Post by goofydylan8

Posted: 10/16/2005 2:07 AM

Post subject: Treasure Island Dizzy

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

This game is the second in the Dizzy series by the Oliver Twins, and the first to appear on the NES. It is a very short game compared to the other Dizzy games so I thought it would make a good introduction to how the Dizzy series works for people who don't know. Essentially, Dizzy is a very fragile egg with a three-slots-big backpack who goes on all sorts of adventures. You have to figure out what to pick up and where to take it to make him not die. There are two versions of this game on time-attack-able consoles. The NES version and the Aladdin version are mostly identical, but the NES version uses a black screen for scene transitions and the Aladdin version instead paints the screen in plain view. I prefer the NES version because the -last- thing the Aladdin version does is apply the correct pallete so it gives me a headache to play. There might be other changes, the screen transitions might be faster in one, I don't know, but I like the NES version better. (both versions are rather poorly programmed ports of the original Spectrum game). Here is a map of the world (Amiga version) You start at the beach on the left side of the lake. Here is my proposed route. It makes use of one secret warp (from the left clouds to the sunken ship) but does not use either of the others (totem pole to right clouds, right clouds to left clouds) because of inventory constraints. Step 1, GETTING A SNORKEL - get OLD CHEST, left, use OLD CHEST, up,leftx8,up,right,left,up, get SNORKEL. Step 2, USING THE WEIGHT - right, get 10TON WEIGHT, left,down,right,left,down,right, glitch up, use 10TON WEIGHT. Step 3, WANDERING THE TREES - right,up,left,right, get DETONATOR, right, get SHOVEL, right,down,right,left, switch DETONATOR for POGO STICK, down,right, warp. Step 4, GOING FOR A SWIM - left,right, switch SHOVEL for CROWBAR, jump upx2, rotate items, right,downx2, use CROWBAR, leftx2,right, get SHOVEL, jump upx2, switch POGO STICK for ASBESTOS, right,downx2,right,up,right. Step 5, SPELUNKING - use SHOVEL, rightx5, get KEY, leftx5, down,rightx2, use KEY, rightx2, get GOLD EGG, leftx2,down, switch ASBESTOS for BRANDY. Step 6, BUYING A BOAT - up,leftx4,right,up,rightx4, exchange GOLD EGG and BRANDY for PARTSx2, rightx2, use PARTSx2, left x3. Step 7, GRAVEROBBING - get BIBLE, leftx2, get AXE, left,down,leftx4,up,leftx2,up,leftx2, use AXE, down,right, get TREASURE, leftx2,up. Step 8, BUYING GAS - leftx3,up,left,right,up,rightx2,down,right,left, get DETONATOR, down,right, warp, rightx2,up,rightx5, exchange TREASURE for PARTS, rightx2, use PARTS, leftx5. Step 9, EXPLODING ROCK - down,left, get TNT, leftx4, up, leftx2, up, leftx10, use TNT, use DETONATOR, get COINS. Step 10, WINNING THE GAME - rightx10,down,rightx2,down,rightx4,up,rightx4, exchange COINS for PARTS, rightx2, use PARTS, right, win!

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 10/16/2005 2:23 AM

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nesrocks

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That looks like a doable dizzy game. i dont know it, i only played "fantastic adventures of dizzy" and thought about timeattacking it but I got scared of its length.. I would love to help out here but i dont know this game, so i can't tell anything about your route. Can someone else help?^ Why dont you record a very unoptimized movie of the route? it wouldn't take that long to make and people would be able to see more clearly the route, i guess.

aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios

Posted: 10/16/2005 6:42 AM

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

FODA wrote:

Why dont you record a very unoptimized movie of the route? it wouldn't take that long to make and people would be able to see more clearly the route, i guess.

That's what I'm doing now, I should be done tomorrow. The only way I can think of to make it better are to get the flippers (to avoid underwater weights) & use the right-side warp (to avoid the underwater backtracking)... but both of those require an item in the inventory to do and that means only ONE item can be carried around instead of 2 (the snorkel unfortunately never leaves the inventory for more than a few seconds at a time ;_; ) This WIP finishes through step 3 in 2 minutes. There's already room for improvement in optimisation but I don't really think it matters on a first time through. (the ROM used is "Quattro Adventure (Unl) (U).nes", but the Aladdin version works too).

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 10/16/2005 8:17 PM

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

OK, the demo video has been updated to show the entire route. The game finishes in 14 minutes. As you can see, both sides of the lake have annoying things you need to wait for.. but I have no idea how to make enough room in the inventory to take the other two warps I know about to cut out those waits.

