Survival Kids is a game about a boy or girl who gets trapped on an island and tries to survive and escape. There are multiple endings in the game. This TAS aims to reach the 8th ending, the best ending, as fast as possible.
(The display on the right is off sync which is very noticeable in some places. I decided that it was negligible overall.)
General
- Emulator used: VBA-rr v24 svn391
- Uses big stick to save time
- Uses resets
- Best ending
- Genre: Adventure (May also be considered Puzzle and RPG)
(You might want to watch before reading. Also I may be very in detail with my explanations so feel free to ask. I will explain it as best as I can.)
In
2011 I was checking out other gameboy TASes and noticed this game. I found it to be a neat game concept and the gameplay interested me. I tried to make a camhack but I failed. I recently came back to this game and researched it a lot more and managed to make a more or less usable camhack script (see "Links" section below).
I also found a rather interesting
text glitch which may one day lead to ACE TASes. It sometimes causes the game to reset itself in GB mode with a glitched color palette. It also seems to behave differently on the Japanese version and on other emulators (such as Bizhawk). It should probably be researched by people who have the catridge.
There seem to be many misconceptions with this game. I asked two Let's Players on Youtube, but they wouldn't know for certain why things are the way they are in the game. See the "Facts" section below.
This game proved to be quite a puzzle as I route-planned through it. If there was a missing item I had to find a way to get it and bring it beforehand, and manage my inventory space accordingly. I changed the route a lot and now have come up with what I think is the fastest way to beat the game going for the 8th ending. I will explain in the route section what exactly I'm doing and I will try to explain why I did it. Deciding on whether to sleep or to rest also plays a role.
I thought the ruins section near the end is boring for a TAS but there isn't anything I could have done.
Endings
These are all the endings that can be achieved. Some endings are good, some are bad. I don't think it would be a good idea to give each ending its own run. I'd rather think Ending 1 and Ending 8 deserve their own, and then there can be an "All Endings" run - such a run may abuse savegames to reach an ending on the fly, then continue with the same playthrough. I actually don't know if this is possible but this could make for an interesting TAS that would easily work out. Simply save before being rescued by the heli, then load that savegame after obtaining the ending and wait until the search is called off. Then save before the raft trip and don't bring enough food - then do bring enough food to continue. After the ruins, you can save and give the other kid none, some or all items to reach three different endings. You can also skip over the cutscene trigger that makes the other kid appear if you watched a campsite.
There is only one major problem with routing such a run right now: There is a gem that may be given to you by the other kid, or that you may obtain in the desert if the other kid isn't met. If the other kid is triggered, the item in the desert is the Pendant instead. You can obtain the Pendant even though the other kid isn't triggered. Some research has to be done about this. It's also not possible to visit the ruins before obtaining that gem, which may mean that in order to reach the different endings (leaving by ship), you might need to visit the desert and the ruins over and over. That would really ruin the run.
By the way, I don't know of a quicker way to pass time besides sleeping over and over. An all endings run would prefer sleeping over resting even if it's a little slower in a particular situation - because it would be faster to not have to sleep an additional time later on.
- Ending 1: Flee the island by helicopter. (05:37.5 TAS by klmz)
This is done by listening to the working radio to find about the ongoing search for survivors and then building an SOS sign at the beach.
- Ending 2: Flee on raft but die at sea.
After finding out the search is called off (wait 2 days after finding out about the search), build a raft at the beach but fail to bring enough food and water. It seems 3 foods and a full canteen is required to survive. If Bub wasn't rescued from the scrap, you will obtain this ending anyway.
See here for a list of good and bad foods. Please note this is before I found out about the shuffling effects of grasses and mushrooms. Basicly Fruits, Berries, Grasses and some mushrooms are considered "good".
- Ending 3: Meet other kid and wait 100 days
In order to meet the other kid, you have to survive the raft event and then check any of the two campsites that will appear thereafter (top left, top). Then go back to the ship and the kid will appear.
- Ending 4: Leave by ship alone
Don't inspect any campsite and collect the gem from the desert rather than from the other kid.
- Ending 5: Leave by ship with other kid, other kid dies
Meet the other kid and then set off after 13 days passed.
- Ending 6: Leave by ship with other kid, normal ending
Meet the other kid, then set off before 13 days pass, and make sure the other kid's affection towards you is between 0~240. (See "Love" section below)
- Ending 7: Wait 100 days alone
Don't meet the other kid and wait until 100th day.
- Ending 8: Leave by ship with other kid, wedding ending
Meet the other kid, then set off before 13 days pass, and make sure the other kid's affection towards you is 241 or higher. (See "Love" section below)
This is considered to be the best ending, although the game points out there is still a "best ending" possible to reach (by reaching all endings).
Love
The player may find the other kid during the course of the game. Ending 5, 6 or 8 will be triggered depending what you do.
- After finding the other kid, taking 13 or more days before setting off will always trigger Ending 5.
