BOXBOY! is the first game in a puzzle platformer series on the Nintendo 3DS. The main character Qbby can create sets of boxes and uses them to complete a series of puzzles. The any% speedrun for this game has the player beat all 117 stages of the main story.
As someone who has only made tool-assisted speedruns on unconventional games (such as WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven), I thought I could try making a TAS on a game that is more speed-focused. This is also my first TAS using tools for the 3DS and I had a huge help with BizHawk’s TAStudio. Despite the game running at 30 fps, I barely ran into any desync issues.
I’d like to give thanks to the very talented shirokirby and their wr video:
I used their video for reference during the development of this TAS and I was able to shave off a few minutes. I’m a little disappointed that my final time wasn’t under an hour, but I’m still proud of how my TAS turned out.
The biggest timesaves in the TAS compared to shirokirby’s speedrun are everything related to Spiky’s, the enemies in World 14 and in 17-4. Their spawn points are the only objects in the game that can only be active depending on the camera. By manipulating the camera to pan closer to the spawn points, I was able to make use of Spiky’s much earlier and complete puzzles faster. I also came up with my own strategies by using everything in my power to make Spiky’s move to their destination faster, with plenty of instances of them and Qbby barely surviving.
As much as I had fun making this TAS, I don’t see myself making TASes on the other games anytime soon. I do hope I will improve my skills on the other games and maybe even get a better time on this one.
Darkman425: Truncated 17705 input frames of mostly blank input, down to the last input needed to start the ending and credits sequence. This is to better represent the TAS time of the input file.
The movement through this puzzle platformer looks well done and the cycle manipulation looks optimized. The bits of playaround were also a bit amusing when they id show up. Nice work!
Accepting to Standard.
Note to publishers: the original input file included a post-credits input to clear a text box. This is done with an A press when the frame counter is at frames 235689 & 235690.
