User Files from FatRatKnight

Shh... Secrets. Stand-alone script.

This script combines the virtues of both the terrain tiles and the hitboxes scripts, but pastes the info onto a separate canvas. The viewing area is 2x of the game's normal viewing range, so we're seeing half a screen out in each direction past the visual boundaries. It's a heavyweight script, so be aware of slowdowns when running it.

The terrain tiles loading is not aware of the tiles script, so if both are running, there will be two copies of the same data loaded into lua. They are several hundred KB in size, so do be aware.

Shh... Secrets. Script #3, intended to be run third.

Displays a few different stats for each onscreen object, like HP, invincibility timer, and stuff. Top-right has position info, lower-right is our RAM watch dump, and top-left has a few timers in mind. Lower-left gets the object counts for lag reasons, and the bottom is our item drop finder.

Well, it's the basic script. Not a lot to say, really.

Shh... Secrets. Script #2, intended to be run second.

This script is the one with the hitboxes. All of them, player, projectile, enemies, and items. They are color coded, too. Enemies are colored based on HP, with zero or negative given a vastly different color. Player projectile is colored based on whether it does damage, rather important for the Muzzle Flash I'm sure you're all frustrated with by now. This is what the game was doing to detect all those hits. Also nice to know what's happening with the basic projectile when changing weapons.

Oh, and this script has rescaling, with M and N keys, so we can see off-screen enemies. Only problem is the other scripts aren't rescaling, so... Uh, enough embarrassment, and stand in awe of my ROM diving skills. Finding and then following pointers around can be fun.

Shh... Secrets. Script #1, intended to be run first.

This script paints an overlay on the screen, showing what type each tile is, in convenient color coding. This is what we use to know exactly when air ends and walls begin. Seriously, there are spikes that aren't there in Stage 4, walls that aren't there in the sixth stage part of END, and plenty of floor clips that this script makes apparent very quickly. Also be sure to look for backward slopes in the intro and Stage 4, too.

Note that the script takes a few seconds to load all the tiles into lua tables, as this method means I won't have to do several memory reads to get the right pointer, adjust it, then fetch the right tile. The script is much slower in runtime without this loading step. Also, this required some ROM diving, and I had better hope this thing is useful!

Intent of the script is to state how many frames it took to complete the immediate segment, as well as how long it takes to do the stage. The state machine in it insists that it sees the beginning of a stage before it starts doing its counting. Hopefully, this will make comparisons easier. If anyone has ideas on better measurement points, I don't mind suggestions.

I've commented out a piece of code, around line 145, that would report how many frames you spent traveling at each pixel/frame. The script is keeping track, just that it won't print the actual stuff without that stuff I commented out. It's cleaner without it, but if you want the added information, go find that spot.

This is a test run. Route information:

Basically, I maximized Ella's distance as far as it will go. Out of all the Par 4 holes throughout the entire game, only a single one during Links was possible to get in one stroke, though another in Mushroom Tourney was close. As for whether the added distance of Super POW is worth the 2 minutes, that's hard to say. This is a test run, after all.

I'm given the impression Neil can reach a fair number more Par 4 holes in one fewer shot. However, there are times in later holes where I felt the low Height was needed for any sort of reasonable speed, and it's likely that Neil's Height will destroy our speediness, whether it saves a bunch a strokes or not.

Another nine holes. A Height of -2 instead of +3 is definitely a difference. A lower level means we'd have more Height and less Drive.

Give Up on Marion Hole 4 (+12) and two of the more awkward Par 4 holes (+10 each) for a score of -7 gives us less levels, which affects us for the rest of the run. For reference, the Marion champ Joe gets +3. Is a tie score enough to reach the last tournament and see the credits anyway? Hard to say if the initial savings we get from that will pay out more than the losses later. A run that gets the best possible will give us more information in case someone else wants to Give Up some of these holes later.

While browsing through Mario Golf's Glossary, I did spot this:

Worm Burner
A shot with an extremely low
trajectory that skims or appears
to skim the ground.

Curious how well that describes some of these shots.

Poor Ella. Didn't notice the glue on the 1W, so she swung that the whole tournament.

The strategy mainly revolves around doing anything possible keeping shots low. The choice of chip-in or flag shot depends on the situation. Flag shots are nice, since the ball can be flying at ridiculous speeds and still come to a complete standstill the next frame, but it's fully possible said speed would have the ball exist before the pin one frame and exist in the space after the pin on the next frame.

A hole-in-one will never call a chip-in message, but will call the flag shot message if you do that, so for Par 3, I always opt to avoid the flag. On the second stroke, either way will call a time-wasting message, so I pick one or the other on the situation.

Some manipulation on weather and pin position was done, and I cleared three of the four Par 5 holes in 2 strokes. 701 EXP, enough to hit level 12. Hard to say if Give Up is faster after after whatever difference in levels. Took a few moments to art up the first few shots, so look at that ball picture on the bottom right corner if you're bored.

For adjusting shots, TAStudio, Follow Cursor OFF, Auto-Restore Last Position ON. I did find that feature convenient.

EDIT: I called it 11 minutes before. Perhaps 12 minutes is better. I'll let someone else decide the nuance of the exact timings.

VBA 23.6, also not for BizHawk. If it can be converted, go for it!

I recall getting through Marion with Ella and POW clubs. View it if you like.

VBA 23.6, I think. Sorry, not for BizHawk, unless someone's got a good conversion tool and can have it sync fine.

I don't remember how far I got with Neil. Not very far, I recall.