I'm not fooling anyone in April, sigh...
Anyway, I give you a run of Virtual Bart. This game is a joke I mean who's going to have fun completing it when it's as hard as any game should get, only more difficult to say the least. Some glitches/tricks were uncovered in the making of this run which help the run progress with more fluidity. Yet another game among those that suffer in the sound department, both emulation-wise and sound/music composition. This game is quite a few games in one and I'll get into that but first here's the Emulator Settings and Movie Details:
Emulator and Emulator Settings:
SNES9X v1.43+ v10
- WIP1 Timing (On)
- Allow Left+Right / Up+Down (On)
- Volume Envelope Height Reading (Off)
- Fake Mute desync workaround (On)
- Sync samples with sound CPU (Off)
(Though, settings should be automatic with the stated emulator)
Movie Details:
- Completes the Game as Fast as Possible
- Takes Damage to Save Time
- Abuses Programming Errors
Virtual Bart consists of six levels or games, if you will, and each of them are different enough to be, well, different. There's one where you, Bart, are a vandal, a baby, a pig, a water slide enthusiast, maybe, a post-apocalypse survivor, and a dinosaur (all of which are played in that order). Now you get an idea of what is to come, the submission text really begins, I guess.
The Beginning
The game starts out with Bart being in a science fair of some sort, possibly the school's but that isn't really that relevant. Somewhere in there Bart gets on a virtual reality revolving platform, helmet and all, and is spun about. The first level, as stated somewhere above, is that of vandalism.
Bart the Vandal
The objective is to tomato or egg all of those that you see except the adults; so, only the kids. If you do tomato or egg one of the adults, the game is over.
You start out tomatoeing and it's quite simple since all they do is walk back and forth at varying speeds. The gameplay is a little stiff when using frame advance but everything is as precise as I could get it. The next part of this is the egging which is a little more difficult because they, the people, walk in diagonals at varying speeds (not much different when TASing). It's all too simple to describe so see for yourself.
Bart the Baby
After the vandalism, you come back to the stage select screen and the level picked is Baby Bart. This level is kind of interesting but has annoying music, especially later on.
Bart starts out from the window sill and goes off swinging from tree to tree. This is where the programming errors start; If you look at the input display you'll see some times I have Down and B held for a few frames in stead of just jumping right off, well, that allows for Bart to swing higher up into the air which results into more distance per swing. The other programming error comes later on in this stage.
Next is on the clothesline where a bunch of projectiles, like frisbees and paper airplanes, come out of nowhere and attack. Well, luckily Bart has a projectile of his own, his pacifier which is infinite (as you've seen before the clothesline). I tried to destroy all of them but it doesn't seem like it's possible when you get to the balloon ride. Also, if you walk on the clothes on the clothesline you fall and die automatically (well, maybe not die but you lose a life).
The balloon ride is relatively simple since it moves automatically and all you have to do is protect yourself from the projectiles/obstacles along the way by either moving up or down or shoot them down. Right after the balloon ride is a racing carrier.
Here you get to race a couple of dumb-looking annoyances only your speed is fixed so backing up doesn't slow you down nor does moving forward speed you up so your best bet is to avoid them and the obstacles. The controls are ridiculous since moving up or down is complicated when it could be a fluid motion. What I mean is the controls don't allow you to just hold up to keep going up, you have to press up again to keep going up (the same applies for moving down) but moving left and right is normal. I did my best in making it entertaining and different enough. Next is some sort of circus.
After being launched from the carrier, Bart finds himself near the circus. In this area you have to jump on the balls that the seals hold (if that's not obvious enough) but some more programming errors occur here. You'll see I use the parachute but not only that you'll see I have the B button held down and by doing that, even if there isn't a platform present under Bart, he'll jump regardless which really helped this part stay shorter than it used to be. Now to the actual circus.
The circus is quite annoying, you have to climb up by swinging on bars and avoid clowns the way up. There's something funny about after using the parachute, if you hold B before landing on a bar, Bart will jump instead of swinging (this became useful). I get to a certain point in which I can have Bart swing or jump to a sort of line in which if you land on it it damages you but you hold down B you'll jump when you land on it (but you still take damage). Traveling through the rings, landing on the trampolines along the way, I get to another point in which I have to climb but this time I can't take a shortcut. At the top I have to swing from swing to swing but a little more than half way I jump down and use the parachute to get to the first trampoline and this is where things near the end of this level. So, I have to jump from trampoline to trampoline in order to get to the cannon but along the way there are all these clowns that jump on springs that get in your way. I make the best of the situation and end the level as fast as possible.