- After finding the other kid, taking less than 13 days and making sure affection is between 0 and 240 will trigger Ending 6.
- After finding the other kid, taking less than 13 days and making sure affection is 241 or higher will trigger Ending 8.
The address that keeps track of "Affection" is $C5F6. The value in this address can be boosted or reduced by giving certain items to the other kid. See
here for a list.
In this run, I obtain the two optional items Weird Berry and Pendant and give them to the other kid since those two have the highest boosts. Weird Berry boosts the status by 100 and Pendant boosts it by 150, so it effectively reaches over 240.
Grass & Mushroom effects
The effects of grasses and mushrooms is random. There are two possible scenarios and the game decides on one the moment the beginning cutscene ends. See
here. This TAS uses the 2nd scenario.
Clams would always paralyse the player and are known to be "bad" already. But grass and mushroom effects need to be checked for the kid to learn it's "bad". There are two alligators in the swamps that need to be paralysed with such bad foods, but they won't be paralysed if you haven't learned about the bad effect of a grass or mushroom yet.
So in order to pass the first alligator, I use a clam found at the beach after the raft trip. The second alligator is passed by eating a soft mushroom and learning it confuses your controls, then using a 2nd soft mushroom on the gator.
Route choices
I'm not going to write the whole route and every single item collection here, but I will explain some basic route choices here. Feel free to ask when you have questions.
- 0:40 The canteen is obtained at the very beginning. I could obtain it later but then I would need to make a detour for the river which is much slower.
- 1:20 The first thing to do after skipping the "oh hey a hut" cutscene is to obtain a big stick from the swamps. I collect three good foods and fill the canteen for the raft trip later. I store these items in the hut at
- 2:15 There would be a fog blocking the way to the maze forest if I didn't sleep. So I sleep in the tree here. Stats start depleting after this. Strange about the fog, because you wouldn't find out about i since the player would be forced to sleep in the hut when watching the "oh hey a hut" cutscene. TCRF material?
- 3:02 Now that I have access to the next part of the game, I go to the maze forest to collect tree sap. The fog is gone since I slept in the tree, so I can enter.
- 4:08 Using save & reset to go out of bounds. This allows me to skip a cave. This was done in the ED1 run by klmz, too.
- 4:14 The big leaf is collected to fix the hut later. (Requires 1 Big Leaf, 2 Planks, 1 Nail) I need to fix the hut to obtain the Weird Berry later, which I want to give to the other kid to boost his "love".
- 4:42 After getting the battery, I can build the working radio and listen about the ongoing search. I also collect the Rhombus Gem here instead of later, because I desperately need all inventory space I can get later on.
- 5:40 The big rock is collected because the kid needs it to build the raft. (Requires materials: 4 Lumber, 2 Nails, 1 Ivy)
- 6:00 Only one lumber at a time can be carried. Four lumbers need to be carried to the beach. Once the first lumber is brought there, a typhoon starts and the kid needs to go back. His hut breaks down. The typhoon can be skipped using pause & reset skipping but the kid would die on the raft trip unless Bub was saved from the rubble of the broken hut.
- 7:20 I go to the right to collect the nails and skip the cutscene trigger. I almost didn't consider that I could do that.
- 8:25 After fixing the hut, I get items back that I stored earlier. Three foods and canteen.
- 10:15 After the raft trip, the kid is beaten down a lot. All stats are terrible. First I drink from my canteen (which is still full) and eat a nearby berry and make it to the ship to rest (Sleeping would cause the clam to spoil and is slower than resting).
- 11:55 I collect this big stick and another one at the mountain. I need to use one in the waterfall cave later, and the other one is used for rock pushing at the swamp, then I drop it to make space. Also, I kill a bird to get a feather. Manipulating the animal wasn't hard but it was a gamble. I could have very well ended up having to wait 3 seconds to manipulate it, but I was lucky. I visit the eastern beach part to clean a statue with water; This sets a flag that the Eyegem appears in the desert. I build the things I need (Kindling, Torch, Bow, Arrow), visit the campsite at the mountain and obtain the round gem. Then I go into the waterfall cave at 15:15.
- 16:15 In the cave I found the palace key which I need to enter the ruins later. I go to the swamps to finish business there. I use the out of bounds glitch to pass an alligator for now. I could bring a bad food to paralyse him but the food locations weren't convenient. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the out of bounds glitch to grab the square gem right away but it's not too bad. Getting the gem dries the swamps.
- 18:05 I build the hammer which I need to pound the statue in the desert to get the eyegem. I also get the pendant from the desert and then go to get the triangle gem and go to the ship. I kill an animal at 19:15 to make a cooked meat for the other kid to wake her up. I was lucky this animal spawned beyond the alligator because I didn't have inventory space to pick up meat before. I need every inventory space I can get in these parts which is also why I ditch bow and arrow here. Going to have to remake those later.
- 20:00 I find the other kid since I inspected the campsite at the mountain.
