I'm currently investigating this glitch, and while I haven't found any actual use for it yet, it suffices to say, I just fucked the game.
//More possible outcomes.
Walking back also creates really weird nametable drawing. Unfortunately, there still seems to be no usefulness for a TAS yet.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Alright, after more research, these are the points I figured:
The glitch can be done with any stair that's set up properly and allows you to overcome the boundary of the screen
The glitched worlds can only be left by dieing after you get off the stairs. There seem to be no functional stairs, doors, or anything else that could lead you to even more different screens.
There seems to be some regularity in the level data that comes up when you do this. Enemy Data seems to be pulled from the level that comes afterwards, so you'll find elements of the ship level when doing this glitch in Mad Forest.
Go far enough, either in the the glitched worlds if the game lets you, or by traversing enough screens vertically, and the game screws out and glitches. The game freezing is very likely in that case. The garbage tile data that's generated when the game freezes up seems to be pulled from the sound engine. (At least that's my best guess)
I've had even weirder effects, such as playing with a glitched-tile Grant that could throw holy water like Trevor. The game is at its most unstable then, with freezing being a matter of time. To be honest, I can't trust FCEUX's emulation accuracy on that one. In either case, if you manage to die before the game freezes, it mostly returns to normalcy. I haven't found any possible deathwarps, unfortunately.
However, some weird, if minor, effects may persist even when dieing and returning to the normal worlds. My ultimate hope is to be able to call the credits or cause some other effect that glitches up the game enough to require a separate category.
Even if the glitched worlds turn out to be useless for a TAS, the glitch itself allows for some legitimate shortcuts. (See video below)
Link to video
I know of at least one other place where such a shortcut can be used. Unfortunately, I don't think they're as entertaining as playing the game normally. Additionally, I greatly hope to find a way to speed up character switch.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
I don't think anyone has missed the real play through stages. Don't be afraid to cut something. Remember our Battletoads.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Unfortunately, due to how slow the character switching is, this skip only saves about a second. What a shame, really.
It seems the game becomes the most unstable when you do the glitch in the ship level. I've had the weirdest glitches and effects there, and even found functional stairs that lead to even weirder places. I'll have a video up soon. Do note that, once you're in that dimension, exploring becomes a fight against the game freezing. I die to return to normalcy - the game would have frozen frames afterwards.
/here. And I still have no idea how to properly make videos.
Link to video
Its very unfortunate that the glitch shortcut only saves a second, but it definitely looks cool. I've always been a big fan of this glitch and I hope that someday it can be used for massive sequence breaking. While I have very limited TASing skills I always enjoy exploring glitches like this. I am going to do some digging and see if i come up with anything useful.
I keep finding all kinds of ways to disalign myself from the stairs. This shortcut seems to even save a couple seconds, even with the slow as hell character switching.
Link to video
Now here is the one effect I managed to achieve that persists even after death in the glitched world - I can temporarily confuse the game as to whether I'm playing as Trevor or Grant.
When you respawn, you spawn as Trevor, but the switching mechanism thinks you're still grant - so you switch to Trevor. After that, switching works as normal. But, it is possible to abuse this fact to collect subweapons grant wasn't ever intended to carry - the cross and the holy water.
Useless, but pretty amusing in its own right.
//Many of the tricks I'm outlining probably will also work for Alucard/Trevor. But right now, I'm only testing out Grant.
Doing more research, I conclude there's two more ways to disalign yourself from the stairs:
1.You can abuse Grant's climbing ledges mechanics to get ahead of the camera scroll - eventually reaching the edge of the screen. There's a lot of weird stuff happening there, but mainly, if you climb stairs there, it's easy to disalign yourself.
2.As has been posted here before, Sypha's freeze spell can be used to create barriers that force you to disalign yourself. In general, I see a Sypha Improvement getting a lot more use out of that freeze spell:
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
You have a bunch of screenshots up there, that are posted 4x2. It breaks my page, please divide them to 2x4.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Alright, this happened often enough during my research for me to make a post specifically about it.