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 2/6/2012 1:29 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

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Thanks for doing a test run, I was just thinking about this game when you posted! Your route is interesting, and if anything the main flaws lie in the coin collecting. For one thing, you could have hit the first bee while jumping forward. And when I go for the coin on the right side of the treehouse complex, one screen up, I would either climb there from underneath and proceed to the left, or jump from there to hit the bee... But that's not as clear-cut, I suppose, since I can kind of imagine how the detour you used might take less time. I do think that when you chop the bridge, it would be a good idea to check if it's worth stepping over to the left side first so that Dizzy can fall in to the right. I really didn't understand why you pogo-ed onto the island twice. It's not a problem to leave the pogo stick there if you've taken everything else, right? I expected you to drop down from the island to reach the coin on the top of the ship, but instead you swam over to it with the flippers at a point where you didn't need to go that way for anything else. I also wanted to question why you detoured to the right of the big fish for one coin and then went back to jump on the island again, but I'm not so clear on if going there might have helped kill time waiting for the pufferfish platform to descend, accounting for the two extra screen transitions, and debatable stuff like that. One could argue "Grabbing the flippers early would save you from having to wait for that pufferfish before," but that would take up another precious inventory slot, and crossing the island isn't a quick process. It's like how I wanted to suggest jumping over the very first red fish, but I just checked and discovered that while it's possible to jump over it to the right, going back to the left doesn't quite work, so it's better to get all the wait time out of the way on one screen. When you had the bag of gold coins at the top of the inventory, I think my approach would have been to give it to the shopkeeper immediately, drop the boat in, then go back and use the magic pebble which would then be at the top of the inventory. But I suppose it isn't a big change from how you did it, since that just swaps a couple of sequences around, though it may be worth checking whether it changes how much stopping to cycle items Dizzy does. I was also wondering if it would have helped to place the brandy and diamond slightly closer to the grave, but then I remembered you scooped them back up from the left after using the flippers to collect coins, so it wouldn't have made a difference unless we changed the coin collecting around. :) Just so you know, you didn't need to start a new topic. Boco already made one, although I had been posting new findings in the Quattro Adventure topic more lately. Did you see my maps of the game on vgmaps.com?

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 2/6/2012 2:03 AM

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goofydylan8

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Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

I don't know how I missed those topics. I am apparently terrible at searching the forum as this is not the first time I have missed a topic. Maybe these would be merged or if not I will just begin posting in the Quttro Adventure topic. I had actually never played the game before so the route was based off a Youtube run I saw online and just trying to optimize that one. I see in the Treasure Island topic there is a version that beats it in 14 minutes, but the link is dead. The current time can definitely be beaten by a lot with better route planning but I just wanted to see how long it would take me on this first run through. A positive is that other than the scenes with the fish there is 0 randomness in this game so even if there is 100% different route part of it can be reused. The problem with hitting the first bee was that I had to jump from the rock to hit him and once I was on the rock he was behind so forward progress had to stop. In a future version, since backtracking is required, it would probably be best to hit him while in motion. ***Edit*** Wow. I just tried this part again and hit the bee without moving having to stop. I am pretty sure there are a lot of improvements like this. For the bridge portion I tried (though I can try again if I redo the movie) and I could not get him lined up in a way so that he would chop the bridge but not fall in immediately if I was on the left side. Cycling through the other items is required so unless I somehow made an error in my test we would either need to replan the item order or have him chop from the right. Yeah. After reading this whole paragraph it is clear I need to do more thorough (essentially any) route planning before trying this run again as things like the pogo stick and the coin on the ship waste time. Here are things I know for a fact in relation to this paragraph: 1. I had initially jumped over the red fish but like you said found it impossible to get to the other side of the island without dying. If I jump over him first and then just wait to fall down out of screen I can probably save between 4 and 8 frames and I was planning on doing that for the second version. 2. I am not sure if you knew this but the red fish from 1. and the pufferfish that is used as an elevator only moves if you are on that screen so the only way to change that portion is to be on that particular screen. I most definitely need to check about the gold bag drop time and really just all of the pick-ups. I have to say my major excuse is that I had actually never played or seen this game before so this was more an exploratory learning how the game worked. When I first saw your response I got discouraged that I did a ton wrong but looking at it I think I am going to try to work on a new route and try again. Finally I did see the Quattro Adventure topic but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have its own topic. I don't know how I missed Boco's though. And I did see your vgmaps. I almost made the same mistake you made on the Quattro thread and started making my own and got half way through before realizing great ones already existed.

Posted: 2/6/2012 2:26 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

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goofydylan8 wrote:

For the bridge portion I tried (though I can try again if I redo the movie) and I could not get him lined up in a way so that he would chop the bridge but not fall in immediately if I was on the left side. Cycling through the other items is required so unless I somehow made an error in my test we would either need to replan the item order or have him chop from the right.

I see. Well, one thing I like to do in real-time runs is arrange the inventory so that the axe is at the bottom when I get to the bridge, and press B three times. The result is that Dizzy recycles his other two items back into the bottom two slots at the same time that he chops through the bridge, leaving the top slot open for collecting the treasure already. And I can't remember if this works in the NES version, but you might be able to begin walking to the right even as the bridge falls out from under you. I forgot to mention the CodeMasters logo skip in my previous post, so if you didn't already read about it in another topic, here it is: When you select your game, hit Reset immediately, and when the logo appears again, you will have the ability to press Start to end it sooner. Don't forget that Boco was planning a no-coins run, so if collecting all thirty coins added less than 53 seconds to the total time, then that's not bad!