- 20:40 I obtain the "last" gem from the other kid. I give her the Weird Berry and Pendant to boost her affection to 250 which is enough for her to love me. I only need to finish the game now to obtain Ending 8. After I insert all the gems except the moon gem, the ruins open. Since I still need a bow and arrow for the ruins, I have to rebuild them now.
- 23:54 I use the most optimal way of solving this sliding puzzle (DRURDLLURRDDLLURRDLLURRD). Credit goes to
Analogbit.com.
- 24:30 This is a maze. I chose the best route through it. See
here for my paint skills. The rest of the ruins should be self explanatory. Fatigue management was difficult, I ended up having to collect most fruits/berries that were nearby.
- 26:21 I walk around a corner here not optimally to avoid a bad animal encounter.
Tricks & Glitches
- Cutscene trigger skip
- Cutscenes that require you to step into a certain location for them to start can be skipped, by stepping onto the location, pausing and resetting the game.
- Cutting grass
- Grasses will reappear when you leave the area and come back at an "every other frame" chance. You can leave grasses cut by making sure to re-visit the area on a good frame. Unfortunately, there is a grass later when I go to the ruins that I couldn't prevent from re-appearing - most likely because it re-appeared earlier already and I wasn't careful.
- Delaying
- Delaying for certain amounts of frames is done to get better luck with animal spawns, animal movement, to leave grasses cut, etc. It can be done by managing textboxes or menus slower or by pressing into a direction at certain frames which may cause the character to stop for a frame at a time.
- Fast text
- Pressing A-button a while before a textbox appears, or as soon as a textbox appears (seems equally fast) is the best way of making text run fast. Holding the A-button is much slower.
- Pressing Select to change direction
- The facing direction can be changed by using select. This is faster than aligning the character against the object.
Facts
Here I want to list again some facts to defeat all the misconceptions that may still live on in people's heads.
- After the raft event, Bub gives you the Weird Berry only if you fixed the hut. If you didn't, he won't give it to you.
- The other kid's affection towards you depends on what items you give him/her. See "Love" section above. The affection doesn't deplete over time (at least it didn't during my testing - I slept for 10 days and the value didn't change). So contrary to common belief, the other kid doesn't need to be nursed all the time.
- You need to inspect only one of the two campsites for the other kid to appear. You don't need to inspect both.
- The effects of grasses and mushrooms depend on what scenario the game decided on at the beginning, see "Grass & Mushroom effects" above.
Possible improvements
- When I visit the 1st half again for the first time (i.e. I used the one-way exit from the swamps) I go pick up sticks to build a torch, kindling, arrow. I noticed it may be faster to not cut a grass there but to walk around it..
- Better fatigue/hunger/thirst/rain management? It's difficult and resting vs. resting twice vs. sleeping was already tested much in some places, but maybe there is room for frame squeezing. When it rains the player stops and says he needs an umbrella, so bad weather should be avoided or an umbrella leaf should be carried. This may not be possible for the swamp due to inventory management problems. But it should be possible when going to the ruins.
- There is a grass on the way to the maze forest that I couldn't prevent from re-appearing because it probably re-appeared earlier already. Otherwise I wouldn't have needed to cut it down again.
- It seems the oob glitch at the swamps actually does allow you to reach some of the isles right away. Maybe it's possible to reach the square gem earlier.
- Something about not checking the radio... See
here
Addresses
| c5ee | Life |
| c5f0 | Hunger |
| c5f2 | Water |
| c5f4 | Fatigue |
| c5f6 | Other kid's love |
| 7000~700b | Item 1~12 |
| d904 | Player X |
| d905 | Player Y |
| c19e | Daytime (0 morning, 1 noon, 2 evening, 3 night) |
| c6fd | Animal spawn (at 120) |
| c19d | Time (morning, noon, evening requires 250 steps. Night requires 190.) |
| cb9c | Day |
Links
- Lua Script I used (This is a slightly modified version but should be usable nonetheless. The two red fields can be toggled by click to enable camhack and stat freeze. The camhack will flash between two different screens at 30hz - I sadly couldn't make this work better... You also need to edit lines 23 and 24 depending where you use the OoB trick. The stat freeze is for testing purposes to freeze all your stats and time. Don't do it while TASing.)
- Maps
- Forum topic
- klmz Ending 1 TAS
Thanks
- to TheStrawhatNO and Manikinator for their videos and comments
- to Aktan for helping create the display for the Youtube video
- to adelikat and others for Bizhawk help
- to people who posted in the forum topic
- to people who wrote guides on GameFAQs
Tompa: Let's judge this!
Tompa: Quite an interesting game and a well-planned TAS of it. Accepting to the Vault.
Tompa: By request, I'll clarify why I put this on the Vault despite the viewer response... While it was recieved very well and is an interesting TAS to watch, it's still quite slow paced and doesn't show any inhuman gameplay, a lot of the movement would look the same in real time. I hope that shines some light on my decision =).