Meet Trevorcard
Wandering off into the regions man was not meant to see, too far astray from the path of light, will not go unpunished. Trevorcard is a spirit that will haunt you, even after your return. He posseses the soul of your former companion, Trevor, and knows two forms, one that is relatively sane to the human eye, if still eldritch, and one that is far more unworldly, distorting his very surroundings frequently.
His main attack is that of a chain, though he is prevented from actually connecting it. Instead, he will freeze motionless, should he attempt to use it regardless. Other weapons cannot be used either, with the sole exception of a measily stopwatch if it is used in such a way it won't trigger his chains.
In his humanoid form, he posseses the ability to shapeshift into a flying creature - one that is foreign to the human comprehension, but acts much like a Bat does.
Furthermore, the way his tormented soul seems to take damage is random. Sometimes, his entire life force may be depleted in one strike against him, at other times, he will endure a blow absolutely unharmed.
There are conflicting reports of his cries of agony when he is hit - some have described it as a big rumble or crash - whereas others have likened it to the sound of a knife being thrown. Everyone will agree though - its sound is very eerie.
If only he was useful in an actual TAS.
Thanks for all the work! You've led me to improve my US version Sypha speedrun.
On that note, I wanted to ask something. Are there other areas that can be skipped with ice spell in a real run, like what you show in the level 8 pic? I already do the level 7A tricks but haven't found anything else. Thanks again!
EDIT: Figured out the faster version of level 8 skip, not worth doing in a legit speedrun I think. There's a much easier way that's only about 30 frames slower, though.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Essentially, if the enemies are positioned the right way, you can use the freeze spell to get up any four block high ledge.
Frozen enemy hitboxes often don't match the the actual sprites and have barely any room to stand on. Additionally, the freeze spell seems to be quite rare, unfortunately, which is a problem, since it does no damage against the bosses. (Compared to the other two spells, which can down bosses in seconds) Additionally, enemies only seem to drop the fire spell and stopwatch.
Here are some pictures of the more promising shortcuts, along with additional notes on them:
- The hitbox of a Dhuron with his rapier out is very iffy. Sometimes, you can jump onto his solid part, sometimes, you can't. Your safest bet is to freeze him while his rapier isn't extended.
- Fairly straightforward, the ravens might get in the way, though.
- You need to stand directly beneath the axe to be able to jump on it.
- Walk a few steps to the right, then freeze him. It's important the winged guard gets high enough before he is frozen.
- This one is tricky, since it requires you to take damage. If you just jump on it from the front, you get stuck and can't move. You have to take damage, walk into the skull cannon's hitbox, freeze it, and then jump onto it when you're far enough to the right.
- This trick, no matter how much I tried does not work.
There are a couple others, but these are really difficult or rely on ravens, which I think can't be manipulated outside of a TAS. Aside from that, it's potentially possible on any ledge where the enemies are in the right place.
Lastly, the stair glitch shortcut in Block 9-01 is also possible with Sypha. So is the one in Block 4-0B, I presume, but it doesn't seem like you can get the freeze spell that early.
Thank you! Unfortunately, none of these appear to be usable in the US version aside from the new method for 7-0B - no ice spell anywhere in the ghost ship there! Heck, I tested the level 8 skip in the Japanese version and it isn't quite worth giving up lightning for the level 7 boss (definitely good in the US version though!). TAS boss strats would probably make that a different story, of course...
Where DO you get ice in JP ghost ship, anyway? That seems like an obvious improvement to that run should I ever get a cart of my own.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Yeah. The biggest problem with the freeze spell is that it is just not conveniently placed. Most of the big skips using it occurs relatively early into the levels, before you can find it anywhere.
So either a speedrun'll fight the bosses using only the staff (which will be fun with the Block 7 trio) or forego the skips, which would be a massive shame.
I've went through the game and counted, I was able to find the freeze spell a whipping 11 times. The first one occurs in BLK 4-0C
Going by pure numbers, the lightning spell is even rarer.
/Edit: Naturally, I checked on the US version. The position of the subweapons seems a bit shuffled around from the usual. The stair glitch works the same way as in the J version, but it's a lot more sane. I haven't managed to make the game freeze or summon Trevorcard yet.
