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Movie information

  • This movie was made with the --no-gui argument
  • MD5 Hash: 888a94b8ee2eea05e34a3e56995c9133
  • Seizure warning: This movie contains sequences with flashing lights.

About this game and movie

Photon Baby is a Flash game developed by Jeremias Babini that follows the story of a scientist who's on a mission to retrieve the most important thing of his life, a glowing diamond (and the baby too I guess).
This game aims to complete all levels on normal mode, it completes that goal roughly 7 minutes faster than the RTA world record by me.

Basic mechanics

Moving
Player movement in this game is really simple to optimize, there's no acceleration. The only interesting thing about it is that you move slower when crouching, which helps with precise positioning.
Photon shooting
This is the main mechanic of the game. Photons can only hit walls six times until fading. A photon's speed is faster than moving horizontally, which is useful. There is a cooldown in shooting photons, but it doesn't really come into play in this movie. In the beginning, photons can only be 4 colors (gray, red, green and blue), but starting in level 13, you can combine these colors, leading to 4 more colors (yellow, magenta, cyan and white). Also, I know these photons don't adhere to actual real-life physics, but I think making a game where photons adhere to real-life physics is actually impossible.
Photon attraction
By pressing space, photons will start attracting relative to whatever part of the screen your mouse is in. It's the main mechanic that makes this run so fast.
Mirror
When you press down and you're close to a mirror, you will flip it, they can have different colors based on how they're flipped, which is a mechanic that allows you to have multiple colors in a single place. Unfortunately, almost every stage with a mirror on it automatically becomes slower, for the reason that I have to flip the mirror beforehand.

Tricks and Glitches

Double down
Moving in this game works both with WASD and arrow keys, which is useful when flipping mirror, since I'm able to do two mirror flips in two frames. If I couldn't do this, it would take three frames.
Spike jumping
You can stand in the corner of spike tiles, which is a pretty common trick among many games.
Wall-shooting
The collision of the walls is just slim enough so that I can shoot photons through it, though, this isn't useful 90% of the time because of the fact that they will not exit the wall. However, if the wall itself is thin enough, it can actually clip through the entirety of it.
Soffit-paneling
If you jump and crouch a single frame after, you will become stuck on the ceiling (you can escape by repeatedly crouching). This is barely used in the run, but I think it's pretty neat.

Unused time save

There's a pretty big time save I could have used to save time, but I didn't. That save is using easy mode. Easy mode doesn't change the level design, but it gives the scientist an extra hitpoint, which saves time on many levels. I decided not to use it, mostly because I consider normal mode the "real" difficulty of the game, easy modes feels like it was added after the game was completed.

