Preview of coming attractions: here's the first level of Crystal Caves 2! This episode is significantly harder than the first one, which hopefully will make it a much more interesting TAS.
Making this change will save negligible time, but in TAS there's no such thing as negligible time. The real problem is this means I'll need to completely re-record that section and the level afterward. Since I've done the routing already it won't take as long, but the prospect is still not appetizing. I assume that this is just part of the learning process, but is there any way to pragmatically maintain multiple drafts of a run? If I start re-recording from the breakpoint, I assume that I will lose all subsequent inputs and have to redo them? As far as I've seen there's no way to splice in a few different keystrokes to an existing run and shift the timestamps for subsequent input back a few milliseconds.
In your third level, wouldn't it be faster to walk through one of the enemies in the end (since you've got a spare hit point) instead of shooting it?
EDIT: Also, in your second level, is it possible to do the right side first, and then head back over to the left with the anti-grav time remaining?
See that platform midway up the screen on the far left? The blue one with the yellow crystal on it?
I ran the game in DOSBox and had a little difficulty jumping onto it from the green hill, but got it on the 3rd try or so. The weird part is that now I'm trying to do it in JPC-RR, I... can't do it. At all.
There's a Let's Play I found that shows about how tricky this jump is; I've linked it here with a relevant timestamp. (Some cursing, if that's a concern for any reason)
Link to video
Generally, when Mylo is walking, I hit F 4 times before he advances a frame (probably not the right term, because the fade-in animation when entering a level does advance incrementally with a single F press, but I don't know the term to distinguish between a frame and and increment of movement). To find the optimal spot to jump from (most of the time) I'll advance 4 F-taps and try a jump, load the save state and try again 4 frames later.
But I've tested every single frame that can jump there. If it jumps too early, Mylo hits his head on the block with the hidden crystal, loses his momentum, and falls back onto the platform below. There are a few frames where he hits the next block, but falls before finding footing on the other platform. Normally, at this point, one increment of progress forward would be enough to get footing, but I hit a really strange point where now he hits right before the platform, but then falls straight down as if he goes one frame down before he goes one frame left.
I tried testing in-between frames by sending the jump command during each of the 4 frames before the animation changes, all the way from way too early to falling off the ledge, and none of the jumps succeed. I'm wondering if it also requires some kind of serendipitous alignment of animation frames? Could it be a problem with the emulation? Is there any way for me to do finer frame advancement?
I'm gonna sleep on it and see if I come up with any ideas, but for now, I'm stumped.Nice. I really liked how you just got ahead of the green monster after the time stop. For the last level in your latest video, could you save time by hitting the red switch, going all the way to the end, collecting as much as you can from the end going back to the green door, but then leaving some behind and catching the elevator going up? You can then clear out all the gems behind the red door, then fall down to get the rest behind the green door. It would save you having to wait for the elevator to go all the way up and come back down.
I’m not sure I understand why you’d have to wait for the platform to come back up. If you’re at the red door level, isn't it possible to jump down to the green door level without the elevator?
I meant to get from the mid level up to the red level. When you jump from the platform, you don't have enough time to get to the lever, open the red door, and get back out to jump on the platform to get up to that level. If you try to catch the platform to jump up to the red level at the first opportunity, you still lose time by backtracking. Is that clearer?
I'm not sure I want to submit this, though, because I'm not incredibly confident of the routing for the aforementioned level, and it might be more efficient to do the last 3 levels in reverse order from the way that I did in this recording. Whether or not it could be done better, I'd rather channel my efforts into another project than rebuild the pieces of this that could conceivably be improved.
I'm not dead! I had to take a break from finishing this because I was getting incredibly frustrated by this level.
