Submission #4131: Noxxa's GBC Tintin in Tibet in 15:10.54

Tintin in Tibet in 15:10.53 by Noxxa

• Old version:

Game objectives

• Emulator used: BizHawk v1.5.3
• Aims for fastest time
• Plays on hardest difficulty
• Takes damage to save time
• Manipulates luck
• Goes through a way too high rate of autoscrollers

About the game

Gameplay notes

• In general in this game, hitboxes tend to be quite big and unforgiving.
• Jumps are fixed height.
• Falling from too high causes instant death. Sometimes I'm just a few frames from this happening.
• Tintin's physics are a little weird. Running, and then letting go of the forward direction for just a single frame causes Tintin to decelerate to a stop before moving forward again. This is generally annoying, because whenever it means I can't reach a small platform without having to adjust position, there's a significant stop in Tintin's movement.
  • The improved version gets past this issue by pressing select to toggle walk/run in mid-air. Doing this causes Tintin to go to walking speed without decelerating to a stop.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1 - Train

• Run right for justice, ahoy!
• The steam from the locomotive cannot be jumped over without taking damage. Yes, we are barely 10 seconds into gameplay and the hitboxes are already being unfair.
• It may not be obvious when watching, but landing on the second-to-last platform triggers a cutscene. Just mentioning in case Tintin's movements seem odd.

Stage 2 - Rapids

• The first autoscroller in the game. The game doesn't allow for a lot of room to create entertaining situations.
• I pick up the 1-up in the stage just for the fun of it. In fact, I do this most of the time whenever it doesn't cost time.

Stage 3 - Hotel

• This stage is boring. Run around, jump over a dog or waiter, enter elevator, talk to somebody, repeat a couple times.
• There are a few random patterns regarding on which floors Captain Haddock is spotted. The order is determined at the start of the stage. I luck-manipulate for the sequence to be as short as possible, requiring minimal backtracking with the elevator.
• Watching the television is required for the plot to advance.
• Jumping into cutscene triggers sometimes places Tintin a bit more forward, saving a few frames here and there. This is first done with the receptionist and the television here.

Stage 4 - Kathmandu

• The guys who walk around and wield logs have such a wide hitbox that they can't be jumped over without taking damage. (You're supposed to get by them by crouching while they walk past, but this is very slow). Because of this, I take a lot of damage in this stage.
• After the kid runs off, there are two routes to the right; one going downstairs, and one going directly to the right. I take the latter option; this requires me to wait a bit for some of the falling objects, but the bottom route has one of those log guys, and I can't afford taking any more damage in this stage.

Stage 5 - Dog Chase

• A traditional autoscroller. There's only so much that can be done with moving next to death boundaries and goofy physics.

Stage 6 - Highlands

• For the first time since stage 1, we're getting actual platforms back in the platforming again. And for the first time in the whole game, it's not just running to the right for justice.
• The yaks that stand still obstruct the way, and can only be moved by picking up fresh grass on a few particular areas, and dropping it near the yak. However, I skip having to do all this by abusing a 1-pixel gap behind the first yak, and taking damage from the second yak the second yak is skipped entirely.
• The biggest improvement over the initial version is in this stage. By taking damage from a falling rock, it's possible to get over one of the very steep cliffs and skip about half of the stage this way.

Stage 7 - River

• Another swimming stage, like Stage 2. However, there's a noticable difference this time; this area contains many climbable rock platforms, and when climbing those, the autoscrolling stops, and Tintin can jump ahead (until falling in the water again). In most cases, doing this saves a bit of time.
• On a few occasions, I skip climbing a rock platform; this is either because it'd lose time because there's another (better) rock platform coming soon, or it's because jumping off the rock platform would lead me into a whirlpool and kill me.

Stage 8 - Slope

• Another autoscroller! It at least has the element of speed, but...not much else. Just repeated jumping over rocks and boulders.

Stage 9 - Mountain Ascent

• Another platforming stage, and fairly similar to Stage 6. This stage has slipperly floors, but it's not very noticable.

Stage 10 - Crash Site

• More platforming, but this time, Tintin needs to carry bags around in order to make some jumps. It seems the game designers paid careful detail to this, as many jumps are literally single frames off being possible without the bags. But alas, there isn't a way to sequence break past any of the designed bag jumps in this stage. Annoyingly, this means there's a load of slow movement while carrying bags around the stage.
• In the improved version, a new trick is used to stand on the topleft-most bag while it is falling down in order to collect it again from the ground faster.

Stage 11 - Cave

• This is mostly the same as stage 10. Carry rocks around to get to places. The cave's layout is very weird, but in the end, the route is mostly linear.

Stage 12 - Mountain Wall

• In this stage, Tintin has to climb vertical walls. This movement is annoyingly slow, but fortunately the stage is not that long.
• Diagonal movement is faster horizontal-speed-wise than just horizontal movement. Vertical movement is the same, however.
• A bit over halfway through the stage (before the platform with the apple), a frame-perfect jump allows me to skip a significant section of the stage.

Stage 13 - Mountaintops

• This platforming stage features wind, which has a very significant effect on Tintin's speed.
• The duration of the wind is random and can be manipulated. The direction can also be manipulated, but only every other time - every second gust of wind always goes in the opposite direction of the one before it. I manipulate the forward wind to be as long as possible, and the backward wind to be as short as possible.

Stage 14 - Lama Monastery

• This stage is basically a gauntlet of puzzle minigames. There are four minigames in total, with three 'rounds' in each.
• Every minigame involves random patterns, which are manipulated to be executed or solved in the shortest amount of time. The RNG is frame-based, though, so I can't manipulate too much or I'd lose too much time on manipulation. I need to find the right balance between luck manipulation and quick completion time in order to get the fastest overall time.
• At least thanks to luck manipulation and fast cursor movement, most puzzles are solved impossibly quickly.
• I wrote a small bot in order to optimally solve the library minigames.
• The final minigame (bells) was annoying to optimize. Not only are the notes random, but which bell plays which note is also random.

Stage 15 - Yeti Cave

• The Yeti shadows appear at fixed points, depending on the camera position. Their duration is also fixed.
• Some of the falling stalactites can only be passed from underneath with pixel-perfect X positioning. Others can't be passed from underneath at all.

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