Bart the Pig
Pig Bart is, most likely, the longest stage since there's quite a few things to do. The main objective is to free up all the little piggies that are being held prisoner, all ready to be slaughtered and processed. It starts out with Bart as a pig on the first floor and room.
In this first room you need to pull the levers to free the pigs (as you'll see) and in doing so you are able to progress the level further (without freeing them, there is no moving platform elevator). Free up a few of them (three if I remember correctly) and you get to go to the next area which is further upward.
On this part, you still have to free up pigs but with a twist. You have to collect/find colored keys in order to unlock the colored locks. After that you go on to a freezer room.
The freezer room is quick because of a little shortcut that is taken. You'll see I make an initial jump in which seems to fail to make it up to the platform I seek but there's a reason and that reason is that it's not possible to make it in that jump so I make the jump in the second jump instead. I get up there and run to the right for the next room.
In this room there is a clown that can't be killed but sprays you with coolant (as it seems) and you must save the frozen pigs by sending them into the furnace room. You'll see saving the first pig with the same hook it was brought in on is not possible. The hook doesn't drop the pig right away and in doing so it wastes needed time to make the stretch of saving the pig in one fell swoop. All the rest of the pigs are saved in the first try which is as optimized as it gets.
The furnace room doesn't require you save any pigs mandatorily so that's a break but it does make you wait some of the time which sucks but what can you do. After all the climbing up I have to go over and drop down again and on the way down it looks as though I could possibly land on a platform and progress seamlessly but no, it's not possible, sadly. After the furnace room I go to the office room where I find my boss fight awaiting.
This boss fight is extremely easy looking and is, in fact, easy. You'll I bounce on the first guy's head while his friend chucks ham at him and ultimately kills him (jumping on them does no damage). The second guy goes down from the third guy jumping and making a couple of books fall on him, I just happen to lead him into them. The third guy takes two turns to kill because he makes the projectiles fall on himself and there wasn't a way for two books fall in one try. After he's subdued, I go over and free the rest of the pigs but I immediately move back to left to reduce the lag that the pigs create. Next level.
Bart the Waterslider
You only get one life in this level so I made sure to make good use of it (with TASing how could I go wrong). The paths that come along, only one is the true one because if you go into the wrong one you'll see that Homer is stuck in the tube and that signifies that that is the wrong one and if you keep going into it you will die. I tried to mix things after every path but only near the end does it become less subtle (I won't be explaining what since it doesn't really matter). This one is quick and I take no damage.
Bart the Survivor
This level is kind of like Road Rash because you ride a motorcycle and you have to fend off certain bullies by kicking them or shooting them. I tried to collect as many nitros as the enemies would drop but there seems to only be a selected amount of nitros. Going off the road slightly doesn't slow you down. That's pretty much it for this level.
Bart the Dinosaur
You may find this level tedious, I know I did. You have to climb up a mountain and along the way there's a bunch of prehistoric Springfieldians that are out to get you. Near the top there's a cave and in that cave, guess what, more climbing. On the other side of the cave there's more mountain to be climbed but at least near the end you get to go down slightly to enter another cave. I made short enough work of all the climbing as I could.
In this cave there's radioactive material, whether it be a boulder or goop, it still hurts Bart. There's also a lave pit which I timed my jumps just right so I could continue to hold forward the whole way through it. At the end you fight a boss which is Smithers and Mr. Burns. You fight them by swinging the gray boulders back with you tail while dodging the green boulders. You'll see on my way out I actually may have died a life but only after I exited the cave so no time lost there.
Now we're in an icy area which is straight forward, more climbing. After the climbing there is crossing ice water on ice blocks and at the end there's another boss fight. This time it's against Moe and Homer. The way to defeat them is simple, just smack the platforms they stand on and you'll see the platforms break slowly until they, Homer and Moe, fall in the water and that's it, the levels over and the game is finished.
The End
The ending is a little disappointing since it's real short and makes little sense but what can you do.
Thanks to...
Thanks to those in the forums for watching my WIPs and to those who wanted to see the run done: Kitsune, mushroom, Dromiceius, shallow, Joe, GuanoBowl, ZeXr0 and to anyone else who watched but didn't say anything. Thanks to the site management for giving me the opportunity to post WIPs, discuss the making, and for allowing submission of the movie.
Closing
Enjoy, I am glad to finally be done with this run and I most likely will not be making a revision since it was painful enough to TAS.
VANDAL/Samhain-Grim: Cancelled because it could have been improved and it's unappealing.
