Objectives
- Plays until no further difficulty increase
- Uses hardest difficulty
- Heavy luck manipulation
- Genre: Adventure
Goal
This TAS doesn't just play all the unique stages—it fills in the full treasure list by completing three loops of the game's three unique stages, totaling nine levels. With each loop, the speed of the enemies increases. After Level 9 is once again Level 9, which will repeat indefinitely.
RNG
Unlike many other Intellivision games, RNG in this game is very easy to manipulate. Even the smallest route change while in a room can cause the enemies to have completely different patterns.
Hit detection
Like many other Intellivision games, hit detection in this game is pixel perfect; meaning rather than there being literal hit box around each sprite, the arrangement of pixels comprising the object determines hit detection. In this game specifically, this means the fastest way to touch a treasure and head for the exit is to touch the part of the treasure sprite which projects out the most with the very tip of the arrow on the player sprite.
Attack
The player is equipped with a bow and unlimited arrows. Killing an enemy with it will incur at least 1 frame of lag, so it is used only for entertainment purposes throughout the run, except in the first room of Level 8. That enemy had to be killed because it will run into you on any of the fastest paths to the door. Going around the enemy and not killing it wastes 4 frames but killing it only generates 2 frames of lag. Otherwise, shooting arrows has limited luck manipulation ability.
Stage oddity
On Levels 3, 6, and 9, the second room is entered and the third room is exited slightly earlier than usual due to there being an additional invisible door on the wall adjacent to the true entrance/exit, which the TAS makes use of.
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Huge thanks to nymx for a
detailed review! Our rule of thumb on optimality is this: a movie is sloppy if it's easy to significantly improve it quickly. That usually means that the farther you get with due optimization, the bigger your improvement is. If your improvements are hard to sustain, and lots of different strategies have to be tested to not lose time overall, the movie is not sloppy. And if it will have to be remade from scratch to ensure the least time loss, indeed it's better to make a new complete movie instead of rejecting this one.
Since the game directly recognizes your 3 loops by giving you 3 rows of treasures (
official name for items), it makes sense to consider this movie a full completion, and to call it "all treasures".
Accepting.
