Submission #5232: Challenger's SMS The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck in 18:33.01

Sega Master System
baseline
(Submitted: Lucky Dime Caper, The - Starring Donald Duck (E) [!].sms Europe)
BizHawk 1.11.4
55318
49.70146011994839
19133
Unknown
Submitted by Challenger on 9/21/2016 1:23 AM
Submission Comments
The evil witch Magica De Spell has stolen Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime and kidnapped his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald Duck embarks on a mission, traveling around the world to save his three nephews and recover Scrooge's lucky dime.

Game Objectives

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.4 / 1.11.7 (18:33 v2 TAS)
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programing errors
  • Manipulates luck (To get hammer weapon, not frizbee or diamond)
It's 1 minute & 36 seconds (96,7 seconds or 5176 frames) faster than ShinyDoofy's run.
This TAS of this game introduce some Tricks:
Jump Technique
As well as Ghouls'n Ghosts (Genesis & Arcade Versions), jumping is faster than walking! It's not exactly a trick, but saves time!
Ledge Glitch
After defeating a Boss of Stage 1, 2 or 4, if Donald there balancing on a ledge at right side, instead to go of center screen, Donald will at right corner of the screen, saving much time, depending of position.

Table of improvements:

StagesIn-game stageBossRescue cutscenesTotal
Stage 1 144 174 82 398
Stage 2 180 756 133 1069
Stage 3 262 10 13 285
Stage 4 479 83 52 614
Stage 5 278 85 16 379
Stage 6 475 3 24 502
Stage 7 1838 107 -- 1945
Total of improvements = 5192 frames.
Due of emulation differences, 1-2 frames is lost during transition cutscenes, resulting on 16 frames lost on Bizhawk. Total = 5176 frames.

Level-by-Level Comments (Tables includes only Screens, nor Boss not Rescue cutscenes):

  • Time saved with Jump in each stage.

Stage 1 - Forest

(No table because this is only stage that includes 1 screen and a boss)
  • A trampoline of this stage is skipped, saving 20 frames.
  • After grab the vine, jumping immediately on the land mantains the speed gained on the vine until Donald reaches on the land.
  • The boss is defeated attacking as soon as possible. After this, the Ledge Glitch is used, but swinging the hammer saves more frames than normally.

Stage 2 - River

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 10
Screen 2 114
Screen 3 34
Screen 4 22
  • Screen 2 - 114 frames is saved by a different route and a careful optimization on the waterfall descending.
  • Screen 3 - In the published run, taking damage on the only swimming path (GG version has 2 swimming paths), was a big flaw! It's horribly slower both on Screen 3 and on Boss. Fixed this problem.
  • Using a hammer on the boss does 2 damage than Jump, which does 1 damage.
  • It's not possible to control Donald after defeat this Boss, resulting on a normal Ledge Glitch. This problem occurs only in this stage.

Stage 3 - Aztec Ruins

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 42
Autoscroller 1 19
Screen 2 158
Screen 3 18
Autoscroller 2 22
  • Autoscrollers 1 & 2 - Jumping before of finish of autoscroller makes Donald to gain more speed until lands.
  • Screen 2 - Thanks for RNG Manipulation, I changed the 2 pig enemies to 2 vases, to destroy the 4 blocks much faster. After destroy the last block, it's necessary to wait for some frames, otherwise, Donald will get hit and loses a hammer.
  • The boss of this level has a stupid longer invicibility time after each hit.

Stage 4 - Hawaii's Island

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 95
Screen 2 88
Screen 3 89
Screen 4 274
Screen 5 28
Screen 6 14
Screen 7 -58
  • Screen 1 - A pause game is used to manipulate the fireballs of second statue enemy.
  • Screen 3 - After grabs the Key, pressing down for 1 frame saves 2 frames to a little faster turnaround.
  • Screen 4 - Taking damage on Statue's Tongue saves aproximately 134 frames. The rest of improvements is better optimizations.
  • Screen 5 - Better optimization near the end.
  • Screen 6 - The worst part of SMS version of this game. You must wait. No comments.
  • Screen 7 - Sadly, in Screen 7, I lost 117 frames to pick up this hammer again. Because taking damage on SMS version makes Donald to lose the hammer.
Due of this, taking damage improvement results on a very little timesaver.

Stage 5 - Pyramid of Desert

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 29
Screen 2 85
Screen 3 14
Screen 4 14
Screen 5 72
Screen 6 38
Re-Screen 5 26
  • Screen 3 - A very very little timesaver: walking on the second moving platform (right direction).
  • Screen 4 - A other boring part! 14 frames is saved on this path due of a different RNG. Unexpected!
  • Thanks again for RNG manipulation, the snake is manipulated to save time on the last 2 hits.

Stage 6 - Antarctica

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 370
Screen 2 10
Screen 3 9
Screen 4 58
Screen 5 28
  • Screen 1 - Wind direction is manipulated to right direction in all times.
  • Screens 2-5 - Better optimizations.

Stage 7 - Magica de Spell's Castle

In-game stageFrames saved
Screen 1 22
Screen 2 34
Screen 3 6
Screen 4 70
Screen 5 238
Screen 6 24
Screen 7 416
Screen 8 (skipped) 503
Screen 9 30
Screen 10 138
Screen 11 158
Screen 12 160
Screen 13 38
  • Screen 1-3 - Better optimizations.
  • Screen 4 - Avoiding Magica de Spell's Paintings is very difficulty.
  • Screen 5 - Thanks for a ghost (I stopped Donald for some frames to manipulate this ghost), I take a shortcut without waiting for a second vertical platform. Some seconds is saved!
  • Screen 7 - New shortcut in this screen! More several seconds is saved!
  • Screen 8 - Skipped part thanks for hitting on the spikes on the final of previous room.
  • Screen 10 - Taking damage on a spear allows Donald to bypass this spear without waiting. More tive is saved!
  • Screen 11 - Green ghost is manipulated to appear faster and Jumps to reach on a wrong vertical exit.
  • Input ends with a bigger Jump to destroy the Orb. NOTE: Any movement of Donald will changes RNG attacks of Magica de Spell. Caution with this strategy without a weapon.
Special Thanks to
  • ShinyDoofy, for this published run.
  • wwmarx, for some improvements.
  • KrazyRasmus, for two screenwraps on Stage 7.
Suggested Screenshots

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
It should be noted that as this game has an official PAL-M (Brazil) release, it is acceptable to play this game with NTSC settings for the increased framerate. However, any improvement to this run that uses this should still beat it on a technical level in order to obsolete it.
fsvgm777: Processing.
Last Edited by adelikat on 10/19/2023 12:47 AM
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