Spelunky - September 6th, 2010

2010-09-06 08:06:24 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Game Page: Still doesn't exist

Mark 'ExplodingCabbage' Amery's SS run as the Spelunker

Verifier Responses

The quick verification never happened.

Quote:

Oh, in case you need it, I accept the Spelunky run, I'll write up a quick verification later or tomorrow

Quote:

I can never match this level of speed, hoh. It's like watching Eidolon play NetHack, except you can actually tell what's going on because the text isn't zipping by in a tenth of a second.

The shop being right there in Cave 2 is nice; if there was more patience, luck manipulating in a Compass somewhere before level 9 could potentially help in the Ice Cave and parts of the Temple. Although, just plain good luck makes that needless, too, and it would probably only save a few seconds of doing things like skimming the bottom of the ice pit, which may be mitigated by having to drop the Mattock, pick up the Compass, pick the Mattock back up, and continue on.

Snake pit on level 4, Restless Dead level 7 (runner comments lie!), Wet Fur level 11, Lava Pit level 14. Two special levels that make things a bit quicker, one that makes it slower, one that's irrelevant, and overall decent random levels.

Overall, it's a good improvement to the other runs that have shown up, attempted to be submitted, and beaten before then. Maybe now we can get a page for it up before this run is beaten, too.

Quote:

I already saw this improvement on EC's YouTube a couple weeks ago. All the praise I've done to his previous submission (which I also verified) is also applicable to this one, and in larger amounts. While the first stage is rather lackluster (I would rather restart after taking damage right off the bat, sorry for the pun), the run picks up right afterwards with an awesome shop setup already at the start of the second stage, and culminates in heartwrenching stages 14, 15, and of course the last boss fight. There is very little slowdown overall, and luck seems to be shining on the player most of the time. A/V quality flawless, no cheating detected. Accept in a heartbeat, and publish before my Russian comrade delays the publication by another half a year. Tongue

Quote:

wow this run is full of luck

great shop from the start, straight shots to the bottom on almost every level, and the mattock lasted him through the entire thing

his luck is especially apparent in the fact that he even could have met the requirements for the city of gold if this was a "100%" run. thats something else id like to see attempted.

id decide to accept this, btw, i dont have much to say beyond congrats!

The youtube video in the response below uses an altered frame rate, which messes witht he game's timer.

Quote:

Right, here's my analysis:

- Cheating: I verified if the number of lives, bombs, ropes, kills and money were consistent through the run and if they corresponded with the on-screen action, everything checked out. Concerning the time, I checked (not the source code, but by playing the game) and Spelunky rounds up and down the value of the time at the end, so after each level, the added time to the total time must be within 1 second. This checked out fine too. The design of the levels, although random, all look pretty much as they should be. Finally, I checked some of the levels (including the last one) to see if the time it took for the video to play was consistent with the time Spelunky gave out and they were.

As far as I can tell, there is no explicit cheating happening.

- Video/Audio quality: Video quality is fine throughout, no missing images and/or messed up recording parts. Audio quality is fine too, listening through headphones I deteced no instances where the audio channel was reduced to one. No problems here.

- Gameplay: I'll divide the comments for each portion. One general observation is that he's quite right about needing a Jetpack, it does save a lot of time. The mattock is also very useful, so he's lucky to get both.
The Cave: Probably lost one second hesitating on level 3 about which way to go. Apart from that, he got some relatively quick levels and no produced no significant other mistakes. The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.
The Jungle: no real time losses due to mistakes, although it is true that he probably lost one to two seconds on level 7 by taking the wrong path, but it's a random draw and he just got unlucky. He does take an likely unnecessary hit on the same level, because he doesn't clear the one block obstacle in one go (which would have allowed him to kill the Asian vampire thingy, probably), but it's a tiny mistake that doesn't cost him time.
The Ice Cavern: the first three levels are pretty much flawless and quick levels. He was unlucky to have gotten the Wet Fur feelie, which is a terrible one to get in a speed run, but lucky that it was in a atypical configuration that allowed him to finish it so quickly and he makes no mistakes there.
The Temple: the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second, but he just manages to pull it off. Nice use of the mattock to avoid traps too, in all of them. However, level 15 is probably the worst level of the game. He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.
Olmec: the issue of whether or not to use the mattock is a thorny one. As he points out, he would have to use it a lot and the risk of it working is small (I haven't done the maths, but there's a 50% chance it will break before 14 hits), so I think it's acceptable to go for a 'safe' strategy, specially for a first submission. However, future submissions should really take into consideration the saving this lends to the total time, it really can make a big difference. As such, he performs the safe strategy pretty much flawlessly, with no mistakes of significance.

Overall luck: the levels he got were, for the most part, sufficiently good that they compensated for the two poor levels, the Wet Fur one and level 15. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must and that was accomplished quickly, if somewhat safely. Overall, I think the luck was pretty good and well within the required.
Overall gameplay: good-to-great gameplay here. Very quick reflexes for the most part, good calls on the level path he takes, very good use of the jetpack, I'd say that he displays a high level of quality of gameplay, sufficient to be accepted on these grounds.
Overall fun: a fun run to watch, specially when he manages to deal with the Wet fur part so well.

Verdict: I'd say yes, it should be accepted.

Final observations: there is a mistake in the comments section, the author states that he did not go through any of the 'feelies' of the Jungle levels, however, he does go through the Restless Dead one in level 7. Apart from that, the comments are very detailed, accurate and interesting to read, specially, I imagine, for someone who hasn't played the game before.

I do have one final issue, though: I was looking at youtube videos of spelunky speed runs for comparison and I found this one

which, if legitimate, would trump the present run... by one second. This is accomplished mainly by getting insane good luck, since the run itself is <very> sloppy at some points. I have no intention of checking whether it's legit or not, although it seems ok (the damsel, as far as I know, plays out exactly like the spelunker). Would this be a reason to reject the run? Personally, I'd say no, but I thought you might want to know of this.

Decision: Accept

Reason: The English have retaken the crown of fastest mining expedition. Wink

Thread title:

Game Page: Still doesn't exist

Mark 'ExplodingCabbage' Amery's SS run as the Spelunker

[b]Verifier Responses[/b]

The quick verification never happened.

[quote]Oh, in case you need it, I accept the Spelunky run, I'll write up a quick verification later or tomorrow[/quote]

[quote]I can never match this level of speed, hoh.  It's like watching Eidolon play NetHack, except you can actually tell what's going on because the text isn't zipping by in a tenth of a second.

The shop being right there in Cave 2 is nice; if there was more patience, luck manipulating in a Compass somewhere before level 9 could potentially help in the Ice Cave and parts of the Temple.  Although, just plain good luck makes that needless, too, and it would probably only save a few seconds of doing things like skimming the bottom of the ice pit, which may be mitigated by having to drop the Mattock, pick up the Compass, pick the Mattock back up, and continue on.

Snake pit on level 4, Restless Dead level 7 (runner comments lie!), Wet Fur level 11, Lava Pit level 14.  Two special levels that make things a bit quicker, one that makes it slower, one that's irrelevant, and overall decent random levels.

Overall, it's a good improvement to the other runs that have shown up, attempted to be submitted, and beaten before then.  Maybe now we can get a page for it up before this run is beaten, too.[/quote]

[quote]I already saw this improvement on EC's YouTube a couple weeks ago. All the praise I've done to his previous submission (which I also verified) is also applicable to this one, and in larger amounts. While the first stage is rather lackluster (I would rather restart after taking damage right off the bat, sorry for the pun), the run picks up right afterwards with an awesome shop setup already at the start of the second stage, and culminates in heartwrenching stages 14, 15, and of course the last boss fight. There is very little slowdown overall, and luck seems to be shining on the player most of the time. A/V quality flawless, no cheating detected. Accept in a heartbeat, and publish before my Russian comrade delays the publication by another half a year. :P[/quote]

[quote]wow this run is full of luck

great shop from the start, straight shots to the bottom on almost every level, and the mattock lasted him through the entire thing

his luck is especially apparent in the fact that he even could have met the requirements for the city of gold if this was a "100%" run. thats something else id like to see attempted.

id decide to accept this, btw, i dont have much to say beyond congrats![/quote]

The youtube video in the response below uses an altered frame rate, which messes witht he game's timer.

[quote]Right, here's my analysis:

- Cheating: I verified if the number of lives, bombs, ropes, kills and money were consistent through the run and if they corresponded with the on-screen action, everything checked out. Concerning the time, I checked (not the source code, but by playing the game) and Spelunky rounds up and down the value of the time at the end, so after each level, the added time to the total time must be within 1 second. This checked out fine too. The design of the levels, although random, all look pretty much as they should be. Finally, I checked some of the levels (including the last one) to see if the time it took for the video to play was consistent with the time Spelunky gave out and they were.

As far as I can tell, there is no explicit cheating happening.

- Video/Audio quality: Video quality is fine throughout, no missing images and/or messed up recording parts. Audio quality is fine too, listening through headphones I deteced no instances where the audio channel was reduced to one. No problems here.

