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This run of Hello Kitty World aims to collect all the balloons.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 2.3.1 (NesHawk Core)
  • Items: 100%
  • Takes damage to save time

Comments

Hello Kitty World is essentially a Dolled-up Installment port of the previously-unreleased-in-Japan Game Boy game Balloon Kid.

Mechanics

The entire game is an auto-scroller. Bear with me.
Get 20 balloons so that double balloons appear. Miss a balloon and you have to get another 20. These don't affect the bonus area balloons. Get 20 bonus area balloons to get an extra life. There are certain balloons that cause extra life hearts and P balloons. P balloons make you invincible and the screen scrolls faster.
Every second stage has a boss at the end. You get an extra life every time you get 100 balloons, when you get 100,000 points, and every time you get a PERFECT!!. You have two balloons. Get hit by an airborne enemy and you lose a balloon. Having only one balloon you ascend slower than with two. Lose both balloons and you're grounded and you have to traverse on land and jump. You can re-inflate your balloons by pressing down repeatedly. You can also release balloons by pressing B. But beware. Get hit by an airborne enemy with no balloons and you're dead. You can also die by colliding with a grounded enemy, fire, electric sparks, falling stalactites, falling in water, and getting eaten by a fish. There are eight stages to complete.

For encoders

This movie has built-in subtitles. Go to messages, set frame counter, lag frame counter, and re-records to the top right with X coordinate to 0 and Y coordinates to 0, 14, and 28 respectively, watches to the top left with both coordinates to 0, input display at the top left with X coordinate to 200 and Y coordinate to 56. Have all on-screen displays checked with the fps display unchecked. Set display to use 1:1 pixel size, and use 2x zoom. Download the memory watch here and use it. Make sure Record OSD is enabled.
Alternatively, you can use the 4:3 display at max zoom or in full screen without the on-screen displays.

ThunderAxe31: Well, why not? Judging.
ThunderAxe31: Response for this movie was pretty negative, which is unsurprising, as the game is mostly a slow autoscroller with few features. So we first need to see if this game is eligible for Vault tier. From watching this movie, we may get the impression that the gameplay execution is trivial to match with real-time attempts, so we need to find anything that could prove that movies done with this game can feature TAS-only techniques. Since this game can be split out in few different gameplay aspects, we can list them there and a look at them invididually:
  • The speed of the screen autoscrolling is constant and it doesn't help that the only way to sped it up, that is the invicibility power-up, is trivial to pick up and lasts for a fixed amount of time.
  • Optimizing menuing execution is also trivial, as there are lag frames enclosing the first frames where the necessary input need to be provided to the game, which nullifies human inaccuracy.
  • The duration of each boss fight depends from how quickly the boss itself is defeated by the player, which requires to repeatedly nail the necessary movement timings. Beating each boss as soon as possible is not entirely trivial.
  • The score section can't be skipped, so its duration inevitably depends from how many balloons you picked up during the levels, so the fewer balloons you pick up, the more time you save after finishing a level, last level included. And since some balloons may be actually difficult to avoid, this could be seen as a slightly non-trivial technique. Note that this is only applicable for fastest-completion.
  • The bonus stages end as soon as the player picks the last collectable, that is a 1-up item, which spawns as soon as all balloons of the bonus stages have been picked up. The position and the timing of the last balloon is RNG-dependant, so it could be manipulated to a most favorable outcome. Additionally, the position of the last balloon and the 1-up item can also allow for different movement techniques, so it should be carefully planned ahead and dealt accordingly with appropriate movement strategy. Note that this is only applicable for full-completion.
Now, there is another problem for Vault: goal. It either needs to be fastest-completion (aka any%) or full-completion (aka 100%). While this game doesn't give any clear indication of what the full-completion requirements could be, I have to remind here that we can still accept unofficial definitions of full-completion, provided that they meet our full-completion rules. Since the amount of balloons that could be picked up is fixed and not depending on any form of randomness, it can be used for defining full-completion, including the amount of double-balloons. I also want to point out that picking up balloons is the main objective of the game, generally speaking.
So, I consider movies made with this game to be potentially applicable for Vault, including this full-completion definition. Still, I have to point out that this submission is not enough optimized for our standards, especially because there are few places where there is the chance to save time; in other words, the fact that this game is mostly plain, actually makes it more necessary to have it optimized. The part that I found suspect the most was the fourth boss fight, as there were used different jumping techniques for attacking it, while it seemed to be unneccessary. So I did a quick test, and I did discover that not only it could have been possible to use the same jump again and again, but that there is a possible frame-perfect trick that allows to hit it right before it is about to fire its 4-stars attack, which allowed me to save 816 frames (see movie file here). Another thing that got my attention was the fact that the author did sometimes pick up the balloons in bonus stages before they rise from the pipes, by touching the side of the pipe; however it wasn't done optimally for ending the bonus stages as soon as possible, so I did another test and saved 180 frames in the first bonus stage alone, just by optimizing the movements for picking up the last balloon and the 1-up (see movie file here). Note that I didn't apply any RNG manipulation for getting a more favorable position of the last balloon and 1-up, which could potentially save even more time.
Rejecting for suboptimality.


