Submission #7590: PoochyEXE's SNES Wario's Woods "Round Game" in 31:20.84

This aims to beat Round Game mode and reach the ending cutscene in the SNES version of Wario's Woods as quickly as possible. It improves on my previous published movie by 10,646 frames (2m57s).

After finishing my Time Race mode TAS, I went back and rewatched my Round Game one, spotted a couple more optimizations, and tried to add them in but the RNG state kept desyncing. Next thing I knew, I was redoing the whole movie. It went a lot faster this time though, in part because I know the inner workings of the game better, but mostly because I could still work off of the strats I used in the previous version.

Rounds 1~9 are the same as the previous TAS.

The first new optimization starts at frame 5435 in Round 10, where I optimize when I hold Down. After this the RNG state completely desyncs.

As before, I'll only fill in comments for levels with something particularly interesting or non-obvious.

I can either move Toad to the right to catch the red diamond at the end, or let it fall. The former finishes the round faster, but leaves Toad further to the left of the screen so there's a longer transition to the next round. I tested both and it turns out they take exactly the same number of frames but leave the RNG in different states due to the latter rolling an extra diamond, so I pick the one that lets me save a couple frames on luck manipulation in R16.

Normally, after Toad turns around, there's a cooldown of about 10 frames before any further left/right/A/B inputs can take effect. This appears to be the game's way of trying to tell whether you wanted to simply turn around or walk in the direction you pressed, but since Toad can't move while in midair, there's also no cooldown. I exploit this to make a whole bunch of placements from midair in a split-second. This is the first time it I do it in this run, but it'll happen quite a few more times throughout the run.

This is the first of two speed/entertainment trade-offs in this movie. I lose about a second making a more complex setup purely because the resulting chain is a lot more impressive. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say I'm very happy with this one and leave it at that.

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." --MythBusters

First time in this version that I have to stall to get the better layout for the next round.

Same setup as the previous version, but I get a much better RNG state coming into this round and it takes half as long to get the green and blue bombs I want.

Another chain that I'm quite happy with. I think the start of the chain would be a great choice for a screenshot.

I really liked the setup and the chain from my previous TAS, but unfortunately the RNG is in a state where it takes forever to get a gray bomb, so I work around it.

This was one of my favorite rounds in my previous TAS, so I made sure to keep the chain mostly the same. Mostly. I improved on the beginning a little further. :D

This was the most uncooperative RNG up to this point. I just need any green or red to be able to reuse most of my setup from the previous TAS, but I happen to enter the round on an RNG state that gives me 14 bombs in a row without a single red OR green.

I also ran into a rather annoying bug in the game, where a kicked monster transitioning from sliding to falling seems to become immune to gravity and diamonds for 1(?) frame. If a match occurs on that frame, the monster just hovers in midair until the chain resolves, and if the chain involves a diamond that would normally clear the monster, it remains there. This meant I couldn't kick out the blue monster between the pinks at the end, and instead I had to lose about a second to pick up the stack, walk left, and drop everything in place.

Neat little trick: You can kick something while a chain is still resolving, and the kick takes effect after the chain resolves, even if you move away in the meantime.

Argh, this round was a pain since there are exactly 5 of each color monster, meaning I have to either use multiple clears or a 6-in-a-row for whichever color I start with. The setup from the previous version relied on a yellow bomb, but with the RNG state here it takes forever for roll a yellow, so I opt for multiple clears on the white monsters instead.

An interesting glitch towards the end: Kicking an object just as the object directly above it clears results in one Y input kicking both the object next to Toad and the object two tiles above it. Unfortunately it doesn't save any time in this instance, since I still have to stall to get the better pattern on R72.

For once I actually got a similar enough bomb color sequence to let me reuse a decently sized chunk of input from the previous version. Although I optimized it a bit more to take advantage of the additional green bomb.

Another chain I'm very happy with. The final explosion is also a good candidate for a screenshot.

Reused another nice chunk of input from the previous version again, only this time I saved some more time since I didn't have to use up the extraneous white bomb to prevent it from screwing up subsequent diamond color rolls.

This is in fact the first round that takes long enough that you get to hear the full loop of Birdo's theme.

Another interesting interaction towards the end here, which I'll call "diamond surfing". I use the delayed kick (previously seen in R69) and then move Toad on top of the diamond before the kick takes effect. By timing it just right I can make Toad walk on top of the moving diamond.

I wanted to keep the double diagonal diamond finish from the previous version, but couldn't figure out a way to set it up without losing a ton of time. This is about 6 seconds faster than the previous version anyway.

As before, I wait a couple extra seconds for the special fanfare to play out before proceeding to the ending cutscene. This is the second speed/entertainment trade-off.

Suggested screenshot: Frame 40049, showing the triple diagonal explosion.

feos: Claiming for judging.

feos: Great work! Accepting over [4604] SNES Wario's Woods "Round Game" by PoochyEXE in 34:17.98.

despoa: Processing...