- Gameplay: I'll divide the comments for each portion. One general observation is that he's quite right about needing a Jetpack, it does save a lot of time. The mattock is also very useful, so he's lucky to get both.
                   The Cave: Probably lost one second hesitating on level 3 about which way to go. Apart from that, he got some relatively quick levels and no produced no significant other mistakes. The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.
                   The Jungle: no real time losses due to mistakes, although it is true that he probably lost one to two seconds on level 7 by taking the wrong path, but it's a random draw and he just got unlucky. He does take an likely unnecessary hit on the same level, because he doesn't clear the one block obstacle in one go (which would have allowed him to kill the Asian vampire thingy, probably), but it's a tiny mistake that doesn't cost him time.
                   The Ice Cavern: the first three levels are pretty much flawless and quick levels. He was unlucky to have gotten the Wet Fur feelie, which is a terrible one to get in a speed run, but lucky that it was in a atypical configuration that allowed him to finish it so quickly and he makes no mistakes there.
                   The Temple: the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second, but he just manages to pull it off. Nice use of the mattock to avoid traps too, in all of them. However, level 15 is probably the worst level of the game. He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.
                   Olmec: the issue of whether or not to use the mattock is a thorny one. As he points out, he would have to use it a lot and the risk of it working is small (I haven't done the maths, but there's a 50% chance it will break before 14 hits), so I think it's acceptable to go for a 'safe' strategy, specially for a first submission. However, future submissions should really take into consideration the saving this lends to the total time, it really can make a big difference. As such, he performs the safe strategy pretty much flawlessly, with no mistakes of significance.

Overall luck: the levels he got were, for the most part, sufficiently good that they compensated for the two poor levels, the Wet Fur one and level 15. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must and that was accomplished quickly, if somewhat safely. Overall, I think the luck was pretty good and well within the required.
                   Overall gameplay: good-to-great gameplay here. Very quick reflexes for the most part, good calls on the level path he takes, very good use of the jetpack, I'd say that he displays a high level of quality of gameplay, sufficient to be accepted on these grounds.
                   Overall fun: a fun run to watch, specially when he manages to deal with the Wet fur part so well.

Verdict: I'd say yes, it should be accepted.

Final observations: there is a mistake in the comments section, the author states that he did not go through any of the 'feelies' of the Jungle levels, however, he does go through the Restless Dead one in level 7. Apart from that, the comments are very detailed, accurate and interesting to read, specially, I imagine, for someone who hasn't played the game before.

I do have one final issue, though: I was looking at youtube videos of spelunky speed runs for comparison and I found this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp0DjpUXSK0

which, if legitimate, would trump the present run... by one second. This is accomplished mainly by getting insane good luck, since the run itself is <very> sloppy at some points. I have no intention of checking whether it's legit or not, although it seems ok (the damsel, as far as I know, plays out exactly like the spelunker). Would this be a reason to reject the run? Personally, I'd say no, but I thought you might want to know of this.[/quote]

[b]Decision[/b]: Accept

[b]Reason[/b]: The English have retaken the crown of fastest mining expedition. ;)

ExplodingCabbage

2010-09-07 05:39:45 am

Wow, 5 verifiers for Spelunky? Sweet.

Thanks for verifying, everyone.

Verifier 2:

Quote:

The shop being right there in Cave 2 is nice; if there was more patience, luck manipulating in a Compass somewhere before level 9 could potentially help in the Ice Cave and parts of the Temple.

FYI I've actually gotten one of what I regard as the three perfect item combinations (Jetpack, Mattock and Compass; Cape, Mattock and Compass; Cape, Teleporter and Compass - I consider them all roughly equivalent though each has advantages and disadvantages over the othes) all together in a single shop in the cave maybe four or five times before, but have never made it to the end with them - sometimes due to fucking up the robbery itself, which is significantly harder when you have three items to steal instead of one or two, and other times due to fuckups or once due to simply being too incautious with health and finally getting worn down to 0 in the Temple.

Rewatching the run, I roughly agree with your assessment of where in this run the compass would've helped. There was probably half a second to a second to be saved in each of the ice levels by removing little hesitations that wouldn't've happened if I'd known in advance where the exit was. It probably wouldn't've helped in the first two temple levels but might have done in level 15. If I'd known the direction of the exit at the beginning of level 15, I'd probably have gone off to the right instead of the left. This might well have been a substantial time-saver; if the opening in the ceiling we see at the end of the level is anything to go by, I would've had a pretty open route straight down to the exit. Still, we don't know whether I would've had to mattock through the floor to reach it, annd we don't know what dangers lay in the screenful of terrain that we don't see in the video, so we can't be sure.

At any rate, I'm not going to be troubled by the fact that I didn't get a compass. Any run is going to suffer some bad luck, whether its in the items you get, the level layouts, the enemy placements, or a mattock breaking at the worst possible moment. It may seem like it would make sense to just keep on restarting until I get a compass on top of the Mattock and Jetpack on level 2, but it really wouldn't ; the sheer length of time all those restarts that would take makes the time spent playing out a few games like this one where I get less-than-perfect luck with items fade into insignificance in comparison (and trying to force in a second shop robbery on some other level, with the extra time and risk that involves and the low chance you'll even get another shop with a compass in, is madness, IMO), and there's every chance that along the way I'll get some good luck - like my significantly faster-than-average Cave time in this run - that outweighs the likely benefits of the Compass anyway.

Quote:

Restless Dead level 7 (runner comments lie!)

Good catch, I'll fix this and PM Mike a new version of the comments.

Verifier 3:

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I would rather restart after taking damage right off the bat

Like with the luck-manipulating a compass suggested by the previous verifier, this is a tricky judgement call and isn't clear-cut, and the decision depends upon not just the significance of the lost health point and the odds of getting some good luck that will cancel it out (like a fast level 1 or a shop with a Jetpack and Mattock on the next level) but also on how long (in real world playing time) it will take to restart versus how long it will take to carry on just a little bit longer to see if I get some good luck in my favour (in this case, both would take small numbers of seconds). On balance, I think I agree with you on this one and that I generally undervalue health in the early stages of a run and then risk (or sometimes actually experience) embarassing deaths in the temple as a result.

Quote:

heartwrenching stages 14, 15

Yeah, I don't think I appreciated at all how close to death I came while I was playing - there was no time to reflect on things that had just happened, only to concentrate on what was ahead.

Verifier 4:

Quote:

requirements for the city of gold if this was a "100%" run

Hmm. This reminds me of something unrelated to this particular run but nonetheless important, so pardon the OT tangent. When I talked to Mike about categories for this game on IRC a while back, we agreed that getting all high score trophies (like the 100% definition given by moozooh in the thread on the Casual Speedrunning board) would constitute 100% (I didn't even mention the City Of Gold to him in the convo and didn't give him much info about the trophies either). In retrospect, I actually think that was a bad decision; I think one of the key guiding principles behind 100% definitions on SDA is meant to be that the definition should match up with what the developer might've chosen as a 100% definition. For me, I think getting all high score trophies fails at the first hurdle in this regard because I doubt Derek even thought about the possibility of someone getting all four in a single game when he coded them in - and if he did, he probably would've dismissed the idea as impossibly difficult. Having reaching the City Of Gold as the requirement for 100% is probably a lot more consistent with SDA's usual way of defining 100% categories. At any rate, I have no plans to do either kind of run, so there's no real need to consider the matter now, but if anyone does want to do a 100% run (of either type) and submit it to SDA, they'd be well-advised to discuss the category definition on the PC board first and talk to Mike about it. Just saying this so that it's written down somewhere, and hopefully anyone who is of a mind to do such a run will stumble across this post beforehand.

Verifier 5:

Quote:

The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.

I honestly can't remember whether I knowingly dropped down by that arrow trap, confident I could dodge it, or whether I didn't notice it and reacted just in time to dodge when it went off. The latter seems more likely given that robbing a shop for two items and then digging out and getting into the hole is actually pretty darn difficult and requires a lot of concentration (one fumble with an item pickup, or being slightly slower dropping into the hole, and the shotgun blast would've got me - it's only frames off as it is) and I probably never even looked at what was below me until I was down there.

Quote:

He was unlucky to have gotten the Wet Fur feelie, which is a terrible one to get in a speed run, but lucky that it was in a atypical configuration that allowed him to finish it so quickly

Yeah. Also lucky that I had a mattock.

Quote:

the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second

I like how you automatically assume that I saw the arrow trap in advance and made a perfectly calculated snap-judgement on whether to try and rush past it or not, rather than that I simply didn't notice it and got lucky. This time I do remember and can tell you with confidence that the latter was true. Those damn arrow traps get me all the time in the temple; what with them being the same colour as the blocks in the temple, I find them very hard to spot at speed, and with that one only being on screen for half a second before I passed it (and that half second being spent looking for the path downwards and worrying about whether either of the cavemen were going to jump or fall and get me) my odds of noticing it in time were never going to be good.

Quote:

He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.

Fair comment - it was probably the sloppiest level. I hesitated longer than I needed to before digging at the beginning, I stupidly didn't chuck a bomb at the mummy before doing so which would've left me trapped with no backup plan if my mattock had broken, getting caught in the web was clumsy and I probably could've read the situation with the two cultists at the end a little faster and not hesitated for as long. In mitigation, I reckon missing instadeath by a whisker twice in the final second of the level adds some redeeming cool points, though. Wink

Quote:

Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must

Disagree. The mattock only serves to mitigate the damage done by unlucky level layouts; if you have good enough luck, you'll never use it (and that's a realistic possibility). Similarly, the Cape can perform as well as the Jetpack with some lucky layouts, as ortoslon's 3:00 run with only the cape showed. Finally, as far as two-item combos go, I'd suggest Cape and Teleporter is at least the equal of Jetpack and Mattock; you get the advantages of the cape over the jetpack (smoother and easier-to-control movement, immunity to spikes, no time lost when landing, no need to land to get your fuel back if you're in the air too long), you can teleport upwards if necessary which somewhat mitigates the inability to ascend with the cape, you can teleport out of snake pits and lava pits and bypass thick obstacles that would take a long time to mattock through, and you can generally speed up movement in any open space (e.g. any Jungle or Ice level and some Cave levels) by teleporting. I certainly wouldn't agree that either the jetpack or the mattock are a must for a speedrun.

Quote:

I do have one final issue, though: I was looking at youtube videos of spelunky speed runs for comparison and I found this one

Quote:

The youtube video in the response below uses an altered frame rate, which messes witht he game's timer.

Actually, the timer works fine and still times correctly in real time, it's the game itself that runs much faster. I think the combination of the video's custom music and the use of a different character can perhaps throw you off at first, but if you look at the two videos side by side it's really obvious that in the run there the game is running loads faster than normal.

Wow, 5 verifiers for Spelunky? Sweet.

Thanks for verifying, everyone.

[b]Verifier 2:[/b]

[quote]The shop being right there in Cave 2 is nice; if there was more patience, luck manipulating in a Compass somewhere before level 9 could potentially help in the Ice Cave and parts of the Temple.[/quote]

FYI I've actually gotten one of what I regard as the three perfect item combinations (Jetpack, Mattock and Compass; Cape, Mattock and Compass; Cape, Teleporter and Compass - I consider them all roughly equivalent though each has advantages and disadvantages over the othes) all together in a single shop in the cave maybe four or five times before, but have never made it to the end with them - sometimes due to fucking up the robbery itself, which is significantly harder when you have three items to steal instead of one or two, and other times due to fuckups or once due to simply being too incautious with health and finally getting worn down to 0 in the Temple.

Rewatching the run, I roughly agree with your assessment of where in this run the compass would've helped. There was probably half a second to a second to be saved in each of the ice levels by removing little hesitations that wouldn't've happened if I'd known in advance where the exit was. It probably wouldn't've helped in the first two temple levels but [i]might[/i] have done in level 15. If I'd known the direction of the exit at the beginning of level 15, I'd probably have gone off to the right instead of the left. This might well have been a substantial time-saver; if the opening in the ceiling we see at the end of the level is anything to go by, I would've had a pretty open route straight down to the exit. Still, we don't know whether I would've had to mattock through the floor to reach it, annd we don't know what dangers lay in the screenful of terrain that we don't see in the video, so we can't be sure.

At any rate, I'm not going to be troubled by the fact that I didn't get a compass. Any run is going to suffer some bad luck, whether its in the items you get, the level layouts, the enemy placements, or a mattock breaking at the worst possible moment. It may seem like it would make sense to just keep on restarting until I get a compass on top of the Mattock and Jetpack on level 2, but it really wouldn't ; the sheer length of time all those restarts that would take makes the time spent playing out a few games like this one where I get less-than-perfect luck with items fade into insignificance in comparison (and trying to force in a [i]second[/i] shop robbery on some other level, with the extra time and risk that involves and the low chance you'll even get another shop with a compass in, is madness, IMO), and there's every chance that along the way I'll get some good luck - like my significantly faster-than-average Cave time in this run - that outweighs the likely benefits of the Compass anyway.

[quote]Restless Dead level 7 (runner comments lie!)[/quote]

Good catch, I'll fix this and PM Mike a new version of the comments.

[b]Verifier 3:[/b]

[quote]I would rather restart after taking damage right off the bat[/quote]

Like with the luck-manipulating a compass suggested by the previous verifier, this is a tricky judgement call and isn't clear-cut, and the decision depends upon not just the significance of the lost health point and the odds of getting some good luck that will cancel it out (like a fast level 1 or a shop with a Jetpack and Mattock on the next level) but also on how long (in real world playing time) it will take to restart versus how long it will take to carry on just a little bit longer to see if I get some good luck in my favour (in this case, both would take small numbers of seconds). On balance, I think I agree with you on this one and that I generally undervalue health in the early stages of a run and then risk (or sometimes actually experience) embarassing deaths in the temple as a result.

[quote]heartwrenching stages 14, 15[/quote]

Yeah, I don't think I appreciated at all how close to death I came while I was playing - there was no time to reflect on things that had just happened, only to concentrate on what was ahead.

[b]Verifier 4:[/b]

[quote]requirements for the city of gold if this was a "100%" run[/quote]

Hmm. This reminds me of something unrelated to this particular run but nonetheless important, so pardon the OT tangent. When I talked to Mike about categories for this game on IRC a while back, we agreed that getting all high score trophies (like the 100% definition given by moozooh in the [url=http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/spelunky_v0.99_and_up_pc_freeware.html]thread[/url] on the Casual Speedrunning board) would constitute 100% (I didn't even mention the City Of Gold to him in the convo and didn't give him much info about the trophies either). In retrospect, I actually think that was a bad decision; I think one of the key guiding principles behind 100% definitions on SDA is meant to be that the definition should match up with what the developer might've chosen as a 100% definition. For me, I think getting all high score trophies fails at the first hurdle in this regard because I doubt Derek even thought about the possibility of someone getting all four in a single game when he coded them in - and if he did, he probably would've dismissed the idea as impossibly difficult. Having reaching the City Of Gold as the requirement for 100% is probably a lot more consistent with SDA's usual way of defining 100% categories. At any rate, I have no plans to do either kind of run, so there's no real need to consider the matter now, but if anyone [i]does[/i] want to do a 100% run (of either type) and submit it to SDA, they'd be well-advised to discuss the category definition on the PC board first and talk to Mike about it. Just saying this so that it's written down somewhere, and hopefully anyone who is of a mind to do such a run will stumble across this post beforehand.

[b]Verifier 5:[/b]

[quote]The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.[/quote]

I honestly can't remember whether I knowingly dropped down by that arrow trap, confident I could dodge it, or whether I didn't notice it and reacted just in time to dodge when it went off. The latter seems more likely given that robbing a shop for two items and then digging out and getting into the hole is actually pretty darn difficult and requires a lot of concentration (one fumble with an item pickup, or being slightly slower dropping into the hole, and the shotgun blast would've got me - it's only frames off as it is) and I probably never even looked at what was below me until I was down there.

[quote]He was unlucky to have gotten the Wet Fur feelie, which is a terrible one to get in a speed run, but lucky that it was in a atypical configuration that allowed him to finish it so quickly[/quote]

Yeah. Also lucky that I had a mattock.

[quote]the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second[/quote]

I like how you automatically assume that I saw the arrow trap in advance and made a perfectly calculated snap-judgement on whether to try and rush past it or not, rather than that I simply didn't notice it and got lucky. This time I do remember and can tell you with confidence that the latter was true. Those damn arrow traps get me all the time in the temple; what with them being the same colour as the blocks in the temple, I find them very hard to spot at speed, and with that one only being on screen for half a second before I passed it (and that half second being spent looking for the path downwards and worrying about whether either of the cavemen were going to jump or fall and get me) my odds of noticing it in time were never going to be good.

[quote]He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.[/quote]

Fair comment - it was probably the sloppiest level. I hesitated longer than I needed to before digging at the beginning, I stupidly didn't chuck a bomb at the mummy before doing so which would've left me trapped with no backup plan if my mattock had broken, getting caught in the web was clumsy and I probably could've read the situation with the two cultists at the end a little faster and not hesitated for as long. In mitigation, I reckon missing instadeath by a whisker twice in the final second of the level adds some redeeming cool points, though. ;)

[quote]Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must[/quote]

Disagree. The mattock only serves to mitigate the damage done by unlucky level layouts; if you have good enough luck, you'll never use it (and that's a realistic possibility). Similarly, the Cape can perform as well as the Jetpack with some lucky layouts, as ortoslon's 3:00 run with only the cape showed. Finally, as far as two-item combos go, I'd suggest Cape and Teleporter is at least the equal of Jetpack and Mattock; you get the advantages of the cape over the jetpack (smoother and easier-to-control movement, immunity to spikes, no time lost when landing, no need to land to get your fuel back if you're in the air too long), you can teleport upwards if necessary which somewhat mitigates the inability to ascend with the cape, you can teleport out of snake pits and lava pits and bypass thick obstacles that would take a long time to mattock through, and you can generally speed up movement in any open space (e.g. any Jungle or Ice level and some Cave levels) by teleporting. I certainly wouldn't agree that either the jetpack or the mattock are a must for a speedrun.

[quote]I do have one final issue, though: I was looking at youtube videos of spelunky speed runs for comparison and I found this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp0DjpUXSK0[/quote]
[quote]The youtube video in the response below uses an altered frame rate, which messes witht he game's timer.[/quote]

Actually, the timer works fine and still times correctly in real time, it's the game itself that runs much faster. I think the combination of the video's custom music and the use of a different character can perhaps throw you off at first, but if you look at the two videos side by side it's really obvious that in the run there the game is running [i]loads[/i] faster than normal.

mystimus

2010-09-08 03:05:28 pm

I seem to hit verifier #2 a lot when I verify. I wonder why that is?

