Tails Adventures is an adventure/platformer game for the Sega Game Gear with many game-breaking glitches. Unfortunately for anyone expecting Kumquat to finish that game, she has instead teamed up with alden to show some Rubik's Cubes the real super power of teamwork!
Game Objectives & Other Notes
- Emulator used: DeSmuME v0.9.5 (8MB debugger disabled!)
- Objective:
Solve three Rubik's Cubes (sizes 2x2x2, 3x3x3, and 4x4x4) in the most entertaining way possible. Fastest in-game time.
- Screw the lag; we have funny!
- alden encoded it and Kumquat uploaded it!
Important Notice
This run will not sync unless your firmware settings are correct (go to Config > Firmware Settings to change them). Please make sure your language is set to English and your name and comment are one of the following combinations. (Your birthday and "favourite color" do not matter.)
(Note: this list is under construction. We will be adding more combinations as we find them.)
Nickname: 378TsG7f
Comment: p-Iu57rUf0bEK<3XkaRT5^
Nickname: mgstwo
Comment: 141140.141.1001.1.1...96
Nickname: Woah.
Comment: Does this seriously work?
Nickname: TAS
Comment: Goal: Color a Rubik's Cube
Nickname: TASV.Grue
Comment: Om nom nom... Om nom.
Nickname: Xkeeper
Comment: I voted no just 'cause.
Nickname: A dinosaur
Comment: Don't color me, bro!
Nickname: D. Caruso
Comment: YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAHH!!!
Nickname: POOP!
Comment: TASVIDEOS IS SRS BIZNESS!
Nickname: LOOP!
Comment: NESVIDEOS ARE SRS BISNAZ!
Nickname: Walkn
Comment: This movie does not use B
Nickname: Smilin'Egg
Comment: Is a little creepy.
Nickname: TASV.Agent
Comment: Hello, I am a robot
Nickname: arukAdo
Comment: improper Capitalization
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Stop being so pedantic.
Nickname: adelikat
Comment: <3adelikat/Nach OTP!<3
Nickname: Limne
Comment: Never heard of him before
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Yup, I get more than 1!
Nickname: alden
Comment: my head is upside-down!?!
Nickname: mklip2001
Comment: surprising newspaper!
Nickname: Limne
Comment: Sounds like chimney, y/y?
Nickname: BisqFist
Comment: Erm, I mean AngerFist.
Nickname: Noob Irdoh
Comment: Oh... It's an archer?
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Running out of ideas...
Nickname: alden
Comment: my head is normal now. :D
Nickname: Brushy
Comment: Doin' the no-pants dance
Nickname: goldfish
Comment: evolved into SEAKFISH!
Nickname: alden
Comment: woah, my head exploded!?!
Nickname: mmbossman
Comment: [lowercaseletterjoke]
Nickname: Randil
Comment: That dog is laughing. =(
Nickname: Sticky
Comment: Boing zoom Dakota! Pwah.
Nickname: goldfish
Comment: worth its weight in gil.
Nickname: sgrunt
Comment: don't read the next one.
Nickname: Warp@
Comment: A secret warp! Go down 2!
Nickname: Too Long
Comment: OmnipotentEntity's is.
Nickname: Warp@
Comment: A hidden warp! Go up two!
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Fantabulous fortunella!
Nickname: Bezman
Comment: Get equipped with WORDS!
Nickname: adelikat
Comment: can't let you do that!
Nickname: TASV.Grue
Comment: Bleh, needs less salt
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Yeah, I kind of figured
Nickname: alden
Comment: invisible pixels: !
(There are seven spaces between : and !)
Nickname: Sticky
Comment: Burnt popcorn is delish.
Nickname: too short
Comment: mz's name is two long
Nickname: Kumquat
Comment: Have it figured it out?
Story
Welcome to Rubik's World, land of the Cubies! Cubies are born here as Rubik's Cubes, but they eventually split apart and go on their own. They still love to build bigger cubes together, but they can never seem to get the colors right.
The Cubies need your help! Are you a bad enough Rubik's...Cuber...to aid the Cubies?
Charts
Everyone loves charts! By popular demand, we have prepared some charts that show some numbers about some things.
