About the game

The objective in this game is to blow at a bubble to guide it through a house. If the bubble hits any obstacle or wall, the bubble pops and the player loses a life. The player can blow at certain obstacles like candles to put out the flame.
There are other ports for this game, but only very few are TASable and I'm not familiar with the emulators of any of those ports. Also, the graphics distinguish very much from the gameboy port. I grew up with the gameboy port and I prefer this one over any other version there is.

About the run

  • Uses programming errors in the game (small hitbox abuse, animation skip)
  • Genre: Action
Used emulator: VisualBoyAdvance v21-interim
There are two time-saving tricks:
- By pressing the button at a certain frame, the bubble will cover more distance. If you blow at the bubble the frame after this frame, the distance the bubble would cover decreases (it slows it down). The special frame to blow the bubble is about every 18th frame.
- If the ghost faces downward at the time the bubble hits the end of a room, most of his victory animation will be skipped, saving time.

Level-specific

Hall 9: The upper route is impossible.
Hall 13: I could have blown at the elephant for points, but it adds 2 lag frames so I didn't.

Possible improvements?

The only theory for an improvement I could think of is to alternate between diagonal and horizontal (or vertical) movement because the special frames seem to be different for either of these directions. Instead of getting the special frame every 16th frame, it might be possible to get it every 8th frame while alternating between directions. I didn't test this idea.

Closing words

Enjoy the run.

FractalFusion: Judging.
FractalFusion: Good viewer response, and the author keeps it interesting by staying as close to obstacles as possible. Accepting for publication.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2726: MUGG's GB Bubble Ghost in 04:41.07
KennyMan666
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I had this game when I was a kid and it frustrated me to no end! The music is pretty rocking. Probably gets repetitive in normal play, though. Clear yes vote.
Det man inte har i begåvning får man ta ut i energi. "I think I need to get to Snoop Dogg's level of high to be able to research this post." -Samsara Read my fanfic, One Piece: Pure Corruption
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First of all, I LOVE Bubble Ghost, it's one of my favorite games of all the times, and I even wanted to make a TAS of it some time ago. Unfortunately I suck and I never finished it, so I am happy to see you did this. It should be noted that I have a different Bubble Ghost ROM (according to VBA, yours has a crc of 199 and a check of 30653, and mine has a crc of 221 and a check of 28257) however it synced perfectly so if someone else has the wrong ROM, they shouldn't worry. Now to the actual vote. I would have given this a very solid Yes vote, it was being wonderful, up until I saw you taken the shortcut in level 14, and the other one later ( This is the kind of game which DESERVES a 100% run, therefore I vote meh because while I'd love to see this published, I beg you to consider to make a 100% completion without shortcuts.
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Nice Job. Yes vote. I liked it.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
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Good run of a nice looking game, yes vote.
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I was pretty bad at this game in my childhood... glad to see what happens when it is actually beaten. Archive collection Archive download YouTube (HD) Dailymotion A note to publishers, do not publish this encode... this game has a credits sequence that can only be activated by completing the game and I didn't realize this, because I am lazy, you'll have to reencode this yourself. For those looking for a challenge, make a lossless video stream smaller than 1.5 megabytes. I did.
Patashu
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That music is incredible. Thank goodness zophar.net has it, or I might have gone insane.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
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The first levels were quite boring, but the last ones kept me interested. The run seemed overall really optimized. Yes vote
mklip2001
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Nice run! After the first few levels, the play gets interesting. I also like the music. The game started to get a little repetitive near the end, though, so I don't know whether a 100% run would be a good idea. In any case, it seems like an any% run belongs on the site. Out of curiosity, you mention a potential improvement by alternating diagonal and horizontal movement. If this actually worked, how much time do you expect it would save? (i.e. is this enough time to merit a delayed submission?)
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
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mklip2001 wrote:
Nice run! After the first few levels, the play gets interesting. I also like the music. The game started to get a little repetitive near the end, though, so I don't know whether a 100% run would be a good idea. In any case, it seems like an any% run belongs on the site. Out of curiosity, you mention a potential improvement by alternating diagonal and horizontal movement. If this actually worked, how much time do you expect it would save? (i.e. is this enough time to merit a delayed submission?)
I think it would save about 10~100 frames? Not sure, but changing the direction always seemed a bit weird to me. I don't want to TAS this game again. A 100% run would best be described as "best score" run so you have to blow at all the objects that give you points and play through all the rooms. However, "best score" might involve some shortcutting, then going back (because you get the score for a room after you finish it and the shortcut or wrong way might turn out faster than the intended way).
caitsith2
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Encoded with the credits. Archive.org or Direct Link Screenshot
NitroGenesis
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I voted Yes. Cute game and nice music.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Joined: 2/20/2010
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I played this on my commodore 64 a loooong time ago and can appreciate the superhuman qualities of the run, as it is a very frustrating game, but that said, I'm sorry to say I was pretty bored watching this. It's no fault of MUGG; his run is solid, and I think little can be done to make the game more interesting to an observer. The exploited glitches are neat tricks, but don't add much to the entertainment value (at least for me). The music is excellent, but I am compelled to vote meh.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
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. ---- [1568] GB Bubble Ghost by MUGG in 04:41.07
Joined: 7/8/2009
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you made the game look too easy! good job (yes)