RTA timing ends at Frame 11134, the last necessary input. I've been going too easy on the Judges and Encoders with my last two submissions being for actual emulators, so here's a return to form with my very first Hourglass submission, brought to you by Windows XP!
ENCODE/PLAYBACK INSTRUCTIONS:
- You need a copy of the updated version of Mighty Jill Off (dated 10/19/2008 by the file modification date), which is freely available on itch.io here. The SHA-1 hash of the zip file and executable is below:
- "Mighty Jill Off.zip" - SHA-1: 092D141DFBC2AB46B62C89201373862A33D2C2D8
- "jilloff.exe" - SHA-1: 7EF390AB6CB722025A76C18507AE914565AD4DC1
- The following settings set for Hourglass:
- Graphics -> Allow Fullscreen / Display Mode Changes CHECKED
- Graphics -> Allow Hardware Acceleration UNCHECKED
- Input -> Frame Advance Skips "Lag" Frames UNCHECKED (possibly unneeded for playback?)
- When playing back/encoding the recording, start it PAUSED and use frame advance to get past the initial loading splash, or else you will immediately desync. If the game crashes during your playback, close Hourglass, relaunch it and make sure you have the right settings checked, and try again. You can do it, I believe in you.
- This was recorded on Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3, Version 2002.
SOUND?
- The encode I linked does not have in-game music or sound effects, only sound in the cutscenes. However, I am absolutely certain that this is only because of my VM's cursed and broken audio drivers, because I don't actually get/hear sound for anything on my VM, and the brief crackle audible at the very beginning of the temporary encode is symptomatic of my particular difficulties. I do not believe that any Judge or Encoder should have issues with sound on their non-cursed VMs or systems.
GAMEPLAY/NOTES: This is the type of game that is challenging for human players, but is extremely easy for a TAS. There is no momentum or acceleration, so the sole factors in speedy completion are the precision with which you cancel your jumps, and the speed with which you are able to spam the jump button in order to glide distances. You may notice that I am constantly making what appears to be arbitrary pauses between jumps; this is actually because the game won't let you jump in most cases until the frame before the automatic scrolling kicks in, and a universal delay between repeated jumps besides (the latter of which being relevant in the penultimate 'survival' section). There are two precise but human usable skips made possible by permissive hitboxes of obstacles; and finally, there's ONE tech in this game, which allows you to jump higher if you canceled your last jump precisely before landing, avoiding going into the gliding animation. This is trivial, as I cancel jumps early as a matter of course, and to scroll the screen as quickly as possible.
There is ONE note to be made about the goal: namely, there is a Second Tower. This was, I am lead to believe, not a part of the game's very first release, and is in all aspects a second, harder campaign. However, it is NOT accessible by SRAM as this game makes no save data, and thus can only be accessed by either beating the First Tower in under 12 minutes or by entering the cheat code "QUEEN" at the title screen. I am also lead to believe that, at least at one point, it was possible to obtain the Second Tower (Jill Off Harder) by paying anna anthropy 1 dollar on itch.io to receive it as a second executable. This is very relevant, because Hourglass became increasingly unstable as I recorded further into this game, crashing more frequently with fewer separate savestates the longer the recording length got; while this was perfectly manageable for the length of this first playthrough, I suspect it would become very problematic for completing both towers back to back. I will attempt to see if the alleged standalone executable is still obtainable, and ask a Judge if use of the "QUEEN" cheatcode to skip to the Second Tower is acceptable; however, failing both, it is very likely that this movie will be obsoleted if I eventually make a single followup movie containing the run for both towers consecutively.
POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS: Nothing concrete that I am aware of. It is possible that a few frames can be shaved by micro-optimizing the movement, but otherwise, the only potential major save would come from the section where you have to lead away a spider that blocks your path upward. There are no trivial timesaves or mistakes to remedy, however, thus fulfilling the optimization requirement.
feos: Claiming for judging.