Submission #8797: nymx's C64 Haunted Mansion in 02:32.39

Commodore 64
baseline
(Submitted: 1984-02.d64 Unknown)
BizHawk 2.9.1
9117
59.826089499853765
903
PowerOn
Submitted by nymx on 12/20/2023 2:54 AM
Submission Comments

Haunted Mansion (Compute's Gazette)

An evil witch has captured some friendly neighborhood cats and taken them to her haunted mansion, where she will later turn them into "witch cats". She is out flying on her broom in search of more...so now is your chance to enter the mansion and rescue the cats. The witch's mansion is a maze of corridors, and she has placed the cats in various locations throughout the maze. Your goal is to rescue the cats while avoiding ghosts, bats, and evil spirits.
The article for this game can be found on page 62 of Compute's Gazette Issue 8 (Feburary 1984)
I don't get it...why does the game get advertised in the Magazine as "Haunted Mansion", but come up in the game as "Haunted House". Go figure.

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 54th TAS from this series.
This was an exciting time for me, as I clearly remember typing this in and playing it on my Vic-20. I remember a friend, during the time that I finished it, calling his parents and saying that he wanted a Vic-20 also! So this game was a surprise to me, and I'm happy to finally see it played, as a TAS.
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):
1Astro-Panic!2Royal Rescue
3Miami Ice4Chopper 1
5Spike6Heat Seeker
7Omicron8Alien Armada
9Star Dragon10White Water
11Space Gallery12Bagdad
13Race Ace14Quolerus
15Trap16Maze-Mania
17Balloon Blitz18Bowling Champ
19Circuits20Going Up?
21Space Dock22Saloon Shootout
23Sno-Cat24Queens' Quarrel
25Stronghold26Lincoln Green
27Disc Blitz28SuperSprite
29Dunk30Basketball Sam & Ed
31Bee Zone32Q-Bird
33Space Worms34Powerball
35Castle Dungeon36Pool
37Snake Pit38RADs
39Spy Defense40The Forbidden Crypt
41Cosmic Combat42Canyon Cruiser
43Cell Runner44Sky Diver
45Snake Escape46The Viper
47Root Race48Cypher
49Revenge of Cyon50Maze Master
51Bagger52Chopper Pilot
53Digger

Game Difficulty and Ending

This game's difficulty is chosen at the beginning of the game...where I choose the hardest level of "6". This game repeats over and over, without any new content or increased difficulty.

Effort In TASing

My effort was to manipulate RNG, using the RND command to affect the "seed" value. I did this to give me the fastest route for collecting the cats. This took days to find a pattern that I was happy with. Most of the re-record count was from testing out the layout; however,it's not terribly high. The reason that it was so low, was that took almost a minute to test every RNG seeded value that I programmed before the game was ran. Once I found what I was looking for, the the game was pretty much wrapped up.

Human Comparison

This is the Vic-20 version, as I can't find one for the C64 that makes sense. There are C64 versions that have been modified that doesn't represent the game well.

feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Accepting.

despoa: Processing...
Last Edited by despoa on 12/31/2023 8:15 PM
Page History Latest diff List referrers