Level by level commentary

Level 1
Probably the simplest stage in the TAS, which makes sense for the first level. I think I could've jumped in the beginning to save a little bit of time, but I'm pretty sure I'd be too close to the ceiling, which would've made a worse angle for the photon.
Level 2
This is only the second stage in the game, yet I already have to perform some juggling, even if it's minor. I only have to worry about the photons that hit the two zombies on the top.
Level 3
From a stage that has little juggling, we move onto a stage with a lot of it. It's possible that there might be a faster way to do it, but this is the fastest I could do.
Level 4
Another simple stage. This stage is supposed to be the first stage where you use photon attraction, but it's nothing new.
Level 5
I also have to juggle on this stage. I use a quirk in the collision system for the photons where sometimes they bounce back diagonally, which was useful for the blue photon.
Level 6
This stage really showcases how futile moving can be sometimes, I pretty much complete the stage while only moving the photon.
Level 7
This is the first stage to introduce the mirror. However, since the farthest zombie is the one with the same color as the mirror's starting color, I don't lose any time. That green zombie is insignificant for this stage in the context of this TAS.
Level 8
This is the second stage with a mirror, and unlike the previous one, I actually need to turn it.
Level 9
I go to the mirror on the left since there isn't a skull on the way. After that, it's just shooting the photons into useful angles. Unfortunately, I couldn't hit the soon-to-be blue photon on the first frame possible.
Level 10
This is the first boss of the run, and probably the least interesting. Staying on the lowest level for the duration of the boss' chasing phase was the fastest way I could get the boss to hit itself. I don't think this is intended by the game, mostly due to the weird collision the boss has with the wall.
Level 11
The first stage to introduce the female vampire, who shoots vampy hearts to kill the player. Fortunately, I'm usually too fast for them to be a problem. Anyways, this is just another mirror stage.
Level 12
This is another mirror stage, so there isn't much to say. An interesting thing about this stage is that I kill all the enemies with a single photon, which spawns a "rad!" image. Contrary to what I thought before testing, this doesn't lose time, but it doesn't save time either.
Level 13
Oh boy, it's time to talk about this stage. For starters, I'm gonna talk about how walls work. Firstly, walls usually have outlines, which makes the collision for photons more robust. However, for some inconceivable reason, this is the only stage where some of those outlines are missing, which breaks this stage. Not only do photons not lose their collision counter, but, most importantly, it allows the photons to clip through the walls, which saves a decent amount of time. If you're wondering, my route was just killing the zombies based on how long they took to be killed (slowest to fastest). There's something else that I have to say, which is that this stage has an extra glitch that I couldn't recreate in this TAS. Essentially, instead of clipping the photons through the wall, I would clip them through the floor, which could've saved a minute amount of time. I was able to replicate this on Adobe Flash Player, but I couldn't do it on Ruffle (I had like 500 rerecords for a 10 frame long scene, so I think I tried hard enough.
Level 14
Another mirror stage, though, using only one mirror to hit it with the same photon three times in a row was pretty difficult to do.
Level 15
This is one of the stages where you're forced to maneuver the photon through obstacles. This is probably the most "intended" way I beat a level in this game.
Level 16
I have to wait for the photon to kill the magenta vampire so that I can pass, something that could've been avoided if I had used easy mode. After that, I kill the green vampire in an extremely weird way. I think you're supposed to go all the way to the left and then shoot a photon at the mirror, but I do it in a different way, I shoot the photon through the seam between the wall and the mirror, something that was way easier to do than I anticipated.
Level 17
Unlike other stages, I actually only shoot a photon later, which saves time since my vertical speed (up and down) is faster than the photon's speed. However, there's a time save I could have implemented, which was wall-shooting. This might have saved a good chunk of time.
Level 18
Another stage with a long cycle that could've been saved with easy mode. This is also another stage where I get the "rad!" screen.
Level 19
Despite this being a stage with four enemies that are pretty far away from each other, I actually don't really need to juggle. The only thing that really slows this stage down is the shooting speed.
Level 20
This is probably the most interesting boss in this run, mostly because it's the only one where you can really manipulate the boss' cycle. For example, during the old lady's shadow flick, I'm able to activate it earlier by moving to the next platform in the beginning and getting close enough to it without dying. After that, I get stuck in the bottom of the old lady's platform, which shortens her dentures attack, for some reason I'm not aware of.
Level 21
I think you're supposed to flip the mirror while going through the top path, but I'm actually just barely able to flip it while jumping from the bottom platform. For some reason, despite the fact that two of the photons hit the mirror at the same time, they end up having different colors (sub frames perhaps?). This only happened once in the entire run, which made it even weirder. Oh, and this stage introduces the male vampire, and just like his female counterpart, his ability usually takes too long to start for my fast moves.
Level 22
This is one of the stages I'm the most proud of, mostly because of the insane juggling I was able to perform while barely losing any time
Level 23
Another stage with a lot of juggling which was pretty easy to make. I'm especially proud of the way I was able to make the two photons die at the same time while they were both white.
Level 24
Another mirror stage. Easy mode would have saved a lot of time. I hit the top skeleton with my photon because it would have been on my path in an inconvenient place.
Level 25
The only stage where I use wall-shooting to save time. The juggling I had to do was pretty difficult, mostly due to the fact that the paths of the photons were complete opposites.
Level 26
I do a spike jump, which saves less time than it looks. Aside from that, there isn't much to say.
Level 27
This is a stage where I use the ability to attract the photons way less than I thought I would, I only used it for the cyan zombie pretty much.
Level 28
Despite being the fourth last stage in the game, it was probably the easiest one to make, mostly due to the fact that I have to kill each vampire separately.
Level 29
Another uninteresting stage, using easy mode would've probably saved time. Despite that, something interesting does happen, which is the fact that I was mere frames away from ending up in a position where I would've died because of the crushing walls.
Level 30
For some reason, the three stages before the final boss are pretty underwhelming. This stage almost feels like a joke level, but the developer forgot to put a joke.
Level 31
I don't have much to say about this stage, mostly because, unlike the grandma boss, you can't really manipulate the baby's patterns. Also, you can die in the end and still complete the run, which is pretty funny. The run ends after I attract the green projectile as much as I need (which is only two frames lol).

Extras

Glitchy sound effect
The sound effect that plays when you kill an enemy is glitched in this movie. It's hard to describe how they differ, but if you play them side by side, you will hear the difference.
Weird cutscene
For some reason, whenever a cutscene plays in this game, there are consistent intervals of lag frames, which is unintended, it's most noticeable during the credits scene. These two emulation gaffes are exclusive to Ruffle, but since they don't have a major effect on the run, I don't think it's too much of a problem.
Suggested screenshot
Frame 4008.
The future
This is probably my last movie of 2024, and boy, what a trip it has been. If you think the Flash revolution is over, you're wrong, it has just begun. I have a lot of stuff planned for the future. I hope I inspired someone to start TASing Flash games!

nymx: Claiming for judging.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15628
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #9408: Mikewillplays's Flash Photon Baby in 06:16.30
mohoc
He/Him
Reviewer, Active player (250)
Joined: 5/20/2018
Posts: 38
Location: France
Greetings Mikewillplays. I intend to sync verify your run, but I am having a hard time finding a game file which matches with your MD5 hash. All the versions that I have found feature an extra animation at the start (either Bigdino or Newgrounds) and as a result they do not sync. Do you happen to remember where you found your game file?
Editor, Experienced player (688)
Joined: 1/7/2023
Posts: 70
Location: Somewhere on planet earth probably
I downloaded it off flashpoint but I can give you the copy I used if you want. Here it is: https://archive.org/details/photonbaby
"He who is tired of TASing is tired of life" Something Homer Simpson definitely said
mohoc
He/Him
Reviewer, Active player (250)
Joined: 5/20/2018
Posts: 38
Location: France
Perfect, thank you! The movie synced on my first attempt with no issue. I was not familiar with this game, and I was happily surprised by how unique the gameplay looked. It seemed simple yet quite non-trivial to optimize, which is a common theme in the games I like to study. Congrats on your hard work, I look forward to your next Flash submissions! Yes vote.

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