This glitch was indeed pretty old. I think it had been investigated even before I learnt it on David Wonn's site. The shortcuts are new, though.
I remember watching a glitched video by ljffdb2 where Grant (or Trevor, not sure) climbed up a staircase normally but ended up in a wrong screen transition in the water-flooding blocks (and died). It might be of a new different kind of glitches, but unfortunately I can't find the video anymore.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Too lazy to take a pic but I just found an easy skip with ice spell in the last level!
In the room with the pendulums leading up to Dracula's room, you can freeze the first bat that appears and immediately jump onto the first pendulum instead of climbing the stairs and waiting. Saves about 9 seconds, minus the time spent getting the ice spell.
In the US version, the candle in front of the wall with meat in block A-02 has the ice spell, and I think that's also the case in the JP version. Sadly this skip isn't worth doing in the US version since you can't get lightning back before Dracula, but it should save a nice chunk of time in the JP run if memory serves me right.
BTW, I've had trouble performing the stair glitch in real time, and I didn't do it in my recent Grant speedrun. I want to learn it for marathons and such, though - is there precise timing involved? Seemed like it to me.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
There's also a second useful skip in level 8, though I imagine scrimpeh probably knows about it already. In the room right after the first skip, move right until the first green slime appears then just wait. After 2 short hops, it should do a higher jump, allowing you to freeze it and jump up through. This one saves much less time than the first but is still worth it for sure, real easy too.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Too lazy to take a pic but I just found an easy skip with ice spell in the last level!
In the room with the pendulums leading up to Dracula's room, you can freeze the first bat that appears and immediately jump onto the first pendulum instead of climbing the stairs and waiting. Saves about 9 seconds, minus the time spent getting the ice spell.
In the US version, the candle in front of the wall with meat in block A-02 has the ice spell, and I think that's also the case in the JP version. Sadly this skip isn't worth doing in the US version since you can't get lightning back before Dracula, but it should save a nice chunk of time in the JP run if memory serves me right.
BTW, I've had trouble performing the stair glitch in real time, and I didn't do it in my recent Grant speedrun. I want to learn it for marathons and such, though - is there precise timing involved? Seemed like it to me.
Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any bats in the Room in the J version. Presumably they are in the second quest there, I hear the U version added some at that place.
In the greatest fit of irony, I remember there was a lightning spell right before Dracula in the J version. It's like the game really does not want this trick to be useful.
Regarding the stair glitch, essentially, you can go one step lower with Trevor than with Grant before triggering the screen transition. Therefore, you can stop at the lowest step, then press down and then switch characters immediately. You'll know if it worked when you hold up after switching and the screen transition is triggered regardless.
Jigwally wrote:
scrimpeh wrote:
a whipping 11 times.
I see what you did there
That wasn't even intentional, but I sure love my Freudian Slips.
Lastly, I found a new Glitch that, as you may have guessed, is utterly useless!
If you touch the boss orb in BLK 6-05 on the very last frame before you drown, the game considers you dead. Because of that, a couple of things happen:
No enemies spawn
Your weapons don't work. You can use your whip, but it won't affect candles, and thrown weapons will not appear.
You can't die. Falling into a pit makes you come out at the top of the screen. Having the time run out won't kill you either.
The screen will not scroll.
Unfortunately, it seems to be impossible to trigger it anywhere else, and because screen scrolling is deactivated, you get stuck at this point without being able to proceed:
D'oh, I forgot there aren't any bats there in the JP version!
Also, craziest skip yet: you can jump past almost the entire water bridge section in level 9! It saves so much time that I'll torture myself and go for it in my run even though it's RNG hell.
Specifically, you need to head to the left side of the first screen there, as the ceiling above you at the start is too high for it to work. You then have to freeze a bird at just the right height...as well as the water itself so that you can jump onto the bird. Not much room for error with this one!
To make this work in the US version, I also found an AI loop on Doppelganger that allows you to take it out pretty quickly with the fire spell (found right in front of the stairs in the water bridge room). I don't know what options the JP version has there.
