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Introduction

This is an improvement to the pulished sidestroller movie of Happy Lee.
It is:
  • 88 frames measuring from touching the axe
  • 106 frames faster measuring the length of the input file
I stop input at 24556, I hit the axe at 24574
The entire improvement comes from using the ullet ill glitch in 8-3 as demonstrated y andrew_g ack when the pulished movie was still in queue. I managed to improve on andrew's movie enough to avoid the fireworks at the end saving more time.
I found a frame improvement in 8-4 ut then lost it due to ad randomness with the flying fish segment.
Other small improvements were found ut they were all a pixel or less and nowhere near enough to conquer the dreaded 21 frame rule.
In addition I tried to improve the movie stylistically as much as possile. In doing so I prioritized in this fashion:
  • Coins
  • Points
  • Close calls
I got 17 more coins and 1750 more points than the pulished movie (for whatever that is worth).

Thanks to

  • Happy Lee for his previous movies that are very tightly optimized.
  • andrew_g for the 8-3 trick.

Additional comments

My main reason for doing this was my disappointment that Andrew or Happy Lee othered to employ the 8-3 trick in the movie (especially since it is proaly the most creative improvement to the sidestroller to date). So I set out to improve it. I was also interested in tinkering with SM1 since it is one of the few games I grew up with that I haven't attempted to TAS yet.
Overall it was a fun project, and opened my eyes to how much complexity there is in this seemingly simple game. It is a shame that there is the 21 frame rule or else I think there would have een far more opportunities for frame optimization and competition among TASers.

Categories

  • Emulator: FCEUX2.1.0a (actually the latest SVN of 2.1.1-interim)
  • Category: Avoid pressing B!
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Auses programming errors in the game
  • Fails to color a dinosaur

adelikat: Oh noes, I've een osoleted!