World Records
| Size | Time |
|---|
| 2x2x2 | 0.96 |
| 3x3x3 | 7.08 |
| 4x4x4 | 36.46 |
These are the times for this movie, from first input to last input, excluding spinning (see "Advanced Techniques" below for information on spinning). Please note that the first two cubes were not optimized for this timing.
| Size | Frames | Time |
|---|
| 2x2x2 | 11 | 0.18 |
| 3x3x3 | 318 | 5.32 |
| 4x4x4 | 1714 | 28.65 |
Turning Time
These are also the times for this movie, from the first frame of the first turn of the first cube on the first screen to the last frame of the last turn of the last cube on the first screen.
| Size | Frames | Time |
|---|
| 2x2x2 | 25 | 0.42 |
| 3x3x3 | 334 | 5.58 |
| 4x4x4 | 1737 | 29.03 |
In-game Time (hahaha)
The in-game timer does not account for lag, so it make us look even better. In fact, I should add "Fastest in-game time" to the list of goals!
| Size | Turns | Time |
|---|
| 2x2x2 | 1 | 0:00 |
| 3x3x3 | 20 | 0:04 |
| 4x4x4 | 71 | 0:16 |
Techniques
We used many techniques in the making of this run, so we have divided them into three categories: Basic Techniques, Advanced Techniques, and Techniques That You Should Not Try at Home.
Basic Techniques
Luck Manipulation
Oh, you know, standard stuff. Besides changing the firmware settings, as mentioned above, going through menus changes the RNG. We tried adding pauses to generate better cubes, and while the 3x3x3 cube was faster, the 4x4x4 cube was slower.
Also, you can touch the back arrow to skip three text boxes at once at one point, but it will generate slower cubes.
Slice Turn
Ah, the most essential technique of all! Without this, you would never be able to solve the cubes!
You can initiate a slice turn by touching a Cubie during a certain frame (hereafter referred to as a "movement frame") and touching another part of the screen during the next movement frame. If performed correctly, the slice to which your selected Cubie belongs will turn in the direction of your second touch!
Movement frames can be kind of tough to find, but you can just touch the same spot for a few frames and it will still work.
Advanced Techniques
Reverse Slice Turn
A bit more complicated than the last technique, but the reverse slice turn is much the same as a normal slice turn. You just have to touch a different different part of the screen after you have selected a Cubie.
You can tell whether it is reversed or not by the direction the slice turns – clockwise is normal and counter-clockwise is reverse.
Spinning
There are two ways to spin the entire cube:
- Touch a non-Cubie area followed by another area.
- Use the D-pad.
Method #1 is faster, but you cannot perform turns while using it. Thus, Method #2 is preferred.
Also, it causes a lot of lag, but who cares?
Techniques That You Should Not Try at Home
Despite the plural, there is the only technique in this category because it is just so much harder to pull off or even understand than the others! You might want to skip this part or at least save your game first.
Internal Facet Centrifugal Exertion Cycle
Okay, seriously, do not try this without the supervision of an expert – you might break a nail or hurt you wrist. Like, really badly. So badly that it hurts for more than a few seconds, even!
But enough warnings! (Who pays attention to those, anyway?) To perform this technique, start by touching a non-corner Cubie during a movement frame. Then, during the next movement frame, touch the screen in an area across the cube from where you started. If performed correctly, the middle slice should turn instead of one of the outside slices, and your DS / computer / actual Rubik's Cube should not be engulfed in flames (if it is, stop wasting your time on this nonsense and seek help immediately!).
Please note that this technique will not work on the 2x2x2 cube, and a slightly modified version is an integral part of solving the 4x4x4 cube. (If you have mastered using it one the 3x3x3 cube, you can probably figure it out on your own. If not, you should really just stick to simpler techniques until you have.)
I am so tired right now that I started playing Pokémon for a while before I realized I was just throwing Goldfish Crackers and Nutter Butters around. But I did get the high score!
I agree with Kumquat.
Possible Improvements
Spinning the cubes causes lag, but whatever. Not spinning them would only be an improvement frame-wise.
I guess you could find better cubes if you searched for a few more hours, but I think we searched through enough. Finding better solutions, especially for the 4x4x4, would be a better idea (if there even are any better solutions, of course).
Speaking of better solutions, the technique shown in
this video might be helpful, but the solver's hands got in the way and we were unable to determine exactly how it worked.
Also, you might try solving them in a different order, but that would ruin the pacing.
Special Thanks
Thanks to Herbert Kociemba and Bruce Norskog for making
Cube Explorer and
FiveStage444, respectively. Without their solvers, we would have had to use other solvers instead.
And also to the kind folks at
Speedsolving.com for trying to help alden find better solvers.
Special no thanks to Windows Vista, which caused a few problems for us along the way.
Suggested Screenshots
alden: Editing, so that this is like, the most edited submission text EVAR.
mmbossman: This is a
quirky enough movie with enough possibility for competition and improvement to warrant publication. Congrats on a rare April Fools acceptance!
sgrunt: Correcting the game name so that it isn't published with the wrong name.
