Vectorman (1995) is one of the later games for Genesis; it sports multiple gameplay modes, pre-rendered 3D models and some very nice visual effects.
According to its plot, the Earth's population decided they have polluted it enough, and migrated elsewhere, leaving robots made of orbs ("orbots") behind to clean up the mess. One of the higher level orbots gets his head accidentally attached to a nuclear warhead, goes insane and usurps total control over all mechanical beings left on the planet. This is the state the main hero, orbot Vectorman, finds it in after returning from one of his garbage discharging missions.
Objectives
- Uses an in-game code
- Genre: Platformer
Since this TAS uses an in-game code that isn't mentioned in the game's manuals and skips over 95% of the game, I'm assuming it will meet a similar fate as
Kid Chameleon "warp code" in 01:22.04 by being accepted to Playground.
The Credits Warp Cheat
To pull off the credits warp cheat, you must go to a specific spot in Day 1: Terraport and enter some button combination. Specifically, your X-position must be between 1409 and 1439, and your Y-position must be 1344. While inside this bounding region, pause the game and enter C, A, Left, Left, A, B, A, Down, B, A, B, Y, Down, Up, Mode, B, Start (which spells out CALL A BAD BABY DUMB).
You can view a visualization of the region here.
The code won't work if you've already enabled any other cheat codes, and because it requires a 6-button controller, you can't enter it on certain platforms like the Sega Smash Pack 2.
Difficulty Selection
I opted for "Wicked" difficulty in this submission instead of "Insane" (the hardest difficulty). A higher difficulty means enemies have more HP and Vectorman has less. Since there are no enemy interactions whatsoever in this TAS, I thought it would be pointless to change it. Moreover, changing the difficulty would mean you would have to watch the 12-second title screen cutscene again, which is annoying to sit through twice.
Vectorman's Standard Movement Stats
These values assume 1 pixel = 256 subpixels and 1 frame = ~1/60th of a second
- Horizontal speed cap on ground: 4 pixels/frame
- Horizontal speed cap in air: Uncapped
- Horizontal speed loss from jump initiation:
- If horizontal speed > 2 pixels/frame: 72 subpixels/frame
- If horizontal speed ≤ 2 pixels/frame: 0
- Horizontal acceleration on ground: 32 subpixels/frame^2
- Horizontal deceleration on ground: 128 subpixels/frame^2
- Horizontal acceleration in air: 8 subpixels/frame^2
- Horizontal deceleration in air:
- If horizontal speed > 2 pixels/frame: 88 subpixels/frame^2
- If horizontal speed ≤ 2 pixels/frame: 16 subpixels/frame^2
- Vertical speed cap (downwards): 16 pixels/frame
- Vertical speed cap (upwards) from jump: -8 pixels, 128 subpixels/frame
- Vertical speed cap (upwards) from jet boost: Uncapped
- Vertical speed impulse from jump: -8 pixels, 128 subpixels/frame
- Vertical speed impulse from jet boost: -4 pixels, 96 subpixels/frame
- Gravitational acceleration: 96 subpixels/frame^2
The most important takeaways from the above are:
- Vectorman's X-acceleration on the ground is 24 units faster compared to in the air
- Vectorman has no speed cap in the air, while ground speed is capped at only 4 pixels/frame
In general therefore, Vectorman should ideally run along the ground while speed is less than 4 pixels/frame, then stay in the air as much as possible at speeds beyond this.
Shooting Photons
Up to 3 photons can be on-screen at once. Normally, Vectorman can shoot one photon every 7-8 frames. However, you can shoot photons at a faster rate by changing state during the cooldown interval. These state changes can include anything from stopping running, starting running, turning around, jumping, landing, ducking, and unducking. This property was used heavily when destroying the TV containing the bomb morph.
Shooting a photon diagonally forwards within 10 frames after landing from a jump will grant Vectorman a 160-subpixel ground acceleration for one frame instead of the standard 32-subpixel ground acceleration. It would seem beneficial to do this after landing from every jump, so why don't I do that? Because shooting photons often generates lag. Sometimes, the time that would be lost due to lag outweighs the time that would be gained due to a diagonal-forward shot, hence why some jump landings don't have them.
Triple Jump
If you jump within the first 5 frames after running off a ledge, you actually have a 1-5 frame window (depending on how early your first jump was) to jump a second time without engaging the jet boost! This is used to gain a little bit of extra height during the third-from-last jump to skip having to land on an extra platform.
feos: Claiming for judging.
