Post subject: Ghoul School
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
OK, so I'm not entirely familiar with this game yet, it gets mixed reviews from being a total piece of shit to being a total fun game, but seems like it would be relatively simple for a fellow like me to possibly TAS. So I ask, is there any interest in it? I have found a couple of things here and there that would make TASing this interesting. The first is a shortcut trick after getting the Spring Shoes that Tailz found while doing his "Let's Play!"-type thing on the game. The second is a glitch that allows the player to become totally invulnerable. You also need the spring shoes for this one though, so nonetheless, they're going to be vital. I need a little more research on the game, so I'll look over the FAQ, but I do know it leads to a significant shortcut not long after the Spring Shoes and Suction Cups are acquired. If there's interest in the TAS, I'll upload my video on YouTube to show it off. And for research purposes, if someone happens to have a regular FCEU savestate at the final boss with all the weapons in the game, might they be able to share it? I don't wanna get stuck at the final boss and have to restart.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Pardon moi with the double-post. So I've put up a video of the Invincibility Glitch. What you do is you go into a locker with the Spring Shoes on, then press start and go back to your normal sneakers. When you leave the item menu, you'll go in a "half inside the locker" state and be able to run around freely. You can see the video [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTBTgIdJ67I]here[/URL]. I've also been heavily planning out the route as well. Here's what I have so far: 1.) Start to Locker Room, get towel. 2.) Continue further, get Spring Shoes in weight room. -Debating in the gym itself whether it would save time to hit the scoreboard to remove all the basketballs or not. 3.) In the second gym, where the Deweytron gun is, pick up the Deweytron and perform a bug with the Spring Shoes where you can jump over the wall and teleport back to the first gym. -I may or may not actually pick up the Deweytron. If I have to in order to make the leap over the wall, the Deweytron will not be used because the damage it inflicts is pathetic. 4.) Go from the Locker Room to the Auto Shop to pick up the Suction Cups. The Suction Cups are absolutely necessary to get into the crawl space and thus, finish the game. -I still need to test whether or not it would save time to hold off on the invincibility glitch right after I exit the Locker Room (The lockers in the Locker Room itself can't be used.) and die immediately after getting the suction cups, or if it would be quicker to just leave the room. I'm leaning toward Option #1, but I don't know how much health I'll have at the time or if I'll need to switch out of the Deweytron Gun for the towel. 5.) Go from the Auto Shop to the Chemistry Lab, pick up Embalming Fluid. The Embalming Fluid is absolutely necessary to finish the game, as you need it at the end to open the barrier that imprisons the gal you save. 6.) This is the step I need to do more research on. I've watched a couple of runs, but I don't know if it's faster from here to go back to the very beginning of the game to use the massive shortcut or to just follow the intended 100% route. Basically, everything right now between the acquisition of the Embalming Fluid and getting to the Crawl Space is uncertain. 7.) Crawl Space to Air Ducts. This gets pretty linear right here, and I can easily say that the Crawl Space is one of the duller parts of the run, as it's long and there isn't really much to sightsee. 8.) Air Ducts to Basement. This place is a maze. In the normal game, there are actually a couple of trap doors that will lead you to your death if you go into them, but of course, they won't be used. There's only about three doors to go through, so it's fairly short. -The Gamma Ray will not be picked up here, as it would double the amount of doors to go through and I'm about 75% certain that the time it took to get the gun would not even out the amount of time it would take to kill the next two important enemies. 9.) Basement to End. The basement is a little bit of a maze itself. Once you make it to the door of the final boss, you have to kill the heart to continue, the game won't let you go into the door unless you kill it. Once inside the final boss, with invincibility at hand, seven hits with the towel is enough to take it out, and it's pathetically easy to hit. After that, the embalming fluid is used on the barrier to open it (even though I could just fall down there with her without doing so), which then lets me finish the game. All in all, I'm expecting about 15 minutes to complete. Tailz completed his in about thirty, and with skipping at least half the game, I figure it's a good amount to project. Thoughts?
