Use Boxmen is a classic flash game where you can create clones of yourself to help you clear the game's 13 levels. This TAS aims to complete all 14 levels by abusing glitches, janky collision, and mass murdering boxmen whenever possible. Enjoy
Game objectives
- Emulator used: libTAS 1.4.4 + Ruffle Nightly 2023-08-28
- Beat the game as fast as possible
- Beating the game consists of completing all 14 levels, including Level 14. RTA runs of this game end timing on completing the 13th level, since the game clears your save data after you beat it, and Level 14 doesn't have a goal like all the other levels
- I define beating the 14th level as getting the text congratulating the player to appear
Stage by stage comments
beginnings
All I do here is hold right and jump. The only thing of note is that I do a corner boost here. The collision in this game is janky at the edges of platforms. With a well timed jump, I can clip partially into one of the walls and get pushed out towards the goal.
Special
There's a button in this level. In order to beat the level, you have to press it. Real complicated stuff.
double Jump
The blue boxman runs faster than the orange copies do. So in order to do this level quickly, I spawn the orange boxman as late as possible. I actually jump off the spawn platform 2 frames earlier than I have to, because when you do a jump during your coyote frames, you actually get less height. I can use this to my advantage later in the TAS, but here I want to avoid doing that so I can jump farther.
Low Ceilings
Very boring level. I don't have anything to say, so instead I'll just clarify that the inconsistent capitalization of the names for each level is not a mistake on my part. It's exactly like this in the game for some reason.
Control
When you walk off of the spawn platform without jumping, you'll clip through the ground and die when you land. You can avoid this by either jumping off the spawn platform or interrupting your fall on any of the platforms between the top and bottom ones. Both of these methods lose a lot of time, so I instead spawn an orange boxman the frame before I die. Because the orange boxmen run slower than the blue one, this strategy only saves one frame if done perfectly.
energetic things
When a running boxman touches a generator, it will start generating power, which causes platforms around the stage to move. I spend as much time running in the generators as possible before riding the platform to the top of the level. I'm able to clip up onto the platforms because the collision is jank.
a backward G, in honour of Me
Running boxmen will jump over sitting boxmen when they run into them. In order to do this level as fast as possible, I place the sitting boxmen as far away from the ledge as possible. This makes it so that I have a very tight window to throw the second boxman, because it has to be aligned on a specific pixel in order to make the jump across. It's possible to do a cornerboost on the platform with the face on it, but in order to do it you have to jump later, so it saves no time.
timing
There is literally nothing you can do to go fast here. The boxman throw is frame perfect, so you can't save time by throwing the boxman later. In fact, I throw the boxman from as far away as possible, just because I can and it doesn't lose time.
15 personal guides
The gimmick of this level is that you can't see anything, which made it mildly annoying to TAS. You're supposed to use the boxmen as guides to see where the pitfalls are, but I've spent so much time running this game RTA that I can do this level blindfolded by now. I save all 15 boxmen for the end of the level and kill them all as quickly as possible for funsies.
race
This level has some fun tricks in it. I start by placing a sitting boxman while my momentum carries me off the platform. The boxman ends up falling off, while I turn around and clip back up onto the platform. I then press jump, crouch, and shift at the same time. This allows me to spawn a sitting boxman in midair, when you can normally only spawn running boxmen when in the air. You can't place more boxmen when you're overlapping with one, so the jump skips waiting for the first boxman to fall all the way down. I then start holding left and spawn a running boxman, which will run around and under the platform and eventually hit all the levers on the right side of the level. From there, I have an extremely limited time to make it past the walls of spikes before the boxman hits the levers, blocking off the path. In order to make it in time, I do a zip. In certain circumstances, it's possible to clip into the ground like in level 5 if there's a low ceiling. Fortunately, the layout of level 10 allows me to clip, pushing me to the right so I can turn around instantly. From there, I do frame perfect jumps over all the ledges, and do a wiggle on the fourth ledge to get a faster turnaround. This level was hard to optimize, but also very fun :)
tall chairs
This was the single hardest level to optimize in the entire game, and for a while I didn't even know how to approach it. I start by doing a midair jump. You need to throw five boxmen over the edge in order to get the generator running long enough to move the platform high enough. When you spawn into a stage, you have coyote frames and can jump in midair. I do a late midair jump to get a low jump height, which allows me to land back on the ground sooner than buffering a jump. I can only throw one boxman during this time, so I do two more jumps, throwing two boxmen per jump in order to get to five. I throw the last boxman from as far away as possible, with rightward momentum to make the turnaround quicker and get to the goal sooner. I use my sixth boxman to jump into the goal, since the low ceiling makes it impossible to reach the goal otherwise.
Co-ordination
Use Boxmen has an autoscroller! There are three parts where you can save time here. First, I run and spawn the boxman as far right as possible before turning around and standing on the button to prevent it from dying. Second, I do some jumps to manipulate the cycle the boxman is on. The jumps have to be timed frame perfectly. A frame earlier, and it has no effect on the boxman. A frame later, and the boxman stops activating the generator briefly, which loses a LOT of time. Stepping off the generator for even a frame causes it to accelerate much slower, meaning you have to spend even longer on it. The third place I save time is running off the final button and turning around to get to the goal quickly.
Time and Space
This level is infamous for being ridiculously hard to complete. But I personally find it to be extremely easy, because I can cheese the whole thing using a midair jump at the start.
huh?
I do a late coyote jump on the stairs so that I don't overshoot them and waste time falling back down. I also end inputs early by jumping into some weird geometry on the house. The ending text appears when you get far enough towards the edge of the screen, and the "house zip" sends you all the way offscreen in a single frame.
Other comments
- I'm not sure if this is the fastest version of the game, but it's good enough. The coolmath logo isn't animated, so the splash screen is faster than the ones in the Armor Games and Bubblebox versions. It also removes the screen at the start that says "Developed by Greg Sergeant".
- I believe that a more skilled TASer than me could save up to 5 frames in level 11. You can save three frames by doing a last frame coyote jump to re-land on the ground sooner. I tried to do this, but no matter how much stuff I tested I couldn't get two boxmen to survive without waiting for the first boxman to move out of the way. If you did get this strat to work, it would also save an additional frame by causing the platform to rise higher, allowing you to jump into the goal without needing the sixth boxman. I also think the turnaround can be improved.
InfoTeddy: Claiming for judging.
InfoTeddy: As stated, this beats all known records since RTA records don't usually include the 14th level (which isn't really a challenge and is more of a thank-you). Accepting to Standard.
Note to publisher: Make sure to use
--no-gui.
fsvgm777: Processing.