Circus Charlie TAS by Randil
- Emulator used: FCE Ultra 0.98.16
- Aims for fastest time.
- Manipulates luck.
- Genre: Platform.
Game description:
Circus Charlie is a very simple game with 5 levels to beat. You beat a level by moving forward, avoiding obstacles and objects in your way, and in the end jump up on the pedestal. To put it simple: just watch this run and you'll understand the game.
- Level times: 3410, 3560 , 3750 , 3890 , 4270.
- On level 3, each jump you make wastes 1 frame. Because of this, I avoid jumping as much as I can on this level.
- When this movie ends, you will be taken to "level 6". This is just level 1 again, so there's no need to play that level. The game will keep looping like this, therefor this run, just like all the ones before this, only plays the first 5 levels.
- Charlie's eyes are actually etheral - look closely and you'll see that you can see straight through them!
Luck manipulation:
This run manipulates luck in the following places:
- At the start-menu: by pressing start at a specific frame, the bonus-timer starts counting down a little later than usual. This affects placement of fire-rings.
- At the end of level 1: I go back and forth for a few frames, to get the last fire ring in an optimal position, making it possible to first jump through it, and then jump up on the pedestal.
- Throughout level 3: You can affect where the next ball will appear by smashing the ball you stand on into the next ball. By doing this, the next ball will appear closer to you.
- Level 5: By falling down on the trampolines, you can affect the ropes' positions.
The making of the run:
Most of this run was done in frame advance; both to play more accurately (to save time), and also to make jumps as late, or soon, as possible, for entertainment only. When I first made this movie, I didn't know about the select-trick on the start menu, so I edited this movie (using the current run) to start sooner using the select-trick.
Level 5 is the hardest level to optimize, I think. I didn't find anything to improve in that level, so it's played exactly like the current run. The other levels are played pretty much like the current run, with some differences in jumps.
I'm sure that this run can't be improved further, not even by 1 frame. Perhaps someone proves me wrong someday, but as far as I know, this run is frame perfect.
Thanks to:
My deepest thanks and respect goes to Phil and Genisto for making such an optimized run with Famtasia. Even when I have tools like frame advance and Memory Viewer, I was only able to improve this by 1 frame. Most of the tactics and ways to manipulate luck comes from their movie. So their amazing movie deserves to be mentioned here.
Suggested description:
Circus Charlie is a simple game that most people probably know from pirate multigame carts. The first stages are easy for anyone even on real NES, but stage 3 is already quite challenging.
This movie plays "1 player game A" (easy).
Stage times: 3410, 3560 , 3750 , 3890 , 4270
This run is 1 frame faster than the previous run, due to one less jump one level 3. It also gets 980 more points than the previous run. The author would like to aknowledge Phil and Genisto for making the previous movie, and for the tactics and tricks they found.
Suggested screenshot:
Enjoy this highly optimized run!
JXQ: I actually am wondering what's the policy on an improved submission of a game that sucks.
Since game cannot be unpublished (at least not for the time being), I think the standard is (or should be) that it's better to have a faster run of a bad game than leaving the slower run up. This has happened before, and it has happend before with Circus Charlie. This applies even when the difference is minor. Thus, accepting.
adelikat: Processing (and agreed with Truncated)