Joined: 1/11/2009
Posts: 44
That invincibility glitch is awesome. I can't believe something that simple wasn't found earlier. Ironically, the game is almost more exciting when you don't have to stop every five seconds to kill an eyeball monster. Your route sounds good... though that isn't saying much, since I've barely played the game. Cutting out a good deal of the game certainly sounds awesome. I love seeing TASes of crappy and/or shoddily programmed games, and this fits the bill quite well. Side note: I played through the game a little, and I noticed that each jump with the spring shoes on seems to propel you forward an extra frame. I haven't checked, but it seems to be a little faster than normal walking. It might help if you're really interested in saving frames. Anyway, good luck. This sounds entertaining, and I'll be looking forward to it.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Thanks, man! I've also found a couple of things that save time as far as stairs go. The first one is when you're not going down "brick stairs", you can jump off them at any time, which is quicker than walking down them. For "brick stairs", you can run and jump onto them and skip some of the slow trek up. Any one-way staircase you can go down into the next room only to can be jumped as well. Regular brick stairs, normally jumping doesn't do much, but I've had instances where I can push myself, without any help, down the stairs faster. I haven't figured out what does it yet, but I plan to figure it out as soon as possible. The only stairs you can't really do much about are split ones going up. Also, I have to admit, I don't really think it's that terribly programmed. I think it's fairly average. It's certainly better than some games out there.
Player (79)
Joined: 7/7/2008
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This game looks creepy in every way. :P
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Glad you think so. Wait 'till we get to the end of the game. :p Anyway, news! I've got a good 4/5ths of the route planned. I made a text map of the major areas that I need to hit. The only major area I have yet to plot out (because it just doesn't play nice to the structure I have laid out for my map) is the basement area. I also figured out a trick with the towel that will make killing things go much quicker. Taking a page out of Castlevania, the towel will also hit enemies behind you as Spike winds up with it. Unlike Simon Belmont, however, Spike can turn around in mid-swing, which can make the towel count for a second hit! This should make the weight room go much faster than I thought it would. Manipulating the mini-boss guarding the door to the boiler room is not going to be an easy task either. It likes to move around up and down in some weird pattern and I'm not exactly sure how to make it stand still and take its lickin'. Sometime soon, I'll record a straight-up video. No serious TASing, but using my route, main glitches, and whatever else I can work into it, so you can get a feel of what the route is going to look like. I'd also like to use it to get some kind of semblance of how long the game is going to take me to complete from start to finish.
Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA
Rick wrote:
I also figured out a trick with the towel that will make killing things go much quicker. Taking a page out of Castlevania, the towel will also hit enemies behind you as Spike winds up with it. Unlike Simon Belmont, however, Spike can turn around in mid-swing, which can make the towel count for a second hit! This should make the weight room go much faster than I thought it would.
How many times per swing can you turn around? If you turn around multiple times, will you get more than two hits, or is the game not programmed that way?
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Only twice. Once when the towel is "wound up", and then a second time upon its release. This is as far as I know, however. I'll look into that once I use the slowdown stuff.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Okay, so brief update. I started to try TASing the thing a little bit last night, but kept getting interrupted a bunch of times, so I'll start over when I don't have multitasking to do. My plan for the first room is to kill the first enemy, then for the next three in the room, damage-boost off them when they jump. It takes a lot of good timing to get over halfway under any jumping eyeball enemy, so I briefly turn around to stop, then walk. I'm sure it's still faster than sitting there trying to kill them with the supposed "bat". Speaking of bats, after going right from the first room into the next room, my plan is to jump into the bats and damage-boost off them. Going right from there, timing is essential to kill the eyeball guy on the stairs, as going up the stairs is bloody slow and it won't let me slink under him. Also, there's another non-jumping eyeball there I have to kill. After quickly descending staircases, the rest of the eyeball enemies can be boosted off them. I'll post up a WIP from the start to the locker room if I can get a chance to do so. I'd like to gather opinions from it.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Alrighty. Again, I've never TASed before, so I've probably made a whole ungodly ton of errors here. Luckily, this is posted mostly to show what I plan to do, and also give myself an average time frame of both how long it's going to take and about how long I can save as well. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/448689463/Ghoul%20School%20(U).fcm Copy-paste the URL in your browser. Something's screwing with the URL function and I can't be arsed to play with this any further. This "rough sketch" was played at 25% speed and starts at the beginning of the game and stops after activating the invincibility glitch. A few things I found out: 1.) The biggest surprise was that I could skip the Deweytron gun. I didn't think I could, but that's one less weapon to pick up! It won't save much time in the long run, probably a few frames in the final WIP, but it's nice to know that it can be done. 2.) Surprisingly, I found out that like the towel, the bat can also hit from behind. I didn't find this out until the locker room and by then, it'll be obsolete anyway, but it could work in a pinch at the beginning. And that's a really big pinch. Improvements for Final 1.) Figuring out how to properly restart the game. I didn't realize I was starting from a soft reset until after the movie was done. 2.) Making sure I only stop once for the leaping enemies whenever possible. There were some instances where I stop twice. That will be a no-no. 3.) Redo going down the staircase. It can be done a little faster. 4.) Seeing about faster zombie killing in the locker room. 5.) Hopefully a better run with the showers next time. Especially on the second pass. This irritated me because in real-time play, I've had it where I've just walked on through plenty of times without getting hit or even having to stop. 6.) Better precision between entering the first gym and hitting the scoreboard. Mostly so I don't have to stop in-between. 7.) Hopefully much quicker killing of the weight room enemies. And not getting hit by weights. I might be able to just jump over the last one too if I'm lucky, which in turn could lead to a shortcut for the Auto Shop later on. 8.) Quicker getting into the locker and activating the glitch. What I plan to do is to finish this rough-sketch run. I'll make sure to re-list all noticeable improvements, and then I'm going to ask if it would be good enough to tighten up and get submitted. I'm not gonna do all kinds of work getting it right if in the end it's just gonna get dumped in the gruefood.
Joined: 1/11/2009
Posts: 44
Sorry to throw a wrench in the works, but I was playing around the other day and found an absolutely awesome glitch that not only allows you to zip through walls, but also completely changes the fastest way to beat the game. Basically, here's the way it works: 1. Equip the Sneakers and walk up to a wall. Make sure you're pushed as far against it as you can go. 2. Pause the game and select the Spring Shoes. 3. Hit Start, but as soon as the screen goes black, hold the direction opposite the wall you're facing. If the wall is on the right, hold left, and vice versa. 4. Now one of two things will happen: a. You'll appear just inside the wall, but will immediately begin walking out of it if you keeping holding left or right. b. You'll appear inside the wall and begin zipping as long as you hold the direction opposite that you wish to go. This is handy enough by itself, but it has an even more useful function. If you zip through almost any dead end in the game, you will be teleported to a sort of error room labeled "Warp Zone." It contains seven exits total -- four stairs, two walkways and a door -- each of which takes you to a different part of the game, letting you move around incredibly quickly. Some areas don't take you to Warp Zone when you zip through them; instead, they wrap you around to the other side of the room or take you to a nearby room. This behavior can be seen in the shortcut you took from the second gym area to the first. An extension of this trick is the ability to teleport upward through walls. If you get encased in a wall, then equip the Sneakers, you'll be able to jump through the bricks to a higher level. This can be used to skip almost all of the Air Duct maze. With this trick, I've worked out an entirely different route through the game: From the entrance, go to the locker room and get the towel as usual. Go through the gym and get the Spring Shoes. Zip through the wall to the right of where you get the Spring Shoes, taking you to Warp Zone. There, take the lower-left staircase, then immediately go back up to be taken to the corridor leading to the Nurse's Office. Perform the invincibility glitch in the lockers there. Walk down the hall and go through the Music Room to get to the Chemistry Lab. Pick up the Embalming Fluid, then zip through the wall to the left to get back to Warp Zone. (It might be faster to walk to the right side of the Chemistry Lab and do the glitch there; then you'll be taken directly to the left side of Warp Zone.) There, take the upper-left staircase, then immediately go back down and follow the staircases until you get to the corridor leading to the Auto Shop. Go into the Auto Shop and zip through the right wall. This will take you to the other side of the room and directly to the Suction Cups. Zip back to the right side of the room, exit, and zip to Warp Zone using the left wall. Enter the door in the center of Warp Zone, bringing you directly underneath the door leading to the Crawl Space. Use the Suction Cups to get in. Follow the corridor to the Air Ducts, zipping through the classrooms on the top along the way. In the Air Ducts, go through the door to the far right. In the next room, walk all the way to the left and zip into the wall next to the hole in the vent. Equip the Sneakers and jump to the top level, then enter the far left door to go to the Basement. From there on, the route is the same as if you were playing normally. I threw together a rough movie of this route, played mostly in real-time, to show you what I mean. I only tried to optimize the parts that involved zipping, and I still managed to beat the game in seven minutes. I think a good TAS of this could go as low as six or maybe even five minutes. Sorry to mess up your plan, but I think this is a really cool trick and I hope it helps you make a good movie. I wish I could offer you some advice on how to optimize the run, but I'm even more inexperienced than you. All I can really do is repeat my earlier advice that jumping with the Spring Shoes moves you forward a little faster than just walking, though the sound effect does get annoying. Good luck.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
Actually, you've done nothing wrong so far! This is an amazing find, Supper! The video section I put together was actually just a rough draft in itself I was using to test the reaction of people. Hell, if you can half my intended time with this run, I can totally take that in! Thank you so much! And I thought no one was really paying attention. XD I'll totally play around with this and see what I can do. Spring Break's coming up, so I wanna work on this during that. My ultimate goal is to (hopefully) get this accepted by the time my five-year anniversary with the forums comes up, so I can say that I've actually done something in my time here. XD
Joined: 1/11/2009
Posts: 44
You seem to have gotten me addicted to this game. Lately, I've been playing it even more than Back to the Future. Anyway, I found another weird but awesome glitch while I was playing today. This one lets you completely skip the heart miniboss near the end of the game. You mentioned in an earlier post that the game normally doesn't let you go through the door to the game's final screen until you beat the heart. This is true if you try to enter the door normally by just pressing up. But for some reason, if you move in front of the door and press up/left or up/right, you'll go through it anyway. Here's a demonstration video. This should save you a little time and quite a bit of manipulation.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
This will definitely save some time! I actually had no idea how I was going to take this thing out with ease and have been pondering it over quite a bit. Now I can completely ignore this! You are the man, dude. ^o^ I'm gonna devote tomorrow to messing around with the glitches myself and seeing what the soonest frame I can start the game at. I'll also make a list of directions for myself as well, so I have my guidelines in order. I'm actually addicted to this game myself. Blame Tailz (The guy who did the Amagon TAS a while ago). :p ---- EDIT: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1981682092/gs_tas.fcm Almost 27 seconds in. If it looks a little tweaky, that's normal, since the jumping of the eyeball enemies seems to run on a non-influential timer, so I had to mess around a little bit before they jumped, and I had to slip under at the optimal moment too. Either Spike or the Monsters has an excessively large hit box, so running under them at what should appear to be an easy walk-under is actually not. I've had Spike get hit in the hair and take damage in multiple re-records. Comments?
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Joined: 2/19/2006
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This game actually turns out to be pretty fun! Looks like it's going pretty well for you Rick. About your movie: you can jump on the stairs at frame 1548 and keep moving forward. I've been trying to find glitches, but I can't seem to yet. I'm going to keep trying though!
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner - Andrew Gardikis
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Joined: 6/25/2004
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Good eye, man! That actually saved me about 42 frames! [URL]http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1000198959/gs_tas.fcm[/URL] Here's my latest WIP. I spent at least two hours trying to find the most optimal way I could figure out to kill the first enemy in room 014...until I double-hit him with the bat by accident. That made my day. One more enemy with the bat, then I can finally never use that thing again!
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77 frames saved: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1946469167/extra-boost.fcm Normally, it isn't possible to jump over the eyeball guys, but if they are moving toward you, you can just BARELY make it over and boost forward. I think there were two other enemies in your TAS that you could do the same thing with. EDIT: interesting thing I noticed. against the eyeball enemies, if you are lower than them (they are jumping/you are on stairs) and facing away from them and attack, the back of your weapon will hit them immediately. Not sure if that's useful, but I'm thinking it could be. EDIT2: I guess it turned out to be slightly useful: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/198561684/enemy-kill.fcm 10 frames saved on the first enemy in room 014. Maybe it's possible to do it faster, I'm not sure how though. I also believe that pressing right every other frame is the fastest way to climb stairs. I guess I should have read this thread a little earlier.... heh...noticed you found what I have already. :D There is one thing I'd like to add about this TAS. You'd assume that doing an invincbility glitch would definitely be the fastest method, but most likely (because of damage boosting), doing the invincibility glitch will probably be a bad idea... well I'm thinking it will be good for some parts and bad for others. It seems to me like you have an awful lot of health and damage boosting will save quite a lot of time in the long run. Also, if you go left from the start of the game, will that area lead you to the end of the game or just items?
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner - Andrew Gardikis
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Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
andrewg wrote:
Normally, it isn't possible to jump over the eyeball guys, but if they are moving toward you, you can just BARELY make it over and boost forward. I think there were two other enemies in your TAS that you could do the same thing with.
This I actually didn't know about! Perhaps if I get really lucky, I can just skip over almost every eyeball enemy now. Nice find!
EDIT: interesting thing I noticed. against the eyeball enemies, if you are lower than them (they are jumping/you are on stairs) and facing away from them and attack, the back of your weapon will hit them immediately. Not sure if that's useful, but I'm thinking it could be.
I actually did know about that with the bat. I had it happen accidentally a couple times, most noticeably, the most recent WIP I did. The bat is a pain in the ass though and I can't wait to ditch it. In fact, I think I'm just going to hop over the first zombie guy in the locker room, grab the towel, and kill him with it.
