When I saw the GBA topic, I remembered there was also an old gameboy port. I find it more challenging so I gave it a shot.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/264770762/gb%20lr%20mugg.vbm (UPDATE: levels 1 - 7) (The spots the enemies reappear at can be manipulated better in the first few levels)
It's a rather long game (50 levels) and I didn't decide yet whether this is a serious attempt or just a demo. It's probably another game I'll never finish like GB kungfu master or the smurfs improvement (because I get stuck somewhere) >_<
Let's wait and see..
Comments appreciated, as always.
I suggest starting from level 15 or 16 (which ever is the last one you can start without a password).
I think that would be more entertaining, since some of the early levels like #2 are just mostly mindless collecting.
This game has too many ports. I think the TAS-worthy ports AFAIK are:
Lode Runner for NES - classical levels.
Championship Lode Runner for NES - unique levels and timing/pace.
Lode Runner 3D for N64 - 3D!
Lode Runner for GBA - new objects, unique levels (some worlds are very challenging), fast pace, etc.
I'm not familliar with other ports including the GameBoy one.
EDIT: This run seemed OK to me.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Since I want to remove this game's entry on my TASvideos page, I'm dumping the info here:
I think the Gameboy version is a lot more demanding and complex than the NES version. There are 50 Levels in total. There's a glitch where you can climb down a solid block if you enter it when it almost fully rematerializes. Here is my first attempt at TASing this game. I didn't do a good job at luck-manipulation, so I canceled this. My second attempt starts at level 16 (the highest without needing a password). What is bugging me now, though, is some kind of RNG which determines the likeliness of a bad guy to drop his stolen gold pile. I don't see a way to play through the room where I stopped the WIP. Currently at Level 17. WIP
Note that I haven't worked on this since 2009ish, and I probably will never finish a run of this game. Yet I think it would make for an interesting TAS.
c002 2byte player xpos
c004 2byte player ypos
c012 2byte enemy1 xpos
c014 2byte enemy1 ypos
c022 2byte enemy2 xpos
c024 2byte enemy2 ypos
c032 2byte enemy3 xpos
c034 2byte enemy3 ypos
c019 1byte enemy1 drop timer*
c029 1byte enemy2 drop timer
c039 1byte enemy3 drop timer
c049 1byte room2 seconds timer**
ffd4 1byte global timer***
ffb4 1byte amount of gold until level finished
ffcc camx
ffce camy
ffd2 camx limitation****
ffd3 camy limitation
* It is assigned a number between 1 ~ 255 depending on ffd4 and decrements per frame. When 0, the enemy will drop his stolen gold.
** decrements by 1 each 0x40 in ffd4. When 0, door in room2 closes.
*** Enemy movement, where they respawn, when they drop gold and possibly more things are dependent on the global timer.
**** This value restricts camera scrolling. It is used e.g. in level 16 room2, because that room doesn't make use of all the available space.
TASing-Luascript:v7 (17th Aug 2016) (really minor changes)
v6 (10th Aug 2016)Overlay-Luascript:v2 (17th Aug 2016) (also contains v1, which you can see in my level 16~24 wip video, and the avisynth script)
Somehow I still don't like how it looks. So maybe next video I will just use no overlay or the TASing overlay.
Btw, it seems datacrystal lied in saying 2 blocks are stored in 1 byte. It's actually 1 block per 1 byte.
I found that you can stay in 2nd room forever by pausing on the frames where the room2 timer depletion occurs. (It occurs when globaltimer%0x40==0. Since the globaltimer keeps running but the depletion doesn't occur while the game is paused, you can prevent the door from closing just by pausing at the right times.)
The game resource page has been updated.
Edit: You can survive rematerializing blocks by pausing. The game kills you on every third frame or so. This doesn't work on bad guys.
Edit:
WIP (levels 16, 17, 18):
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/662947520/LodeRunnerGBTAS2016.bk2
Bizhawk 1.11.6
WIP is coming along nicely. But currently I'm stuck in level 21, trying to find the most optimal way to do this puzzle..
Edit: I think I figured it out.
GameFAQs wrote:
The puzzle here is not too bad. Just be sure to dig 3/4 when 1 starts
to regenerate then dig 5/6 when 3 starts to regenerate and wait a half-
second after you can dig to start. So the order is:
Dig 1, 2. Dig 3, 4, 1, 2.(from the left.) Dig 5, 6 from the right then
3, 4 and run to the left for 1, 2. Drop down the center, go right and
left, climb up the stairs and wait for parts to get filled in again. Go
to the spare room.
Video (levels 16~24)
current .BK2 (levels 16~29)
14 levels done, 21 levels to go.
Also saved 5 frames in level 23-2. The game seems hexedit-friendly since everything runs based on the global timer and it is reset each time it fades into a room. I think it might be possible to TAS levels 1~15 and then splice 16~26 in and make it an "all levels" run.
The run is going to be 1 hour or so, so might as well make it 1.5 hours. But I'm not going to do that at the moment, since the project is overwhelming as it is. Not sure if I finish at all.
WIP is coming along nicely. But currently I'm stuck in level 21, trying to find the most optimal way to do this puzzle..
Edit: I think I figured it out.
GameFAQs wrote:
The puzzle here is not too bad. Just be sure to dig 3/4 when 1 starts
to regenerate then dig 5/6 when 3 starts to regenerate and wait a half-
second after you can dig to start. So the order is:
Dig 1, 2. Dig 3, 4, 1, 2.(from the left.) Dig 5, 6 from the right then
3, 4 and run to the left for 1, 2. Drop down the center, go right and
left, climb up the stairs and wait for parts to get filled in again. Go
to the spare room.
Simple "reverse digging" puzzles like this are usually bottlenecked at reforming of certain blocks. In this GameFAQ it's the reforming of Block 3 (you'll have to wait for it when returning to the door).
You could try altering the waiting such as:
(Left)1,2; 3,1,2; 4*; 3,1,(Right)5,6,(Left)4,2 ->Key
Note: The bottleneck could be any the reforming of 3, 4 or 5 with this tactic. It could be slower or faster mostly depending on how much time you could save by digging 4 early and/or whether/how long you would have to wait for 5 after getting the key.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
klmz, thanks but I had already figured out the puzzle. It turned out to be faster to get the items and just drop off on the right, though.
I found that you could do a slightly better luck manipulation strat in level 21 which saves about 1 second. But the gold drop RNG in room 2 wouldn't comply. So I fear the game may not be completely hex-edit-friendly. I will try to just redo room 2 and hope it syncs in the upcoming levels. If it doesn't, I'm not sure if I'm going to redo or continue.
This kind of crushes my dreams of an "all levels" run, too... If I was serious about "all levels" I should probably do level 1~15 now and then try to append the current WIP rather than finishing the WIP and then trying to splice in level 1~15. That being said, I think I'm not serious about it. I will probably leave 1~15 out just because the workload is too much. Though I think "all levels" would obsolete "any%" in this game. Even when the run gets longer, the run would be as complete as it can get. Compare to what happened with SMB1 walkathon.
WIP is in level 31.
Overlay-Luascript:
v2 (17th Aug 2016) (also contains v1, which you can see in my level 16~24 wip video, and the avisynth script)
Somehow I still don't like how it looks. So maybe next video I will just use no overlay or the TASing overlay.
Btw, it seems datacrystal lied in saying 2 blocks are stored in 1 byte. It's actually 1 block per 1 byte.