Submission #7552: rythin's PICO8 Cyclo 8 in 01:40.10

Cyclo 8 is a PICO-8 bike platformer inspired by the Trials series. Featuring 7 levels of increasing difficulty, janky controls and stunts you definitely shouldn't and couldn't pull off at home, it has everything one could possibly desire from any videogame ever.

In this run I choose to omit the collectibles present on every level, instead opting for fastest possible completion times.

The game is quite simple, featuring just a gas, brake, turn and flip buttons. The first 3 should be pretty obvious what they do, while flip, as the name might suggest, flips the driver horizontally, changing the direction in which gas and brake go.

An important thing to note for optimization is that only the left wheel of the bike is actually powered (back wheel when going right, front wheel when going left), making wheelies the optimal way of gaining lots of speed.

Fairly simple level, start of by tilting the bike backwards so that the back wheel touches the ground sooner. I drop the wheelie on the ramp because otherwise the bike will bounce and not touch the ramp at all, putting both wheels on the ground keeps the back wheel on the floor for longer, allowing me to gain more speed for the jump.

On the bottom I try to scrape as many surfaces as I can with the front wheel to gain more speed while flying through the air. I end the level by angling the bike as vertical as possible, because the ending flag activates when the driver touches it and angling the bike like that puts the driver the most forward, saving a frame.

Once again starting off with a wheelie, though this time a slightly weaker one since bumping the ceiling means death, I don't have enough room to get a ton of speed right away. I precisely manipulate my speed off the ramp to touch the downwards slope with the back wheel on the way, allowing me to accelerate more.

The only level that does not beat the RTA record, tying it instead. I manipulate my speed to cut the corner on the pit as perfectly as possible, then a bounce off the wall sends me to the left, saving me from falling into the pit. After that a small downwards boost from touching the side of the platform on the way down and landing on the next one down to wheelie straight to the goal.

One of the most fun levels I think. I start off by riding down the wall, since it's faster than just falling, dismounting the wall a bit early in order to hit the most steep bit of the slope on the left with the back wheel. I get a wheelie off that and carry it all the way to the wall, maintaining most of my speed going up. On the top part I angle myself so that my back wheel touches the ceiling, giving me more speed through the horizontal part and allowing me to hit the sticking out bit in the top left corner with the back of the bike. I then bounce off the wall with my front wheel, ending up with a wheelie for the final part.

This level is very similar to Central Pit, simply falling through all the layers and skipping all the platforming. I make sure to land on my front wheel since I'm going left after the fall, allowing me to accelerate to the left.

The only level that starts you off facing left, so naturally the first thing I do is turn around and scale the little wall that's meant to stop me. From there it's a simple matter of maintaining the wheelie, at least until the first checkpoint flag, where I slow down a little in order to land on the downwards slope, allowing me to build speed on that entire stretch of ground, giving me enough speed to jump straight to the finish.

Usually the longest level, but here I make quick work of it by employing some very precise jumps. I start off with a wheelie as usual, though this time I carefully manipulate my speed to land at the beginning of the next platform, to build enough speed to clear the gap and then jump to the wall. Landing on the wall close to flat allows me to scale it up to the checkpoint, skipping the bottom right platforming section. After that, I make sure to land as far left on the platform as possible, to get all the speed I need to bounce off the next platform all the way up to the wall. It's still not enough to land flat on it however, so some very precise inputs are done to accelerate off the sloped part but still stick to the wall, allowing me to drive straight up to the goal, skipping another platforming section to the right.

Info Teddy: Claiming for judging.

Info Teddy: This is short and sweet. It beats all known records, and syncs and dumps correctly. (Note for anyone trying to export a cyclo8 binary: On Linux, exported carts will end up in ~/.lexaloffle/pico-8/carts/! This took me a bit to find. You can also type folder in the console when exporting the binary to open the folder where carts are exported, which is helpful.)

One unfortunate thing is that the system of this movie will be Linux when, in my opinion, it should be PICO-8. But it seems that it's already been decided that PICO-8 games will remain with the system of Linux, as was done for [4585] PICO8 CELESTE Classic by FlyingPenguin223, RichConnerGMN, cominixo, ikuyo, Meep, Snoo23, gonengazit, Lord Snek, Akliant, Beeb, Warspyking & RoundUpGaming in 01:42.77.

Accepting to Standard.

(Also fun fact, the first time I edited this it didn't go through and I lost my judgement notes, which was a bit annoying...)

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