So it's been a month, and what happened?
Well, don't get your hopes up; we're still stuck on 1-3 (stupidly hard level). Silverbawxer has taken a break from TASing, and in the meantime, I've found a ton about the game..
I'm going to say I desesperatly need help. This is probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest DS game out there in terms of pure skill, innovation, and shitty physics engine. Hit me up if interested (send a PM). No particuliar experience is needed, motivation is (because it's going to take a hella long time with 330 levels)
First off, basic explainations about the game. SMB:T&R is a hella hard platformer. In it, you control a monkey in a ball trying to get to the goal, and the rest is a sort of careful manuvering and ludicrous bouncing around to get to the goal.. because instead of controlling your character, you control the entire level instead! (Well, this is actually not true because the physics engine of this game is extremely wierd, but I'll get to that later.)
The great thing is that this is the only game in which you can perform an extremely wide array of strategies for each level. Some may be painfully easy, some may be pixel-perfect bouncing on edges of terrain. Each level has been nearly optimised over the years to the point it looks like TASing (see
http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/game/250)
For clarification later, all controls I refer to are on the touch screen (aka up right means put the stylus as far up right as possible on the touch screen if we were on a normal DS) The speed numbers are as on the speed-o-meter (on bottom left on screen, which means you don't even have to search the ram for your speed!)
The character will be refered as Aiai (his name).
So, here is what I've found about the game:
Starting boost
Widely known (not discovered by me). When you start a level, you actually fall from the air a little into the starting point, giving you 40 speed. This can be abused: at the start of a level, hold either top right or top left. You will bounce, then 2 frames before landing, change direction to top left or top right. This will make you go slighty faster. The direction in which you start the boost seems to have no effect. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WdJsnp-ubA
Diagonal movement, air time and ways to go fast
Like in all Super Monkey Ball games (except Jr.), going diagonnaly is faster, and having air time makes you go insanely fast (see Air Time section). To go fast, the best way is:
* if possible, find a way to be airbone
* otherwhise, bounce on solid objects as much as possible (just entering in contact with an solid object, no matter what it is, gives a solid speed boost)
Air Time
Alright, this is where it gets wierd. I have done a lot of experimentation on this. What happens when you are airbone?
First off, your speed is no longer limited to the feable 70 speed but can instead be infinite.
Second (and the biggest find by far)
you can control your movement while in air. This is huge, because while you are airbone you don't sit there doing nothing: you can actually MODIFY where you go, but not go faster! This act of modifying your velocity while airbone is what I call 'tweaking'. For example, if you hold up while in air, you will actually go.. upwards.
Tweaking
I'll start this section by saying that 'inputing' is the act of doing an input on the touch screen. If you do this while airbone, it will:
* not change your current velocity (speed)
* for every frame of input on the touch screen in a direction, move the target of your landing (aka where you land) in that direction, and then immediatly start moving Aiai towards that direction: basically moving your angle of landing. If you tweak right, you will land further right.
Subtle Tweaking
I'll talk about the hardest variant of tweaking; subtle tweaking. Subtle tweaking is done by pressing in the center of the touchpad. Normally, the touchpad is used to move the field, so when it's in the center, it only moves ever so slightly the field. But in air, this can be abused: if you tweak but with inputs at the center of the touchpad, you will move your angle extremely slightly towards that direction!
I have two examples, compare them side by side: (
http://imgur.com/5enjd40 AND
http://imgur.com/MZTo3WF) and (
http://imgur.com/GhARS1n AND
http://imgur.com/CnU31tB). I did one frame of subtle tweaking to the left for the first and up for the second. The difference is extremely slight, almonst untracable, but you can see that Aiai's position has changed ever so slightly, by one or two pixels, and his landing angle is now quite different: he will land in a position a few pixels different.
All of these are quite big things, and hope it will shape a TAS of this game for the best. I am in quite a dire need of help, so feel free to hit me up with your Skype.
