My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/DeadlyTowers.html
Jeff Feasel's run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Well I can't reject a game because it's crappy.
Looks like Votava needs to watch out for Feasel. What will go down next? Castlequest? The Adventures of Bayou Billy? Mission Impossible? (please don't, I never want to verify this game again)
Jeff Feasel's run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Audio/Video: No problems.
Cheating: None Detected.
Time:
Start Frame: 523
End Frame: 122591
Total Time: 0:33:54 (0:09:16 faster than Votava's run)
The Good:
-Route is fairly similar to Votava's, with some minor changes. He obtains the Cup sooner, and leaves Great Wings for later. He also opts to do all money building the dungeon in the room before the Holy Flame. I haven't had a chance to test it, but I almost want to say that Votava's route here was better since you start with 50 ludder, and it doesn't take long to get the other 50 for an extra Orange scroll...especially with his money building technique. It's mostly a matter of whether building 100 ludder is faster than walking the whole distance on the overworld.
-Fewer money building sessions were needed as well, as he reduced the number of purchases compared to Votava's run. His money building technique is also far superior to Votava's.
-Bosses were taken down faster due to more offensive strategies (once he had all the armor anyway). The only boss Votava downed faster was Wheeler, and it was only by one second.
The Bad:
-Route. As I mentioned when I verified the Votava's run, I want to say that it may be faster to attempt to obtain the offensive items first to speed up the killing. I've been running a number of route changes through my head (and testing them to some degree) and haven't come up with anything that works (read: survivable) as of yet. Until I can find something, I won't knock his route as it's definitely fast if going for Defensive items first.
(I should note that I was going to suggest trying to at least get Double Shot before doing anything else, but after testing it with a full stock of drinks, found it to be not possible to get until some defensive items are obtained, or either a Blue Necklace or Magic Mace would have to be used.)
-Timidness. This is probably my biggest gripe with the run is that the runner, up until obtaining all of the defensive items and a couple times after that, acts in a very timid manner around enemies. While being a little on the careful side is definitely warranted early on, I felt it was a little overly careful.
I decided to do one of the towers myself, using a more aggressive approach. Obviously I'd want to use an earlier tower since he gets much more aggressive once he obtains all the armor. I chose Wheeler's Tower since he only has one piece of armor, and uses a cautious approach for the most part.
Video can be downloaded at: http://www.filefront.com/14281071/Wheelers-Tower.avi/
I did this with no equipment (as shown at the start), so my defense is a bit lower than his.
Brief Comparison (times don't count the black screens between areas):
Pre-Tower: Him: 36.83 seconds, Me: 33.27 seconds.
We both had the same idea here, the only time he lost was missed shots on the ghost and a hit from the slime.
Tower: Him: 72.15 seconds, Me: 55.67 seconds.
The ghost at the bottom blocks him from climbing the stairs, which I don't hold against him as there wasn't a lot he could do about it. This probably cost the most time of anything here. He takes out a Werewolf from a ladder which is the slow way, and is very timid on ladders with bats flying around. He also doesn't wall-hug past the Blue Ball near the Secret Room.
Wheeler: Him: 45.67 seconds, Me: 33.67 seconds.
He hides in the corner and fires from there, while I get as close as I can so my shots don't have to travel as far, resulting in more shots in less time.
Overall: Him: 2:34.65, Me: 2:02.61 (~32 seconds shaved)
Below is a more complete list of little hesitations that I thought were unnecessary. I'm probably being a little over-picky here, but I'm just being thorough. None of these really cost more than a couple seconds each, except possibly bosses.
Great Wings Tower
8:40 - Killed Tiger Man from the stairs. Could have fired one shot from the stairs to stun then moved up to get in close.
9:02 - Killed another Tiger Man in the same manner after killing a ghost.
9:30 - (Parallel Zone) A little on the timid side on the last ghost of the pack.