TASVideoAgent
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Spikestuff
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>For Encoders Yeah. No. I wanted to turn this off after the first stage cause it's boring, but for some reason you never make encodes anymore so I got to watch it through. I was not ever entertained by this. No vote. Also a question. Why do you keep changing your alias? (or changing the arrangement of it) Link to video
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
GJTASer2018
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TBH, I would rather watch the "Balloon Trip" mode of Balloon Fight instead of this, particularly because the only Balloon Fight publication on the site doesn't cover Balloon Trip.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
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Spikestuff wrote:
but for some reason you never make encodes anymore so I got to watch it through.
Here's a hint: No one says you have to watch it, and no one says you have to encode it if the submitter won't*. If you don't find any fun in doing this, save your time and do something that is actually fun. *It's 2019 already; anyone who puts in all the effort to create their TAS should be expected to know how to encode and upload videos of their own TASes.
EZGames69
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The fact that there’s no way to make the screen move faster makes me feel like this run is extremely trivial. Maybe the bonus stages (one where balloons come out from tubes) could make this non trivial enough to be acceptable, but as far as being entertaining, it’s getting a no vote from me.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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FractalFusion wrote:
Spikestuff wrote:
but for some reason you never make encodes anymore so I got to watch it through.
Here's a hint: No one says you have to watch it, and no one says you have to encode it if the submitter won't*. If you don't find any fun in doing this, save your time and do something that is actually fun. *It's 2019 already; anyone who puts in all the effort to create their TAS should be expected to know how to encode and upload videos of their own TASes.
Audience reception is always welcomed, even more when it's a No vote, since it's harder to watch in full a movie that you didn't find fun. For what concerns providing a temp encode for others, I personally don't see why any submitter should not want someone else to do it in their place, especially when it's from someone experienced with quality encoding. In any case, no submitter did ever complain for such a thing, as far as I know. I don't expect any submitter to provide a temp encode. Also, I personally apprecciated this temp encode because it allowed me to easily watch the TAS at full speed (my pc can't play back NesHawk movies at more than 20 fps), which caused me to get interested in this TAS and decide to judge it. By the way, please, let's stay on topic and discuss the movie.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
EZGames69
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This will be my only off topic post in this thread. Personally I dont care if the encode that is provided by an author is not in HD, I’m not always at my computer so if a submission comes in and has no encode then it’s a bit tedious to turn my computer on and watch it from there. Any sort of viewing I can get would be appreciated, even if not in HD quality. If I do want HD quality then I can always wait for the publication encode (in the case it gets accepted).
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
TBH, I would rather watch the "Balloon Trip" mode of Balloon Fight instead of this, particularly because the only Balloon Fight publication on the site doesn't cover Balloon Trip.
Balloon Trip is "Infinite"game play. IE, there's no "ending" Though there may be a kill screen of some kind.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
MarbleousDave
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McW4v3-X is my new alias. I also made an encode, but I can't upload it yet 'cause I lost access to my previous YouTube channel. My dad was being stubborn and went against my suggestion of changing phone services by deactivating my old phone instead. I need a new phone to be able to upload longer videos. Anyways, getting back on topic. I should be making quality TASes.
nymx
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EZGames69 wrote:
The fact that there’s no way to make the screen move faster makes me feel like this run is extremely trivial. Maybe the bonus stages (one where balloons come out from tubes) could make this non trivial enough to be acceptable, but as far as being entertaining, it’s getting a no vote from me.
I'm with EZ. The autoscrollers are mostly boring, but that's just the game; however, the part that stood out to me was the bonus rounds. To me, entertainment would have been much higher if the ballons were collected as soon as they came out the tubes. In some cases, sitting around waiting for a balloon is not good enough when you could have "Charged" that tube in order to keep your speed to make it to another. I can see that not all cases could have been perfect, but some seemed to be sloppy at collection. Are the balloons on a timer? If so...then collecting the last one is the most important. If they are not, then minimizing the time they come out the tubes is crucial. Entertainment: Meh vote Optimization: Meh vote.
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Audience reception is always welcomed, even more when it's a No vote
Thank you for this, ThunderAxe31!
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£e Nécroyeur wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Audience reception is always welcomed, even more when it's a No vote
Thank you for this, ThunderAxe31!
Just to clarify, I was referring to No votes done after watching a movie in full. Also, a vote should be explained with a post, especially when it goes against the trend. Fore example, in the case for this submission there is more need to explain Yes votes than No votes. That's why I don't need Spike to explain his No vote: I can understand why he didn't find it fun to watch. Instead, when a submitted movie is supposedly entertaining, there is more need to explain No votes rather than Yes ones, as these are mostly unexpected. Note that this is just my opinion.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
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My no vote would be a yes if this were an actually published game and not just a lame hack.
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electricslide wrote:
My no vote would be a yes if this were an actually published game and not just a lame hack.
Please, base your votes just on the poll question alone: "Did you find this movie entertaining? (Vote after watching!)" And by the way, this IS an actually published game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_Kid#Ports_and_related_releases
Wikipedia wrote:
On March 27, 1992, a subsidiary of Hello Kitty creator Sanrio, known as Character Soft, reprogrammed and published a Family Computer version of Balloon Kid, titled as Hello Kitty World (ハロー キティ ワールド). This version was released in Japan, where Balloon Kid was not. Balloon Kid was created after it was brought to North America. The notable changes to the game were Balloon Kid's plot being replaced with Hello Kitty's, as well as updated/changed visuals.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
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