About the Game
Wild Gunman is a 1974 Arcade shooter game released by Nintendo. In each round, you’re pitted against a gunman, who will walk onto the screen and eventually shout “FIRE!”. You then have a random amount of time to shoot him before he shoots you. This is a licensed 1984 NES port of said game.
About the TAS
This TAS aims to roll over the score on Game A as fast as possible, and does so in 70 rounds with an input time of 18:35.
Scoring
This section describes how the game calculates your score for each round.
- The second digit of your time (0.x0) is subtracted from the time limit of each gunman and then multiplied by 1000. Due to this, we want to make sure our time is always 0.0x (0.00-0.09). Then the gunman’s reward is added at the end.
- The one exception to this rule is Round 68, where we end with 0.14 on the clock and get 1000 less points. This is to get the fastest loading times possible for Rounds 69 and 70 while still rolling over the score in 70 rounds.
RNG Manipulation
This section describes how the game randomises certain gameplay elements. I found a lot of information while digging into this game, and honestly, I had a lot of fun figuring all of this out, especially with me being obsessed with mathematics.
Levels 1-29:
- Both the reward for each gunman and the time limit to shoot them vary between 2. values. We want the highest reward and time limit combo we can get with 0.0x on the clock from the fight before.
- There are 2 different waiting times before the gunmen fire - one of them is 11 frames longer than the shorter time.
Levels 30+:
- The time limit to shoot each gunman reward varies between 2 values, whereas the reward varies between 4 or 5. We want the highest reward and time limit combo we can get with 0.0x on the clock from the fight before.
- There are many different waiting times before the gunmen fire - I don’t know the exact values, but what I do know is that the highest range between waiting times I saw while working on this TAS was 0.92 seconds (This is an estimate as I don’t know for sure because it was a 0.9 second fight, it could’ve been 0.91, but based on the NES’s framerate, 0.92 is more likely.)
All of these RNG variables depend on what the in-game time was when you shot the previous gunman. Another interesting thing I discovered is that from level 30 onwards, the highest time bonus and reward combos seem to be in a positive correlation with the amount of frames saved from different waiting times, which works out perfectly for this TAS.
RTA Comparison
The RTA record set by bowtie1320 takes 83 rounds to roll over the score and does so in 22:23. This TAS achieves this goal in 70 rounds and, in RTA timing (from pressing start to the score being rolled over), clocks in at 18:44 (67595 frames).
Can This Be Improved?
This TAS only has the chance to be improved by 1 or 2 seconds at best as there might be a couple of faster loading times I didn’t find from my testing that will still let you finish the game in 70 rounds. However, I think this TAS is optimal enough for publication as is. And with that being said, that’s all from me.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the TAS!
Samsara: Resetting to New, as the situation with the author has been solved.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: After testing a few points, I concur that the author has the correct approach to maximizing score in the quickest fashion. In my opinion, BOTing would be the only way to find any more time...as a "70 round Tree Decision" would definitely find the fastest load times between fights. Obviously, a feat that wear down a human.
Accepting.
