Very "cool" (get the pun...? ¬¬) game! It's a lot like Bubble Bobble, except that you go up instead of going down when you change levels.... And you throw snowballs instead of bubbles.... And you kill enemies by pushing them in their frozen state....
Anyways, you might already know it, I'm planing to *re*do it with my little brother, so it's going to be action packed!! (On the first try, we did loads of cool moves, so the second time will be even better!) We did it in 17 minutes the first time, and we plan to beat this time! 50 levels of frosty action...!!! (Press F to burn me if you've had enough of my bad puns)
Okay, it's done!! I'll submit it to Bisqwit soon!
God... If ANYONE wants to beat it, go ahead, I'm not touching this game anymore.... *dies* (well, let's just say that I'll take a LONG break from it)
Game: Snow Bros (US Version)
Company: Capcom (1991)
FVM Title: Snow Bros by The Jp's
Record Time: 16:46/60303 Frame
Full Time (With Ending): ???
Re-record: 1319 times
2 Active Players
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
3.5 years bump! :)
I've been fooling around with this game a bit today, and I've completed the first 3 floors. So far, I'm almost 10 seconds ahead of the current run (I can't tell exactly how much faster I am since the current run desyncs on all versions of FCEU, so I'm comparing against the .avi-file).
I saved a lot of time by avoiding getting items from enemies when they die. When you've completed a floor, a timer (RAM address 0089) will start counting up to 127, then you get warped out of the room. The timer starts counting up when all sprites, except the two players, are gone. So if enemies drop items, I have to pick these to get the timer to start counting. To avoid getting items from enemies, I have to kill them when they're completely covered in snow. (Note that I did get an item on floor 3, because it would be slower to cover that enemy in snow before killing him. Besides, the item he drops is right next to me, so it doesn't waste many frames at all.)
I also found out how enemies turn into snowballs when you shoot them: After an enemy gets hit by your snow attack, they will take 48 damage. When their damage reaches 191 or higher, they're completely covered in snow, which allows you to puch them! The maximum damage they can take is 255, it won't go any higher than that. As soon as they're hurt, they'll slowly start to heal - that's why they break free from the snow after a while if you stop attacking them.
One might ask whether or not it would be faster to actually get these items, since potions increase your attack power and horizontal speed. I'm sure it's faster to avoid getting items when possible, since there isn't much horizontal movement in this, and a higher attack power wouldn't save much time at all. The key to victory is to keep moving vertically! :)
Maybe this was a bit too much info, but some of you might find it interesting! ;) I'm not 100% sure I'll finish this any time soon, it all depends on how motivated I am. I'll at least do a few more levels.
If anyone else has a WIP of this game that might interest me, go ahead and post it here. :)
Here's the WIP.
FINALLY!! Someone willing to completly destroy my current "run"!
Remember that it actually hurts bosses when you continually fire at them.
There are not a lot of "tricks" you can use from my previous run, but *some* strategies might be ok...
Did you try dropping Speed Potions at the first level?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Did you try dropping Speed Potions at the first level?
Nope, I don't think that speed potions will help me out that much, and it wastes quite a bit of time to get one, if it's even possible - it seems like you can only partially manipulate luck on this game... Or are you quite certain that picking up a speed potion would save much time?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
mmbossman wrote:
I daresay that's the longest (nonretarded) bump I've ever seen. Good luck on this Randil, pretty soon we won't have any movies on the site pre-2004.
Thanks. :) Don't get your hopes up too much though, I have a bad habit of not finishing everything I start on, but I'll do my best to get this finished. ;)
I also did floor 4 today, and I used a completely different strategy than DJ FozzBozz on this level: I take the left part of the screen with player 1, and the right part of the screen with player 2. Sadly, I'm not sure how much faster this strategy is, but I know it's a little faster than the current run... (stupid desyncing .fmv's....)
Anyway, here's the WIP. Yeah, I intentionally made it exactly 3600 frames. ;) Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :)
EDIT: I'm gonna have to eat up all the words I said earlier about not getting speed drinks. I didn't really consider it, but speed drinks affect your vertical speed too! Normally it takes 39 frames to jump up one level. With speed drink, I do this in 22 frames. Also, my horizontal speed is doubled. So yeah, I think I'm gonna have to seriously consider getting speed drinks for both characters, as soon as possible, preferably on level 1, as you said...
EDIT2: After some consideration and calculations, I have decided to get speed potions as soon as possible for both characters. It seems that I can get one of each potion per level, so I should have both speed potions by the end of level two.
I'll also test in each level how much time it wastes to get the other potions. If it's not that much, say 10-30 frames per potion, I'll probably get those too, where possible, since they'll shave off some more frames here and there. The end-floor counter will start counting faster if you pick up a potion than if you pick up a points-item, because if you pick up a points-item, you have to wait for the points-number to disappear from screen.
So yeah, I'm doing the exact opposite of what I initially planned on doing. :)
EDIT3: Lot's of edits lately. I've just redone floor 1 and 2. After these two levels, I have both improved speed and improved attack power for both snow men! This will save lots of time on the upcoming levels.
However, obtaining these potions on floor 1 and 2 cost me 103 frames. However, I will save much more than this in the upcoming levels, so it's no big problem.