EDIT2: I guess it turned out to be slightly useful: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/198561684/enemy-kill.fcm 10 frames saved on the first enemy in room 014. Maybe it's possible to do it faster, I'm not sure how though. I also believe that pressing right every other frame is the fastest way to climb stairs.
Thanks on both! I think I'm gonna try skipping the first enemy in room 014 using your jump trick. Also, for the stairs, there's a few places where this will be very useful, so thank you there too!
There is one thing I'd like to add about this TAS. You'd assume that doing an invincbility glitch would definitely be the fastest method, but most likely (because of damage boosting), doing the invincibility glitch will probably be a bad idea... well I'm thinking it will be good for some parts and bad for others. It seems to me like you have an awful lot of health and damage boosting will save quite a lot of time in the long run.
Actually, there's many, many uses. The eyeball enemies and bats don't cause a lot of damage, but other enemies do. The zombies in the locker room take off a full bar of health per hit. Touching the eyeballs in the weight room takes off six bars of health, and so on. The glitch is essential for getting by the plants in the Chemistry room for getting the embalming fluid because they'll jump when you try to jump over them and hit you. I have no idea about the music teacher in the previous room, though, but he's directly blocking the path. Also, it's much easier to activate the glitch from the crawl space on because you'll have to stop to attack enemies that directly block your path. There's a lot of applications and I don't think it'd make a lot of sense to turn the glitch on and off.
Also, if you go left from the start of the game, will that area lead you to the end of the game or just items?
It will bring you to a huge pile of bones guarded by an invincible enemy. Beyond that is the door to the crawl space. This was my original method to getting to the end of the game. I think I put a YouTube video up here on this thread that demonstrates it.
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I figure that if you come across a few enemies who can boost you forward quite a bit (I'm actually thinking about the very tiny enemies on the ground) that could possibly push you forward for quite a long span. I'm not thinking you'd do this very often, just maybe by switching back once or twice would save a few seconds.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner - Andrew Gardikis
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I'll have to see how often they pop up. I can think of one place (outside the auto shop), but I'm not sure how many other places there are. Might be a couple more.
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Rick and I just figured this out. No need to get the suction shoes, you can just jump up to the door that leads to the crawl space and go through it with the spring shoes. :D Pretty sweet! :)
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner - Andrew Gardikis
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
You know what else is sweet? A new WIP! http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1174413491/gs_tas2.fcm 2894 frames this time, 166 frames saved compared to the last one. I saved about six frames by tighter start-pressing, and another 160 frames saved due to using andrewg's trick of skipping the walking-only eyeballs. I managed to save between six and eight frames in room 004 by jumping onto the stairs on the first frame possible of landing on that step and still jumping. Only two enemies were killed this time, and the descent down the stairs is different, and while it may be a bit slower initially, I believe the tighter killing of the first eyeball monster and the lack of falling into room 014 makes up for it. I really have no plans of redoing the first two rooms (001 and 004) unless I can save thirty or more frames.
Joined: 1/11/2009
Posts: 44
andrewg wrote:
Rick and I just figured this out. No need to get the suction shoes, you can just jump up to the door that leads to the crawl space and go through it with the spring shoes. :D Pretty sweet! :)
Ha, that's awesome. This run keeps getting gigantic chunks cut out of it. Wonder what it'll clock in at now? Also, I think the best place to use the invincibility glitch would be the lockers at the end of the corridor that goes past the nurse's office. That way, you can damage boost off the little pink eyeballs all the way down that corridor, then become invincible just in time to zip through the spikes in the next room. Your WIP's looking great so far. Good luck with the rest.
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Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
I'm gonna guess that I'm gonna be able to shave probably another second or two off the run pretty quickly here. Turns out I shouldn't have to kill any of the eyeballs heading toward the locker room, so I might be able to save somewhere around 100 frames if I play my cards right.
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1138510283/gs_tas2.fcm And yet another WIP! 2757 frames, 137 frames saved from the last WIP, and a total of 303 frames saved compared to the first WIP. I saved another five frames in room 004 by jumping five frames earlier than I jumped in the second WIP. Another 132 frames were saved by skipping the two eyeball enemies that I killed in the second WIP. I think I'm pretty much done with this part of the game unless I can save thirty or more frames. I can easily say too that things are going to get much more interesting from here. From here, here's the plan for the next part: Locker Room Skip the first enemy. Get towel. Hopefully get a good run with the showers. Kill the second enemy. Gym 1 Carefully boost the way to the scoreboard. Jump up and hit it (no turn-around needed). Weight Room Kill the weight tossing enemies. Get the Spring Shoes Zip through the exercise equipment. Skip the last weight enemy by jumping over it? Zip through the wall!