Submission #5482: link_7777's NES Raid on Bungeling Bay in 02:44.75

The Bungeling Empire is trying to conquer the Earth by developing a War Machine. Your mission is to sneak into Bungeling Bay and destroy their six secret factories.

This game doesn't seem to be too well known, but it is notable as the first by designer Will Wright. He continued developing the map editor and enjoyed creating different maps and layouts. This was the main inspiration for his next game Sim City.

Bizhawk 1.12.1

Game B one stage. I chose Game B since in Game A the battleship will not appear until round 2, and choosing Game A would mean missing some of the game content. That is important since this is an arcade style game, there is no ending. The stage counter wraps to stage 0 after stage 9 (the internal counter wraps after 0xFF). The later rounds are made harder only by increasing damage taken in round 3 and again in round 5 not by changing game content. I would note that the battleship can spawn in Game B, but it is not seen in this run since the run is over before it has time to spawn. I should also mention that there is only one fixed map and the factories are in fixed locations so subsequent stages would not add value to the run.

When I first decided to run (and eventually TAS) this game there was no map available. I created one so that I could do the routing. It can be found here: http://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/RaidOnBungelingBay-World.png

The factories gain health over time, so I move to the closest ones first in order to clear them out before they have time to gain too much health. Landing on the carrier refills both health and bombs, landing at the air base only refills your bombs. The third factory I destroy is actually a really close call. I destroy this factory with my last bomb just a few frames before it gains more health. Later in the run the factories have gained enough health that it takes more than a full compliment of bombs to destory them. I land at the air base later in the run since it is closer to the last three factories than the carrier is.

I do a sort of e-brake manuver (turning sideways and throwing it in reverse) to stop as quickly as possible. This was fairly difficult to optimize. Also, the game does accept controller inputs at all times during the gameplay (no lag), but it does not always take action. Often inputs really only have an effect every other frame (or sometimes worse). It seems like there is a fairly complicated simulation engine even though it doesn't show through in most of the gameplay. All of that said I'd be a little surprised if a few frames couldn't be shaved off with optimizations, but I feel I did pretty well.

23, 713, 2125, 4628, 6467

Masterjun: Judging.

Masterjun: So this is not a Moons game. The game qualifies for Vault. The goal is a more difficult question, since this run only completes a single round even though there are differences in the rounds.

The game has 3 game modes, Game A, Game B and 2 Player Mode. The second player plays as an opponent, meaning it is useless for a TAS. Game A is the easier mode which prevents certain enemies from spawning until the later rounds. So Game B is the correct choice.

You start at round 1 and advance a round each time you finish one. According to the official game manual, in Game B, the only difference between rounds is the amount of damage the enemies deal. I confirmed this by debugging the game. Since a TAS avoids getting hit completely, it is not a real difficulty increase and does not add anything to the run, since the enemy behaviors themselves do not change.

Thus, a single round is enough to show the whole content the game offers in a speed-oriented TAS.

Accepting to Vault as a fastest completion.

fsvgm777: Processing.