Here's the new WIP!
Have you considered the Blue potion too? (Takes less time to completely freeze enemies, and hits bosses a bit harder (I think)). I guess you can wait a little bit before taking that one though... But I'm pretty sure that over 50 levels, it'll save time.
The Yellow potion (increases the distance that snow can be thrown) might be a bit useless, unless in later levels you wanna freeze enemies to perform some combo or something before they fall on a lower platform...
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Have you considered the Blue potion too? (Takes less time to completely freeze enemies, and hits bosses a bit harder (I think)). I guess you can wait a little bit before taking that one though... But I'm pretty sure that over 50 levels, it'll save time.
The Yellow potion (increases the distance that snow can be thrown) might be a bit useless, unless in later levels you wanna freeze enemies to perform some combo or something before they fall on a lower platform...
Oops, I didn't update this thread in a while so I missed this post. You are right, blue potions are quite useful, so I got a blue potion for both snow men in the latest WIP (see my post above). I don't think I'll need yellow potions, but I'll take a good look at what the remaining levels look like, and maybe I'll decide to get yellow potions.
Sorry, I can't watch your WIP right now, I'm at work. But if you say you got the 2 potions, good!
About the yellow potion, I'm pretty you can wait till the last levels to get it (if you get it), since the enemy formations up to level 41 are really basic.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I have now completed the first 10 floors, and I'm about 23 seconds ahead of the current run Those who know the published run well will see lots of differences - I play almost every floor in a different way, partially in order to avoid getting items, now that I am as powered-up as I need to be.
The boss on floor 10 takes 6 hits before dying. You can't hurt him by shooting at him with your freeze shot, you have to roll snowballs at him. In the current run, he is hit seemingly three times with the first two snowballs, however, he only takes 2 damage from this, so that's why I don't use the snowballs that way.
Then there's this stupid bonus game, which I just skip as fast as I can. not much to add here either.
Here's the WIP. Enjoy! :)
EDIT: I've taken notes on how long effective playing time each level is. With effective playing time, I mean the number of frames between the first frame I can move on to the first frame the end-level counter starts counting. On boss-levels, the effective playing time is the number of frames between the first frame I can move on to the frame the boss takes his final hit.
So far, My effective playing time is 3305 frames, that is 55.083 seconds! And the .fcm is 10793 frames long, which makes the effective playing time 30.62%. Not very much. :P
EDIT2: I've done 6 more floors, so I'm on floor 17 now. Currently about 44 seconds faster. Here's the new WIP.
Are you sure that the regular shots don't hurt the bosses? Because I remember killing a boss with constant firing+snow balls, and snowballs only, and the boss went down 1 snow ball earlier... Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it worked... Maybe not all the bosses take damage from the regular shots... Or maybe it takes 30 regular shots to make his HP go down by 1 point? Just throwing some ideas...
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Are you sure that the regular shots don't hurt the bosses? Because I remember killing a boss with constant firing+snow balls, and snowballs only, and the boss went down 1 snow ball earlier... Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it worked... Maybe not all the bosses take damage from the regular shots... Or maybe it takes 30 regular shots to make his HP go down by 1 point? Just throwing some ideas...
I'm absolutely sure that the first boss can't be hurt by normal shots (I confirmed this with RAM addresses), no matter how much you fire at him. I tried firing at him for several seconds in a row, and he didn't take any damage at all. Perhaps other bosses can be hurt by normal shots, I haven't checked that out yet. I'll test this on each boss when I reach them. :)
Keep those ideas coming! :D If you think some floor looks weird or wonder why I do something, just ask. :)
EDIT: I've done a lot of progress. I've completed 30 floors now, so I have only 20 floors to go now! So far, I'm about 71 seconds ahead of the current run. I've met a few sumos now, and on those levels there's not much you can do to speed up things.
On floor 28, it is possible to reach the sumo and shoot him, but it's actually faster to leave him be and pick up the money after you've killed all the enemies.
Here's the WIP.
EDIT2: Umm, so I'm gonna have to take back what I said about bosses not taking damage from normal shots... All bosses seem to have 2 different HP meters - one for freeze shots and one for snowballs. For example, it's possible to kill the first boss with one less snowball if you have dealt at least 40 freeze damage on him. You can only deal 1 snowball damage with freeze shots on the first boss, so no matter how much you fire at him you'll still need at least 5 snowballs to kill him.
I'll probably have to redo some stuff, such as all the boss fights. It's not very much though since this game is very edit-friendly.
EDIT3: Since I'm the only one posting here there will be lots of edits. ;) I have now redone the first 2 bosses, using both freeze shots and snowballs. The first boss fight went 95 frames faster, and the second boss fight went ~40 frames faster.
I have had some issues with the slotmachine, losing about 30 frames after boss 2, but the good news is that I don't think it's very hard to manipulate the slot machines into getting 3 X faster. So right now I'm gonna analyze how randomness works with the slotmachines, and hopefully find some RAM addresses that will help me optimize them easily.
I'll wait with posting a WIP until I've done the slot machines after boss 2.
EDIT4: WIP up to floor 30, this time killing bosses with both freeze shots and snowballs. 225 frames, 3.75 seconds, faster than the previous attempt, and ~75 seconds faster than the published run. Here it is.
