BlobQuest is a 2021 NES homebrew in which a blob must collect 8 mystic rubies scattered throughout a dangerous cave to break free of the cave and the evil wizard's curse to regain its true form. This TAS aims to do this as quickly as possible by taking the fastest route through the cave and maybe flying across the screen at high speeds only a couple of times.

Well, the development of this movie was quite something; new improvements being made left, right and centre and new developments being made regarding zipping and double jumping being discovered, not to mention an entire overhaul of the route. I'd really like to thank the co-authors of the TAS for getting it to the crazy stage it got to, being a total of 2882 frames (47.96 seconds) faster than the original submission and for dr1ox1 for informing me of the existence of zipping in the first place, allowing this all to happen.

As I said, the route has been completely changed and this is it in its current form:

springy < bouncy < slurpy < squishy < spinny < ruby < ruby < sticky < ruby < ruby < ruby < ruby < ruby < ruby

Ideally, we need to get squishy and sticky as soon as possible as these allow zipping, the main glitch to happen. Unfortunately, all the previous abilities are required to even reach it. Same goes for spinny, the only other way to speed up travel.

If you're wondering what the glitch that's mainly in the latter half of the TAS where the blob goes flying at the speed of light across the screen, that's this. By activating sticky while squishy then attempting to stick to the underside of a platform, the blob ends up flying horizontally until it hits a wall. Vertical zipping is possible, but only if it catches the edge of a platform while already zipping. The opposite is also possible. This is possible likely because the sticky ability sets RAM address $038B to 0 which means it is grounded and the squishy ability prevents the blob from immediately attaching onto a ceiling, allowing it to fly without losing any height.

Another variation of zipping is fast dropping which is where select is pressed two times, one frame apart, and it sends the blob hurling down to the ground very quickly. It isn't possible to just do it after jumping, I think the blob is required to have recently been in the sticky state to activate it midair, I'm not too sure.

More grounded or not shenanigans. This time it's a little less complicated (I hope). By catching the edge of a platform while jumping, $038B isn't set to 1 which is what it is set to when it is in the air and so it remains at 0, allowing for it to jump once more. This is used a few times to skip over a couple of sections but it isn't quite as useful as zipping.

If there's something I haven't explained or you want a better explanation, check out either this submissions' forums or the game's forum.

This is a bit of a dangerous paragraph to write. Most improvements that will ever be made will likely come from improving platforming and minor route changes. If we're lucky, there may be another glitch that saves time in a couple of places but I can't really see many spots that can be improved by an awful lot, even with new tech (this is going to age well). Who knows? A 200+ frame improvement wouldn't even be surprising at this point.

arkiandruski: Claiming for judging.

arkiandruski: Looks like a really cool game and fun TAS. Accepting for publication.

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