Black Castle is a homebrew game made by User0x7f in 2020. As described on its download page, Black Castle is a action platformer for the GameBoy. It is inspired by "Castlevania" or "Fortress Of Fear". There are four levels to fight through and also four different weapons. All have their own pros and cons. At the end of each level there is a boss fight. You can download the game here: https://user0x7f.itch.io/black-castle
Game objectives
Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.5.1
Aims for fastest completion of the game
Kills lots of enemies
Collects lots of items
Comments
Levels aren't too complex in themselves. The hardest part is just getting through every level and having full health for the boss fight. The game refills health after winning a boss fight, which takes some time, so full health is desirable to avoid this refill.
There are also some weird quirks with this game that have to be kept in mind. Occasionally, the player will lag after landing from a jump/falling down. I'm not exactly sure what causes this weird lag, and efforts to figure it out were futile. I've reduced it as much as I could without this knowledge however, and overall the result came out fairly acceptable. Another quirk I've noted is horizontal moving platforms going rightwards seem to move the player slightly faster than typical speed. This is abused in all applicable locations.
For some other notes, the mace(?) seems to be the strongest weapon in this game, so once it is obtained it is kept throughout the game. Using any weapon seems to have a cooldown for 3 frames before it can be used again. And 3 weapons on screen at once seems to be a cap placed on the game.
feos: Even with 75% (9/0/3) support in the poll and most posts pro this movie, I'm not personally convinced that this run is entertaining enough for Moons. But since it's a vaultable category, there will be no harm in getting some definitive amount of ratings and adjusting the tier if we have to.
This run looks much faster and much more precise than the best human speedrun. And nothing sticks out as optimality flaws, aside from a couple things that people asked in the thread and got their answers.
Is it faster to take damage rather than avoid it at 3:12 and 4:14?
Oh, those times I just couldn't figure out how to not take damage without just stop holding right for some time. They don't lose time in the end as I make sure to pick up hearts to get back to full health for the boss.
Oh hey, homebrew game TASes are always neat.
The precision in the TAS was definitely remarkable and the experience was smooth throughout. I don't think there was a single missed shot in the entire TAS. However, at the same time, the game is very basic, so I was kinda missing any speed tricks throughout the entire TAS. The only thing that stood out to me was the one corner jump.
Even for such a short game, it is very repetetive, and while that is more of a critique of the game, it unfortunately also impacts the TAS. Even for only 8 minutes, you only really need to see the first level to have seen everything in my opinion.
Still, I think the positives outweigh the negatives for me, which is why I'm voting yes for entertainment. Good job on the run.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
It seems like Super Mario Land is also a solid inspiration for this game, given the look of the moving platforms and the spiders, though it's otherwise a lot like Fortress of Fear. This was a fairly short and sweet game, if nothing too spectacular. Yes vote.
Also, do you have a double jump? You seem to use it quite rarely. I think I saw it once in World 2.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Also, do you have a double jump? You seem to use it quite rarely. I think I saw it once in World 2.
There isn't a double jump in this game. The "double jump" you saw was probably just me landing on a hidden platform and jumping again (some of those green bricks in the background sometimes actually have collision).
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
mklip2001 wrote:
Also, do you have a double jump? You seem to use it quite rarely. I think I saw it once in World 2.
There isn't a double jump in this game. The "double jump" you saw was probably just me landing on a hidden platform and jumping again (some of those green bricks in the background sometimes actually have collision).
Ok yeah, that is it. I didn't expect a hidden platform. Thanks
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11492
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Gameplay gets old after a minute because it's so simplistic and never changes. Music is sad and slow. Graphics look like it's the same level for 7.5 minutes. Bosses instantly die from mere spam. Voted No.
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.
Joined: 4/7/2015
Posts: 331
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
feos wrote:
Gameplay gets old after a minute because it's so simplistic and never changes. Music is sad and slow. Graphics look like it's the same level for 7.5 minutes. Bosses instantly die from mere spam
I agree with all these facts, but I still vote yes because it's still the fastest completion of the game, so it's very Vaultable, also I love to see homebrew speedruns, I encourage it.
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math.
My things:
YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11492
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
brunovalads wrote:
I agree with all these facts, but I still vote yes because it's still the fastest completion of the game, so it's very Vaultable
I know it's vaultable, and it is fastest completion. Is this movie entertaining because of that?
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.
The game looks solid enough for casual play, but this TAS is quite repetitive.
The optimisation looks perfectly fine. Getting so many kills is nice, and going above the screen without wasting time was cool.
But the damage taken looks sloppy, even if there's no way to avoid it. The levels look near-identical, and even the playaround in the boss fights is repetitive, unfortunately. Although the mechanics are limited, is there anything else you can do? Throw some extra shots out once the boss is gone, or move to the next world a frame before you fall into the spikes, maybe?
I think this movie was barely entertaining enough for me to vote Yes, but it probably belongs in the Vault.
