Please replace the BK2 in this submission with the following 6-second improvement

The Intellivision 25 Video Game System was a cheap plug and play system featuring a compilation of what I like to call "demastered" Intellivision games, and was actually licensed by Intellivision themselves. I don't know why they decided to go this route instead of just re-releasing some of the originals like they did later with the Intellivision Flashback. Too expensive at the time? Anyway, the system consists of some stripped-down NES hardware, otherwise known as "Famiclone" or "NES-on-a-chip", all contained within the controller. Many of the games in this collection are believed to have been made by Nice Code Software.

Thunder Castle is the 20th game on this compilation and it is NOTHING like the original. It is full of bugs and the third stage is missing!

The items you can actually use work a little differently from the original game, and you can carry items across multiple stages and lives:

Dragons and wizards generally try to take the shortest path towards the player, and run away when the player is energized. The player is energized when touching a bat in stage 1, touching the rat in stage 2, or using a grail. Dragons and wizards can be slain while the player is energized. Slay the 3 dragons in stage 1 and you'll move on to stage 2. Slay the 6 wizards in stage 2 and you beat the game. Each enemy you slay causes you to lose your energized state, so I am unable kill the yellow and red dragons in stage 1 with one energize, for instance.

Now, slaying enemies in stage 2 is... interesting. The stage itself reloads for each enemy you slay. I don't know why it is programmed in this backwards way, but it leads to some interesting strategies. With six wizards to slay, beating stage 2 therefore requires six stage loads but is there a faster way to beat this? Well, I tried corralling both wizards onto the same square and seeing if I could slay both of them on the same frame. Maybe then I could reduce this to just three stage loads, but NOPE that didn't work! I even tried re-energizing and that didn't work either. Evidently, the other wizard becomes invulnerable once it has detected the other has been slain.

To get a stage layout you want, basically you need to wait a few frames before slaying the enemy of the previously loaded stage. Items that spawn within a stage can be further manipulated by delaying when you proceeed from the stage's title card.

There are three different maze layouts for stage 1 and 2. Getting the right stage 1 layout and item spawns is trivial; just wait extra frames on the title screen. The transition from stage 1 to 2 operates on some huge several-hundred frames long frame-rule system, and I was able to save an extra frame rule over what i thought was best, thanks to collecting a necklace which gave me just enough extra speed to do so. For stage 2, there is one layout that is miles better than the others. For one, the layout in question gives us very quick access to touching the rat, which allows slaying the upper-right wizard very quickly each time. To slay the lower-left wizard, it is fastest to pull off a magic trick and teleport to him using rings we pick up, and making sure the knight can be energized when doing so! We can also end input very early with the last lower-left wizard, well before he finishes walking up the long vertical corridor and waiting for the trap wall to disappear.

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: Even with your description, it was kind of hard to follow what was going on. After I looked at your other version (Intellivision), I kinda see the goals now. Well, I can't argue with your optimization, seeing that nothing stands out. In fact, your strategies look extremely advanced...which could be a result of the heavy RNG that you mentioned. They are obviously beyond me.

I like these older classics, and I look forward to more.

Accepting to Standard.

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nymx: Setting to delayed. I will get to this when I get back home from work.

nymx: Checked out the improvements. The big changes seems to come mostly from a new line of RNG from delaying the start of the game. I still have a hard time following what is going on. In fact, I had a discussion with another staff member they were pretty much in the same mindset. Its obvious that you know this game very well to be able to make it operate this way.

Again, good job. Publisher...you may continue.

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