Tobu Tobu Girl stands out as a homebrew title due to its rock solid presentation. With its cute graphics, tight gameplay, catchy chiptunes, and professional menus it would hold up as a solid entry in the Gameboy library even when compared with professionally developed titles of the platforms heyday. It certainly conveys a sense of speed rarely seen on the Gameboy. (Probably due to the original console's blurry screen.) On the other hand it is rather short, with only three main levels and a single bonus level. The game is difficult enough to alleviate this somewhat in real time play, but here I use Tobu Girl's fast movement options to complete all four levels in just under three minutes.
In-Game Times & Scores
- LV1 : PLAINS 0:09 14100 S
- LV2 : CLOUDS 0:14 13200 S
- LV3 : SPACE 0:19 14400 S
- LV4 : DREAM 0:24 12900 S
Crappy Encode:
This game seemed like a good candidate for my fist run due to its shortness, simple controls, ease of emulation, and great disparity between unassisted play and TAS due to how quickly actions can be entered. Also I wanted to see a speedrun of it and was disappointed that as far as I could tell no one had attempted it yet. Though it is a Homebrew game, I feel the quality of the game makes up for it, and it's such a short run, with quick fun to watch movements that it doesn't overstay its welcome, even though the gameplay strategy isn't that complex.
Movement
Tobu Girl has three main ways to move (other than falling due to gravity.) Bouncing, Dashing, and Flying.
Bouncing: When bouncing off an enemy Tobu Girl is propelled upwards. The height is the same for all enemies except Jellyfish. Tobu girl continues upwards for around 20 frames after a regular bounce, but to keep up speed, it's better to start a new action before frame 10. After a low jellyfish bounce, a dash should be input immediately.
Dashing: Tobu Girl can dash in all 8 directions, 3 times before she needs to bounce again. The remaining dashes are indicated above her head. This is Tobu Girl's burst movement option and the primary navigation tool for most of the game. A Dash can interrupt most of Tobu Girl's other actions including a previous dash. Frame Perfect, Max length Dashes have 6 empty frames between them. These are used heavily throughout the run. Note that Tobu Girl cannot drift left or right during a dash. The end also must be canceled into another action to prevent a slow animation before she starts to fall.
Flying: Flying propels Tobu Girl upwards based on her momentum. It can be held for a while, but uses up the meter on the lower right. Due to its variable nature, I have a lot of uncertainty about it, but its generally slower than dashing, and faster than bouncing after about 7-10 frames. This will be my primary search area if I look for improvements. The low momentum from a jellyfish bounce means it's pretty slow to fly afterwards, thus low jellyfish bounces are only used if the next enemy can be reached with dashes alone.
Stomping: By Dashing Downwards, Tobu girl can stomp. This destroys the enemy, gets a regular height bounce out of a jellyfish, and restores some of her flight meter. In this run mostly the extra jellyfish height is useful, the only non-jellyfish to be stomped is a bird near the end of level 4 because I needed some more flight meter. Stomping usually takes an extra frame because you need to be a bit higher.
Enemies
- Bats: Hang in place and do nothing.
- Birds: Move slowly left and right, turning around at the edge of the screen.
- Jellyfish: Hang in place and do nothing. Low bounces.
- Ghosts: Zigzag left and right quickly. Disappear even after a normal bounce.
- Spikes: Hang in place and do nothing. Can't be bounced off of.
- Blades: Move slowly left and right, turning around at the edge of the screen. Can't be bounced off of.
Strategy:
Keep upwards momentum as much as possible. After a bounce I plan to get to the next enemy as fast as possible. The Next enemy or the one after that are ideal. If both are out of place horizontally or Spikes/Blades I go for the third. Late in level 4 there are longer stretches. In general the strategy is Bounce > Fly (after 7 - 10 frames) > Dash Upwards (or upwards Diagonally) > 6 empty frames > Dash Upwards > 6 empty frames > Dash Horizontally into a bounce. The horizontal dash takes advantage of the fact that the game is more lenient about what counts as a bounce instead of being killed during a horizontal dash, provided you start far enough away. Also it terminates Tobu Girl's vertical speed, so we can get to the next bounce as quick as possible. (I Have so far been unable to get a bounce while moving upwards.)
Alternating A and Start is used to advance the menus. Curiously, the High score table can only be closed with Start, so the correct button to start on must be picked.
Note:
As the ending sequence plays after level 3, I choose to stop at the high score table for level 4. Pressing start here just sends you back to the main menu.
Eltrion: Multiple improvements found. Cancelling, will submit a new version when I've completed one that implements the improvements.
