the climber. If his hands are firmly on a ledge and stationary, the climber can withstand these impacts. If he is hit while moving, however, he will be knocked off the building.
- Condor Eggs: The eggs work much like the objects thrown by the mad doctor in that their impact will only knock the climber down while he's moving. Unlike those objects, the eggs can move downward on an angle instead of straight down.
- Girders: The girders fall on angles from the further up building. Unlike eggs and other falling objects, Girders will knock the climber off even if he is stationary.
- Electric Sign: A live wire hangs off the sign and will shock the climber if he touches it. This results in point losses. If he is struck 11 times, he will fall from the building.
- All obstacle strikes are associated with point loses regardless of whether they knock the climber off the wall.
Helicopter: At the top of each building, the climber must reach upward and grab the runner of the helicopter flying around. If the helicopter is not grabbed, all bonus points will be lost before the next round starts.
Difficult Switches: The difficulty switch affects how fast the climber climbs. The difficulty used for this run is the faster climbing of the two options.
Select Switch: Allows for selection of 1 or 2 players as well as starting building (any of the 4 buildings can be selected as the first, but this doesn't affect the loop otherwise). There is also a NOVICE mode that prevents the climber from being knocked from the buildings by anything other than the windows or electric sign. NOVICE mode starts on building 1.
Edit: For clarification, this run does not use the NOVICE setting.
Game Completion: The game manual specifically states "Win at CRAZY CLIMBER by climbing to the top of four skyscrapers..." Thus, this is the win condition I chose to abide by. There are 4 different buildings the climber must scale. After the 4th building, the game loops back to the 1st building again making this an endless game.
This run completes one loop.
TAS Notes
- Aims for fastest completion
- Takes death to save time.
- In the 3rd stage, there are a set windows that take longer to wait for re-opening than simply allowing them to knock you off the wall and restart with another life. New lives are started from where the climber was knocked off the wall.
- Uses "easier" difficulty to increase speed. The "harder" difficulty simply slows climbing speed; all other features are otherwise identical.
RNG Manipulation/Potential Improvements
I was able to manipulate RNG by altering the level at which I move the climber horizontally. Unfortunately, I was unable to easily determine if RNG is based strictly on position, strictly timing, or some combination of these. As horizontal motion also affects when vertical movements happen, vertical progression and timing are both affected by horizontal movements during these RNG manipulations.
Obstacles in the game (including the windows) are RNG based. The Helicopter movement is also RNG based.
Progress toward the goal in this game is effectively limited to vertical movement. Horizontal movements allow for avoiding obstacles and can also affect RNG, but don't directly progress the climber toward the end-goal.
Improvements to this run may be possible via different RNG manipulation which may allow for less horizontal movement and thus faster progression up the wall.
Memory: From what I could tell, this run seemed fairly optimized. While it might be a stretch to call this crazy nowadays, it certainly good enough to be here. Accepting.
