Human Run
For a comparison of a human run (fastest run I could find...this runner is very good, with a few mistakes). This TAS runs about 4 minutes faster than the linked human run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFuOerG0hPw
Game Instructions
Details
Thanks to EZGames69 for getting me interested in TASing some Colecovision games.
Miner 2049er was among my favorites for Colecovision. I was terrible at this game and could never get past level 6...so, I decided to TAS it. :) Ended up being roughly 7 minutes and 36 seconds, as apposed to the linked human run of approximately 11 minutes and 40 seconds.
Repeating some things in the instructions above, this game is simple and requires you to navigate Bounty Bob to color in all the floor pieces...which will complete any level. The last level, 11, has an additional goal though...grab the uranium.
There are only 11 levels. Once completed...it starts back at level 1.
Level 1:
Nothing special, just trying to run the shortest route. This level will serve as a training guide to know how the game is played. Orange guys are bad, blue guys are good. By grabbing tools, you can change them to blue and they are killable.
One tiny note: I took a small trip down the first ladder to kill a blue guy. The fewer the moving items, the faster the game will go. I tested between killing and not killing and it made a small difference. I believe about 9 frames were cut.
Level 2:
Slides are introduced and routing becomes a bit more complicated.
Level 3:
This elevator level was one of the more fun areas to TAS. Here, I position the elevator ahead of Bounty Bob's arrival to increase my speed. The routing on this level is not likely to be matched by a human...especially if you use a Colecovision Controller. LOL
Level 4:
This was the first frustrating level to TAS. I had high hopes of covering all floors with one pass, but there was no solution that I could find to accomplish this. The 2 trips around the mine were to help decrease the last floor arrival...which I believe was about 8
frames faster over hopping from the lower floor, to the elevator, to the top floor.
Level 5:
This level was a good puzzle to perform as much floor covering as possible, before the middle-moving platform was out of reach for moving towards the right side. The route chosen also allowed me to fill in some intentionally left-behind floors before the return of the middle-moving platform for my second traversing...which is used to finish the top right areas.
Level 6:
This level had an optimal position to be at, which gets Bounty Bob to the bottom moving platform at the right time to continue on towards the right...where the last floor needs filling in. Getting to this spot too earlier causes you to wait, while being late...causes a large number of seconds to be lost (Perhaps 10 to 20 seconds).
Level 7:
Here is another level that completely frustrated me. I was able to cover almost all flooring in one pass, except for a platform to the left. On this level...waiting was the only option that I could find. Basically, I had to make the most of my round-about from the left-side, to the top, and finally the right. It is painful to watch a platform cycle around, where Bounty Bob will make his last ascend towards the remaining unfilled floor.
Level 8:
The Hydrolic lift. This level was fun in finding a route that kept Bounty Bob from back-tracking. A lot of effort was put into determining if the lift could be placed at the right spot, in order to prevent two trips to a set of floors to the left. Sadly, the distance for jumping was right outside the threshold of Bounty Bob's reach.
Level 9:
This "Stompers" level was easily done by stopping the moving platforms at the right location to allow Bounty Bob to fall without loosing his life. This gave an enormous advantage to skipping the stompers, as human players find it difficult to position them in such a way to protect Bounty Bob's fall from killing him.
Level 10:
This is the level that I spent the most time on. Basically, I had to find the right platform coloring order to keep Bounty Bob moving the most. Still, some standing results...but after days of experimenting...this was the best that I could find.
Level 11:
This Uranium level was disappointing, in the fact that waiting was mandatory. The challenge was to figure out how to move quickly through the bottom section. Unlike other levels, this is the only one that requires a second goal in order to finish the level...grabbing the Uranium.
That's it! The levels repeat, with the same level of difficulty. I used Level 1 to track an enemy from the start of its appearance of the level to the return crossing of a ladder. As with the first and second visit to Level 1, the timing ended up being exactly 7 seconds...thus showing that there isn't an increase in difficulty.
feos: Upon getting to the second loop's level 1, the lag picture is a bit different, so it's hard to use exactly the same input as in loop 1, but in general things work the same. Even
the game manual explicitly says that the objective is completing the 11 levels, nothing about loops or raising difficulty. The game doesn't even track those loops, just
resets the level counter.
Also, the 2 player mode doesn't mean they're playing it simultaneously, which could've sped up the movie probably, so 1P is fine here.
The game is really boring, and no real feedback, accepting to Vault.
