Submission #6014: link_7777's NES The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt in 08:37.60

The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt

Game objectives

• Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.2.2
• Rescue the family

Game Mechanics

Controls

• up - enter doors. climb
• left - move left
• right - move right
• down - duck
• B - shuffle right one pixel
• A - jump/fly
• select - shuffle left one pixel
• start - pause

Items

• Speed Shoes - Increase max speed from 2 to 3. Collecting twice stacks to the maximum of 4. Speed is lost when taking damage.
• Flying Beanie Cap - Gain the ability to fly temporarily
• Shield - temporary invincibility
• Sweets and Cakes - collect 25 for a one heart refill, 100 for an extra life
• Hearts - replenish your hearts
• 1up - extra life

Strategies

• Bouncing off of enemies: if you wish you can hold A to get a higher bounce
• Speed adjustments: You can reduce speed without entirely slowing down by hitting the opposite directon for 2 or 3 frames and then leaving a lank frame. This is useful in some situations where very slight adjustments to speed are required.
• Chain climbing: You can jump off of the chain as long as you aren't near the bottom. Climbing is 2 pixles per frame, but jumping starts out as 4. The most efficient way to climb was to jump until the vertical movement is reduced to 3 pixels and regrab.
• Ceiling clip: When Pugsley is under warter you can mash A at 20 Hz and he will slowly move into the ceiling above. Once you let go the game will eject you upwards, this is used to get through the underground quickly. A youtube video of this from Piero Piemontese is how this trick came to my attention.
• Slope jumping: In the underground you can use a small jump to jump down through a sloped platform. It turns out that solid platforms are still solid underneath so you only go down a tile, but this is pretty useful for platforms that aren't solid underneath.
• Avoiding damage: Since you lose the speed shoes when you take damage this run avoids damage in order to keep the higher speed.

Map

Route and Room comments

Start

• 0x09 Addams Residence
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs
• 0x00 Pugsley's Den - Nearest shoes. It was faster to go behind the stairs than it was to go back to the hall of stairs
• 0x01 Behind Stairs
• 0x00 Pugsley's Den
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs

Granny

• 0x48 The Kitchen
• 0x4A Granny's Stove - the fall back around to the furnace entrance is really tight
• 0x58 The Furnace
• 0x59 The Grill - had to start this room a little slow to be able to hit the switch without taking damage
• 0x26 The Fire Dragon
• 0x5A Finished Furnace
• 0x4A Granny's Stove
• 0x48 The Kitchen
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs

Gomez

• 0x2F The Games Room - the first pendulum here required very slight speed reduction
• 0x31 The Toy Box
• 0x39 The Rack
• 0x33 The Toy Tower
• 0x36 The Play Room
• 0x23 Wacky Scientist
• 0x35 Pugsleys Pipe
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs

Fester

• 0x0C Portrait Gallery
• 0x12 The Armory - if you're crouched under a low ceiling on a moving block you can continue shuffling way off the edge of the block, unfortunately it isn't usful because you'll fall as soon as you stand and there is no opportunity to jump out of it
• 0x0D Hall of Clocks - nice string of enemy bounces here
• 0x13 The Weaponry
• 0x0E Fly, Fly, Fly - I initially tried to avoid the beanie here, but there were gaps i couldn't cross
• 0x14 Lower Gallery - the wall of enemies here are in really bad positions and I had to slow down more than I would have liked to avoid taking damage
• 0x1E The Library
• 0x1F The Reading Room
• 0x20 The Big Books
• 0x1D The Train Room - Playing with trains. An alternate route would be to jump off the train way early and dboost. This actually saves some time initially because it allows for a quick death to get iframes and get an early hit on the witch. In the end though the time it takes to go get the shoes again makes it slower overall.
• 0x21 The Witch - you bounce off of fester here. you can let him run into you, he doesn't act like an enemy even though he looks like he might
• 0x1C Fester's Prize
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs

Wednesday

• 0x28 The Old Tree
• 0x29 Under the Tree - jumping through the slopes
• 0x2A Under Graveyard - ceiling clip
• 0x2E The Graveyard
• 0x24 A Ghastly Goblin
• 0x2E The Graveyard - The RTA run manages health/lives and takes a game over here. Since we kept the speed and avoided damage it is faster to backtrack, at least when you consider that you have to go get the shoes twice again or lose too much time in the chain rooms.
• 0x2A Under Graveyard
• 0x29 Under the Tree
• 0x28 The Old Tree
• 0x08 Hall of Stairs

Morticia

• 0x4E The Chain Room
• 0x51 Amazing Chains - there is an easy route where you climb the first chain, but it is slower
• 0x52 Hall of Chains
• 0x54 The Steps Down
• 0x55 Chain of Coins
• 0x4D The Vault
• 0x25 The Nasty Judge

Improvements

• Nothing major comes to mind, but it is hard to rule out small optimizations. I suppose it is possible that something more game breaking could be done with the ceiling clip, but the game seems to handle it pretty well.

Thanks to:

• WhiteHat94 for his RTA runs and interest in the project
• my Twitch chat for the ideas and encouragement
• The TASMania team

Screenshots: