emulator used: gens 9.5b

emulator settings:

  • Controller 1: 6 button
  • Controller 2: 6 button
  • Allow Up+Down: Yes
  • Sound: Enabled, 44100KhZ Stereo, YM2612 High Quality enabled

game tags

  • played on hardest difficulty ("normal" setting)
  • uses no warps or passwords
  • takes damage to save time
  • manipulates luck

About the game

Garfield - Caught in the act is a relatively new (1995) game for the sega genesis, which was later ported to windows (with a different level order and a bonus level). While it is rather slow paced, it features a well known character, nice graphics (even some prerendered 3D objects) and a good variety of level themes. The story is about Garfield repairing the TV after accidentally destroying it. The remaining parts form an evil being, the "glitch", who traps Garfield into the television (can be watched in the intro). Now the player has to fight through 5 movies to face and defeat the glitch in order to rescue Garfield.

Game info

  • Garfield slows slightly down, when jumping, landing, shooting or striking
  • some animations can change the hitbox, which can be used to grab things ealier (seems not to work with remotes)
  • attacking at the right moment midair can cancel the damage animation (used in water level)
  • a jump during running is slightly lower
  • Garfield has some random waiting animatios (like dancing around), which can be delayed by 1 or 2 seconds by moving around. I tried to implement them whenever possible to create a comedic effects and make waiting times more enjoyable to watch
  • items: food gives hp, cup of coffee makes invincible, hammer activates whack-a-mole bonus level
  • bonus level: Even tases are not save anymore: commercial breaks! But don't worry, it is a rather fast paced level, in which Garfield has to collect Pookies to earn lives or continues. Blue balls slow him down, cups of coffee speed him up. I collect the cups whenever possible, to finish the level as fast as possible. While the whack-a-mole bonus levels can be skipped by not collecting the hammer, these levels are mandatory and have to be played after each boss.
  • GLITCH: in the "television guts" level, there are sometimes chips, where Garfield can jump through from below. Garfield can fall through them, when he properly lands on the side slopes (CREDIT goes to FerretWarlord)

Level notes

Count Slobula' castle

Boss: The end position of Count Slobula is fixed, but his starting position can be manipulated to a certain extend (maxed in the tas).

Revenge of Orangebeard

  • Level 1: Intended as an autoscroller. Luckily the 10 hp of Garfield (and the animation cancelling) are enough to cross the water without the boat.
  • Level 2: Vines can be skipped 2 times, which saves several seconds (thanks to FerretWarlord)
  • extra bonus level: I don't know why, but despite not picking up the hammer during the level, this whack-a-mole bonus level has to be played after Revenge of Orangebeard (this also happened in all my normal playthroughs). I manipulate the "don't hit me"-character to come first and hit him, to skip the bonus level.

Cavecat 3,000,000 BC

boss: The position of the fallen rocks is fixed as soon as the level is entered. Unfortunately, I could not manipulate a rock to fall near enough to the seesaw, to hit the boss before he goes to the left side.

Catsablanca

  • Level: It looks like a maze, but has only one way that reaches the end. So no route planning was necessary.
  • Boss:
    • He throws several bombs, of which 2 can be collected and used against him. By positioning Garfield, the first bomb can be manipulated (again only to a certain extend). The second one seems to always come as the 8th after the first one. By attacking him, his bomb throwing can be ended, forcing him to go to the other side. The moment, that he starts throwing again can be manipulated by attacking him, while he changes the side. This leads to the following strategy: Manipulate the boss to throw an unlit bomb as early as possible and interrupt him with this bomb as soon as he tosses the second unlit bomb. Then attack the boss with this bomb in such a way, that it minimizes the walking duration.
    • The bomb that bounces around after defeating the boss is a glitch. It killed the boss, but was thrown so early, that it cancelled the explosion

The curse of Cleofatra

boss:
  • The jon statue can be destroyed before the dogs (while going up), but is restored as soon as one dog is destroyed, thus left alone until the end.
  • There is a little time span, in which the jon statue can not be attacked after destroying the dog heads

Season finale (final boss)

The boss can only be harmed by reflecting his own laser beams. So the only thing to do is to push the mirrors before he shots his beams. I hope nobody minds, that I wasted appr. 10 frames of lag to glitch and play around with the platforms during the waiting times, for the sake of entertainment.

Input end

The credits show up 10 frames later, as I jump before the last remote to end the input earlier.

Credits

  • FerretWarlord: Not only did he discover the chip glitch and shared it with me, he reviewed my WIPs and found parts that could be improved. Without his help this run would be several seconds slower. Thanks
  • faq from royalranger of gamefaqs.com: useful info and had a good route for cavecat 2

adelikat: Decent game and good viewer response. Accepting for publication.

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried Garfield - Caught in the Act (UE) [!].gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.



TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15585
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1870: emu's Genesis Garfield: Caught in the Act in 18:31.68
emu
Active player (386)
Joined: 1/2/2007
Posts: 188
Location: Germany, Munich
youtube videos: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 Note: The first part is older and was encoded with a movie file, that contained 2 mistakes: missing use of the chip glitch and a vine skip. Sound and video are also slightly out of synch, which makes dance scenes during the sphinx and glitch fight look bad. Sorry for the bad quality.
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Hah, I had this game when I had my Mega Drive. I'll check it out now. Yep, that is the one. Quite a tricky game to play, IIRC. Still, about the movie... I don't see any obvious improvement. I was pleasantly surprised by the swimming through the entire of Orangebeard 1. I remember doing a bit of it myself on the console, but I didn't manage the whole level. :) As least this game moves faster than Toki!
Voted NO for NO reason
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
I never realized how much i hated playing some of these levels... infact, most of the game. Yet, for some reason, I loved that game... weird. Yes vote for rocking my morning.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Surprisingly not bad. Way, way better then the NES garfield game.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Twelvepack wrote:
Surprisingly not bad. Way, way better then the NES garfield game.
That lousy piece of crap that gives me a headache every time I try to play it? No kidding. Good job with this movie, emu. I thought this game had good TAS potential when I first played it a while back, which is why it made it on my request list. Sure, it doesn't have the break-neck speed of some of our more recent submissions and publications, but I really don't mind. In fact, I like it. It's nice to have a relaxing TAS to be able to calm down with every once in a while. Not to mention the game is beautifully animated and is very pleasing to look at. And that's not even getting into the tricks and precision in the overall movie. Plus, as I said in IRC, you waste time effectively. The little dances and microhops were well appreciated. All around yes vote. Thank you for making this.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Twelvepack wrote:
In fact, I like it. It's nice to have a relaxing TAS to be able to calm down with every once in a while.
Agreed, the manical laughter for the ending boss was like beethoven's fifth ;P
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Joe
Joined: 6/10/2006
Posts: 152
Location: Wisconsin
So much for the idea of Garfield being lazy. I saw nothing wrong with the run on a technical level and the waiting periods were dealt with some nice eintertaining tricks. Yes vote.
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
I'm a fan of Garfield and I've played many of his games. This movie seems well played, but I was bored pass the third minute of the first youtube video. I'll try to give it a try this sunday (maybe with a fresh night of sleep things could change), so I abstrain from voting from now.
No.
Joined: 2/1/2007
Posts: 245
Location: Israel
I enjoyed watching this. Oddly enough, almost every level reminded me of some other platformer game. But I do have a question. Would it be possible to manipulate the rocks to fall closer to the swing-apult thingy at the cave cat boss?
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
Mechuyael wrote:
I enjoyed watching this. Oddly enough, almost every level reminded me of some other platformer game. But I do have a question. Would it be possible to manipulate the rocks to fall closer to the swing-apult thingy at the cave cat boss?
iirc they always fall in the same place... but i havent played this thing in 10 years, so my memory probably sucks :P
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Submission text answers this question: yes, they fall in the same spot.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1652)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Yes vote. All I have else to say is this: http://www.lasagnacat.com/FinalFantasy.mov Notice the rib they do on Jim Davis...
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 2/1/2007
Posts: 245
Location: Israel
Oh, haha. Guess that's what I get for watching a run at 4AM. Well, voting yes.
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
I actuallly liked it. The music and the atmosphere in the game was pretty good. Yes vote and also, thank you for encoding your run for us lazy people.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Joined: 10/19/2007
Posts: 39
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Not bad but I didn't find the game to be very fun to watch, too slow and run of the mill.
Editor, Expert player (2479)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Nice dance after the sphinx. Yes-vote.
Editor, Active player (476)
Joined: 5/23/2006
Posts: 361
Location: Washington, United States
The movie was fun to watch; as others have said, your entertainment choices were good (especially when you danced to the music after the sphynx). It seemed well-played and frame-precise (though it's usually hard to tell with these cartoon-type games). Yes vote from me.
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
Watched it again. The first youtube video is still boring, but the other three are much better. As from the submission it seems that the first part was redone, I'm voting yes.
No.
Joined: 5/17/2007
Posts: 393
Location: Sweden
Yes vote
"No love for the game gear"
Joined: 5/30/2007
Posts: 324
I used to play this game all the time as a kid, and feel that's a very overlooked title. Great graphics, and funny, solid level design and bosses. With that said, this movie was boring, through no fault of the author. I just don't think the game is particularly exciting as a speed run. Voted "Meh".
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15585
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1079] Genesis Garfield: Caught in the Act by emu in 18:31.68
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Encoded in HD because my Mother and I are large Garfield fans... seriously, even her Morris Mini Moke is pimped out Garfield style (80s Garfield... mainly because it was pimped out in the 80s). Playlist [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1110D50Wlfw[/url]Part 1[/url] Part 2
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
I wonder what this TAS would be like... minus Garfield.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.