This is a homebrew Intellivision port of Flappy Bird, released by Collectorvision in 2015. Yes, "Flapee Bird" is the real spelling of the game title.

Objectives

The lua script can be downloaded here

Key Moments

The lua script (for BizHawk 2.8)

Disclaimer that I'm not a programmer, so the code is not well-optimized. It is commented, however, so please check it out at the download link above to get the full idea of how it works. Below is a summary.

The lua script essentially reads the graphic elements in a 9x10 to 6x10 rectangle (depending on the closeness of the pipe spawns) ahead of the player, and interprets where the gap between the next set of pipes is based on where it detects the top/bottom pipe lip graphics. Based on this interpretation, the script will press the button if the bird falls below a certain y position to align it with the gap and hopefully pass through.

There is one problem with the script however, and is why only about 99% of the TAS was generated from it. The script sometimes has trouble threading the needle when the gap between consecutive pipes shifts down by two rows, and when the pipes are spawning closest together. Since correcting this problem didn't seem easy with the way the script was currently set up, I decided to just manually correct every instance the bird crashed into a pipe. I don't know if this decision ended up being faster TAS creation time in the long run, but here we are.

Samsara: I'd call that Lua script some Nice Code, but that tends to apply more to angry birds. Judging.

Samsara: The fixed horizontal speed would normally push this run into triviality territory, but two things prevent that, I feel. Thing one is, well, that triviality is mostly gone and really only needs a few good conversations to be removed entirely. Thing two is that I can, and will, make the argument that this is not trivial. Gameplay-wise, sure, anyone that can reach 9999 points will reach it in the exact same amount of time as this run. The question is... Can a human actually make it to 9999 points? It demonstrably takes over 2 hours of perfect, active play to do so, which is anything but a trivial matter to a human. "When human skills are just not enough", right? Does any human present the level of skill required to do this perfectly for 2 straight hours? I'm not at all convinced, and if someone ever manages to pull it off... Well, by that time, this run will have been made acceptable anyway due to an upcoming rule change. God, I love being the boss-at-time-of-judgement!

Accepting!

despoa: Processing...