Emulator details

  • Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43v12 (beta 10)
  • Sync settings:
    • Use WIP 1 timing

Details on the run

  • Aims for Fastest Time
  • Uses Death as a Shortcut
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Played on Hardest Difficulty
  • Spins around

About the run

I seem to return to this when I'm bored with stuff, this time it is 173 frames faster than the old run. The reason I did it besides boredom was that I noticed an embarrassing mistake when watching the previous run, so I had to go fix it. This was not using the spreader on the first boss, I didn't do it last time because you got way to many points from the boss when killing it with that gun, but as long as the last shot is something else that doesn't matter, which I didn't think of at the time. I also somewhat underestimated its usefulness on level 2, and 4. Furthermore, last time I wasn't able to find position addresses for the overhead stages, but this time I managed to do so.

Improvements

Level 1 - Nothing. Switched homing missiles for the spread gun though.
Level 2 - 34 frames. The position addresses helped to make more sense of this level, both the overhead levels are completely ridiculous to optimize. This is pretty much purely from better movement and turns, I also got luckier at the end of the level and didn't have to wait in order to get a bomb.
Boss - 28 frames. Solely from using the spreader instead of the laser for the larger part of the battle.
Level 3 - Nothing.
Level 4 - 7 frames. One from not having to manipulate a frame in order to get a C from the first blimp, and the rest from dieing in a different way. The only possible way I see no make this level faster would be to get killed by the 4th bikes gunfire instead of the 5th, but if you do so you have to detonate the bomb earlier, and because of that, the last bike rider won't be able to kill (he will survive with a few hp left at best).
Level 5 - 36 frames. I found out that the first bug hole could be destroyed through the wall if you pressed up against it and had a good angle, this saved 5 frames or so. The rest is simply from moving around better through the level, and also destroying the last bug hole faster by shooting with the machine gun at it after the three Crush missiles has been fired.
Boss 2 - 69 frames saved. I noticed that the damage from the Crush missiles depended on when you fired it, from where and what angle and so forth. And it turned out that you could do a lot more damage to the boss with them if standing really close while still invincible (and delaying a frame sometimes, and moving around a little). This made the battle very hard do optimize. There where also a unfortunate side effect because of this. Since I had to be up close for the first half or so of the battle, it was not possible to manipulate the path the snake took very well. Basically whatever you did he would get around you in a half circle, or stop and cover the eye (because after the point where his path would not be affected very much by you moving, there where too little time left on the invincibility counter, so it was not possible to get on the other side of the snake and survive). Still this didn't cost much time, especially not in comparison with what was saved.
Level 6 - Nothing. I turned around on the same frame that I detonated the bomb and ended the movie, because for some reason an enemy popped up too early on the left side, making it impossible to get the extra life at the right moment. This didn't cost any time though.

mmbossman: Accepting as a dizzying improvement to the published run.
ShinyDoofy: Processing.


Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
Cpadolf wrote:
Nicos wrote:
and if both player trigger trigger the glitch ?
Nothing special should happen. If you die with both players and one gets an extra life, you'll get to the next level with that player, if both players die and both gets an extra life, you'll get to the next level with both players.
thanks for your explanation so to trigger the glitch you must
    - tigger a game over - get an extra life - trigger a bomb
on the same frame ?
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
You need to have at least one life by the time the screen finishes fading out. Bombs are used because they're a very slow killer, giving a large opening for the player to die (thereby triggering the fadeout) before enemies are killed for the points needed to gain a life. It occurs to me that it might be possible to trigger this glitch with ordinary attacks, in which case you could avoid the lag from the bombs. But that would require amazingly good timing to fire a shot, get killed, and then have the shot kill an enemy.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Derakon wrote:
It occurs to me that it might be possible to trigger this glitch with ordinary attacks, in which case you could avoid the lag from the bombs. But that would require amazingly good timing to fire a shot, get killed, and then have the shot kill an enemy.
I doubt that it is possible, because not only do you need to die before you gain that extra life, you have to stay dead for a while, otherwise the fadeout won't trigger. Even with bombs there is often just barely enough time to trigger the fadeout before getting the extra life.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Good stuff, yes vote.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Cpadolf wrote:
I doubt that it is possible, because not only do you need to die before you gain that extra life, you have to stay dead for a while, otherwise the fadeout won't trigger. Even with bombs there is often just barely enough time to trigger the fadeout before getting the extra life.
Ahh, good call. Oh, well.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15584
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. ---- [1299] SNES Contra III: The Alien Wars "game end glitch" by Cpadolf in 03:20.38
Joined: 10/14/2013
Posts: 335
Location: Australia
In addition to the encodes available on the publication page, here is an extra downloadable encode for this run: Lossless: Direct Link | Torrent To download these files you may have to right click on the link and select "save link as" (this option may be named differently depending on your web browser).
I'm not as active as I once was, but I can be reached here if I should be needed.