Anyway, I only caught the Restless Dead by seeing the Jin'do (I think that's the name of the green ghost enemy) and a gravestone as you ran by; I think you left the level before the level feeling really had time to show up. I just felt like injecting a bit of levity with pointing it out.

Looking back, I agree 100% on the compass, though. I tried your method of robbery, with the same store layout, and trying to pick up even two items and get out is incredibly hard. I usually ended up doing a much safer, but far longer, robbery: steal Spike Shoes; pick up the shopkeeper's Shotgun and hope I can blast him before he takes it back; lure him away and return to claim the rest of the goods; etc. When I wrote that comment, I hadn't actually tried to do that method of stealing, and I fully agree it's far harder than I thought it would be when suggesting it. I concede to your point; I was already shaky on whether it would save enough time to be worth even mentioning.

I seem to hit verifier #2 a lot when I verify.  I wonder why that is?

Anyway, I only caught the Restless Dead by seeing the Jin'do (I think that's the name of the green ghost enemy) and a gravestone as you ran by; I think you left the level before the level feeling really had time to show up.  I just felt like injecting a bit of levity with pointing it out.

Looking back, I agree 100% on the compass, though.  I tried your method of robbery, with the same store layout, and trying to pick up even two items and get out is incredibly hard.  I usually ended up doing a much safer, but far longer, robbery: steal Spike Shoes; pick up the shopkeeper's Shotgun and hope I can blast him before he takes it back; lure him away and return to claim the rest of the goods; etc.  When I wrote that comment, I hadn't actually tried to do that method of stealing, and I fully agree it's far harder than I thought it would be when suggesting it.  I concede to your point; I was already shaky on whether it would save enough time to be worth even mentioning.

ExplodingCabbage

Edit history:

ExplodingCabbage: 2010-09-08 03:48:28 pm

ExplodingCabbage: 2010-09-08 03:46:19 pm

ExplodingCabbage: 2010-09-08 03:45:37 pm

ExplodingCabbage: 2010-09-08 03:43:22 pm

2010-09-08 03:39:38 pm

Quote from mystimus:

Anyway, I only caught the Restless Dead by seeing the Jin'do (I think that's the name of the green ghost enemy) and a gravestone as you ran by; I think you left the level before the level feeling really had time to show up.

Just checked and nope, the feeling shows up just fine at the very start of the level. Dunno why I missed it when I was writing my comments.

Quote:

I just felt like injecting a bit of levity with pointing it out.

Heh, well you got a smile from me when I read it.

Quote:

I tried your method of robbery, with the same store layout, and trying to pick up even two items and get out is incredibly hard.

Yeah, I actually had a lot of runs end in failed robbery attempts. Probably that means I should've practiced robberies more - I guess it's kind of silly that I didn't have the technique perfected to the point I could do it with 100% consistency given that it's one of the two pretty much non-random bits guaranteed to come up in any successful Spelunky run (the other being Olmec).

Edit: As far as the compass thing goes, it might've been possible to get one from a crate since I think they're the most common crate drops after Bombs, Ropes and Parachutes. But it's rare enough just to get a Jetpack, let alone a Jetpack and Mattock, that I don't feel it would be anywhere near worth the wasted time spent going after the crates.

Edit 2: Oh yeah actually, one nice thing about the compass is that it's cheap enough that you can often get the money for one just by chance without going out of your way for it. The only control rebind I ever did before running was putting my purchase key on 'D' so it's near my main controls, so that if I happen to come across a shop with a compass plus something else I want, I can quickly buy the compass and then steal the rest. I think that's how I got my Jetpack/Mattock/Compass combo on the couple of occassions that I got it in the past, and it's by far the most likely route to getting them. Wouldn't've helped in this run even if there'd been a compass in the store, though, since quite remarkably I don't get any money at all until the end of level 5.

[quote="mystimus"]Anyway, I only caught the Restless Dead by seeing the Jin'do (I think that's the name of the green ghost enemy) and a gravestone as you ran by; I think you left the level before the level feeling really had time to show up.[/quote]

Just checked and nope, the feeling shows up just fine at the very start of the level. Dunno why I missed it when I was writing my comments.

[quote]I just felt like injecting a bit of levity with pointing it out.[/quote]

Heh, well you got a smile from me when I read it.

[quote]I tried your method of robbery, with the same store layout, and trying to pick up even two items and get out is incredibly hard.[/quote]

Yeah, I actually had a lot of runs end in failed robbery attempts. Probably that means I should've practiced robberies more - I guess it's kind of silly that I didn't have the technique perfected to the point I could do it with 100% consistency given that it's one of the two pretty much non-random bits guaranteed to come up in any successful Spelunky run (the other being Olmec).

Edit: As far as the compass thing goes, it might've been possible to get one from a crate since I think they're the most common crate drops after Bombs, Ropes and Parachutes. But it's rare enough just to get a Jetpack, let alone a Jetpack and Mattock, that I don't feel it would be anywhere near worth the wasted time spent going after the crates.

Edit 2: Oh yeah actually, one nice thing about the compass is that it's cheap enough that you can often get the money for one just by chance without going out of your way for it. The only control rebind I ever did before running was putting my purchase key on 'D' so it's near my main controls, so that if I happen to come across a shop with a compass plus something else I want, I can quickly buy the compass and then steal the rest. I think that's how I got my Jetpack/Mattock/Compass combo on the couple of occassions that I got it in the past, and it's by far the most likely route to getting them. Wouldn't've helped in this run even if there'd been a compass in the store, though, since quite remarkably I don't get any money at all until the end of level 5.

mystimus

2010-09-08 03:55:34 pm

Yeah, the crates have a chance of containing the compass, but they're never just 'on the way'. The best you can usually do is in an alcove you have to drop by anyway.

They do have one advantage, though: If you check a couple and get Bombs (especially a lucky bomb box crate), you can enter Olmec's room with 10-15+ bombs and do a little bomb-spam to start off with a nice little pit. ~25 will pretty consistently get you a pit deep enough that he can drop straight through, and if you got those all from crates that were <2 second detours each, it might end up as a wash or net savings. Of course, you're just about as likely to get Ropes, too, which don't help at all.

The compass is cheap, I had forgotten about that. Shows how much anyone actually _buys_ something in Spelunky...

Vert

2010-09-30 01:43:42 pm

[quote="ExplodingCabbage"]

Quote:

Wow, 5 verifiers for Spelunky? Sweet.

Thanks for verifying, everyone.

Hey ExplodingCabbage, I was actually the 5th verifier, I'd like to reply to your comments. And first off, let me reiterate, you've produced a very good run!

^_^

Quote:

Verifier 5:

Quote:

The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.

I honestly can't remember whether I knowingly dropped down by that arrow trap, confident I could dodge it, or whether I didn't notice it and reacted just in time to dodge when it went off. The latter seems more likely given that robbing a shop for two items and then digging out and getting into the hole is actually pretty darn difficult and requires a lot of concentration (one fumble with an item pickup, or being slightly slower dropping into the hole, and the shotgun blast would've got me - it's only frames off as it is) and I probably never even looked at what was below me until I was down there.

In a sense, it doesn't matter whether or not you intended to make the doge or not, it <looks> very impressive regardless. And it's very difficult to pull off too, there's a very good chance you'll get hit. So, by luck or skill, it's something that adds to run, both in time saved and in enjoyability!

Quote:

the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second

I like how you automatically assume that I saw the arrow trap in advance and made a perfectly calculated snap-judgement on whether to try and rush past it or not, rather than that I simply didn't notice it and got lucky. This time I do remember and can tell you with confidence that the latter was true. Those damn arrow traps get me all the time in the temple; what with them being the same colour as the blocks in the temple, I find them very hard to spot at speed, and with that one only being on screen for half a second before I passed it (and that half second being spent looking for the path downwards and worrying about whether either of the cavemen were going to jump or fall and get me) my odds of noticing it in time were never going to be good.

Oh, I know exactly what you mean. The arrow traps are near invisible to someone rushing along, so I guess you just have to be lucky. Still, my comments above apply here, doubly so as it happens twice!

Quote:

He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.

Fair comment - it was probably the sloppiest level. I hesitated longer than I needed to before digging at the beginning, I stupidly didn't chuck a bomb at the mummy before doing so which would've left me trapped with no backup plan if my mattock had broken, getting caught in the web was clumsy and I probably could've read the situation with the two cultists at the end a little faster and not hesitated for as long. In mitigation, I reckon missing instadeath by a whisker twice in the final second of the level adds some redeeming cool points, though. Wink

It's a tough game, spelunky is, so having a single, slightly sloppy level is not, I repeat, not grounds for complaints, much less reason to reject the run. I point it out as a 'dispassionate' observer. And yes, that last jump is, well, it's pretty damned amazing, near pixel perfect!

^_^

Quote:

Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must

Disagree. The mattock only serves to mitigate the damage done by unlucky level layouts; if you have good enough luck, you'll never use it (and that's a realistic possibility). Similarly, the Cape can perform as well as the Jetpack with some lucky layouts, as ortoslon's 3:00 run with only the cape showed. Finally, as far as two-item combos go, I'd suggest Cape and Teleporter is at least the equal of Jetpack and Mattock; you get the advantages of the cape over the jetpack (smoother and easier-to-control movement, immunity to spikes, no time lost when landing, no need to land to get your fuel back if you're in the air too long), you can teleport upwards if necessary which somewhat mitigates the inability to ascend with the cape, you can teleport out of snake pits and lava pits and bypass thick obstacles that would take a long time to mattock through, and you can generally speed up movement in any open space (e.g. any Jungle or Ice level and some Cave levels) by teleporting. I certainly wouldn't agree that either the jetpack or the mattock are a must for a speedrun.

Interesting points; allow me to rephrase my quote. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must... unless you get exceptionally good luck in the level designs.

Thing is, I haven't attempted to speedrun the game, so in a sense I should defer to you as a someone with much more experience than me, but in my (more limited) experience, the luck that would be required to be able to get a good run with just the cape and teleporter/mattock is very high. The thing is, having the cape means you need constant good luck in all the Ice levels (and, potentially, the Temple levels too) and/or risking using the teleporter. I haven't used the teleporter much, but it adds another random factor to a game already very luck dependent; it can end a game instantly by killing you and save 10 seconds by putting just the right place. And it seems to me that it has around 50% chance of working smoothly, 40% chance of hindering you slightly and 10% chance of killing you.

That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.

[quote="ExplodingCabbage"][quote]Wow, 5 verifiers for Spelunky? Sweet.

Thanks for verifying, everyone.[/quote]

Hey ExplodingCabbage, I was actually the 5th verifier, I'd like to reply to your comments. And first off, let me reiterate, you've produced a very good run!

^_^

[quote][b]Verifier 5:[/b]

[quote]The arrow doge he performs at one point is quite impressive.[/quote]

I honestly can't remember whether I knowingly dropped down by that arrow trap, confident I could dodge it, or whether I didn't notice it and reacted just in time to dodge when it went off. The latter seems more likely given that robbing a shop for two items and then digging out and getting into the hole is actually pretty darn difficult and requires a lot of concentration (one fumble with an item pickup, or being slightly slower dropping into the hole, and the shotgun blast would've got me - it's only frames off as it is) and I probably never even looked at what was below me until I was down there.[/quote]

In a sense, it doesn't matter whether or not you intended to make the doge or not, it <looks> very impressive regardless. And it's very difficult to pull off too, there's a very good chance you'll get hit. So, by luck or skill, it's something that adds to run, both in time saved and in enjoyability!

[quote][quote]the second arrow doge he performs here, on level 14, is <very> impressive! It's a risky gambit to pull off that saves about a second[/quote]

I like how you automatically assume that I saw the arrow trap in advance and made a perfectly calculated snap-judgement on whether to try and rush past it or not, rather than that I simply didn't notice it and got lucky. This time I do remember and can tell you with confidence that the latter was true. Those damn arrow traps get me all the time in the temple; what with them being the same colour as the blocks in the temple, I find them very hard to spot at speed, and with that one only being on screen for half a second before I passed it (and that half second being spent looking for the path downwards and worrying about whether either of the cavemen were going to jump or fall and get me) my odds of noticing it in time were never going to be good.[/quote]

Oh, I know exactly what you mean. The arrow traps are near invisible to someone rushing along, so I guess you just have to be lucky. Still, my comments above apply here, doubly so as it happens twice!

[quote][quote]He gets a bad level, with no clear exit, and loses significant time finding the right way, takes an unnecessary hit due to being trapped in a web, loses about a second trying to dodge the cultists, making for the second longest level of all. It's no deal breaker, by any means, just slightly sloppy.[/quote]

Fair comment - it was probably the sloppiest level. I hesitated longer than I needed to before digging at the beginning, I stupidly didn't chuck a bomb at the mummy before doing so which would've left me trapped with no backup plan if my mattock had broken, getting caught in the web was clumsy and I probably could've read the situation with the two cultists at the end a little faster and not hesitated for as long. In mitigation, I reckon missing instadeath by a whisker twice in the final second of the level adds some redeeming cool points, though. ;)[/quote]

It's a tough game, spelunky is, so having a single, slightly sloppy level is not, I repeat, not grounds for complaints, much less reason to reject the run. I point it out as a 'dispassionate' observer. And yes, that last jump is, well, it's pretty damned amazing, near pixel perfect!

^_^

[quote][quote]Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must[/quote]

Disagree. The mattock only serves to mitigate the damage done by unlucky level layouts; if you have good enough luck, you'll never use it (and that's a realistic possibility). Similarly, the Cape can perform as well as the Jetpack with some lucky layouts, as ortoslon's 3:00 run with only the cape showed. Finally, as far as two-item combos go, I'd suggest Cape and Teleporter is at least the equal of Jetpack and Mattock; you get the advantages of the cape over the jetpack (smoother and easier-to-control movement, immunity to spikes, no time lost when landing, no need to land to get your fuel back if you're in the air too long), you can teleport upwards if necessary which somewhat mitigates the inability to ascend with the cape, you can teleport out of snake pits and lava pits and bypass thick obstacles that would take a long time to mattock through, and you can generally speed up movement in any open space (e.g. any Jungle or Ice level and some Cave levels) by teleporting. I certainly wouldn't agree that either the jetpack or the mattock are a must for a speedrun.[/quote]

Interesting points; allow me to rephrase my quote. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must... unless you get exceptionally good luck in the level designs.

Thing is, I haven't attempted to speedrun the game, so in a sense I should defer to you as a someone with much more experience than me, but in my (more limited) experience, the luck that would be required to be able to get a good run with just the cape and teleporter/mattock is very high. The thing is, having the cape means you need constant good luck in all the Ice levels (and, potentially, the Temple levels too) and/or risking using the teleporter. I haven't used the teleporter much, but it adds another random factor to a game already very luck dependent; it can end a game instantly by killing you and save 10 seconds by putting just the right place. And it seems to me that it has around 50% chance of working smoothly, 40% chance of hindering you slightly and 10% chance of killing you.

That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.

ExplodingCabbage

Edit history:

ExplodingCabbage: 2010-09-30 06:30:16 pm

2010-09-30 06:29:01 pm

Quote from Vert:

Hey ExplodingCabbage, I was actually the 5th verifier, I'd like to reply to your comments. And first off, let me reiterate, you've produced a very good run!

^_^

Thanks.

Quote:

Interesting points; allow me to rephrase my quote. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must... unless you get exceptionally good luck in the level designs.

I guess what I was trying to say is that getting both Jetpack and Mattock in a single run seems to me to be about equally unlikely as just getting really nice levels where a mattock wouldn't be helpful, so I wouldn't regard either way as being the necessary or default one.

Quote:

Thing is, I haven't attempted to speedrun the game, so in a sense I should defer to you as a someone with much more experience than me

Well, there are a lot of very subjective judgement calls when it comes to running a game with this much randomness, and basically everything we're discussing is debatable. My greater experience probably gives me some advantage when it comes to making those judgements but all the same when we're talking about things that happen pretty rarely in a speedrun, like getting Jetpack and Mattock, even I won't have experienced them many times so my judgements about their probability or usefulness are likely to be off by a fair bit, too. If you or one of the other verifiers disagrees with my perspective on something or judges the worth of something differently to how I do, then that's totally valid and interesting to me; even after some 15000 attempts as this game I'm far from certain about a lot of things.

Quote:

the luck that would be required to be able to get a good run with just the cape and teleporter/mattock is very high. The thing is, having the cape means you need constant good luck in all the Ice levels

Cape + Mattock without a compass on the ice levels, yes, you need constant good luck, because if you drop below the bottom floor of the level you lose a shitload of time fiddling with ropes to save yourself. Cape + Teleporter, this simply isn't an issue, because there's so much space on the ice levels you can teleport upwards pretty much anywhere without fear. In fact the ice levels are the one place where I wouldn't hesitate at all to say that Cape + Teleporter is better than Jetpack + Mattock.

Quote:

(and, potentially, the Temple levels too)

Yeah, on the Temple levels the teleporter usually becomes virtually useless because there's so little room to teleport. I basically regard Temple as the place mattocks are for in a speedrun; they see barely any use anywhere else, but with so many tight corridors the enemies and traps in Temple are just so hard to avoid quickly without risking death that bypassing them becomes a far more desirable idea than in any of the other areas. I'd say that Jetpack has the edge over Cape in Temple, too, regardless of what other items you have, both because it gives you more options for dodging jumping cultists and because often in temple the route actually requires either a Jetpack, Spring Shoes or a Rope (e.g. the exit may appear too far off the floor to be reachable any other way).

Quote:

I haven't used the teleporter much, but it adds another random factor to a game already very luck dependent; it can end a game instantly by killing you and save 10 seconds by putting just the right place. And it seems to me that it has around 50% chance of working smoothly, 40% chance of hindering you slightly and 10% chance of killing you.

I guess the trick is to get an instinctive feel for its range and learn to recognise situations when you can guarantee that using it will be beneficial (e.g. travelling a long way horizontally in open space). I haven't quite mastered it yet and frequently kill myself in the Jungle when blocks hang down into my path from the ceiling above (for some reason I always register the danger from blocks poking up from the floor, but not from blocks hanging down from the ceiling), but I've come close to mastering it and when things are going well with Cape and Teleporter it's just so much more smooth and elegant than Jetpack and Mattock.

