UFO 50 is a collection of 50 faux retro games set in the 80s with a wide range of genres, it has a small but dedicated fandom.
Mortol II is the 32nd game in the collection and is a Lemmings type game where you need to make sacrifices in order to progress with heavy focus on exploration which means it's very short when you know where to go, the run only covers about a quarter of the map.
- Game version: 1.9.5 (with CoffeeTools v1.5)
- Goal: Any%
- The game is launched with a terminal code to avoid desync issues depending on save file progression.
- This is my first "serious" TAS.
Tricks & Glitches
- Corner Clip: Jumping normally lowers your movement speed in the oposite direction you're facing, it is possible to hit a corner to reset the jump; giving full air control without losing momentum.
- Tunnel Jump: Jumping in a one tile gap shifts you forward by sub-pixels, so for every 10th jump saves a frame.
- Quick Door: If your sub-pixels are aligned properly you can open doors without bumping into them, this saves 2 frames per door.
- Charge Shot: UNUSED This is a TAS only trick where you can fire your weapon while charging a sacrifice by releasing and re-pressing the fire button on the same frame, I could not find a use for it.
Quirks
- The player collision can shift by sub-pixels, I don't have a deep understanding of it but it's used to save some frames, you could probably save a bit more with a better understanding of it.
- There are nests scattered around the map that spawn bees, for some reason (intentional or not) they will never spawn any unless you attack the bee at the start of the game.
The map in Mortol II is always loaded after starting the game and most enemies move on fixed cycles, some use RNG to decide movement; in this run we only come across the wall slug which will reference RNG on where to move, luckily they cooperated since options for RNG manipulation is very limited (mainly killing enemies that call RNG). The goal is to destoy the dark hearts of Nilpis; locked behind 8 doors in the depths of the castle. There are two ways into the chamber; one is to collect 8 keys and enter from above the other is a secret entrence you are meant to access from below by activating 3 switches scattered around the map, this route is a combination of the two.
The route boils down to grabbing the 5 fastest keys to gain access to the boss room.
Keys
Keys 2&3 can can be done as any of the first 8 lives, I did it on the 5th life which is a really good spot for it, however I have not tested all of them so it's possible one of the other spots could be a frame or two faster if you can get the head slightly further to the right.
- 940 The slug is killed without slowing down, (it's a small window but not frame perfect) followed by Tunnel Jumping through the gap to save 2 frames.
- 1000 The jumps up the tree are spaced to maximise vertical speed since it's the bottleneck of the tree section, I feel like there could be a way to do the climb faster with some sub-pixel manipulation.
- 2010 I release the left input to turn around one pixel to the right, this barely lets me die one frame earlier to the wall slug.
- 3330 Tunnel Jumping again to save 2 more frames.
- 2790 While it looks like I'm quite far from the head it's actually as close as I could get, some hitboxes are just very big in this game.
- 3040 Doing a little wiggle to the left lets you get under the ceiling to the right earlier while also keeping some momentum, this saves 3 frames over just holding right .
The Climb
This section can lose a lot of frames if the sub-pixels don't line up right.
- 4020 By changing how I jumped through the room I could align the sub-pixels for a quick door (I have no real strategy for it, I just reset until it worked).
- 4080 Another spot where the sub-pixels have to line up, if they aren't you will hit your head on the platform above forcing you to use a double jump to get across, losing 12 frames.
- 4200 This is a tight jump, after barely getting out of the way of the slug I had to quickly move over to the left so I could clear the next platform while keeping my momentum.
- 4250 Similar situation to 4080, I want get into the range of the turret as soon as possible and jumping fom the other platform would be 7 frames slower.
- 4350 After barely squeezing through the bullets you have to jump up to the doors while making sure to have the sub-pixels lined up to get the Quick Doors.
- 4580 I jump in a little circle to line up the sub-pixels for the final time while waiting for the beam to fade, this lets me do a Corner Clip at 4701.
- 4740 Since I got the Corner Clip I'm able to place the portal half a tile further to the left, this saves 2 frames.
The Decent
- 4340 I Tunnel Jump to place the portal one frame earlier.
- 5800 Some more Tunnel Jumping with the bomber to save another frame.
- 5970 A final bit of Tunnel Jumping to save 3 more frames.
- 6100 Hugging the wall as you fall puts you as far left as possible while still making it over the heart with a frame perfect jump.
- 6160 The portal is placed as low as possible with the upper hearts still in range.
- The final time can be seen in the game select screen, here's a different video of the TAS which shows the IGT insted of the credits
- Human WR in 2:00.183 IGT by SuddenlyJester
- It would be really usefull to have a mod which can display sub-pixel positioning, as it is there's a ton of trial and error to get it right. I suspect there are a couple more frames to save with it
- Other categories (and non categories) that could be interesting to TAS.
- 100%, unlock all doors and activate all switches before beating the game.
- Low%, beat the game without opening any doors or activating any switches.
- Low Sacrifice%, beat the game game at 13 sacrifies.
- Boss Rush%, defeat all mini bosses (3) before beating the game.
Special Thanks
- ToastGhost & Blazier for developing CoffeeTools
- phil_macrocheira for making the UFO 50 Mod Loader
- RedRobot, Toad22484, & SuddenlyJester for the routing I based this on
- Synabler for cleaning up the beginning of the TAS up until the gameplay (and also for introducing me to this site)
- The entire UFO 50 community for being awesome!
