OK,
here is the first real attempt at TASing the game. It's the first level player with all the tricks I've found in the game, and it's 2092 frames faster than the first WIP.
I'm aiming for:
- 100% kills. (Everything that shows in the screen, dies! >:)
- Fastest speed.
- No damage. (Taking damage doesn't seem to give any advantage)
Also, I've discovered several interesting things:
- The walking speed of Pocky's companions is the same as Pocky's.
- Even powered up, cards always do the same damage. Only thing that changes is direction (first power up) and size (second power up).
- The collision detection is BAAAAD. Pocky can avoid shoots by pixels, but the enemys will die from a card that is visually far from them. Only the fishes seem to have a smaller collision box.
- The scroll is EVIL. I still don't know how to make the screen scroll when it stops (p.e: the crossroad).
Tricks:
- The four frame multidirectional card machine gun:
This is a way of shooting a card every four frames in any direction. Frame by frame, it is:
1 - Direction you're walking + shoot.
2 - Direction you're walking.
3 - Direction you want to shoot the card.
4 - Direction you want to continue walking.
5 - GOTO 1.
- The three frame unidirectional card machine gun:
This is a way of shooting a card every three frames, but only in one direction. I try to avoid using this, because it makes Pocky lose her momentum. In this WIP it's only used before the last gate against one of the evil trees. Frame by frame, it is:
1 - Direction you're walking + shoot.
2 - Direction you're walking.
3 - No input.
4 - GOTO 1.
By the way... Is this post well written? :P. English is not my mother language, so I beg you: Please, correct me when I write something wrong.