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 2/6/2012 3:25 AM

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goofydylan8

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Joined: 11/2/2010
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I will definitely need to up my route planning for all of this. Does that work in the same way for Treasure Island Dizzy? I use TAS Editor which (until 2.1.6 is released officially) does not support using the reset command and have never TAS'ed using the traditional methods but when I tried to do that it appeared it got to the point of first input 28 frames later. Not using any resets the first frame of the actual level appearing is 402, whereas with reset I can't get it to appear until 430. I really should learn to TAS the traditional way so I can test these things out.

Posted: 2/6/2012 3:36 AM

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feos

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[offtopic]You can also look at Super Robin Hood. Offers interesting HP management, but requires some detours to remove obstacles.[/offtopic]

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/6/2012 4:10 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

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Here's a movie that gives you control on frame 240. It is important to be able to use both Reset and Power and know the difference, as Reset is required to perform the logo skip trick, while Power is the only way to go back to the game menu. Hey feos, I didn't realize until now that you were the one who made the Super Robin Hood map! It looks like you improved it some since I last looked at it, too, with transparency for things that aren't always there. I once edited your old map to have labels that show what affects what. If you think it's worth VGMaps having, you could re-edit it to your liking and submit it from both of us.

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 2/8/2012 4:52 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

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goofydylan8, I reviewed your movie a few more times, and I think I've come up with at least one good idea for improving the route. Since Hookjaw's cursed treasure is the first treasure you collect, before you enter the other grave at all, why not take the treasure to the shopkeeper straight away, then take the first boat part to the pier, collecting the large brass key at the same time? That should save you a trip to the pier. Perhaps you could also bring the magic pebble and collect the flippers on the same trip. Since you collect the sticks of dynamite alone, you could take the flippers along when you do that and collect the deep coin on the way back to the left side. This would mean you would only collect one item, the bag of gold coins, on your last trip to the left, but being able to swim on your last two trips through the water may make it worth it. The tricky thing would be whether you can push certain items ahead on the list of things to be taken to the right. For the magic pebble, I imagine you could swap where you first left it with where you left the infra-red detonator, meaning it would be only a one-screen detour to collect the pebble again after escaping Hookjaw's grave--but you'll have to drop the treasure on the right first so you don't get struck by lightning! Then if we're taking the pebble to the right in place of the grave-digger's spade, that means the spade has to be taken to the right on an earlier trip in order for the dynamite collection plan to work. If it's being brought over along with the fire-proof suit, then Dizzy will have to go back for it after prying the rock from the fissure. In this case, there might be good reason to jump to the floating island twice, or at least onto the ship again after leaving the spade at the official pogo place. Don't forget that the air pocket underneath the fissure could also be used to shuffle the inventory safely. This calls for some experimentation. Another thing to do is to go through and see if any of Dizzy's jumps could be improved so that he gets snagged on walls less or avoids rolling too far in the wrong direction.

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:46 AM

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goofydylan8

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Here is my new WIP. It is far better than the previous attempt saving 4471 frames or 1 minute 14.52 seconds. This results in a final time of 13 minutes 40.03 seconds. This time is actually about 20 seconds faster than Boco's 0 coin run. I still need to add in entertainment to portions where Dizzy just has to wait, but it is much better than last time. Let me know if you have any other improvements. Thanks a ton Bag of Magic Food for your help already.

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:49 AM

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feos

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Tip: there's a frames tag. Hover the mouse cursor. 01:14.52

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:50 AM

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goofydylan8

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Joined: 11/2/2010
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feos wrote:

Tip: there's a frames tag. Hover the mouse cursor. 01:14.52

Well that is convenient. I hadn't noticed that option before. Thanks.

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:26 PM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

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Hah, I'd forgotten you could use the dynamite without hiding behind the block at all! :P So I liked seeing the improvements, but the parts you did the same just made me wonder what suggestions you tried that didn't pan out. What about your idea to jump over the first fish while still letting it swim over to the right far enough to let you back up? And was it really more efficient to grab the dynamite from the left, after the deep coin?

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 2/11/2012 6:42 PM

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goofydylan8

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Bag of Magic Food wrote:

Hah, I'd forgotten you could use the dynamite without hiding behind the block at all! :P So I liked seeing the improvements, but the parts you did the same just made me wonder what suggestions you tried that didn't pan out. What about your idea to jump over the first fish while still letting it swim over to the right far enough to let you back up? And was it really more efficient to grab the dynamite from the left, after the deep coin?

I still need to add in the jumping over the fish and I have a few jumps that I want to try to optimize but I was more concerned with finding the best path first since it is really easy to edit earlier portions and I have to add some entertainment value. The dynamite from the left I wasn't sure on, but am almost guaranteed is faster than the previous approach. I changed it because I only wanted to enter the grave once. In the grave I have to bring the snorkel taking up one slot. After leaving the key there are two slots left available for the brandy and the diamond meaning I would have to reenter the cave to get the dynamite if I stuck to the old plan.

Posted: 2/12/2012 2:42 AM

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NitroGenesis

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I can't wait for the finished run. Anything Camerica is cool avec moi. Let's try Bee 52...

YoungJ1997lol wrote:

Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.

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