• Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.28
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Uses death as shortcut
As with the most which games I end up tasing, I had no plans to TAS this from beginning. I did have good memories from my childhood of this game so I thought I could just play through some levels for old time sake, and being a taser also made me try tasing the first level just to see what I could do. I then somehow immediately found a way to accelerate faster from the start of the level. I compared this to the run of this site and saw that it didn't use that trick. And since I understood that it could be used to gain time in almost every level it motivated me to start the run. In the end, I have beaten the previous run by Guybrush by 3482 frames or about 58 seconds.

Short game info

The story for this game is basically to help Ronald McDonald getting his bag of magic back. You do this by going from level to level in each world picking up M cards in order to get permission to continue your quest.

Speed-meter notation

The velocity on address $4b0 goes from 127, maximum right velocity, downto -127 (that is 129), maximum left velocity. Values above 96 and below 160 can only be gotten by gaining speed from slopes or performing the acceleration trick explained below. When having a speed higher than 96 you can keep it by jumping and when touching the ground it decreases 3 values every frame, this is why this run has so much jumping included:)

Improvements

Acceleration trick

Normally when you start with zero speed, as in the beginning of a level, your speed increases with contant values up until the speed 64 is reached, then it stops increasing for some time before starting again, stopping again at 80 before it increases to 96. The "Acceleration trick" makes the speed increase up to it's maximum without these stops. Perform it by jumping at the first frame that you can control the player for best effect.

Precision

Due to the quite slow control of the player, for example when changing direction, this game is rather hard to optimize. By deeping studying in the game's physics this run has quite alot better precision than the previous. And having around 12 times the rerecord count of the previous one it's quite expected to be better optimized huh? :)

Strategies

Strategal differences occur in about every level expect those that are almost trivial to play. Changes exist in level 1-1, 1-3, 1-5, 1-6, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-6, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-5. 3-6, 4-3, 4-4, 5-1, 5-3, 5-4, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4. I here explain some of the most noticable ones.
  • In 1-5 I build up speed by walking on the little slope at the bottom of the level and then turning around.
  • In 3-3 I jump down for the M card one "step" earlier.
  • 4-4 contains some changed digging.
  • In 5-1 most things are changed.
  • In 6-1 I use both boxes in a neat way and save more than 10 seconds.
  • In 6-2 I grap the M without using the box. To get this to work you'll have to jump at the last possible subpixel.
  • In 6-4 I kill the wand much faster by discovering that if you have the stone in your hands and touch the boss, he will take damage and the stone won't break.

Small route change

I skip the M card in 2-4 and take the second one in 2-1 instead.

Will I make the "all level" run too?

Well, at least not within the near future since I really need a break from this game. Of course I won't stop others from making it in the mean time.

Thanks to

Guybrush and the other contributors and authors of the previous runs.
Let me know if there's something you wonder about or want me to explain.
Happy watching!

mmbossman: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
ShinyDoofy: Will publish...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2167: Aglar's NES M.C. Kids in 18:15.97
Active player (324)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
This game doesn't look half bad. I might play it someday. I didn't see any of the previous TASes of this game, but I enjoyed the movie. I laughed at the part where you died at the finish line on the moon.
Dwedit
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Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
For a second, it looked like it desynced at Lazy Leaves.
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
I also liked the end of level stuff. Too bad I didn't notice any of the improvements, except at the magic bag. Oh well! It looked great, anyhow.
Twisted_Eye
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Active player (332)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
Very nice run, nice find on the acceleration trick The death in the first stage of the moon was hilariously unexpected haha
Joined: 12/1/2007
Posts: 425
CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
This game doesn't look half bad. I might play it someday.
Except for the flickering in the bottom left corner. >.> Nice run, though.
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
One thing I noticed that I failed to do on my very first attempt at TASing was the placement of your character at the finish line of each level. Since he always heads to the left side of the screen, did you test to see if delaying the moment you touch the finish-line would be helpful in order to maintain a position closer to the left side of the screen? This could help reduce the time that the character moves from the spot you lose control of him to the spot he ends up at the very end of the level sequence. I realized that some of the levels have scrolling properties that keeps the character in the middle of the screen, but it seemed like the end of some levels didn't have this effect. I'm sure you probably looked into this already, but I just wanted to make sure. In any case, great job, and I took the liberty of accepting this run already.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
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Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I got the feeling that it doesn't matter where you end up, because of how the music is timed: It starts when Player 1 starts sliding over to the left, and the "hit" at the end is always heard exactly when he high-fives Player 2. (I didn't want to take a chance guessing which one was Mick and which one was Mack.) In addition, I remember seeing Player 1 move more slowly the closer he was to that spot on the left, so I'm thinking the speed at which he slides over is recalculated based on the remaining distance, making the timing the same every time.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Active player (324)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
That, and the one level where the kid falls into the pit after winning, he simply appears at the proper place for the scene.
Expert player (3555)
Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden
mmbossman wrote:
One thing I noticed that I failed to do on my very first attempt at TASing was the placement of your character at the finish line of each level. Since he always heads to the left side of the screen, did you test to see if delaying the moment you touch the finish-line would be helpful in order to maintain a position closer to the left side of the screen? This could help reduce the time that the character moves from the spot you lose control of him to the spot he ends up at the very end of the level sequence. I realized that some of the levels have scrolling properties that keeps the character in the middle of the screen, but it seemed like the end of some levels didn't have this effect. I'm sure you probably looked into this already, but I just wanted to make sure.
Yes, it's best to be at an as leftmost screen position as possible. For example you can see in level 2-5 that I turn around to get a "lefter" position at the end. In some levels getting the optimal position is impossible but I always made the best out of the situation. Oh, and having your character off screen is equal to the best position.
feos wrote:
Only Aglar can improve this now.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1254] NES M.C. Kids by Aglar in 18:15.97