This saves somewhere around 5-10 seconds overall, I'd say. It all just looks cool so I'm going for it!
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Sorry for double post, but just out of curiosity...
Have you found much of interest for the Alucard run? I've been debating whether to go back and improve that one, and anything new would make me lean toward "yes". Thank you!
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Sorry for double post, but just out of curiosity...
Have you found much of interest for the Alucard run? I've been debating whether to go back and improve that one, and anything new would make me lean toward "yes". Thank you!
Unfortunately, I haven't really found anything unique to Alucard. He has got his own ways to get himself disaligned from the stairs, but that's all there is to it. For my money, the Alucard run is the least improvable of the three current published runs.
(That also includes mine, as I found a couple improvements to that already, I'll share the input file if anyone wants it)
I'm currently investigating this glitch, and while I haven't found any actual use for it yet, it suffices to say, I just fucked the game.
//More possible outcomes.
Walking back also creates really weird nametable drawing. Unfortunately, there still seems to be no usefulness for a TAS yet.
Now here is the one effect I managed to achieve that persists even after death in the glitched world - I can temporarily confuse the game as to whether I'm playing as Trevor or Grant.
When you respawn, you spawn as Trevor, but the switching mechanism thinks you're still grant - so you switch to Trevor. After that, switching works as normal. But, it is possible to abuse this fact to collect subweapons grant wasn't ever intended to carry - the cross and the holy water.
Useless, but pretty amusing in its own right.
//Many of the tricks I'm outlining probably will also work for Alucard/Trevor. But right now, I'm only testing out Grant.
Wandering off into the regions man was not meant to see, too far astray from the path of light, will not go unpunished. Trevorcard is a spirit that will haunt you, even after your return. He posseses the soul of your former companion, Trevor, and knows two forms, one that is relatively sane to the human eye, if still eldritch, and one that is far more unworldly, distorting his very surroundings frequently.
His main attack is that of a chain, though he is prevented from actually connecting it. Instead, he will freeze motionless, should he attempt to use it regardless. Other weapons cannot be used either, with the sole exception of a measily stopwatch if it is used in such a way it won't trigger his chains.
In his humanoid form, he posseses the ability to shapeshift into a flying creature - one that is foreign to the human comprehension, but acts much like a Bat does.
Furthermore, the way his tormented soul seems to take damage is random. Sometimes, his entire life force may be depleted in one strike against him, at other times, he will endure a blow absolutely unharmed.
There are conflicting reports of his cries of agony when he is hit - some have described it as a big rumble or crash - whereas others have likened it to the sound of a knife being thrown. Everyone will agree though - its sound is very eerie.
If only he was useful in an actual TAS.
- The hitbox of a Dhuron with his rapier out is very iffy. Sometimes, you can jump onto his solid part, sometimes, you can't. Your safest bet is to freeze him while his rapier isn't extended.
- Fairly straightforward, the ravens might get in the way, though.
- You need to stand directly beneath the axe to be able to jump on it.
- Walk a few steps to the right, then freeze him. It's important the winged guard gets high enough before he is frozen.
- This one is tricky, since it requires you to take damage. If you just jump on it from the front, you get stuck and can't move. You have to take damage, walk into the skull cannon's hitbox, freeze it, and then jump onto it when you're far enough to the right.
- This trick, no matter how much I tried does not work.
There are a couple others, but these are really difficult or rely on ravens, which I think can't be manipulated outside of a TAS. Aside from that, it's potentially possible on any ledge where the enemies are in the right place.
Lastly, the stair glitch shortcut in Block 9-01 is also possible with Sypha. So is the one in Block 4-0B, I presume, but it doesn't seem like you can get the freeze spell that early.
Going by pure numbers, the lightning spell is even rarer.
/Edit: Naturally, I checked on the US version. The position of the subweapons seems a bit shuffled around from the usual. The stair glitch works the same way as in the J version, but it's a lot more sane. I haven't managed to make the game freeze or summon Trevorcard yet.
If you touch the boss orb in BLK 6-05 on the very last frame before you drown, the game considers you dead. Because of that, a couple of things happen:
