Freaked the foots, mangled the mousers and totalled the technodrome.
That's .. Turtle power!!
- FCEU 0.98.16
- Desyncs with FCEU 0.98.12, works with FCEU 0.98.13 or higher
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes no damage
- Genre: Fighting
- Manipulates luck
- Abuses programming errors in the game
This movie is 14705 frames faster than my previous version, which is about 4 minutes and 5 seconds. The previous movie was the first TAS I ever made and it was made with Famtasia. This means I had both less experience and many tools were unavailable at the time. The following things helped me greatly in making this improvement:
- A frame counter
- Frame advance
- Luck manipulation
- RAM addresses
- Glitches
A frame counter and frame advance speak for themselves and helped on the other three points. I'll comment on these other three points:
Luck manipulation / RAM addresses
I used the following RAM addresses:
- 00B1
- Gives you the level X position. After you beat a group of foot soldiers you can easily check at what frame you are able to scroll the level again. You also know exactly how far the level will scroll, which both is very handy.
- 056F, 0571, 0573, 0575, 0577 and 0579
- Give you the enemy HP of the enemy #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6. Since a boss is also an enemy, it will also give you the boss hp. This is of course helpful in getting the boss optimally.
- 0581, 0583, 0585, 0587, 0589 and 0591
- These give you the randomness of enemy #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6. The first frame you are able to hit an enemy, this value will turn 1.
Every enemy entering the screen is random. The spot where it enters, and the frame you are able to hit it are determined by the frame you complete the scrolling of the screen, and the frame the last enemy died (there can three foots at most on screen). I constantly had to try lots of situations in killing enemies at different times, and intentionally waiting frames when scrolling the screen. This process was very frustrating! Since I knew more about luck manipulation, I was able to get better bossfights as well this time. The snow level boss might still look a bit random, but even this fight follows a certain pattern if you watch closely.
Glitches
When testing some stuff, I stumbled on the following:
- Pressing left+right (on the ground or in the air)
- Makes your turtle walk on the same spot. This is useful to make the screen scroll while you are keeping your position, so you'll move left.
- Pressing up+down in the air
- Makes your turtle move really fast to the upper left.
- Pressing left+right+up in the air
- Makes your turtle move really fast to the lower right.
- Pressing up+down+left in the air
- Makes your turtle move instantly to the lower left.
- Pressing up+down+right in the air
- Makes your turtle move instantly to the lower right.
- Pressing up+down+left+right in the air
- Makes your turtle move instantly up.
I use these (and maybe a few other less important ones) to move around the screen with high speeds, which greatly helped making the movie. It might even look easy, but this isn't true. You are still limited in what direction you can zip, and you can also zip twice if you want to to a A+B attack with it. Every screen was like a puzzle that needed to be solved, to get the best randomness, and the killing the enemies as fast as possible. The glitches were also used to create some cool effects. It enables you stuff like moving from the left side of the screen to the right side and other things. Too much to explain everything, just try around with it a little yourself!
Other stuff
I tried to keep this entire movie high paced, which was sometimes pretty hard. You always have some free time to spend after killing the last foot at a screen, or while scrolling. I tried to make those moments as well as the moments where I actually fight to look as interesting as possible, without doing the same things over and over.
I'd like to thank everyone who showed interest in this movie, it's always motivating to hear people are looking out for it!
Special thanks to
AngerFist, who after I showed him a preview of what was possible with the glitch insisted to put everything else aside to work on this movie. He watched my wips and motivated me to keep at it.
Enjoy!
adelikat: HUGE improvement over the author's previous run in both time and entertainment value. Accepting
And I guess I have to hack the rating system and give this run 15 for entertainment.
