I'd like to see a speedrun of this pioneering survival-horror game; preferably in English. It hasn't officially been released in English (at least, on the SNES) but I know of an English patch. I'm aware hacks are generally not allowed but there have been exceptions before.
Anyway, if it's agreed, then maybe, if it doesn't slow the game down, we could have the heroine get chased by that nine-year-old, garden-shears-wielding, psychopath once or twice.
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I made a run for this back in the day, but I deleted the file for some reason. I made a near perfect route that abused how poorly the twins were programmed, and I achieved an S rank. In the long run, this game isn't that entertaining. If you lived the Maniac Mansion movie, you'll like a Clock Tower movie.
Also, they aren't 9 years old, and they aren't psychopaths. The backstory to the game is very interesting.
This would be one of those that if you played and liked the game, then a TAS would be mind-blowing. Otherwise it's gonna be a little iffy. I wouldn't mind, this was one freaking hard game, especially the little goober with the scissors running around! Go for the best ending!
I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I love this game, but it doesn't have any exciting moments (unless you consider tapping B being cool)
No tas for this one, please
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
I love this game, but it doesn't have any exciting moments (unless you consider tapping B being cool)
No tas for this one, please
You're looking at this the wrong way. If you consider fighting off a killer parrot or defending yourself from a midget hunchback with gigantic sheers 'not exciting' because it only involves button mashing, then I counter with the idea that all of the mario publications as boring because they are generally only holding right and pressing jump on occasion.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
yeah, nes mario sucks.
Also, there are not enough glitches ( I could find only one silly glitch in that "garage") and this SNES version is more like a demo (there's even a missing room! (but the door is there)).
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Err, so a game with no glitches isn't acceptable anymore?
I think this game would be fine to run, using Maniac Mansion as a precedent. However, I'd like to think that getting S-rank should be mandatory. No one wants to see me run to the car and drive away in the beginning, because that's lame and too easy.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
the game has few items, and you can't get them all (and there's no knife in the snes version)
and the endings are VERY frustrating... (except that one with the little surprise in the car)
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Also, they aren't 9 years old, and they aren't psychopaths. The backstory to the game is very interesting.
According to the Wikipedia article, they are 9 years old. Although I am a little confused as to the twins' and their mother and father's behavior. Is it something to do with that Satanic church with the pentagram and altar?
Please, make this an S run! I don't want to see the heroine die a gruesome death. And speaking of gruesome, will we have to put up a disclaimer to warn younger viewers not to watch this?
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
that game is pretty easy... I dunno how can you have problems with it...
Please never try Broken Sword...
And, don't get frustrated, but there's no big difference between the endings.
She always activates those switches and blah blah blah
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
the game has few items, and you can't get them all (and there's no knife in the snes version)
and the endings are VERY frustrating... (except that one with the little surprise in the car)
What ones there can't you get?
(And personally, I'd like to see a run of this. Having beaten it myself, I'd like to see just how fast it can be done.)
Some of the rooms switch locations. Whether it's depending on the player's actions, is predetermined when you start a new game or a combination of both is up for debate. Regardless, the rooms you need to enter to get the best ending should be manipulated to be as close to you as possible.
Items can switch places as well. More manipulation possibly.
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11468
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Just discovered this game. And bumping the thread with no stuff from myself, but someone might be interested.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Resurrecting this again. Looks like they got an even faster one up.
Link to video
It is correct that with very best play, you can avoid Bobby and most things that would make this run that kind of scary-exciting.
Moments like these would be missed by a TAS, but are absolutely hilarious (I've started it at 8:31 because it's awesome):
http://youtu.be/EJHw_ucIzbA?t=8m31s
Working on a run of this game, both going for S and H ending (I am going for the H ending first, since it is shorter and will allow me to familiarise myself with the game).
Unlike what appearances would suggest, this game is hard. Awfully hard, both in a normal setting (unless you follow a walkthrough, but that defeats the purpose of the game) and a speedrun setting makes it even harder. Most of the game is highly RNG dependant and can depend on frame perfect tricks. Here is the current world record for H ending, although segmented:
Link to video
Note that the current nico TASes are extremely outdated: they don't use some tricks, for exemple, the corridor skip, and don't play around with the cursor (what is this, 2006?)
Link to videohttp://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/29951463845604102
Stuck on Garage (last room of the game.) I'm not up for redoing this entire room again atm, and this is like a minute away from the end, so if anyone wants to take this up and finish it, feel free; I'm not going to work on this any time soon.
When I said this game was tough.. I think it was a severe understatement; SNES Clock Tower is the definition of frustation. A never ending lagfest, dictated by crushing frame rules and horrible RNG manipulation.
Right now the attempt I have at Garage doens't work for two reasons:
1. I don't have an optimal Bobby pattern, which would be to turn around as soon as I climb up on the platform; this is non negligible, as it saves over 40 frames of non-lag.
2. I'm also pretty sure I don't have an optimal pause before the start of this room, so I lag quite a bit more than I should. Pause buffering is used I'm pretty sure optimally in the other rooms, but not this one.
At the east corridor (the third room) I execute a difficult skip abusing what I call 'Z walking': this skips the trigger for a cutscene and saves about 30 frames. This is also what I use to walk through Bobby in the 2nd Foyer.
Playing around with the cursor serves absolutely no purpose, and doens't lag at all: I do it solely for entertainement.
From what I've observed, Bobby's movement patterns are based on RNG and Jennifer's current position. He will always try moving towards your current direction (either left or right) if you are on the same plane as him (either both on foreground, or both on background). This can already be abused (by using Z walking, which is initiating an action that would move Jennifer from one plane to another, rending her invicible to events, then interrupting that when gotten past it; this also applies to Bobby).
When Jennifer and Bobby are on different planes, there are several different actions Bobby can take, all dictated solely by RNG:
- change planes, the worst possible course of action, as it leads to death (this will not be done if Jennifer is in an unreachable position, but will instead use one of the next states)
- wait; consisting of walking in 'circles' around the area where Jennifer is, even if it's reachable by Bobby, stopping the chase if unsuccessful
- walk to Jenny's position, then stop chasing if unsuccessful
- immediately stop chasing (possibly a glitched state; I don't have full understanding of why it happens)
Changing movement is a no go (thanks to the 8 frame rule of movement; even just stopping would take more than half a second), so the only option disponible for manipulation is pausing. Thankfully, this is pretty flexible, as RNG changes drastically every frame, leading to a different Bobby pattern.
The problem with this, however, is that pausing isn't solely used for RNG manipulation.. it is also used for lag reduction! This game lags a lot, with frames of lag for every 8 frames of movement if Bobby is active (1 frame every 8 frames for Jennifer movement, 3 frames every 8 frames for Bobby movement, and random lag frames for screen scrolling.) As such, there's a drastic need to plan out pauses carefully, as to both manipulate RNG optimally and reduce lag optimally as well. This is why TASing this game is extremely frustating..
the game has few items, and you can't get them all (and there's no knife in the snes version)
and the endings are VERY frustrating... (except that one with the little surprise in the car)