The Cape Teleporter combo is all about making time through little savings. For example, it feels like less, but if you actually check in VirtualDub, every time a jetpacker taps jump to bump himself into the air before landing to avoid fall damage, it takes almost half a second to drop back to the height he was at before. That's half a second his cape-wearing rival gains on him every fall and every moment they have to slow their descent to pick a path through enemies or adjust their position carefully to drop through a 1-tile hole. That's a lot of half second savings over the course of a run. Similarly, just warping ahead into the distance whilst gliding through one of the really tall corridors in the Jungle may only save half a second to a second of travel time, but if you get a bunch of those warps in you're looking at multiple seconds saved. By contrast, the mattock is clumsy and useless most of the time but occassionally saves a big chunk of time all at once when you get a nasty level. I guess that's part of what makes this such a hard judgement to make; the Cape and Teleporter save time over the Jetpack and Mattock gradually and constantly, but when you get a situation that needs the Jetpack or Mattock suddenly they claw back loads of time versus Cape and Teleporter all at once. This doesn't make for an easy comparison.

Quote:

That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.

I've had probably as many good runs with Cape and Teleporter as I have with Jetpack and Mattock, so I'm fairly sure that it's doable. Quite which combo is better, I'm not entirely sure.

[quote="Vert"]Hey ExplodingCabbage, I was actually the 5th verifier, I'd like to reply to your comments. And first off, let me reiterate, you've produced a very good run!

^_^[/quote]

Thanks. :)

[quote]Interesting points; allow me to rephrase my quote. Getting the jetpack and mattock are a must... unless you get exceptionally good luck in the level designs.[/quote]

I guess what I was trying to say is that getting both Jetpack and Mattock in a single run seems to me to be about equally unlikely as just getting really nice levels where a mattock wouldn't be helpful, so I wouldn't regard either way as being the necessary or default one.

[quote]Thing is, I haven't attempted to speedrun the game, so in a sense I should defer to you as a someone with much more experience than me[/quote]

Well, there are a lot of very subjective judgement calls when it comes to running a game with this much randomness, and basically everything we're discussing is debatable. My greater experience probably gives me some advantage when it comes to making those judgements but all the same when we're talking about things that happen pretty rarely in a speedrun, like getting Jetpack and Mattock, even I won't have experienced them many times so my judgements about their probability or usefulness are likely to be off by a fair bit, too. If you or one of the other verifiers disagrees with my perspective on something or judges the worth of something differently to how I do, then that's totally valid and interesting to me; even after some 15000 attempts as this game I'm far from certain about a lot of things.

[quote]the luck that would be required to be able to get a good run with just the cape and teleporter/mattock is very high. The thing is, having the cape means you need constant good luck in all the Ice levels[/quote]

Cape + Mattock without a compass on the ice levels, yes, you need constant good luck, because if you drop below the bottom floor of the level you lose a shitload of time fiddling with ropes to save yourself. Cape + Teleporter, this simply isn't an issue, because there's so much space on the ice levels you can teleport upwards pretty much anywhere without fear. In fact the ice levels are the one place where I wouldn't hesitate at all to say that Cape + Teleporter is better than Jetpack + Mattock.

[quote](and, potentially, the Temple levels too)[/quote]

Yeah, on the Temple levels the teleporter usually becomes virtually useless because there's so little room to teleport. I basically regard Temple as the place mattocks are [i]for[/i] in a speedrun; they see barely any use anywhere else, but with so many tight corridors the enemies and traps in Temple are just so hard to avoid quickly without risking death that bypassing them becomes a far more desirable idea than in any of the other areas. I'd say that Jetpack has the edge over Cape in Temple, too, regardless of what other items you have, both because it gives you more options for dodging jumping cultists and because often  in temple the route actually requires either a Jetpack, Spring Shoes or a Rope (e.g. the exit may appear too far off the floor to be reachable any other way).

[quote]I haven't used the teleporter much, but it adds another random factor to a game already very luck dependent; it can end a game instantly by killing you and save 10 seconds by putting just the right place. And it seems to me that it has around 50% chance of working smoothly, 40% chance of hindering you slightly and 10% chance of killing you.[/quote]

I guess the trick is to get an instinctive feel for its range and learn to recognise situations when you can guarantee that using it will be beneficial (e.g. travelling a long way horizontally in open space). I haven't quite mastered it yet and frequently kill myself in the Jungle when blocks hang down into my path from the ceiling above (for some reason I always register the danger from blocks poking up from the floor, but not from blocks hanging down from the ceiling), but I've come close to mastering it and when things are going well with Cape and Teleporter it's just so much more smooth and elegant than Jetpack and Mattock.

The Cape Teleporter combo is all about making time through little savings. For example, it feels like less, but if you actually check in VirtualDub, every time a jetpacker taps jump to bump himself into the air before landing to avoid fall damage, it takes almost half a second to drop back to the height he was at before. That's half a second his cape-wearing rival gains on him every fall and every moment they have to slow their descent to pick a path through enemies or adjust their position carefully to drop through a 1-tile hole. That's a lot of half second savings over the course of a run. Similarly, just warping ahead into the distance whilst gliding through one of the really tall corridors in the Jungle may only save half a second to a second of travel time, but if you get a bunch of those warps in you're looking at multiple seconds saved. By contrast, the mattock is clumsy and useless most of the time but occassionally saves a big chunk of time all at once when you get a nasty level. I guess that's part of what makes this such a hard judgement to make; the Cape and Teleporter save time over the Jetpack and Mattock gradually and constantly, but when you get a situation that [i]needs[/i] the Jetpack or Mattock suddenly they claw back loads of time versus Cape and Teleporter all at once. This doesn't make for an easy comparison.

[quote]That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.[/quote]

I've had probably as many good runs with Cape and Teleporter as I have with Jetpack and Mattock, so I'm fairly sure that it's doable. Quite which combo is better, I'm not entirely sure.

Vert

2010-10-01 01:36:36 pm

Quote from ExplodingCabbage:

I guess the trick is to get an instinctive feel for its range and learn to recognise situations when you can guarantee that using it will be beneficial (e.g. travelling a long way horizontally in open space). I haven't quite mastered it yet and frequently kill myself in the Jungle when blocks hang down into my path from the ceiling above (for some reason I always register the danger from blocks poking up from the floor, but not from blocks hanging down from the ceiling), but I've come close to mastering it and when things are going well with Cape and Teleporter it's just so much more smooth and elegant than Jetpack and Mattock.

The Cape Teleporter combo is all about making time through little savings. For example, it feels like less, but if you actually check in VirtualDub, every time a jetpacker taps jump to bump himself into the air before landing to avoid fall damage, it takes almost half a second to drop back to the height he was at before. That's half a second his cape-wearing rival gains on him every fall and every moment they have to slow their descent to pick a path through enemies or adjust their position carefully to drop through a 1-tile hole. That's a lot of half second savings over the course of a run. Similarly, just warping ahead into the distance whilst gliding through one of the really tall corridors in the Jungle may only save half a second to a second of travel time, but if you get a bunch of those warps in you're looking at multiple seconds saved. By contrast, the mattock is clumsy and useless most of the time but occassionally saves a big chunk of time all at once when you get a nasty level. I guess that's part of what makes this such a hard judgement to make; the Cape and Teleporter save time over the Jetpack and Mattock gradually and constantly, but when you get a situation that needs the Jetpack or Mattock suddenly they claw back loads of time versus Cape and Teleporter all at once. This doesn't make for an easy comparison.

Quote:

That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.

I've had probably as many good runs with Cape and Teleporter as I have with Jetpack and Mattock, so I'm fairly sure that it's doable. Quite which combo is better, I'm not entirely sure.

Can't really disagree with anything say, so basically I'll be more open minded towards the teleporter (and cape) from now on!

^_^

[quote="ExplodingCabbage"]

I guess the trick is to get an instinctive feel for its range and learn to recognise situations when you can guarantee that using it will be beneficial (e.g. travelling a long way horizontally in open space). I haven't quite mastered it yet and frequently kill myself in the Jungle when blocks hang down into my path from the ceiling above (for some reason I always register the danger from blocks poking up from the floor, but not from blocks hanging down from the ceiling), but I've come close to mastering it and when things are going well with Cape and Teleporter it's just so much more smooth and elegant than Jetpack and Mattock.

The Cape Teleporter combo is all about making time through little savings. For example, it feels like less, but if you actually check in VirtualDub, every time a jetpacker taps jump to bump himself into the air before landing to avoid fall damage, it takes almost half a second to drop back to the height he was at before. That's half a second his cape-wearing rival gains on him every fall and every moment they have to slow their descent to pick a path through enemies or adjust their position carefully to drop through a 1-tile hole. That's a lot of half second savings over the course of a run. Similarly, just warping ahead into the distance whilst gliding through one of the really tall corridors in the Jungle may only save half a second to a second of travel time, but if you get a bunch of those warps in you're looking at multiple seconds saved. By contrast, the mattock is clumsy and useless most of the time but occassionally saves a big chunk of time all at once when you get a nasty level. I guess that's part of what makes this such a hard judgement to make; the Cape and Teleporter save time over the Jetpack and Mattock gradually and constantly, but when you get a situation that [i]needs[/i] the Jetpack or Mattock suddenly they claw back loads of time versus Cape and Teleporter all at once. This doesn't make for an easy comparison.

