Sammy is a circus acrobat/daredevil tasked with maneuvering around multiple dangerous and complex areas to show off his amazing acrobatic abilities.
Sadly, Sammy's amazing abilities aren't very amazing and are limited to a simple jump and hanging on ropes.
Ways to die (which causes Sammy's red boufant toupee to spin around his head):
- Falling too far.
- Falling into the fire.
- Contact with most moving objects other than ropes.
- Details in the specific scene descriptions below
There are 8 different levels in the game (numbered 0-7), each consisting of 3 scenes/stages.
Each level completed results in a difficulty increase on the next level, which may include enemy changes and/or some changes in maneuvering patterns.
After Level 7, the game continuously repeats Level 7. Thus completing Levels 0-7 is the most complete 'loop' of the game.
- While it's possible to simply start at level 7, I chose to complete all the levels due to the differences in enemy/challenge patterns for the various levels.
- I feel that a run completing only Level 7 should not be allowed to obsolete this submission even though it would be a shorter time overall.
- Copy/Paste of Level 7 inputs appears to consistently sync on all subsequent Level 7 loops.
RNG only seems to affect the enemy balls in scene 1 (movement pattern and point of origin). This can be manipulated, and appears to be somewhat based on Sammy's position/movement.
Each level of the game consists of 3 scenes. Below are the basic breakdowns of each scene (level specific differences will be noted later):
- Scene 1
- Goal: Get to the upper right platform.
- Stuff that kills on contact: Balls, Pumpkin w/ Sunglasses
- Basic Route: From starting position, bounce on bottom right trampoline to get to middle platforms. Go left across those platforms (using bottom left trampoline and rope swing). Use middle layer trampoline to get to the top main area. Go right and step on white pad to activate top rope swing. Use rope swing to get to top right platform.
- Scene 2
- Goal: Get to the upper left platform.
- Stuff that kills on contact: Bottoms/sides of the yellow platforms.
- Basic Route: From starting position, travel left across the disappearing purple platforms (they dissapear in different sequence depending on the game level). Take elevator to the next height. Travel back right by jumping across the yellow platforms. Take elevator to the top of the screen. Step onto the magic carpet and move Sammy appropriately to stay on the carpet as it flys around the screen. Step off the carpet to the top left platform.
- Scene 3
- Goal: Get to the upper right platform.
- Stuff that kills on contact (exception noted below due to a glitch): Floating Squares, Red/White bar things (not really sure what these are supposed to be), fire, Pumpkin w/ Sunglasses
- Basic Route: From starting position, run right avoiding floating squares. Take elevator to next height. Run left "avoiding" red/white things and floating squares when present. Take elevator to top level. Ride Ropes across fire to top right platform.
Glitches & Skips
- In Scene 2, it's possible to jump from the bottom row of disappearing platforms directly up onto the yellow platforms, this can be done on all but the 3rd and 6thd yellow platform as they drop don't drop as low as the rest.
- Unfortunately, this does not skip needing to get to the far left elevator on the lowest section, because activating that elevator is what positions the right side elevator to be in the correct place for finishing the yellow platform section.
- It is possible to use this ability to get to the bottom left elevator a bit faster than waiting on the disappearing platforms in some later levels starting in Scene 5-2.
- While the red/white bar things that change length in scene 3 are supposed to kill Sammy on contact, by holding the jump button while jumping and releasing for only a few frames to initiate the next jump, they don't seem to cause any harm.
Scene-by-Scene Change Breakdown
This will mostly note what's new in scenes 1 and 3 for each level where something new is introduced. If a particular scene isn't listed, there wasn't a significant change of note.
Scene 2 varies from level to level in three ways: the pattern in which the purple platforms disappear, the movement speeds of the yellow platforms, and the flight pattern of the magic carpet. I didn't feel it necessary to describe the specific variations for these.
- 0-1
- White balls simply fall from the top left of the screen and roll right. They will either roll across the whole top platform or will fall down the hole and make their way off the screen to the right on the middle platforms.
- 0-3
- Just one white floating square bouncing around in the bottom section.
- 1-1
- A second white ball is added. This one rolls in from the top right. If it gets to the far left, it falls to the trampoline then turns back right and rolls off screen on the middle platforms. If it falls through the hole, it turns right immediately and exits screen on the middle platforms.
- 1-3
- A floating square which just moves left/right is added to the middle section with the red/white bars.
- 2-1
- Green balls which bounce in addition to rolling follow the same pattern as the white balls of 0-1.
- 2-3
- A second floating square is added to the bottom section bouncing around, and the flight pattern is different for the one that was already present.
- 3-1
- A second green ball now enters from the right top (similar pattern to the 2nd white ball). These always seem to fall through the hole (I never saw one go all the way to the top left in my testing, but I won't definitively say it isn't possible). They then bounce off the screen to the right in the middle row.
- 4-1
- Both white and green balls (following their previously described activity), but only entering from the top left.
- 4-3
- A third floating square is added bouncing around in the bottom section; again flight pattern changes for those already present.
- 5-1
- Green and white balls (with movement as previous) now entering from both sides of the screen. Yellow balls are added; these can act as either green or white balls.
- 5-2
- A significant change in speed of the yellow platforms here.
- 6-1
- Only white balls from the left here, but coming 2x as frequent.
- 6-3
- Now we have 4 floating squares to dodge in the bottom compartment.
- Pumpkin dude is a jerk here forcing us to wait an additional rope cycle at the top.
- 7-1
- We're back to white, green, and yellow balls. Now with the increased frequency as in 6-1.
- 7-2
- Another significant speed increase here compared to previous levels.
- 7-3
- Final Scene
- Floating squares in bottom section are faster and new pattern.
Other Notes
- Even though this was a considerably repetetive game, TASing it was rather enjoyable. Thankfully, I only had completed 2 levels before discovering the red/white bar glitch; so I only had to redo a little bit.
- Originally I changed the settings at the beginning of the game to have the game be in 1-player mode. However, after completing the entire run and learning that Level 7 inpus sync with copy/paste, I decided to see if the inputs for the whole run would sync for Player 1 even in 2-player Mode.
- Spoilers: They did. So I eliminated changing the mode for how many players there were and saved 222 frames right at the onset.
Potential Improvements
- Perhaps with some better RNG manipulation of ball movement/entrances on the Scene 1 stages, but only if it allows for getting to the trigger pad to activate the top rope earlier.
- Scene 2 times are mostly dependent on the yellow block movements and isn't controlable from my testing.
- Scene 3 times are mostly dependent on the top rope swing patterns which seem to be pretty consistent and not manipulable. So to improve these would require getting up to the top earlier in their cycle, which I don't think is possible.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: From first glance, I thought there were spots that I could improve...but they all checked out. RNG doesn't work the same way, as in other C64 games...so my techniques didn't produce anything from that aspect either.
I've seen this game advertised, in Compute's Gazette, and wondered what it was about. Now I know! Thanks for making this
DrD2k9!
Accepting to "Standard" for publication.