9:40 - (Parallel Zone) Waits almost 10 seconds for the bats to move out of the way before finally deciding to shoot them. While luck is a factor here, he could have been shooting them from the start if he was that worried about getting hit.
Wheeler's Tower (See my video above for reasoning on these)
Overall - Fairly timid on ladders with bats on the same floor. In most cases he could have just kept climbing without worry.
11:32 - Killed a Vampire from the stairs just like the Tiger Men from earlier. Note that at this point he has the Hyper Armor to help with damage.
11:50 - Started shooting a ghost while waiting for the Blue Ball to move...he could have easily wall hugged the lower wall and bypassed the ball and the ghost.
Wheeler - Stayed in one spot and fired from there, only moved when Wheeler was directly overhead. Could have been moving in closer to shoot, reducing the amount of travel time for his shots and also increasing his shot frequency.
Centipede's Tower
Pre-Tower - Some of those Dragons could have been bypassed without killing them.
15:25 - Refused to get on the ladder with the ghost alive. The ghost could have chose to block his path, but it looked as if there would have been enough opportunity for him to shoot it diagonally from the ladder.
15:42 - (Parallel Zone) There are 4 ghosts at the start, 3 of which are the slow variety. With the fact that he has both the Shield and Armor, I'm not sure it was necessary to huddle in the corner like that. Granted, they DID line up nicely for him.
16:02 - (Parallel Zone) 3 ghosts, all fast ones. Moving to the corner was a smart move here, but once the first one was dead, the other 2 moved below him, giving him ample opportunity to get on the ladder.
16:21 - (Parallel Zone) Only one ghost on the screen (a fast one). He wedges himself in the corner and waits for it. I'm going to point out again that he has both the Armor and Shield, and a decent chunk of HP left. He could have gotten the Helmet a few second sooner, and would have probably only taken one hit for it...two at most, unless he was REALLY unlucky.
Centipede - Refused to fire when Centipede wasn't close, even when his shots would have been guaranteed to connect. Could have also fired straight down when Centipede was below him, but didn't.
Great Burn's Tower
Overall - Could have avoided killing the dragons.
17:59 - Probably should have started climbing the stairs immediately instead of waiting for the moth to come in close. With all the defense he has now, damage isn't an issue.
21:41 - Doubt he needed to take that Caveman out.
Dungeon
24:57 - That snake could have been avoided.
Decision: Accept.
Nit-picking aside, it's a very solid run, and a vast improvement over Votava's run. 9+ minutes shaved off a 43 minute run is what I'd call substantial. Video and Audio quality is also quite a bit better (as Votava's run was from the VHS days).
I'm probably going to look into some route changes to obtain the offensive stuff first and see if it's possible to survive the rest of the game. It's going to require some ungodly amounts of luck though.
...who'd've thought that THIS game would ever get competition?
Cheating: None Detected.
Time:
Start Frame: 523
End Frame: 122591
Total Time: 0:33:54 (0:09:16 faster than Votava's run)
The Good:
-Route is fairly similar to Votava's, with some minor changes. He obtains the Cup sooner, and leaves Great Wings for later. He also opts to do all money building the dungeon in the room before the Holy Flame. I haven't had a chance to test it, but I almost want to say that Votava's route here was better since you start with 50 ludder, and it doesn't take long to get the other 50 for an extra Orange scroll...especially with his money building technique. It's mostly a matter of whether building 100 ludder is faster than walking the whole distance on the overworld.
-Fewer money building sessions were needed as well, as he reduced the number of purchases compared to Votava's run. His money building technique is also far superior to Votava's.
-Bosses were taken down faster due to more offensive strategies (once he had all the armor anyway). The only boss Votava downed faster was Wheeler, and it was only by one second.
The Bad:
-Route. As I mentioned when I verified the Votava's run, I want to say that it may be faster to attempt to obtain the offensive items first to speed up the killing. I've been running a number of route changes through my head (and testing them to some degree) and haven't come up with anything that works (read: survivable) as of yet. Until I can find something, I won't knock his route as it's definitely fast if going for Defensive items first.
(I should note that I was going to suggest trying to at least get Double Shot before doing anything else, but after testing it with a full stock of drinks, found it to be not possible to get until some defensive items are obtained, or either a Blue Necklace or Magic Mace would have to be used.)
-Timidness. This is probably my biggest gripe with the run is that the runner, up until obtaining all of the defensive items and a couple times after that, acts in a very timid manner around enemies. While being a little on the careful side is definitely warranted early on, I felt it was a little overly careful.
I decided to do one of the towers myself, using a more aggressive approach. Obviously I'd want to use an earlier tower since he gets much more aggressive once he obtains all the armor. I chose Wheeler's Tower since he only has one piece of armor, and uses a cautious approach for the most part.
Video can be downloaded at: http://www.filefront.com/14281071/Wheelers-Tower.avi/
I did this with no equipment (as shown at the start), so my defense is a bit lower than his.
Brief Comparison (times don't count the black screens between areas):
Pre-Tower: Him: 36.83 seconds, Me: 33.27 seconds.
We both had the same idea here, the only time he lost was missed shots on the ghost and a hit from the slime.
Tower: Him: 72.15 seconds, Me: 55.67 seconds.
The ghost at the bottom blocks him from climbing the stairs, which I don't hold against him as there wasn't a lot he could do about it. This probably cost the most time of anything here. He takes out a Werewolf from a ladder which is the slow way, and is very timid on ladders with bats flying around. He also doesn't wall-hug past the Blue Ball near the Secret Room.
Wheeler: Him: 45.67 seconds, Me: 33.67 seconds.
He hides in the corner and fires from there, while I get as close as I can so my shots don't have to travel as far, resulting in more shots in less time.
Overall: Him: 2:34.65, Me: 2:02.61 (~32 seconds shaved)
Below is a more complete list of little hesitations that I thought were unnecessary. I'm probably being a little over-picky here, but I'm just being thorough. None of these really cost more than a couple seconds each, except possibly bosses.
Great Wings Tower
8:40 - Killed Tiger Man from the stairs. Could have fired one shot from the stairs to stun then moved up to get in close.
9:02 - Killed another Tiger Man in the same manner after killing a ghost.
9:30 - (Parallel Zone) A little on the timid side on the last ghost of the pack.
9:40 - (Parallel Zone) Waits almost 10 seconds for the bats to move out of the way before finally deciding to shoot them. While luck is a factor here, he could have been shooting them from the start if he was that worried about getting hit.
Wheeler's Tower (See my video above for reasoning on these)
Overall - Fairly timid on ladders with bats on the same floor. In most cases he could have just kept climbing without worry.
11:32 - Killed a Vampire from the stairs just like the Tiger Men from earlier. Note that at this point he has the Hyper Armor to help with damage.
11:50 - Started shooting a ghost while waiting for the Blue Ball to move...he could have easily wall hugged the lower wall and bypassed the ball and the ghost.
Wheeler - Stayed in one spot and fired from there, only moved when Wheeler was directly overhead. Could have been moving in closer to shoot, reducing the amount of travel time for his shots and also increasing his shot frequency.
Centipede's Tower
Pre-Tower - Some of those Dragons could have been bypassed without killing them.
15:25 - Refused to get on the ladder with the ghost alive. The ghost could have chose to block his path, but it looked as if there would have been enough opportunity for him to shoot it diagonally from the ladder.
15:42 - (Parallel Zone) There are 4 ghosts at the start, 3 of which are the slow variety. With the fact that he has both the Shield and Armor, I'm not sure it was necessary to huddle in the corner like that. Granted, they DID line up nicely for him.
16:02 - (Parallel Zone) 3 ghosts, all fast ones. Moving to the corner was a smart move here, but once the first one was dead, the other 2 moved below him, giving him ample opportunity to get on the ladder.
16:21 - (Parallel Zone) Only one ghost on the screen (a fast one). He wedges himself in the corner and waits for it. I'm going to point out again that he has both the Armor and Shield, and a decent chunk of HP left. He could have gotten the Helmet a few second sooner, and would have probably only taken one hit for it...two at most, unless he was REALLY unlucky.
Centipede - Refused to fire when Centipede wasn't close, even when his shots would have been guaranteed to connect. Could have also fired straight down when Centipede was below him, but didn't.
Great Burn's Tower
Overall - Could have avoided killing the dragons.
17:59 - Probably should have started climbing the stairs immediately instead of waiting for the moth to come in close. With all the defense he has now, damage isn't an issue.
21:41 - Doubt he needed to take that Caveman out.
Dungeon
24:57 - That snake could have been avoided.
Decision: Accept.
Nit-picking aside, it's a very solid run, and a vast improvement over Votava's run. 9+ minutes shaved off a 43 minute run is what I'd call substantial. Video and Audio quality is also quite a bit better (as Votava's run was from the VHS days).
I'm probably going to look into some route changes to obtain the offensive stuff first and see if it's possible to survive the rest of the game. It's going to require some ungodly amounts of luck though.
...who'd've thought that THIS game would ever get competition?
Quote:
Quality (Capture)
I should note that there are major audio and visual improvements. Visual of course, but the audio in the old run makes it sound like the player of it had his NES run over by a semi truck.
Quality (Gameplay)
I’ll keep this one brief, because a) The runner explains everything very well in his comments, and b) I’ve let this run sit around for almost a month before getting to it. Never again. I know there are tons of people anxiously waiting at their keyboards for this update, and I can’t deprive them of it any longer by keeping my verdict back. I’ll just do the ol’ point form of major things to keep it easy:
- The first major difference is that the black ball thing a gets approached from the top rather than the side, which is a shorter distance. Killing it goes a lot quicker each time.
Blue Tower/Parallel Zone:
-Instead of following all the way though this place to the boss, he warps out after getting the armor. There’s difficultly adjustment in this game and it makes the enemies tougher and more damaging after killing the third and fifth boss (or “a” third or fifth boss technically). His weapons haven’t even been upgraded yet, and it’s actually faster to come back later.
Green Tower/Wheeler
- The tower climb actually goes a bit slower here by about 4 seconds, and the boss by 2.
Blue Tower 2/Parallel Zone/Centipede:
- This whole area goes faster by 6 seconds.
- Since enemy movement is very random, these aren’t really huge things to note. I just thought it was interesting how one area cancelled out the other.
Green Tower/Great Burn
- Before this, the player of the old run went back to the money farming area to get more of it and buy more items. That didn’t happen in this run.
- This castle and boss also go 22 seconds faster.
Brownish Tower/Parallel Zone/Cold Killer
- The player of the old run went after a different tower at this point. I’m not sure why, because I think it’s longer.
- Makes a mistake by going into the first shop, costing him a few seconds.
Reddish-Brown Tower/Death Bear
- Holy shit, Death Bear! The runner actually manages to kill him quicker than some of the normal enemies. The player of the old run actually ran to the corner and hesitated on a few shots, while the runner just stood his ground right away and shoot Death Bear in a fraction of the time it took me to write this sentence.
Purple Tower/Great Wings
- Now that he has the strong armor and double shot, the runner kills Great Wings almost as quickly as he did Death Bear. The player of the old run was forced to hide in the corner and shoot one shot at him over a long period of time (it may get blocked too) since it was the first one he went after.
Green Tower 2/Beat Plant
- Beat Plant? He looks like a fart cloud with fangs. The runner puts that armor to good use – absorbing a ton of damage to dish it out quicker.
- Finally, the runner whoops all three of the bosses’ asses way quicker than the old run did. The first boss was the biggest one, as the runner pulls off the “kill it before it expands” health abuse trick. The old run failed this and had to fight it for a while. The second one just goes quicker, and the last boss didn’t need to have a potion downed for recovery.
Timing
Player starts: 524 (00:08.742)
Final boss dies: 122574 (34:04.943)
Overall Time: 33:56.201
Importance
- Less hits taken.
- Better item planning.
- Better route planning.
- Better boss battles.
- Better understanding of the game.
- When you apply those four things to the areas in between the castles (which I didn’t go into detail about), you also get a huge part of the overall time saved.
The most important thing of all is that this run beats the old one by nearly TEN MINUTES through all the things listed above. Accepting this is a no-brainer.
I should note that there are major audio and visual improvements. Visual of course, but the audio in the old run makes it sound like the player of it had his NES run over by a semi truck.
Quality (Gameplay)
I’ll keep this one brief, because a) The runner explains everything very well in his comments, and b) I’ve let this run sit around for almost a month before getting to it. Never again. I know there are tons of people anxiously waiting at their keyboards for this update, and I can’t deprive them of it any longer by keeping my verdict back. I’ll just do the ol’ point form of major things to keep it easy:
- The first major difference is that the black ball thing a gets approached from the top rather than the side, which is a shorter distance. Killing it goes a lot quicker each time.
Blue Tower/Parallel Zone:
-Instead of following all the way though this place to the boss, he warps out after getting the armor. There’s difficultly adjustment in this game and it makes the enemies tougher and more damaging after killing the third and fifth boss (or “a” third or fifth boss technically). His weapons haven’t even been upgraded yet, and it’s actually faster to come back later.
Green Tower/Wheeler
- The tower climb actually goes a bit slower here by about 4 seconds, and the boss by 2.
Blue Tower 2/Parallel Zone/Centipede:
- This whole area goes faster by 6 seconds.
- Since enemy movement is very random, these aren’t really huge things to note. I just thought it was interesting how one area cancelled out the other.
Green Tower/Great Burn
- Before this, the player of the old run went back to the money farming area to get more of it and buy more items. That didn’t happen in this run.
- This castle and boss also go 22 seconds faster.
Brownish Tower/Parallel Zone/Cold Killer
- The player of the old run went after a different tower at this point. I’m not sure why, because I think it’s longer.
- Makes a mistake by going into the first shop, costing him a few seconds.
Reddish-Brown Tower/Death Bear
- Holy shit, Death Bear! The runner actually manages to kill him quicker than some of the normal enemies. The player of the old run actually ran to the corner and hesitated on a few shots, while the runner just stood his ground right away and shoot Death Bear in a fraction of the time it took me to write this sentence.
Purple Tower/Great Wings
- Now that he has the strong armor and double shot, the runner kills Great Wings almost as quickly as he did Death Bear. The player of the old run was forced to hide in the corner and shoot one shot at him over a long period of time (it may get blocked too) since it was the first one he went after.
Green Tower 2/Beat Plant
- Beat Plant? He looks like a fart cloud with fangs. The runner puts that armor to good use – absorbing a ton of damage to dish it out quicker.
- Finally, the runner whoops all three of the bosses’ asses way quicker than the old run did. The first boss was the biggest one, as the runner pulls off the “kill it before it expands” health abuse trick. The old run failed this and had to fight it for a while. The second one just goes quicker, and the last boss didn’t need to have a potion downed for recovery.
Timing
Player starts: 524 (00:08.742)
Final boss dies: 122574 (34:04.943)
Overall Time: 33:56.201
Importance
- Less hits taken.
- Better item planning.
- Better route planning.
- Better boss battles.
- Better understanding of the game.
- When you apply those four things to the areas in between the castles (which I didn’t go into detail about), you also get a huge part of the overall time saved.
The most important thing of all is that this run beats the old one by nearly TEN MINUTES through all the things listed above. Accepting this is a no-brainer.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Well I can't reject a game because it's crappy.
Looks like Votava needs to watch out for Feasel. What will go down next? Castlequest? The Adventures of Bayou Billy? Mission Impossible? (please don't, I never want to verify this game again)
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