[quote]That's why I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to get a good speedrun with those items; I'm just not sure whether or not it's worth the effort. But, since you disagree so vehemently, I'll trust you that a very good run can be accomplished without the jetpack and/or mattock.[/quote]

I've had probably as many good runs with Cape and Teleporter as I have with Jetpack and Mattock, so I'm fairly sure that it's doable. Quite which combo is better, I'm not entirely sure.[/quote]

Can't really disagree with anything say, so basically I'll be more open minded towards the teleporter (and cape) from now on!

^_^

mystimus

2010-10-02 01:56:02 am

I have to wonder if solo-teleporter would be a worthwhile attempt...

You can teleport up for height, teleport sideways for speed, and if you teleport just as you land (I think it's on the frame your hitbox touches the ground?), it negates fall damage. It would be pretty imprecise at times, and a little up to luck for teleporting 3-8 tiles, but I wonder if you could eschew the cape/jetpack altogether if you picked up just a teleporter, and if it would be significantly faster? Certainly if you only had to steal one item, it would be an improvement in that exact instant; stealing a teleporter is also easy, as you can just warp once or twice out of the shop and be good.

I can't deny that cape/jetpack makes the game about a million times easier, but would they be absolutely necessary for a run?

Other thoughts of random items that might make worthwhile attempts:
Climbing gloves? They can arrest your fall if there's a wall nearby, and can help you get to the out of reach exits in the temple. Jumping up a shaft is also about as fast as jetpacking; at least, it seems to me that way. Climbing gloves + Mattock might make a passable run, especially if you get a decent set of layouts where you can use them? I'll admit they're not great, especially for wide open areas with no walls, but they're also a lot more common than either flying item, I believe.

Black market? If you want to tempt fate, it skips an entire level of the Jungle with a set layout, and has nine shops, which is of dubious usefulness admittedly. Although getting in either requires picking up the Udjat Eye or just being supremely hax-lucky and bombing it out by chance. If you somehow managed to make your way through the Cave with the eye and without the jetpack/cape/mattock/teleporter, though, it might be worth a swing by? By then you're practically going for a City of Gold run, though.

I have to wonder if solo-teleporter would be a worthwhile attempt...

You can teleport up for height, teleport sideways for speed, and if you teleport just as you land (I think it's on the frame your hitbox touches the ground?), it negates fall damage.  It would be pretty imprecise at times, and a little up to luck for teleporting 3-8 tiles, but I wonder if you could eschew the cape/jetpack altogether if you picked up just a teleporter, and if it would be significantly faster?  Certainly if you only had to steal one item, it would be an improvement in that exact instant; stealing a teleporter is also easy, as you can just warp once or twice out of the shop and be good.

I can't deny that cape/jetpack makes the game about a million times easier, but would they be absolutely necessary for a run?

Other thoughts of random items that might make worthwhile attempts:
Climbing gloves?  They can arrest your fall if there's a wall nearby, and can help you get to the out of reach exits in the temple.  Jumping up a shaft is also about as fast as jetpacking; at least, it seems to me that way.  Climbing gloves + Mattock might make a passable run, especially if you get a decent set of layouts where you can use them?  I'll admit they're not great, especially for wide open areas with no walls, but they're also a lot more common than either flying item, I believe.

Black market?  If you want to tempt fate, it skips an entire level of the Jungle with a set layout, and has nine shops, which is of dubious usefulness admittedly.  Although getting in either requires picking up the Udjat Eye or just being supremely hax-lucky and bombing it out by chance.  If you somehow managed to make your way through the Cave with the eye and without the jetpack/cape/mattock/teleporter, though, it might be worth a swing by?  By then you're practically going for a City of Gold run, though.

ExplodingCabbage

2010-10-02 04:44:01 am

Quote from mystimus:

I have to wonder if solo-teleporter would be a worthwhile attempt...

You can teleport up for height, teleport sideways for speed, and if you teleport just as you land (I think it's on the frame your hitbox touches the ground?), it negates fall damage. It would be pretty imprecise at times, and a little up to luck for teleporting 3-8 tiles, but I wonder if you could eschew the cape/jetpack altogether if you picked up just a teleporter, and if it would be significantly faster? Certainly if you only had to steal one item, it would be an improvement in that exact instant; stealing a teleporter is also easy, as you can just warp once or twice out of the shop and be good.

According to the Spelunky wiki "if you teleport directly onto ground. You go from falling to standing without landing, bypassing the damage." I never really tested this myself, besides attempting it a dozen times or so, not pulling it off on any of those attempts, then writing it off as too hard to be useful and thinking no more about it. If I ever do another run, though, I'll look into it some more.

I do suspect, though, that in fact even with frame-perfect timing the trick won't be possible with all falls. There is a bug I recall reading about in the bugs section of the wiki whose effect is, roughly speaking, that when trying to grab a ledge whilst falling past it at max falling speed, you fail on roughly one of every 5 attempts. Certainly this matches with my own experience. Now, I would guess, though I do not know for sure, that all the following things are true:

* This bug happens because one frame you're above the region in which you can grab the edge, and the next you're below it
* The same issue would affect attempting to avoid fall damage with the teleporter
* The region in which you have to be to grab a ledge is a few pixels high, but the teleporter trick requires pixel-perfect precision
* Therefore the teleporter trick is likely to be impossible in the majority of situations, regardless of timing

However, all four points above are speculation and like I say, I haven't tested it enough to say anything for sure.

Quote:

I can't deny that cape/jetpack makes the game about a million times easier, but would they be absolutely necessary for a run?

ortoslon got a 3:24 run without the jetpack or cape a while back. I suppose it's just about conceivable that, with serious luck with level layouts, someone could even beat my 2:53 run without Cape or Jetpack, but I think the odds of pulling this off would be much, much less than the odds of getting a Cape or Jetpack.

Quote:

Climbing gloves? They can arrest your fall if there's a wall nearby, and can help you get to the out of reach exits in the temple. Jumping up a shaft is also about as fast as jetpacking; at least, it seems to me that way. Climbing gloves + Mattock might make a passable run, especially if you get a decent set of layouts where you can use them? I'll admit they're not great, especially for wide open areas with no walls, but they're also a lot more common than either flying item, I believe.

Climbing Gloves are an item I'll cheat in and do some a hundred or so practice runs with if I ever attempt another run. Like you say, potentially they seem like they could be used as a substitute for a Cape or Jetpack. They really require you to relearn basic control habits to use effectively, though; whenever I've happened across them and decided to try to use them in the past, I've ended up constantly sticking to things I didn't mean to - often fatally if the thing in question was a spike totem. Also, like you say, they're no good in open areas without walls (i.e. the centre of ice levels and many jungle sections).

Quote:

Black market? If you want to tempt fate, it skips an entire level of the Jungle with a set layout, and has nine shops, which is of dubious usefulness admittedly. Although getting in either requires picking up the Udjat Eye or just being supremely hax-lucky and bombing it out by chance. If you somehow managed to make your way through the Cave with the eye and without the jetpack/cape/mattock/teleporter, though, it might be worth a swing by? By then you're practically going for a City of Gold run, though.

I usually get the Udjat Eye if the key and chest both happen to be exactly in my path, and skip it otherwise. Even if you have it, the entrance to the Black Market may not be along your path and then the Eye goes to waste because the entrance isn't really worth actually searching the level for.

As for luckily finding the entrance to the Black Market by chance, I've done that once during a speedrun attempt; I accidentally swung the pickaxe at the start of a Jungle level because I was tapping 'x' too enthusiastically on the stats screen after the level before (I think you see me do this on one level of my current run as well), and the swing uncovered the entrance. I got a two second level, followed by the Black Market. I forget how I died in the end, but I was sad when I did.

[quote="mystimus"]I have to wonder if solo-teleporter would be a worthwhile attempt...

You can teleport up for height, teleport sideways for speed, and if you teleport just as you land (I think it's on the frame your hitbox touches the ground?), it negates fall damage.  It would be pretty imprecise at times, and a little up to luck for teleporting 3-8 tiles, but I wonder if you could eschew the cape/jetpack altogether if you picked up just a teleporter, and if it would be significantly faster?  Certainly if you only had to steal one item, it would be an improvement in that exact instant; stealing a teleporter is also easy, as you can just warp once or twice out of the shop and be good.[/quote]

According to the Spelunky wiki "[i]if you teleport directly onto ground. You go from falling to standing without landing, bypassing the damage.[/i]" I never really tested this myself, besides attempting it a dozen times or so, not pulling it off on any of those attempts, then writing it off as too hard to be useful and thinking no more about it. If I ever do another run, though, I'll look into it some more.

I do suspect, though, that in fact even with frame-perfect timing the trick won't be possible with all falls. There is a bug I recall reading about in the bugs section of the wiki whose effect is, roughly speaking, that when trying to grab a ledge whilst falling past it at max falling speed, you fail on roughly one of every 5 attempts. Certainly this matches with my own experience. Now, I would [i]guess[/i], though I do not know for sure, that all the following things are true:

* This bug happens because one frame you're above the region in which you can grab the edge, and the next you're below it
* The same issue would affect attempting to avoid fall damage with the teleporter
* The region in which you have to be to grab a ledge is a few pixels high, but the teleporter trick requires pixel-perfect precision
* Therefore the teleporter trick is likely to be impossible in the majority of situations, regardless of timing

However, all four points above are speculation and like I say, I haven't tested it enough to say anything for sure.

[quote]I can't deny that cape/jetpack makes the game about a million times easier, but would they be absolutely necessary for a run?[/quote]

ortoslon got a [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdIIgQp8cm8]3:24 run without the jetpack or cape[/url] a while back. I suppose it's [i]just about[/i] conceivable that, with serious luck with level layouts, someone could even beat my 2:53 run without Cape or Jetpack, but I think the odds of pulling this off would be [i]much, much[/i] less than the odds of getting a Cape or Jetpack.

[quote]Climbing gloves?  They can arrest your fall if there's a wall nearby, and can help you get to the out of reach exits in the temple. Jumping up a shaft is also about as fast as jetpacking; at least, it seems to me that way.  Climbing gloves + Mattock might make a passable run, especially if you get a decent set of layouts where you can use them?  I'll admit they're not great, especially for wide open areas with no walls, but they're also a lot more common than either flying item, I believe.[/quote]

Climbing Gloves are an item I'll cheat in and do some a hundred or so practice runs with if I ever attempt another run. Like you say, [i]potentially[/i] they seem like they could be used as a substitute for a Cape or Jetpack. They really require you to relearn basic control habits to use effectively, though; whenever I've happened across them and decided to try to use them in the past, I've ended up constantly sticking to things I didn't mean to - often fatally if the thing in question was a spike totem. Also, like you say, they're no good in open areas without walls (i.e. the centre of ice levels and many jungle sections).

[quote]Black market?  If you want to tempt fate, it skips an entire level of the Jungle with a set layout, and has nine shops, which is of dubious usefulness admittedly.  Although getting in either requires picking up the Udjat Eye or just being supremely hax-lucky and bombing it out by chance.  If you somehow managed to make your way through the Cave with the eye and without the jetpack/cape/mattock/teleporter, though, it might be worth a swing by?  By then you're practically going for a City of Gold run, though.[/quote]

I usually get the Udjat Eye if the key and chest both happen to be exactly in my path, and skip it otherwise. Even if you have it, the entrance to the Black Market may not be along your path and then the Eye goes to waste because the entrance isn't really worth actually searching the level for.

As for luckily finding the entrance to the Black Market by chance, I've done that once during a speedrun attempt; I accidentally swung the pickaxe at the start of a Jungle level because I was tapping 'x' too enthusiastically on the stats screen after the level before (I think you see me do this on one level of my current run as well), and the swing uncovered the entrance. I got a two second level, followed by the Black Market. I forget how I died in the end, but I was sad when I did.

mystimus

2010-10-02 05:40:40 am

Mmh, yeah. I've slipped off of ledges inexplicably before, that explains it a lot better. Although, you might still be able to use the grace-shifting on the teleporter in certain situations: if the result of the teleport would land you in a wall, it tries to displace you onto an empty tile up to three tiles upwards. I would think this would also hit the 'teleport onto ground' condition, but it's not terribly useful unless luck favours you.

I hear you about the climbing gloves. Those, spring shoes, and the pitcher's mitt are like bane to my playing. You get them so rarely that you can never quite adapt to them and end up mis-timing or mis-aiming and getting yourself killed. At least, that's what happens to me a lot whenever I find them, which is sad because they're really good items otherwise.

I know that hitting Down + Jump lets you drop straight down from a held ledge, and I think if you're holding down, you don't grab on in the first place? I may be wrong on that part, but holding Down and tapping Jump as you fall would still cause you to descend along, just not quite at top speed.

It's too bad that the ideal setup to getting into the Black Market, that being a jetpack and sticky bombs, means you have nothing to gain from going in except a guarantee of what the next level will be, and a lot to lose if you're already wanted. Still, sad to hear about you getting that one-in-a-million lucky dig at the start and not finishing the run.

Mmh, yeah.  I've slipped off of ledges inexplicably before, that explains it a lot better.  Although, you might still be able to use the grace-shifting on the teleporter in certain situations: if the result of the teleport would land you in a wall, it tries to displace you onto an empty tile up to three tiles upwards.  I would think this would also hit the 'teleport onto ground' condition, but it's not terribly useful unless luck favours you.

I hear you about the climbing gloves.  Those, spring shoes, and the pitcher's mitt are like bane to my playing.  You get them so rarely that you can never quite adapt to them and end up mis-timing or mis-aiming and getting yourself killed.  At least, that's what happens to me a lot whenever I find them, which is sad because they're really good items otherwise.

I know that hitting Down + Jump lets you drop straight down from a held ledge, and I think if you're holding down, you don't grab on in the first place?  I may be wrong on that part, but holding Down and tapping Jump as you fall would still cause you to descend along, just not quite at top speed.

It's too bad that the ideal setup to getting into the Black Market, that being a jetpack and sticky bombs, means you have nothing to gain from going in except a guarantee of what the next level will be, and a lot to lose if you're already wanted.  Still, sad to hear about you getting that one-in-a-million lucky dig at the start and not finishing the run.

Shuda51

2010-12-05 07:07:11 pm

The Running Failure

This is a bit late, but it's something that just kinda made me a little curious after watching the run.

Is it possible use the bombs you have to dig out a layer or two under the final boss? Haven't played it yet (Read: LAZY) so i'm just curious on this.

mystimus

2010-12-09 08:44:54 pm

It's possible, but unless you stop to pick up more bombs along the way, the starting four won't do much consistently enough to matter. Plus, the boss will smash a layer elsewhere while you're waiting for the bombs to go off anyway, so....

It works, it's just that the starting four bombs aren't enough, in my experience, to be worth using on that tactic.

ExplodingCabbage

2011-01-04 11:59:05 am

Hey Shuda51, sorry I didn't respond earlier, I forgot you'd posted. The problem with using bombs to speed up Olmec is that, using the method I use against Olmec, to speed up the fight you would need to remove all the blocks in a layer with bombs (since removing just some won't skip one of Olmec's stomps) and you're standing on one of them. Now, I guess maybe it's possible that with perfect positioning and/or a well-timed jump or use of a rope, it's possible to blow up that block without the bomb killing you. However, you don't have much time to position the bomb while Olmec is off the ground so extreme precision isn't really possible. What's more, you need at least two bombs to destroy one layer of blocks, and since you can't lay them simultaneously, when the first explodes it will propel the other away and upwards (possibly towards you, depending on the order you plant them). All this makes using bombs to speed up the fight a lot more complicated than it first sounds.

Now maybe there is some consistent and safe method to exploit bombs to speed up the fight which overcomes all these complications, or, more likely, perhaps there are simple methods that can be applied in the right circumstances (since there are random gaps in the floor of level 16 and a fortuitous gap in the right place might enable a very simple bomb strategy to be employed). I confess I never looked into either of these possibilities.

Hey Shuda51, sorry I didn't respond earlier, I forgot you'd posted. The problem with using bombs to speed up Olmec is that, using the method I use against Olmec, to speed up the fight you would need to remove [i]all[/i] the blocks in a layer with bombs (since removing just some won't skip one of Olmec's stomps) and [i]you're standing on one of them[/i]. Now, I guess maybe it's possible that with perfect positioning and/or a well-timed jump or use of a rope, it's possible to blow up that block without the bomb killing you. However, you don't have much time to position the bomb while Olmec is off the ground so extreme precision isn't really possible. What's more, you need at least [i]two[/i] bombs to destroy one layer of blocks, and since you can't lay them simultaneously, when the first explodes it will propel the other away and upwards (possibly towards you, depending on the order you plant them). All this makes using bombs to speed up the fight a lot more complicated than it first sounds.

Now [i]maybe[/i] there is some consistent and safe method to exploit bombs to speed up the fight which overcomes all these complications, or, more likely, perhaps there are simple methods that can be applied in the right circumstances (since there are random gaps in the floor of level 16 and a fortuitous gap in the right place might enable a very simple bomb strategy to be employed). I confess I never looked into either of these possibilities.

KhanFusion

2011-01-05 07:09:58 pm

That video of the presumably fastest run in 2:52 looks strange. Olmec makes 8(eight) extra leaps in that run yet his time for the final chamber is mere 5 seconds slower than Cabbage's. So it's not just custom music or "lady in red", that thing is legit.

KhanFusion

2011-01-05 07:10:35 pm

*isn't legit

ExplodingCabbage

Edit history:

ExplodingCabbage: 2011-01-06 06:13:41 am

2011-01-06 06:11:27 am

Yeah the 2:52 run has an upped frame rate, as eguee notes in the vid description. Essentially this means the game itself runs maybe twice as fast while the timer keeps on running at the same speed. If recording in FRAPS with the 'no sync' option off, you need to record at 60FPS or the game won't run at normal speed.

I find it kind of weird how people can fail to notice that the game is running dramatically faster than normal in that vid, but you're not the first. I guess maybe the different music and lack of sound effects creates enough lack of familiarity to throw people?

KhanFusion

2011-01-06 09:29:10 am

You are right. After taking a closer look at the vid and some frame counting it's obvious that the speed is increased by 1/3. And it might be hard to see due to low framerate - 20fps, so the vid feels more choppy than anything else.