Submission #5573: link_7777's NES Alfred Chicken in 11:32.04

Alfred Chicken

Emulator Used

Game Objectives

• Beat the game

Mechanics

• Left/Right Move left and right
• Down peck (while standing), dive (when in mid-air). A sufficiently long dive turns Alfred into a rocket that will go through blocks. Hitting the ground as a rocket results in an earthquake, but you can cancel the rocket with the "A" button.
• "B" fire bullets (while in Meka-Buster Ship), fire bombs (in-stage weapons not collected in this run)
• "A" jump (while standing), float (when in mid-air)
• Floating when near the top of a jump (or just after spawning near a platform) can bring you down faster (presumably float speed is faster than initial falling speed). This is used in several places to float down to a platform faster.
• Springs bounce Alfred up. You can land softly on one when floating and jump to spring off, or you can land on it with speed (different speeds result in different bounce heights).
• Buttons activate/deactivate special blocks
• Control block directs some mines, direction changes clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on the direction Alfred is facing
• on/off block activates/deactivates some mines

Stage by Stage Commentary

Stage 1

• Basic platforming

• This room is way more complicated than it looks. The main issue is the green platform cycle, but the secondary issue is the mouse by the balloon. I kill the two mice near the spawn point and the extra time doing so actually cost me a frame on the platform cycle, but saved a few overall on collecting the balloon and getting out the door.

• More platforming

• Auto-scroller bonus game

Stage 2

• Basic platforming

• This room only contains bonus stuff, so I just leave

• Peck an ice block to release a moving platform. Turn on the star blocks so we can leave.

• platforming

• Turn off the star blocks. Sneak through hidden gap in the 'A' block to skip long water section.

• The setup here is a little strange, it seems like i'm mostly waiting for a platform cycle, but additionally I'm also manipulating the top platform. It seems the game gives priority to stuff on the screen, presumably to reduce lag. Some of my movements here are so that the top platform moves a favorable amount.

Boss 1

• A few enemies appear in a fixed pattern before the boss. If they reach your level (Y direction) they will explode and shoot projectiles (X direction). I don't let them get that far.
• The boss chases you in a sine wave pattern. Ideally it would be nice to kill the boss in a quarter cycle, but frustratingly he bodies you one frame before you can do enough damage. As a result I need to back off a bit earlier and chase him back down for the last few shots.

Stage 3

• There are several possible routes here, but it was fastest to go get the second balloon, backtrack for the first, and go through the door to head to the third. Interestingly the route of first balloon, door, third balloon, second balloon, door again is only slower by a handfull of frames.
• The skull blocks are designed to disintigrate when you land on them, but landing/jumping on the corner will leave it in tact.
• The top area has several options, but it was fastest to go around the left side of the snail. Waiting for it to move and sneaking up to the right of it was slightly slower. It is also possible to climb higher to a point where your dive will turn Alfred into a rocket, this breaks the blocks quickly but is not worth the extra climbing time.

• Rocket dive

• Taking the bottom route gets you stuck waiting for a snail, so it is slightly faster to take the top route and backtrack for the balloon.
• Turn the diamond blocks off and the star blocks on

• platforms

• There is a secret path down if you jump off the top of the screen to the left.

• Auto-scroller bonus game

Stage 4

• A door to room 2

• A control block is used to direct the mine through the blocks so that you can turn on the moon blocks and get out of the room.

• Platforms. The platform cycle by the spawn point is kind of bad, but I don't think much can be done about it. You can spring all the way through the blocks, but landing softly and then jumping you can sneak through the hole in the left wall.
• I get just enough height here to turn into a rocket just before hitting the blocks.

• The platform cycle isn't perfect to start with, but it gets worse later.
• The climb seems reasonably quick, and it was slightly faster to get the balloon before hitting the switch to turn off the moon blocks.
• After this i float to the top book on the far left and stand still. I intended to play around, but any playing around made the platform cycle significantly slower. The platform we need is off screen to the left and with all of the platforms and enemies here any extra activity causes our platform to stop moving.
• Luckily I had a good cycle on the platform that moves vertically and it didn't get in my way.
• A control block is used to move one mine though the maze so it can free up the other to turn on the diamond blocks.
• Interestingly I leave the room quickly enough to leave the diamond blocks in a glitched state. They are active and solid, but they are displayed as though they are inactive.

• Bad platform cycle when spawning into this room, but I don't see a way to manipulate.
• The mine is in a bad place, jumping around it to the left was slightly faster than waiting for it.

• Here we have a better view of the glitched diamond blocks.
• Turn the mine on/off/on so it turns off the diamond blocks, then hovers over the moon block switch.
• Hit the off at the end of the room so the mine turns on the moon blocks and lets us out of the room.

• This room is a bit dangerous for casual play, but in this run I drew the mine upwards as much as possible while waiting for the platform cycle. This way i could get it to the star switch as soon as possible.

• I play around near the spikes (...pencils?) while waiting for a bad platform cycle, then head to the last balloon.

Boss 2

• More enemies before the boss.
• The boss has the same pattern, but this time he has a mine hovering around him. As a result i needed to move across to the right to chase him down.

Stage 5

• Platforming. Turn on star switch so we can get through the door.

• More platforms. I collect a can of worms here to take care of the whale that is directly in the way.
• Turn off a star switch to disable a wall after some more platforming.
• There is a spot with a pipe just above the surface of the water, It is a few frames shorter to bump up against it as you get a jumping out animation and normal speed rather than underwater speed.

• There is a cool Monster Masher machine

Boss 2

• More enemies before the boss.
• The boss has a new pattern, he starts in the center and then moves around quickly stopping in fixed positions. A mine floats around to get in your way. He takes less damage than previous bosses, but goes down quickly due to the good pattern.
• Phase 2 is different, he recovers health, and each time you hit him he will stop and shoot in the 4 cardinal directions simultaneously. You do 10 damage per hit, but he has a 66 frame invulnerability period.

• This is a bit of a victory lap, you dive through a bunch of stars to find an egg to save and then a final door to exit.

Improvements

Thanks to:

• ExtraGuy for introducing me to this game
• BadBrakes and the BestOfNES team for including it in Big 20 #5
• Toad22484 for his strategies and WR run
• My Twitch chat for the ideas and encouragement
• The TASMania team

Screenshots: