Addams Family Values (SNES)

Mindez

Edit history:

Mindez: 2015-08-06 05:02:52 pm

Mindez: 2015-08-06 04:58:22 pm

Mindez: 2015-08-06 04:57:24 pm

Mindez: 2015-08-05 08:18:05 pm

Mindez: 2015-08-05 03:25:30 pm

2015-08-05 03:24:17 pm

Hey guys. I did a search and couldn't find a thread for this game, so figured I'd make one.

Addams Family Values (SNES)

So I've been trying to make a route of this game for the last couple of days, and I just thought I'd make a thread in case anybody else does or is considering running this game, just so I have somewhere to share my notes. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be much speedrun research on this particular game. This post is mainly about the any% category. I guess the 100% category would just be 'all items and skulls'. I'm also happy to hear from people that are new to the game! Addams Family Values is a game that I played a lot as a kid and it's great to be re-learning it for speedrunning purposes!

Notes on Safety Strat Tradeoff
This is a game that has a HUGE tradeoff between safety and speed. If you could reliably no-hit through the game, you'd be able to skip quite a lot of dialogue with Granny and Morticia, and having to navigate the slow menu system to use cookies. But enemy RNG makes that super hard, I can usually get up to the room after the bowling balls in the first dungeon without taking damage, but those eyeball enemies coming out from behind walls in random directions always makes it super difficult to get through that room. So far I'm routing this game on the assumption that no-hit is reasonably possible to learn. When I start practicing it and running it properly I may build in safety strats, such as certain points at which talking to Morticia is viable, maybe getting the Black Beetle Cookies before the greenhouse since it doesn't cost THAT much time, etc.

Notes on Damage Boosting Strats
At full health, blue laser has full range and does 4 damage per tick. At half health or above, green laser has reduced range and does 3 damage per tick. At below half health, red laser has melee range and does 2 damage per tick. So any hit is a big hit in efficiency when it comes to damage. With very rare health drops and a boss before every free heal if you skip talking to Morticia, I don't believe damage boosting is likely to be viable at any point in the game. The only exception may be the first dungeon, if running through it saves time compared with talking to Morticia after getting the Black Rose. This also skips a dialogue in the Greenhouse later. This is something that needs testing.

Macro Route So Far

This is my macro route so far, an enumerated list of all the major items/events/goals throughout the game. This route is a route of my own creation and is subject to change when more testing/running is done.

1. Gatekeeper Boss
2. Skull Key
3. Greenhouse Key
4. Black Rose
5. Greenhouse
6. Green Key
7. Plant Features Boss
8. Phweep (Mountains)
9. Phweep (Trans-Mansion Express)
10. Phweep (Greenhouse)
11. Hoarder's Lair
12. Phweep (Gargoyles)
13. Stone Key
14. Granny (Swamp)
15. Fatty (Trans-Mansion Express)
16. Use TME twice
17. Dungeon 4
18. Gold Coin
19. Use TME 3 times
20. Sack of Gold from Well
21. Use TME once
22. Stone Garden
23. Stone Twig Key
24. Grimm the Incorruptable
25. Romit Boss
26. Rescue Thing

Remaining Game Objectives Not In Macro Route

These are still to be inserted into the route somewhere. This is just here temporarily while I'm doing the routing, eventually all this will go into the macro route.

Wetlands - Get the Slime (Can be done any time after getting plant food?)
Mountains - Use Slime to get Cube
Wetlands - Use Cube to get Stone Button
Wetlands Dungeon - Requires Stone Button
Jeleye Boss Fight - Get Spider Key
Visit Thing - Get Jewelled Key
To Icelands - Use Spider and Jewelled Keys
Icelands Dungeon - Get Magnet
Icelands - Rimble Feathers Mailbox
Icelands - Use Magnet to get Iron Key
Morgue - Get Book of Flying
Visit Rimble - Requires Book of Flying and Mailbox
Rimble Dungeon - Kill Smied
Mansion - Kill Debbie

Boss Strategies

These may not be optimal, but they're how I'm currently approaching each boss.

Gatekeeper -

70 hp. 18 blue shots/24 green shots/35 red shots. Move up through his 3 pieces of dialogue. Upon the start of the fight, move left and tap up so that you're just out of range of the right hand. Fire up. If the left hand goes for a swing, you can get in 7 hits. If not, back away after 3. Keep moving in and out. If your positioning is perfect, after getting in the 7 hits, backing off and moving back into position, the right hand will go for a grab and will miss, allowing you to get in all 11 remaining hits in one cycle. I'm not sure on the frame leeway here, but this boss seems to be all about positioning to determine his ability.

Notes on Time Saving Route Changes from Normal Play

- Ignoring Granny and Morticia, giving the black rose to the Feed Me plant instead. This causes an extra short dialogue in the Greenhouse, but so far every time I've practiced I've been able to get past the extra enemy by just running straight down and ignoring it.
- You DO get the Black Beetle cookies and Crusty cookies when you visit Phweep/Granny at the Greenhouse just before Hoarders Lair, even if you don't take the time to get the Bone Spoon. Which... makes that item completely pointless.
- Skip the Firefly? I've not fully tested this, but in Dungeon 2 at least the layout is easy enough to memorise and the skeletons are visible in the darkness so still avoidable.

Things That Need Testing or More Work - Feel Free to Contribute!

- I'm still trying to figure out exactly which items are not necessary for completion. I believe the Music Box isn't required (Which saves seconds on picking up the pumpkin and candle, and maybe a minute or so on talking to Wednesday and Puggsley), and am fairly confident that the Bone Spoon isn't required, and the Firefly (Which saves a LOT of time, around 4-5 minutes, on going and retrieving it)
- Is it faster to get back to the well from the eastern TME exit or the western one? Instinctively I want to say western, but may need testing.
- Is diagonal movement just as fast at moving in one direction? If not, how much slower is it?
- Are the biscuit book, cookie compendium and munch manual necessary? Does use of the cookies you get make up for the time getting the books? Some of Granny's detours are very long, costing minutes.
- Is killing Morobe necessary? I'm very rusty on the endgame, but I noticed on my full test run that you don't get anything for beating her?
- A lot of the rooms need pathing to the point that it's possible to get through as quickly as possible while RNG effects are minimised. As far as I can tell, enemies positions are defined but their movement is usually RNG (some enemies follow set paths like the centipedes, some go off player movement like the pumpkins).
- Bosses need strategies. I can usually do Gatekeeper in 2-4 cycles, but I've not done much work on other bosses yet. In particular so far I feel like the Romit boss fight is completely out of control, so I'd love to hear peoples strategies and ideas for that.

Post History

20150805 - Post created.
20150806 - Better layout and explanations, hidden long sections with spoiler tags.

Thread title:

Hey guys. I did a search and couldn't find a thread for this game, so figured I'd make one.

[u][b]Addams Family Values (SNES)[/b][/u]

So I've been trying to make a route of this game for the last couple of days, and I just thought I'd make a thread in case anybody else does or is considering running this game, just so I have somewhere to share my notes. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be much speedrun research on this particular game. This post is mainly about the any% category. I guess the 100% category would just be 'all items and skulls'. I'm also happy to hear from people that are new to the game! Addams Family Values is a game that I played a lot as a kid and it's great to be re-learning it for speedrunning purposes!

[b]Notes on Safety Strat Tradeoff[/b]
This is a game that has a HUGE tradeoff between safety and speed. If you could reliably no-hit through the game, you'd be able to skip quite a lot of dialogue with Granny and Morticia, and having to navigate the slow menu system to use cookies. But enemy RNG makes that super hard, I can usually get up to the room after the bowling balls in the first dungeon without taking damage, but those eyeball enemies coming out from behind walls in random directions always makes it super difficult to get through that room. So far I'm routing this game on the assumption that no-hit is reasonably possible to learn. When I start practicing it and running it properly I may build in safety strats, such as certain points at which talking to Morticia is viable, maybe getting the Black Beetle Cookies before the greenhouse since it doesn't cost THAT much time, etc.

[b]Notes on Damage Boosting Strats[/b]
At full health, blue laser has full range and does 4 damage per tick. At half health or above, green laser has reduced range and does 3 damage per tick. At below half health, red laser has melee range and does 2 damage per tick. So any hit is a big hit in efficiency when it comes to damage. With very rare health drops and a boss before every free heal if you skip talking to Morticia, I don't believe damage boosting is likely to be viable at any point in the game. The only exception may be the first dungeon, if running through it saves time compared with talking to Morticia after getting the Black Rose. This also skips a dialogue in the Greenhouse later. This is something that needs testing.

[b]Macro Route So Far[/b]

This is my macro route so far, an enumerated list of all the major items/events/goals throughout the game. This route is a route of my own creation and is subject to change when more testing/running is done.

[spoiler]
1. Gatekeeper Boss
2. Skull Key
3. Greenhouse Key
4. Black Rose
5. Greenhouse
6. Green Key
7. Plant Features Boss
8. Phweep (Mountains)
9. Phweep (Trans-Mansion Express)
10. Phweep (Greenhouse)
11. Hoarder's Lair
12. Phweep (Gargoyles)
13. Stone Key
14. Granny (Swamp)
15. Fatty (Trans-Mansion Express)
16. Use TME twice
17. Dungeon 4
18. Gold Coin
19. Use TME 3 times
20. Sack of Gold from Well
21. Use TME once
22. Stone Garden
23. Stone Twig Key
24. Grimm the Incorruptable
25. Romit Boss
26. Rescue Thing
[/spoiler]

[b]Remaining Game Objectives Not In Macro Route[/b]

These are still to be inserted into the route somewhere. This is just here temporarily while I'm doing the routing, eventually all this will go into the macro route.

[spoiler]
Wetlands - Get the Slime (Can be done any time after getting plant food?)
Mountains - Use Slime to get Cube
Wetlands - Use Cube to get Stone Button
Wetlands Dungeon - Requires Stone Button
Jeleye Boss Fight - Get Spider Key
Visit Thing - Get Jewelled Key
To Icelands - Use Spider and Jewelled Keys
Icelands Dungeon - Get Magnet
Icelands - Rimble Feathers Mailbox
Icelands - Use Magnet to get Iron Key
Morgue - Get Book of Flying
Visit Rimble - Requires Book of Flying and Mailbox
Rimble Dungeon - Kill Smied
Mansion - Kill Debbie
[/spoiler]

[b]Boss Strategies[/b]

These may not be optimal, but they're how I'm currently approaching each boss.

Gatekeeper - [spoiler]70 hp. 18 blue shots/24 green shots/35 red shots. Move up through his 3 pieces of dialogue. Upon the start of the fight, move left and tap up so that you're just out of range of the right hand. Fire up. If the left hand goes for a swing, you can get in 7 hits. If not, back away after 3. Keep moving in and out. If your positioning is perfect, after getting in the 7 hits, backing off and moving back into position, the right hand will go for a grab and will miss, allowing you to get in all 11 remaining hits in one cycle. I'm not sure on the frame leeway here, but this boss seems to be all about positioning to determine his ability.[/spoiler]

[b]Notes on Time Saving Route Changes from Normal Play[/b]

- Ignoring Granny and Morticia, giving the black rose to the Feed Me plant instead. This causes an extra short dialogue in the Greenhouse, but so far every time I've practiced I've been able to get past the extra enemy by just running straight down and ignoring it.
- You DO get the Black Beetle cookies and Crusty cookies when you visit Phweep/Granny at the Greenhouse just before Hoarders Lair, even if you don't take the time to get the Bone Spoon. Which... makes that item completely pointless.
- Skip the Firefly? I've not fully tested this, but in Dungeon 2 at least the layout is easy enough to memorise and the skeletons are visible in the darkness so still avoidable.

[b]Things That Need Testing or More Work - Feel Free to Contribute![/b]

- I'm still trying to figure out exactly which items are not necessary for completion. I believe the Music Box isn't required (Which saves seconds on picking up the pumpkin and candle, and maybe a minute or so on talking to Wednesday and Puggsley), and am fairly confident that the Bone Spoon isn't required, and the Firefly (Which saves a LOT of time, around 4-5 minutes, on going and retrieving it)
- Is it faster to get back to the well from the eastern TME exit or the western one? Instinctively I want to say western, but may need testing.
- Is diagonal movement just as fast at moving in one direction? If not, how much slower is it?
- Are the biscuit book, cookie compendium and munch manual necessary? Does use of the cookies you get make up for the time getting the books? Some of Granny's detours are very long, costing minutes.
- Is killing Morobe necessary? I'm very rusty on the endgame, but I noticed on my full test run that you don't get anything for beating her?
- A lot of the rooms need pathing to the point that it's possible to get through as quickly as possible while RNG effects are minimised. As far as I can tell, enemies positions are defined but their movement is usually RNG (some enemies follow set paths like the centipedes, some go off player movement like the pumpkins).
- Bosses need strategies. I can usually do Gatekeeper in 2-4 cycles, but I've not done much work on other bosses yet. In particular so far I feel like the Romit boss fight is completely out of control, so I'd love to hear peoples strategies and ideas for that.

[b]Post History[/b]

20150805 - Post created.
20150806 - Better layout and explanations, hidden long sections with spoiler tags.

briziant

2015-08-21 02:08:24 am

Well first off, there was a thread that I made that didn't really get any hits and is about one page up from this thread, I'm not really sure how you missed it.

Here's the link to that: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/adams_family_values_snessega_gen.html

Next, you need to decide if you're going to go glitch or glitchless. There's one major one in the desert that's just about frame perfect, and if you're a frame off in either direction it freezes the game, and you start over from the beginning unless you wasted time talking to Cous. It. other than that there's really not that many skips (that I'm aware of) that really have a decent amount of time saving in them. it's not really like the first game where you can skip through the wall to the last area...

Personally I don't find the "avoiding" damage to be that hard, once you know the enemies in the game it's not terrible, the spitting fish in the wetlands are a different story though. Plus the gargoyles, but that plays into strat.

There's some things that could definitely be cut from a 100% run, but I'd personally get most of the skulls just on shear survivability in the mansion and the gargoyle battle as you can't go back for cookies and stuff.

I've been wanting to take a real run at this game for a while actually. So if you want to compare notes and make a solid run of this let me know and we'll get in touch and make it a real thing.

Well first off, there was a thread that I made that didn't really get any hits and is about one page up from this thread, I'm not really sure how you missed it.

Here's the link to that:  https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/adams_family_values_snessega_gen.html

Next, you need to decide if you're going to go glitch or glitchless. There's one major one in the desert that's just about frame perfect, and if you're a frame off in either direction it freezes the game, and you start over from the beginning unless you wasted time talking to Cous. It. other than that there's really not that many skips (that I'm aware of) that really have a decent amount of time saving in them. it's not really like the first game where you can skip through the wall to the last area...

Personally I don't find the "avoiding" damage to be that hard, once you know the enemies in the game it's not terrible, the spitting fish in the wetlands are a different story though. Plus the gargoyles, but that plays into strat.

There's  some things that could definitely be cut from a 100% run, but I'd personally get most of the skulls just on shear survivability in the mansion and the gargoyle battle as you can't go back for cookies and stuff.

I've been wanting to take a real run at this game for a while actually. So if you want to compare notes and make a solid run of this let me know and we'll get in touch and make it a real thing.

Mindez

Edit history:

Mindez: 2015-08-21 03:45:14 am

Mindez: 2015-08-21 03:44:07 am

2015-08-21 03:42:53 am

Ah, I think I missed that thread because it was titled 'Adams' rather than 'Addams', so it didn't show up in any search. My apologies.

Honestly I think for SDA purposes talking to cousin it would probably not be allowed because it's a password based save rather than the standard saving to cart that some runs use for save abuse. Either way, a run where you have to reload out of failing a glitch probably wouldn't be accepted anyway.

In terms of skips I'm not sure of any. At the moment my route consists of:-

1) Start -> Gatekeeper -> Plant -> Dungeon 1 -> Greenhouse Key/Black Rose -> Morticia (Full heal, 4 skulls)
2) Morticia -> Plant -> Greenhouse -> Plant Features -> Green Key -> Green Door -> Plant Features Boss (Full heal, 5 skulls)
3) Greenhouse -> Phweep (Desert) -> Phweep (Trans Mansion Express) -> Phweep (Greenhouse) (This is where you get white and blue cookies) -> Phweep (Hoarder's Lair) -> Damage Boost through Hoarders Lair -> Eat Cookie before boss (full heal)
4) Ma Hench boss (Use blue cookies) (Full heal, 6 skulls)
5) Ma Hench -> Phweep (Gargoyle Dungeon) -> Stone Key -> Leave Dungeon -> Eat Cookie before Granny (Full heal)
6) Granny (Eastern Swamps) (Refill Cookies) -> Fatty (Trans Mansion Express) -> Wetlands (Jip) -> Dungeon 4 -> Gold Coin -> Black Cube -> Well/Sack of Gold -> Stone Gardens Entrance -> Romit (Full heal, 7 skulls)
7) Rescue Thing -> Thing (Stone Gardens) -> Thing (Near Gargoyle Dungeon) -> Wetlands (Jip) -> Wetlands Dungeon -> Jellyeye (Full heal, 8 skulls)
8) Wetlands -> Rockies -> Ice Lands -> Rimble Mailbox -> Crypt -> Book of Flying -> Morobe (Full heal, 9 skulls)
9) Crypt -> Ice Lands -> Rockies -> Rimble -> Dungeon 7 -> Smied (Full heal, 10 skulls)
10) Mansion -> Boss -> End of game

Major skips in this route include 2 health upgrades from Morticia (Rattle+Teddy Bear), the Music Box, the Lighter (All the dark rooms in the game are pretty easily pathable, even avoiding damage, from my routing notes) and all cookies but the white and blue ones. After the refill from Granny when getting the slimming potion, there are no more refills.

I've routed this to be the theoretical best run. Obviously it's very high risk, considering no cookie refills, fewer heart containers, no red cookies for the last boss, etc. But I think the time spent getting those is WAY too high and with better learning and practice, may not be necessary. This isn't a safe run by any means. Avoiding damage isn't that hard, I agree, but avoiding damage while trying to stop as little as physically possible is what's causing me problems at the moment. Still to be done on this route is figuring out the best place to use cookies 3 and 4, preferably as late as possible but more practice will probably show up the dungeons that are fastest to damage boost through. Also my routing gets a bit nonspecific toward the end of the game, I'm not nearly as familiar with that as I am with the first half. Also I think I've miscounted skulls because 10 on the run + 2 from Morticia makes 12, I've missed one somewhere.

Was your run 4 hours and 30 minutes? Because there's a run from JoshButro that's 2 hours 17 minutes on speedrun.com with video. I feel that my route is generally more optimised though, if the enemy patterns are learnable to the point of not taking damage for extended periods of time. And if your run was 4 minutes 30 seconds, then I want to know how the heck you did that.

I didn't know about the desert glitch, could you give details?

Ah, I think I missed that thread because it was titled 'Adams' rather than 'Addams', so it didn't show up in any search. My apologies.

Honestly I think for SDA purposes talking to cousin it would probably not be allowed because it's a password based save rather than the standard saving to cart that some runs use for save abuse. Either way, a run where you have to reload out of failing a glitch probably wouldn't be accepted anyway.

In terms of skips I'm not sure of any. At the moment my route consists of:-

1) Start -> Gatekeeper -> Plant -> Dungeon 1 -> Greenhouse Key/Black Rose -> Morticia (Full heal, 4 skulls)
2) Morticia -> Plant -> Greenhouse -> Plant Features -> Green Key -> Green Door -> Plant Features Boss (Full heal, 5 skulls)
3) Greenhouse -> Phweep (Desert) -> Phweep (Trans Mansion Express) -> Phweep (Greenhouse) (This is where you get white and blue cookies) -> Phweep (Hoarder's Lair) -> Damage Boost through Hoarders Lair -> Eat Cookie before boss (full heal)
4) Ma Hench boss (Use blue cookies) (Full heal, 6 skulls)
5) Ma Hench -> Phweep (Gargoyle Dungeon) -> Stone Key -> Leave Dungeon -> Eat Cookie before Granny (Full heal)
6) Granny (Eastern Swamps) (Refill Cookies) -> Fatty (Trans Mansion Express) -> Wetlands (Jip) -> Dungeon 4 -> Gold Coin -> Black Cube -> Well/Sack of Gold -> Stone Gardens Entrance -> Romit (Full heal, 7 skulls)
7) Rescue Thing -> Thing (Stone Gardens) -> Thing (Near Gargoyle Dungeon) -> Wetlands (Jip) -> Wetlands Dungeon -> Jellyeye (Full heal, 8 skulls)
8) Wetlands -> Rockies -> Ice Lands -> Rimble Mailbox -> Crypt -> Book of Flying -> Morobe (Full heal, 9 skulls)
9) Crypt -> Ice Lands -> Rockies -> Rimble -> Dungeon 7 -> Smied (Full heal, 10 skulls)
10) Mansion -> Boss -> End of game

Major skips in this route include 2 health upgrades from Morticia (Rattle+Teddy Bear), the Music Box, the Lighter (All the dark rooms in the game are pretty easily pathable, even avoiding damage, from my routing notes) and all cookies but the white and blue ones. After the refill from Granny when getting the slimming potion, there are no more refills.

I've routed this to be the theoretical best run. Obviously it's very high risk, considering no cookie refills, fewer heart containers, no red cookies for the last boss, etc. But I think the time spent getting those is WAY too high and with better learning and practice, may not be necessary. This isn't a safe run by any means. Avoiding damage isn't that hard, I agree, but avoiding damage while trying to stop as little as physically possible is what's causing me problems at the moment. Still to be done on this route is figuring out the best place to use cookies 3 and 4, preferably as late as possible but more practice will probably show up the dungeons that are fastest to damage boost through. Also my routing gets a bit nonspecific toward the end of the game, I'm not nearly as familiar with that as I am with the first half. Also I think I've miscounted skulls because 10 on the run + 2 from Morticia makes 12, I've missed one somewhere.

Was your run 4 hours and 30 minutes? Because there's a run from JoshButro that's 2 hours 17 minutes on speedrun.com with video. I feel that my route is generally more optimised though, if the enemy patterns are learnable to the point of not taking damage for extended periods of time. And if your run was 4 minutes 30 seconds, then I want to know how the heck you did that.

I didn't know about the desert glitch, could you give details?

briziant

2015-08-23 03:06:27 pm

Well first: The desert glitch is a damage boost, and as I preferably run on an emulator on my psp I can't really record it as I don't have the tools to do so. But all it is is a damage boost into a screen trans. you have to hit it going diagonally because there's a wall in the next screen over and it puts you inside of it, I've only personally seen it done once, it's somewhere near where the lantern is and it spits you out somewhere at the bottom of the rockies, I'd guess because most of the maps are on the same texture or something. Like I said it's been a while since I've seen the skip I don't quite remember everything about it, maybe the guy who has the 2:17 run can tell you more about it.

As for my run, I felt it was kinda clunky, there was alot of damage boost for sure, so I went for all the hearts and I played around with how many times granny would give you cookies alot as well. And it seems to be every time you complete any sort of task relating to a dungeon. The invincibility cookies are pretty key tbh, you can usually get a good 2 maps out of the way with damage boosting if you can get the mobs in a decent placing before they run off. The swamps are like that with the worm things, you just have to practice on staying ahead of them so you don't get stuck against the wall, as they kinda push you to the side if you get on top of them too much.

What I've been personally doing is playing through the game on an emulator and saving a save state at each dungeon so I can just sit there and practice them over and over.

Well first: The desert glitch is a damage boost, and as I preferably run on an emulator on my psp I can't really record it as I don't have the tools to do so. But all it is is a damage boost into a screen trans. you have to hit it going diagonally because there's a wall in the next screen over and it puts you inside of it, I've only personally seen it done once, it's somewhere near where the lantern is and it spits you out somewhere at the bottom of the rockies, I'd guess because most of the maps are on the same texture or something. Like I said it's been a while since I've seen the skip I don't quite remember everything about it, maybe the guy who has the 2:17 run can tell you more about it.

As for my run, I felt it was kinda clunky, there was alot of damage boost for sure, so I went for all the hearts and I played around with how many times granny would give you cookies alot as well. And it seems to be every time you complete any sort of task relating to a dungeon. The invincibility cookies are pretty key tbh, you can usually get a good 2 maps out of the way with damage boosting if you can get the mobs in a decent placing before they run off. The swamps are like that with the worm things, you just have to practice on staying ahead of them so you don't get stuck against the wall, as they kinda push you to the side if you get on top of them too much.

What I've been personally doing is playing through the game on an emulator and saving a save state at each dungeon so I can just sit there and practice them over and over.

Mindez

Edit history:

Mindez: 2015-08-24 08:02:20 am

2015-08-24 08:01:58 am

JoshButro says that he doesn't know of any glitches or sequence breaks in AFV and I can't find any details from google. It sounds like it could be very useful. I think it'd let you skip the first encounter with Jip, getting the Black Cube and all of Wetlands and Wetlands Dungeon including Jellyeye. You'd still have to do everything else including Stone Gardens for the jewelled key though. Kinda wish I could find more details on it, but I genuinely can't find any AFV glitch related information out there at all besides gameshark codes for the debug menu etc.

briziant

2015-08-28 11:42:52 am

It'd take some real refamiliarizing myself with the game to be confident enough to talk about the glitch with confidence, plus if someone has the ability to run a debugger while their playing you could see what scripts are doing what compare it to what they "should" be doing, and find exploits that way as well, it takes alittle bit more know-how but it's possible. Also this would be a easy way to do some testing on some things in your testing section like diagonal walking speeds and stuff, because it would show the math if there was a difference. And you'd beable to see the enemy scripts as well to decide how their RNG is going to effect your path through the area.

But as for pathing and all of that stuff were going to have a huge disconnect, because I run 100% and not any%, that's not to say some things won't be cross relate-able, but majorly on a run and pathing standpoint they will. But if you'd like to talk about some cross things with me I'd be more than willing to do that on here or even off here if you wanted to go that route too.

Plus you need to really consider whether this run is worth while to you or not, because with nobody besides us posting here it's a good chance that "at least for this site" your run will sit in a not verified limbo, and I really think that would be the case as the game was on both snes and genesis and it's on neither of the run lists. While I could verify your run and you mine if we ever got them submitted, I don't know what the regulations are to be a verifier on this site, and I think it goes without saying that you can't verify your own run.

It'd take some real refamiliarizing myself with the game to be confident enough to talk about the glitch with confidence, plus if someone has the ability to run a debugger while their playing you could see what scripts are doing what compare it to what they "should" be doing, and find exploits that way as well, it takes alittle bit more know-how but it's possible. Also this would be a easy way to do some testing on some things in your testing section like diagonal walking speeds and stuff, because it would show the math if there was a difference. And you'd beable to see the enemy scripts as well to decide how their RNG is going to effect your path through the area.

But as for pathing and all of that stuff were going to have a huge disconnect, because I run 100% and not any%, that's not to say some things won't be cross relate-able, but majorly  on a run and pathing standpoint they will. But if you'd like to talk about some cross things with me I'd be more than willing to do that on here or even off here if you wanted to go that route too.

Plus you need to really consider whether this run is worth while to you or not, because with nobody besides us posting here it's a good chance that "at least for this site" your run will sit in a not verified limbo, and I really think that would be the case as the game was on both snes and genesis and it's on neither of the run lists. While I could verify your run and you mine if we ever got them submitted, I don't know what the regulations are to be a verifier on this site, and I think it goes without saying that you can't verify your own run.

Mindez

Edit history:

Mindez: 2015-08-28 01:52:48 pm

2015-08-28 01:52:20 pm

The only requirements to be a verifier are that you must have completed the game. I agree that it's a very niche and little known game but I don't think verification is anything much to worry about. Either way, for now I'm just focusing on getting a solid run with solid strategies - getting a run good enough for SDA is a great goal to have, but it's not too important for now. My main goal is just to do justice with a good speedrun of a game that I loved as a child, and maybe hopefully get other people interested in playing or running the game for themselves!

100% probably won't differ TOO much from any% - I think the only real differences are stopping off at Morticia a couple more times, spending some time to grab the teddy/candle/pumpkin, stopping off at Wednesday & Puggsley, and getting the 3 cookie books for Granny in the latter half of the game. I'm not sure where you're up to in routing, but as a quick piece of advice in case you don't know already: Even though you need to pick up the Bone Spoon in the Greenhouse for 100%, there's no need to take it back to Granny, you'll get the blue cookies automatically when you chase Phweep to the greenhouse. Unless I'm missing something that's required for 100%!

Best of luck with your runs, I'd love to see if you manage to get it recorded at some point. I can only run on emulator at the moment as well, gotta find a copy of the cartridge.

The only requirements to be a verifier are that you must have completed the game. I agree that it's a very niche and little known game but I don't think verification is anything much to worry about. Either way, for now I'm just focusing on getting a solid run with solid strategies - getting a run good enough for SDA is a great goal to have, but it's not too important for now. My main goal is just to do justice with a good speedrun of a game that I loved as a child, and maybe hopefully get other people interested in playing or running the game for themselves!

100% probably won't differ TOO much from any% - I think the only real differences are stopping off at Morticia a couple more times, spending some time to grab the teddy/candle/pumpkin, stopping off at Wednesday & Puggsley, and getting the 3 cookie books for Granny in the latter half of the game. I'm not sure where you're up to in routing, but as a quick piece of advice in case you don't know already: Even though you need to pick up the Bone Spoon in the Greenhouse for 100%, there's no need to take it back to Granny, you'll get the blue cookies automatically when you chase Phweep to the greenhouse. Unless I'm missing something that's required for 100%!

Best of luck with your runs, I'd love to see if you manage to get it recorded at some point. I can only run on emulator at the moment as well, gotta find a copy of the cartridge.

briziant

Edit history:

briziant: 2015-09-02 03:12:29 pm

2015-09-02 03:11:51 pm

I'd check amazon if I were you. I looked when I made my post and it was like $5 or something on there for a used one, I can't see you spending over $11 with all the s/h. unless for whatever reason you wanted a different region. Which to my knowledge there's no jp release of this game.

I tend to run back to granny more than I probably should, but alot of it was testing how much granny would actually let you take cookies. Once I get to a place where I can have an actual run going on this game I'd probably be ALOT shorter than I'm currently running. What I've been doing is making save states at all the the entrances to places and trying to get them down to acouple of minutes each.

Mindez

2015-09-04 05:38:08 am

Unfortunately living in the UK the cheapest cartridge I can find on Amazon is £39.95/$61ish, which is a bit more than I want to spend, until I can get a job at least. I'll probably come across it for cheaper at a convention or something. Emulator will be fine for practice though.

JoshButro

2015-09-04 11:04:24 am

This thread was pointed out to me by a friend on twitch. I didnt know anyone else had interest in running this game. This response may be long as i try to catchup to the conversation.

The damage boost versus safe strats is a big deal as bosses take longer with closer range attacks, and the only boss i run into this with is Invisible (i forget his name, the boss right before the mansion), which the amulet is not required for (that saves a minute or two). Most bosses you can go into with Full Health, or atleast above half. My route is a safety route that talks to Granny for cookie refills everytime.

Possible time saves include: Skipping Dragon Belch Cookies from Granny at the end, and going from the Morgue/Rockies directly to the Mansion. Health and Blue Cookies would have to be managed, as at this point, i have 1 Health cookie, and 0 Blue Cookies. (This would save Minutes from walking from Rimble through Wetlands to TME Station 4 (near Cousin Itt) use TME 3 times to Swamp TME3, to Granny, and back. May need to test if completing the game from that point is possible without that long backtrack.

I have a Flowchart route i drew out, that i can Scan and submit to show my route. The main parts of the route worth noting:
1- It completes Stone Gardens before the Wetlands and having the Bowling Ball as soon as possible works as a weapon, and completing Stone gardens (which has 0 health drops) is done to have a more optimal path of using the TME to get the Strange Black Cube using the TME vice walking. It is completed with 8 Skulls (instead of 10) but is very doable.
2- Giving Morticia the Rattle and the Teddy Bear is multitasked in with other objectives (this could also be helpful to running 100%). The rattle is delivered at the same time as getting the Stone Key, and the Teddy Bear is delivered at the same time as getting the Jeweled Key which is BEFORE the Rockies are ever entered.
3- The Gold Coin is retrieved, but that section of the dungeon is not completed. The Spiders Eye is also not needed.

Between the Macro Route and other route, it is routed similarly to mine. Mine also gets cookies whenever possible, and there are certain triggers to move Granny and have her appear in different areas. If cookies arent needed, there are many minutes to save in this game.

Items not needed
Music Box isnt required, but the items are on the way of the route, Pumpkin and Green Key, Candle at end of Hoarders, Pughsley after Hoarders, its a minute to get and music box can kill red ghosts, they are 4 in the mansion to regain 2 skulls,
Bone Spoon is interesting, i want to test that
Firefly is iffy, The Rockies dungeon has large unlit rooms which can be a pain, but can still be seen without the Firefly, it is about 3-5 minutes out of the way to get it,
Marbles, not needed
Spiders Eye not needed
Journal is not needed, as it is pretty useless anyways
Troll items like Red Potion, Black Egg, Shockwave, not needed

Diagonal movement seem more optimal as moving in 2 directions vice one is faster. on screens that you need both directions its faster, one direction no difference.
Books are for cookies, so if you skip cookies, books arent needed, but they are all along the way

Killing Morobe is necessary, The Book of Flying is in the Morgue, and beating it is the only way out
Plant Features can be cheesed into a pattern, where the heads just try to jump out at you and its a 20 second fight
Romit can be hit to get close to the edge on every other cycle. If you watch his movement, his path has a nearer fly, and a further fly toward the edge, only hit him on the further fly and its not too long, i think my fight has him beat in under a minute.

For glitches, i have not personally found any, nor have google searched any, there is little information on this game, as i saw 1 Let's Play on Youtube prior to my runs, information is scarce. If all the maps are connected, that may be worth looking into.

The music box gives a skull, My route has 5 skulls at Ma Hench to 6 defeating Ma hench, 7 Music Box, 8 Rattle before Stone Gardens. without those, its the difference of doing Stone Gardens at 6 skulls with 0 health drops and 8, 4 extra hits of damage

I need to try some runs and see how much time it saves, my 2:17:56 run has a few aggressive strats for bosses with Blue Cookies and Blue Lightning, so skipping cookie refills makes those bosses more cautious. Its a trade off between boss times and cookie refills IMO.

Let me know what i can do to help, and i'll share what i know, i need to derust this run some, and see what else can be done.

This thread was pointed out to me by a friend on twitch. I didnt know anyone else had interest in running this game. This response may be long as i try to catchup to the conversation.

The damage boost versus safe strats is a big deal as bosses take longer with closer range attacks, and the only boss i run into this with is Invisible (i forget his name, the boss right before the mansion), which the amulet is not required for (that saves a minute or two). Most bosses you can go into with Full Health, or atleast above half. My route is a safety route that talks to Granny for cookie refills everytime.

Possible time saves include: Skipping Dragon Belch Cookies from Granny at the end, and going from the Morgue/Rockies directly to the Mansion. Health and Blue Cookies would have to be managed, as at this point, i have 1 Health cookie, and 0 Blue Cookies. (This would save Minutes from walking from Rimble through Wetlands to TME Station 4 (near Cousin Itt) use TME 3 times to Swamp TME3, to Granny, and back. May need to test if completing the game from that point is possible without that long backtrack.

I have a Flowchart route i drew out, that i can Scan and submit to show my route. The main parts of the route worth noting:
1- It completes Stone Gardens before the Wetlands and having the Bowling Ball as soon as possible works as a weapon, and completing Stone gardens (which has 0 health drops) is done to have a more optimal path of using the TME to get the Strange Black Cube using the TME vice walking. It is completed with 8 Skulls (instead of 10) but is very doable. 
2- Giving Morticia the Rattle and the Teddy Bear is multitasked in with other objectives (this could also be helpful to running 100%). The rattle is delivered at the same time as getting the Stone Key, and the Teddy Bear is delivered at the same time as getting the Jeweled Key which is BEFORE the Rockies are ever entered. 
3- The Gold Coin is retrieved, but that section of the dungeon is not completed. The Spiders Eye is also not needed.

Between the Macro Route and other route, it is routed similarly to mine. Mine also gets cookies whenever possible, and there are certain triggers to move Granny and have her appear in different areas. If cookies arent needed, there are many minutes to save in this game.

[b]Items not needed[/b]
Music Box isnt required, but the items are on the way of the route, Pumpkin and Green Key, Candle at end of Hoarders, Pughsley after Hoarders, its a minute to get and music box can kill red ghosts, they are 4 in the mansion to regain 2 skulls, 
Bone Spoon is interesting, i want to test that
Firefly is iffy, The Rockies dungeon has large unlit rooms which can be a pain, but can still be seen without the Firefly, it is about 3-5 minutes out of the way to get it,
Marbles, not needed
Spiders Eye not needed
Journal is not needed, as it is pretty useless anyways
Troll items like Red Potion, Black Egg, Shockwave, not needed

Diagonal movement seem more optimal as moving in 2 directions vice one is faster. on screens that you need both directions its faster, one direction no difference. 
Books are for cookies, so if you skip cookies, books arent needed, but they are all along the way

Killing Morobe is necessary, The Book of Flying is in the Morgue, and beating it is the only way out
Plant Features can be cheesed into a pattern, where the heads just try to jump out at you and its a 20 second fight
Romit can be hit to get close to the edge on every other cycle. If you watch his movement, his path has a nearer fly, and a further fly toward the edge, only hit him on the further fly and its not too long, i think my fight has him beat in under a minute.

For glitches, i have not personally found any, nor have google searched any, there is little information on this game, as i saw 1 Let's Play on Youtube prior to my runs, information is scarce. If all the maps are connected, that may be worth looking into.

The music box gives a skull, My route has 5 skulls at Ma Hench to 6 defeating Ma hench, 7 Music Box, 8 Rattle before Stone Gardens. without those, its the difference of doing Stone Gardens at 6 skulls with 0 health drops and 8, 4 extra hits of damage

I need to try some runs and see how much time it saves, my 2:17:56 run has a few aggressive strats for bosses with Blue Cookies and Blue Lightning, so skipping cookie refills makes those bosses more cautious. Its a trade off between boss times and cookie refills IMO.

Let me know what i can do to help, and i'll share what i know, i need to derust this run some, and see what else can be done.

Mindez

2015-09-05 05:59:21 am

I have done some testing regarding diagonal movement and from my findings (running diagonally vs. running around the perimeter of a large room and playing it back frame by frame), it seems that you move 2 pixels per frame when moving vertically or horizontally, and one pixel per frame in both directions if moving diagonally. This essentially means that it is exactly as efficient to move right THEN up as it is to simply move diagonally directly to the target. This seems hilariously counter-intuitive and it'd be nice for somebody to confirm this, but that's what I've found.

Thanks for sharing your notes, Josh. Your run has been something that I've analysed quite heavily in my routing. At the moment this isn't my main game of focus, but I'm glad that others share my will to give this game a good well-optimised speedrun! Smiley

(Also good luck with Big20 tonight, if you're still taking part. I think I remember seeing you do some practice at some point, IIRC)

JoshButro

2015-09-05 06:16:48 pm

Thanks, i didnt participate in Big20. The games list was brutal.

I have a lot more notes, those were just what i typed out, I'm going to start streaming that game very heavily on Monday. Going to start to test out things.
I have a few thoughts to start.

I think as a tradeoff between health and cookies, it might be a good idea to take the extra couple of minutes for max health to skip a longer backtrack for cookies, as more practice and better strats, the health could eventually be skipped too. To start i plan on max health and skipping cookie backtrack after Rimble flies away and going straight for the Mansion.

At that point i should have 1 Black Beetle Cookie and 0 Blue Cookies (per my previous runs), if Invisible needs no cookies (my current strat), it leaves 1 Black Beetle Cookie for the Final Boss, which only Phase 1 or 2 is worrisome, Phase 3 is cheesy.

Right now, my route is the best i found, so sharing some notes, will find a better route. without cookie refills will help. My route is safety strats and very conservative.

With the movement, that is a good discovery, as its easier to move to dodge by moving in one direction vice two directions. I will also take a look at that also. I can load TasEditor on Monday and confirm that.

Skipping the Bone Spoon will also be tested. Its only about 20 seconds, but thats 20 seconds. lol

Thanks, i didnt participate in Big20. The games list was brutal.

I have a lot more notes, those were just what i typed out, I'm going to start streaming that game very heavily on Monday. Going to start to test out things.
I have a few thoughts to start.

I think as a tradeoff between health and cookies, it might be a good idea to take the extra couple of minutes for max health to skip a longer backtrack for cookies, as more practice and better strats, the health could eventually be skipped too. To start i plan on max health and skipping cookie backtrack after Rimble flies away and going straight for the Mansion.

At that point i should have 1 Black Beetle Cookie and 0 Blue Cookies (per my previous runs), if Invisible needs no cookies (my current strat), it leaves 1 Black Beetle Cookie for the Final Boss, which only Phase 1 or 2 is worrisome, Phase 3 is cheesy.

Right now, my route is the best i found, so sharing some notes, will find a better route. without cookie refills will help. My route is safety strats and very conservative.

With the movement, that is a good discovery, as its easier to move to dodge by moving in one direction vice two directions. I will also take a look at that also. I can load TasEditor on Monday and confirm that.

Skipping the Bone Spoon will also be tested. Its only about 20 seconds, but thats 20 seconds. lol

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-06 03:17:22 pm

2015-09-06 03:14:12 pm

I have discovered a major glitch in this game it skips stone key the sack of gold and book of flight and makes the end game totally safe but requires red potion and shockwave will explain when I get the chance in a couple days!

JoshButro

Edit history:

JoshButro: 2015-09-06 10:33:22 pm

2015-09-06 10:30:39 pm

This glitch would be a good thing. It sounds like it skips Stone Gardens, and the Morgue. It almost sounds like a clip to get past Rimble. As those items are specific to get to that point in the game. I would be very interested in hearing this glitch, and it could save a decent amount of time, and can put the run under 2 hours.

Times based on 2:17 run
Gold Coin/Sack of Gold - ~5minutes
Stone Key - ~2minutes
Book of Flying - ~1 minute
Stone Gardens - ~10minutes
Could save about 18minutes. I am very interested in this.
The Morgue will still have to be beaten to gain the Red Potion.
The route would need some adjustments. Wetlands done before (Stone Gardens) which seems like it will be skipped.

Let us know about the glitch, and a video would be helpful too. Thanks.

I ran the "Yolo End Game" strat today. I definitely have a few thoughts about the theory route. Keep in mind 2:17 is only the 2nd real speedrun of this game ive completed. As shown today on a derust run, there is plenty of time to save.

Bone Spoon skip worked - saved ~15seconds.
I still used the Pumpkin/Candle for Music Box to gain +1 Health ~2minutes total, Rattle +1 Health ~30 seconds, and Headless Teddy +1 Health ~30 seconds. Over the course of the game, +3 Health is only 3 minutes extra. Health made a huge difference in the end game.
Using Yolo End Game strat and Super A-Ball from JellyEye's dungeon, I entered the Final Dungeon (at Rimble) at 1:48:53. If i had got cookies, it would be ~+5minutes (so 1:53:53). Invisible, apparently called Smied, was no problem. The problem was getting through the Mansion and taking too much damage, and the Final Boss, missing 1 Black Beetle Cookie made a huge difference, no Dragon Belch Cookies, no Blue cookies. Right now the Final Boss strats are built around those cookies.
The Final Boss battle, i died with 1 small Gargoyle left with 1 or 2 HP, the fight took 8:30+, while the 2:17 run finished the final battle in under 6:30, so Yolo End Game strat actually lost 2minutes due to low health. Combining that with gathering JellyEye's Super A-Ball, only saved ~2minutes or a high risk battle, which i ultimately lost.

I m going to try this again tomorrow, and see what the time should be
The theoretical based off of this run would have been
1:48:53 at Rimble entrance
+5minutes for cookies
-3minutes saved on Final dungeon
+20minutes for Final Dungeon and Mansion from 2:17 run,
~2:10:53 for non-Yolo End Game strat. so that will be the goal for tomorrow Smiley

This glitch would be a good thing. It sounds like it skips Stone Gardens, and the Morgue. It almost sounds like a clip to get past Rimble. As those items are specific to get to that point in the game. I would be very interested in hearing this glitch, and it could save a decent amount of time, and can put the run under 2 hours.

Times based on 2:17 run
Gold Coin/Sack of Gold - ~5minutes
Stone Key - ~2minutes
Book of Flying - ~1 minute
Stone Gardens - ~10minutes
Could save about 18minutes. I am very interested in this.
The Morgue will still have to be beaten to gain the Red Potion. 
The route would need some adjustments. Wetlands done before (Stone Gardens) which seems like it will be skipped.

Let us know about the glitch, and a video would be helpful too. Thanks.

I ran the "Yolo End Game" strat today. I definitely have a few thoughts about the theory route. Keep in mind 2:17 is only the 2nd real speedrun of this game ive completed. As shown today on a derust run, there is plenty of time to save.

Bone Spoon skip worked - saved ~15seconds.
I still used the Pumpkin/Candle for Music Box to gain +1 Health ~2minutes total, Rattle +1 Health ~30 seconds, and Headless Teddy +1 Health ~30 seconds. Over the course of the game, +3 Health is only 3 minutes extra. Health made a huge difference in the end game.
Using Yolo End Game strat and Super A-Ball from JellyEye's dungeon, I entered the Final Dungeon (at Rimble) at 1:48:53. If i had got cookies, it would be ~+5minutes (so 1:53:53). Invisible, apparently called Smied, was no problem. The problem was getting through the Mansion and taking too much damage, and the Final Boss, missing 1 Black Beetle Cookie made a huge difference, no Dragon Belch Cookies, no Blue cookies. Right now the Final Boss strats are built around those cookies. 
The Final Boss battle, i died with 1 small Gargoyle left with 1 or 2 HP, the fight took 8:30+, while the 2:17 run finished the final battle in under 6:30, so Yolo End Game strat actually lost 2minutes due to low health. Combining that with gathering JellyEye's Super A-Ball, only saved ~2minutes or a high risk battle, which i ultimately lost.

I m going to try this again tomorrow, and see what the time should be
The theoretical based off of this run would have been
1:48:53 at Rimble entrance 
+5minutes for cookies 
-3minutes saved on Final dungeon
+20minutes for Final Dungeon and Mansion from 2:17 run, 
~2:10:53 for non-Yolo End Game strat. so that will be the goal for tomorrow :)

JoshButro

2015-09-08 12:44:11 pm

more Research and notes
the Yolo End Game strat is viable. You have 13 Skulls after Smied, and need to maintain Max/almost full health throughout the Mansion. Getting to the Final Boss at Max health is optimal, need 10 skulls to do it comfortably (for now)
3 phases of the Gargoyle - still streamlining the strat, but i can do it consistently in practice.
Phase1 (Red Gargoyle) - Dodge the homing fireball, use laser when dodged. Dodge the straight line fireball and use the bowling ball. Phase isnt too difficult
Phase2 (Grey Gargoyle) - Dodge the eye laserballs, move a few inches away and have him follow you to the left side of the screen. The enemy can not go fully left as there is a Fester sized column, he cant enter (except when shooting eye laserballs because his hand increases his hitbox), he will go back and forth up and down, within a range to be hit by red lightning. He can be manipulated to go down and right in range of a bowling ball.
Phase3 (The split) - IMMEDIATELY after killing Phase2, run to the right (I-frames) and eat a cookie for full health, stand inside the Circle and spam Lightning, it will take 26 hits to kill you, and the final phase cant do that much damage if positioned right.
Upon timing, optimal time for this boss is 4:30.

Theory timing based of current times
1:48:53 at Rimble entrance
-3minutes saved on Final dungeon (new Smied strats)
+20minutes for Final Dungeon and Mansion from 2:17 run,
-2 minutes saved on Final Boss (new Gargoyle strats)
~2:03:53 for Yolo End Game strat.
IN THEORY!!!

i have a couple minor reroutes, as im fully testing runs now. I think the next decent run could put this game under 2:10. Feel free to watch and i will teach.

more Research and notes
the Yolo End Game strat is viable. You have 13 Skulls after Smied, and need to maintain Max/almost full health throughout the Mansion. Getting to the Final Boss at Max health is optimal, need 10 skulls to do it comfortably (for now)
3 phases of the Gargoyle - still streamlining the strat, but i can do it consistently in practice.
Phase1 (Red Gargoyle) - Dodge the homing fireball, use laser when dodged. Dodge the straight line fireball and use the bowling ball. Phase isnt too difficult
Phase2 (Grey Gargoyle) - Dodge the eye laserballs, move a few inches away and have him follow you to the left side of the screen. The enemy can not go fully left as there is a Fester sized column, he cant enter (except when shooting eye laserballs because his hand increases his hitbox), he will go back and forth up and down, within a range to be hit by red lightning. He can be manipulated to go down and right in range of a bowling ball. 
Phase3 (The split) - IMMEDIATELY after killing Phase2, run to the right (I-frames) and eat a cookie for full health, stand inside the Circle and spam Lightning, it will take 26 hits to kill you, and the final phase cant do that much damage if positioned right. 
Upon timing, optimal time for this boss is 4:30.

Theory timing based of current times
1:48:53 at Rimble entrance
-3minutes saved on Final dungeon (new Smied strats)
+20minutes for Final Dungeon and Mansion from 2:17 run,
-2 minutes saved on Final Boss (new Gargoyle strats)
~2:03:53 for Yolo End Game strat. 
IN THEORY!!!

i have a couple minor reroutes, as im fully testing runs now. I think the next decent run could put this game under 2:10. Feel free to watch and i will teach.

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:33:52 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:13:06 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:12:07 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:11:26 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:10:12 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:09:03 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:08:01 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:05:58 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-08 04:02:26 pm

2015-09-08 03:58:15 pm

So I was playing this game and I was wondering if anybody speedran this game and was going to do an SDA search but it wasn't necessary since this was the most recently replied thread lol. While playing casually I got pretty soundly defeated by a glitch and decided to investigate. One thing led to another...

The way that continue points work in this game is pretty absurd. There's a region of the ground which, if you walk over it, it sets the continue point to that location. So you don't have to go in an out of a dungeon, for example, you just need to walk in front of the entrance. Same with cousin It, you don't need to talk to It, just walk on this continue point which is a few steps below It. That part of continue is rather reasonable, I guess. The strange part is that the save data associated with that continue point isn't saved until the next time you hit a screen transition, so if you die immediately after hitting the continue point but before hitting a screen transition, when you continue, you will continue at that continue point but with the save data from the last time you hit a continue point. I guess if you have a bad segment traveling from point A to point B where you don't do anything of significance, you could opt to die to restore your health. What happened to me was I was on my way back from dungeon 6 when the stairs to get back from dungeon 5 weren't there and I was forced to reset. I had died when I exited dungeon 6 and correctly guessed that that was the cause.

You can take it a step farther by dying immediately after loading a password (requires Red Potion). If you just die immediately without doing anything special, you will respawn at the last continue point with the last continue point's save data. Note if you try this without hitting any prior continue points, then you will not be given the option to continue. You can control which save data you spawn with. If you would like to spawn with the password's save data, when setting your last continue point, trip it and die immediately without saving the data by hitting any screen transitions. If you would like to spawn by cousin It, take a few steps down and trip the continue point there before dying. I guess this could maybe be used to warp back to cousin It, assuming passwords are allowed, but I don't really seeing it being faster, especially now that you can skip putting the gold coin in the well.

I found a glitch to have control at 0 HP. So do this, trip a continue point, have at most 1.5 HP, use the Red Potion, and then hit a screen transition to save the data. It's not frame-perfect or anything; just use the potion and walk through. I made a half-hearted attempt to do this glitch with a damage boost, but I didn't have much success. You should try to see if you can do this glitch without a Red Potion somehow. So after you do the glitch, you will be brought down to 0 HP, go through the transition to save the data, and THEN you will die. When you continue, you will still have 0 HP, but you won't die. Now everything is pretty normal as long as you stay at 0 HP, but as soon as you take a single hit, your HP underflows to some insanely high value. You become practically invincible with permanent blue laser. When you transition from one type of area to another, though, this type of transition refreshes your HP display, and so the game instantly crashes, presumably due to a significant portion of it being overwritten by skulls. Sometimes the game hangs forever, but usually it restarts itself, usually right away but sometimes it takes a while. When it starts back up, sometimes you have normal control, but usually only the B button does anything, and it seems like pressing the B button might be the equivalent of pressing all the buttons at once, IDK. Usually all you can do is scroll awkwardly between the options and password menus, but once it let me start a New Game. When I did, all I could do is press the B button, which paused the game. But my favourite part of this glitch though, is to just stand around taking damage and watching the graphics of the game come apart one skull at a time. I decided to see what kinds of passwords cousin It would give me if I talked to her with insane amounts of HP, but it seems, for the purpose of generating passwords, the game only uses the least significant bits, so password HP just wraps around. You can, however, generate a password to start with 15 skulls, one more than the usual maximum of 14. The only way to cancel the HP underflow glitch is to pick up a Max HP power-up.

I also found a glitch to increase your maximum HP. Get more health than your maximum HP allows, either by picking up a Max HP power-up, doing the HP underflow glitch, or loading a password which is already set up to have that amount of HP. Now pick up a full restore power-up. This temporarily tricks the game into thinking that your current amount of HP is the maximum you're allowed to have. Any skulls you lose between now and then next time you go through a screen transition to a new type of area will be permanently lost (like I said, these types of transitions seem to refresh your HP display), but from then on out, you can't lose your new maximum HP merely by taking damage and loading new areas. However, if you use a cookie or pick up another full restore power-up, your max HP can be reduced again, and getting an HP upgrade only increases your real maximum HP, so the only way to refill your new maximum HP is with individual health refills. To make the glitched maximum HP truly permanent, you must save your data at a continue point and then die and revive. The glitched maximum HP works completely properly now. Now if you get HP upgrades, they will increase your HP starting from the glitched maximum. If you go above a maximum of 14 skulls, however, under no circumstances will you be able to refill that HP, as nothing seems to refill HP above that amount. I guess your maximum HP, when loading a password, is calculated based on the things that you've done, so you can't save this maximum HP through loading a password.

I was taking a dump when I realized there was something important that I had forgotten to try. See, now is the time for that major timesaver I was telling you about! Do HP underflow glitch and pick up a full restore power-up. This gives you insane amounts of maximum HP as well. Now for the fun part: use the shockwave. The game instantly crashes. The music continues even on the copyright screen. You'll be given the option to continue, which is unusual for a game crash, but regardless of how you get back into the game, the glitch will be active (this also makes for a pretty sweet NG+ run). What happens is this: Neither enemies nor walls affect Fester in the slightest. I'm serious. Bonus side-effect: Hilariously glitchy sprites everywhere. As far as I can tell, the rest of the game is working normally. It's too perfect! This game has a debug menu which you need a cheat device to activate. One of the things you can do with the debug menu is activate a walk through walls cheat. I believe what has happened is that I have somehow activated this dormant feature, but I can't know that for sure. This glitch doesn't always work as described. I think the one determining factor is the amount of damage you take prior to picking up the full restore. 2 hits seems to work consistently. The one time I tried them, 3, 12, and 13 hits also worked. Curiously, the one time I tried taking 6 hits before picking up the power-up, the game crashed and gave me the usual B-button shenanigans I came to expect from the crash you get from loading a new area, so perhaps if you knew what you were doing, you could do this glitch without the Shockwave? You would want to get Shockwave to use on the final boss regardless, but if you can skip Red Potion as well somehow, then you might really have something. My laptop broke so I can't do emulator testing. It's on you guys to figure out what makes this glitch tick!! According to The Cutting Room Floor, another thing the debug menu could do is give you items? Perhaps there is a way to activate that code as well?? Perhaps if you have some other way of crashing the game, that could also work to cause this glitch??? There's a lot I don't know about what happened here. I recommend doing this glitch on the screen where you get the Iron Key. That seems to easiest place, unless you have a better idea? (Also, I never mentioned before but you can also skip Slimming Potion, but I think the cookies refill is worth it, so I guess I'd like to know whether or not the TME is the fastest way to get to the Wetlands after Black Cube.)

One last glitch for the road! I discovered this little gem in a run, and my hands were killing me too much to start again. My SNES controllers you REALLY have to bare down on the D-pad to be able to move at all. When I went to talk to Thing to get the Jewelled Key, Morticia was there. This next part might be irrelevant, but it's what I did so I figure I'll mention I did it anyway. I accidentally talked to Morticia first, as at first I didn't realize there was more than one amorphous blob of pixels on the screen. Then when I tried to talk to Thing, Morticia was right next to him, and her text box game up instead. Then it wouldn't let me talk to thing; I reloaded the area and Thing was gone; I was never given the Jewelled Key. If you want to avoid any chance of this happening to you, then don't give her the Rattle I guess. After a bit of senseless running around, I decided to trip the Greenhouse continue point and die ASAP to try and get my save data back, but apparently I had avoided the continue point out of Stone Gardens, so had to redo them. I had to go back to dungeon 6 and get the glitch back as well, since dying cancelled it. I also had to go through dungeon 5 to get there as I never hit the switch after it. All of this after going 3/4 the way to dungeon 7 before realizing I had forgotten that damn key again. At the least I redeemed myself against tree boss the 2nd time around. Final time: 1:46:41. I feel like I lost about 20 minutes, lol. go for sub 1:30! If that glitch the other guy was posting about is a real thing, you could skip Phweep and dungeon 3 entirely, but even with walking through walls, I couldn't find access into the Rockies.

One last observation. Once, at Stone Gardens, Granny gave me cookies repeatedly with no cool-down. Perhaps it's because Lurch was nearby? Maybe that could be related to the previous glitch, IDK.

Good luck have fun!

So I was playing this game and I was wondering if anybody speedran this game and was going to do an SDA search but it wasn't necessary since this was the most recently replied thread lol. While playing casually I got pretty soundly defeated by a glitch and decided to investigate. One thing led to another...

The way that continue points work in this game is pretty absurd. There's a region of the ground which, if you walk over it, it sets the continue point to that location. So you don't have to go in an out of a dungeon, for example, you just need to walk in front of the entrance. Same with cousin It, you don't need to talk to It, just walk on this continue point which is a few steps below It. That part of continue is rather reasonable, I guess. The strange part is that the save data associated with that continue point isn't saved until the next time you hit a screen transition, so if you die immediately after hitting the continue point but before hitting a screen transition, when you continue, you will continue at that continue point but with the save data from the last time you hit a continue point. I guess if you have a bad segment traveling from point A to point B where you don't do anything of significance, you could opt to die to restore your health. What happened to me was I was on my way back from dungeon 6 when the stairs to get back from dungeon 5 weren't there and I was forced to reset. I had died when I exited dungeon 6 and correctly guessed that that was the cause.

You can take it a step farther by dying immediately after loading a password (requires Red Potion). If you just die immediately without doing anything special, you will respawn at the last continue point with the last continue point's save data. Note if you try this without hitting any prior continue points, then you will not be given the option to continue. You can control which save data you spawn with. If you would like to spawn with the password's save data, when setting your last continue point, trip it and die immediately without saving the data by hitting any screen transitions. If you would like to spawn by cousin It, take a few steps down and trip the continue point there before dying. I guess this could maybe be used to warp back to cousin It, assuming passwords are allowed, but I don't really seeing it being faster, especially now that you can skip putting the gold coin in the well.

I found a glitch to have control at 0 HP. So do this, trip a continue point, have at most 1.5 HP, use the Red Potion, and then hit a screen transition to save the data. It's not frame-perfect or anything; just use the potion and walk through. I made a half-hearted attempt to do this glitch with a damage boost, but I didn't have much success. You should try to see if you can do this glitch without a Red Potion somehow. So after you do the glitch, you will be brought down to 0 HP, go through the transition to save the data, and THEN you will die. When you continue, you will still have 0 HP, but you won't die. Now everything is pretty normal as long as you stay at 0 HP, but as soon as you take a single hit, your HP underflows to some insanely high value. You become practically invincible with permanent blue laser. When you transition from one type of area to another, though, this type of transition refreshes your HP display, and so the game instantly crashes, presumably due to a significant portion of it being overwritten by skulls. Sometimes the game hangs forever, but usually it restarts itself, usually right away but sometimes it takes a while. When it starts back up, sometimes you have normal control, but usually only the B button does anything, and it seems like pressing the B button might be the equivalent of pressing all the buttons at once, IDK. Usually all you can do is scroll awkwardly between the options and password menus, but once it let me start a New Game. When I did, all I could do is press the B button, which paused the game. But my favourite part of this glitch though, is to just stand around taking damage and watching the graphics of the game come apart one skull at a time. I decided to see what kinds of passwords cousin It would give me if I talked to her with insane amounts of HP, but it seems, for the purpose of generating passwords, the game only uses the least significant bits, so password HP just wraps around. You can, however, generate a password to start with 15 skulls, one more than the usual maximum of 14. The only way to cancel the HP underflow glitch is to pick up a Max HP power-up.

I also found a glitch to increase your maximum HP. Get more health than your maximum HP allows, either by picking up a Max HP power-up, doing the HP underflow glitch, or loading a password which is already set up to have that amount of HP. Now pick up a full restore power-up. This temporarily tricks the game into thinking that your current amount of HP is the maximum you're allowed to have. Any skulls you lose between now and then next time you go through a screen transition to a new type of area will be permanently lost (like I said, these types of transitions seem to refresh your HP display), but from then on out, you can't lose your new maximum HP merely by taking damage and loading new areas. However, if you use a cookie or pick up another full restore power-up, your max HP can be reduced again, and getting an HP upgrade only increases your real maximum HP, so the only way to refill your new maximum HP is with individual health refills. To make the glitched maximum HP truly permanent, you must save your data at a continue point and then die and revive. The glitched maximum HP works completely properly now. Now if you get HP upgrades, they will increase your HP starting from the glitched maximum. If you go above a maximum of 14 skulls, however, under no circumstances will you be able to refill that HP, as nothing seems to refill HP above that amount. I guess your maximum HP, when loading a password, is calculated based on the things that you've done, so you can't save this maximum HP through loading a password.

I was taking a dump when I realized there was something important that I had forgotten to try. See, now is the time for that major timesaver I was telling you about! Do HP underflow glitch and pick up a full restore power-up. This gives you insane amounts of maximum HP as well. Now for the fun part: use the shockwave. The game instantly crashes. The music continues even on the copyright screen. You'll be given the option to continue, which is unusual for a game crash, but regardless of how you get back into the game, the glitch will be active (this also makes for a pretty sweet NG+ run). What happens is this: Neither enemies nor walls affect Fester in the slightest. I'm serious. Bonus side-effect: Hilariously glitchy sprites everywhere. As far as I can tell, the rest of the game is working normally. It's too perfect! This game has a debug menu which you need a cheat device to activate. One of the things you can do with the debug menu is activate a walk through walls cheat. I believe what has happened is that I have somehow activated this dormant feature, but I can't know that for sure. This glitch doesn't always work as described. I think the one determining factor is the amount of damage you take prior to picking up the full restore. 2 hits seems to work consistently. The one time I tried them, 3, 12, and 13 hits also worked. Curiously, the one time I tried taking 6 hits before picking up the power-up, the game crashed and gave me the usual B-button shenanigans I came to expect from the crash you get from loading a new area, so perhaps if you knew what you were doing, you could do this glitch without the Shockwave? You would want to get Shockwave to use on the final boss regardless, but if you can skip Red Potion as well somehow, then you might really have something. My laptop broke so I can't do emulator testing. It's on you guys to figure out what makes this glitch tick!! According to The Cutting Room Floor, another thing the debug menu could do is give you items? Perhaps there is a way to activate that code as well?? Perhaps if you have some other way of crashing the game, that could also work to cause this glitch??? There's a lot I don't know about what happened here. I recommend doing this glitch on the screen where you get the Iron Key. That seems to easiest place, unless you have a better idea? (Also, I never mentioned before but you can also skip Slimming Potion, but I think the cookies refill is worth it, so I guess I'd like to know whether or not the TME is the fastest way to get to the Wetlands after Black Cube.)

One last glitch for the road! I discovered this little gem in a run, and my hands were killing me too much to start again. My SNES controllers you REALLY have to bare down on the D-pad to be able to move at all. When I went to talk to Thing to get the Jewelled Key, Morticia was there. This next part might be irrelevant, but it's what I did so I figure I'll mention I did it anyway. I accidentally talked to Morticia first, as at first I didn't realize there was more than one amorphous blob of pixels on the screen. Then when I tried to talk to Thing, Morticia was right next to him, and her text box game up instead. Then it wouldn't let me talk to thing; I reloaded the area and Thing was gone; I was never given the Jewelled Key. If you want to avoid any chance of this happening to you, then don't give her the Rattle I guess. After a bit of senseless running around, I decided to trip the Greenhouse continue point and die ASAP to try and get my save data back, but apparently I had avoided the continue point out of Stone Gardens, so had to redo them. I had to go back to dungeon 6 and get the glitch back as well, since dying cancelled it. I also had to go through dungeon 5 to get there as I never hit the switch after it. All of this after going 3/4 the way to dungeon 7 before realizing I had forgotten that damn key again. At the least I redeemed myself against tree boss the 2nd time around. Final time: 1:46:41. I feel like I lost about 20 minutes, lol. go for sub 1:30! If that glitch the other guy was posting about is a real thing, you could skip Phweep and dungeon 3 entirely, but even with walking through walls, I couldn't find access into the Rockies.

One last observation. Once, at Stone Gardens, Granny gave me cookies repeatedly with no cool-down. Perhaps it's because Lurch was nearby? Maybe that could be related to the previous glitch, IDK.

Good luck have fun!

JoshButro

2015-09-08 10:50:15 pm

Thank you r0bd0g. Thank you so much. Smiley

I'm so glad you investigated. I took your finds, and added to it for consistency.
I think its about 80% reproducible in a speedrun. Still refining the mechanics but I'll explain.
I am going to make some highlights on Twitch, as it's all a jumbled mess right now.

I will explain more tomorrow

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:56:39 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:53:52 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:53:27 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:51:03 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:51:00 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:50:59 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 03:50:14 pm

2015-09-09 02:34:37 pm

I was curious what the movement speed is if you move diagonally by brushing against the edge of something instead of actually inputting two directions.

I was just watching a vod where you said "sub 2 is possible", but I just said in my last post I got 1:46:41 with 15 or 20 minutes lost to a glitch lol. I timed this with my alarm clock though lol.

When you go through dungeon 7, with walk through walls you can go in through the exit, which seems like it should be faster.

You CAN skip the "this pipe is gonna burst" screen.

JoshButro

2015-09-09 03:59:58 pm

"Sub-2 is possible" was said when the game was still being planned, and not sure how any glitches would work, or what could be skipped, that statement was based on a mainly non-glitched run, so now with this Huge glitch you found, sub-2 is just the start, 1:46 is good with 15 or 20 minutes, so i think the goal is sub-1:30 with your glitch discovery, which i will thank you atleast ten more times for sharing. Im going to run some practice, and post more notes.

I will need to look at the dungeon7 and the pipe burst.

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 04:21:56 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 04:20:47 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 04:03:22 pm

r0bd0g: 2015-09-09 04:02:03 pm

2015-09-09 04:01:49 pm

The 1:46 is a real run, in case you didn't know, done start to finish. I didn't bother to record since my laptop is broken and the run was gonna be crap anyway.

And yeah the shockwave should kill the little gargoyles of the final boss in 1 hit, and you might as well use it to finish off Smied as well since it doesn't cause any extra equips.

There's a full restore powerup on the screen where you get the iron key by the way. The easiest place to do the glitch is there, but I could see a route using the one in the dungeon maybe being faster. Take 2, 3, 12, or 13 hits before picking up the full restore, no cookie use necessary.

Also I think there's a dark room you go through in dungeon 6 which isn't necessary if you take the other red warp.

JoshButro

2015-09-09 08:21:39 pm

1:35:34

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-10 05:05:06 pm

2015-09-10 05:02:42 pm

1:23:21 Palindrome!!! If I do another run I'll at least record on my VCR.

JoshButro

2015-09-10 06:26:48 pm

I would love to see that recorded if you can do another run. With both of us running this, i wonder how fast this run can get or how broken the game can get.

http://www.twitch.tv/joshbutro/v/15342618 1:35:34 I have a lot of notes to share.
My current route
First dungeon
Greenhouse
Hoarders Lair
Wetland Dungeon
Morgue
0hp/Ghost glitch
Stone Gardens
Final Dungeon
Mansion

I know there is other things in my run that can be improved
Firefly still needs to be skipped
i will need to practice the no cookie necessary glitch,
--my Ghost Glitch right now:
Go to the continue point at the Iron Key,
Red Potion and die entering those stairs.
Continue
Enter the Stairs go to the A-Ball outside the Shockwave room.
Get the Shockwave, get the A-Ball
Enter Shockwave room, take two hits on a skeleton, eat White cookie, use Shockwave. (May need to test using the exit before cookie and shockwave)

I see the pipe cutscene skip, forgot to do that,
when i got the ghost glitch, it took away my shockwave upon restarting

i definitely have some practicing to do lol.

I would love to see that recorded if you can do another run. With both of us running this, i wonder how fast this run can get or how broken the game can get.

http://www.twitch.tv/joshbutro/v/15342618 1:35:34 I have a lot of notes to share. 
[b]My current route[/b]
First dungeon
Greenhouse
Hoarders Lair
Wetland Dungeon
Morgue
0hp/Ghost glitch
Stone Gardens
Final Dungeon
Mansion

I know there is other things in my run that can be improved
Firefly still needs to be skipped
i will need to practice the no cookie necessary glitch, 
--my Ghost Glitch right now:
Go to the continue point at the Iron Key, 
Red Potion and die entering those stairs. 
Continue
Enter the Stairs go to the A-Ball outside the Shockwave room. 
Get the Shockwave, get the A-Ball
Enter Shockwave room, take two hits on a skeleton, eat White cookie, use Shockwave. (May need to test using the exit before cookie and shockwave)

I see the pipe cutscene skip, forgot to do that, 
when i got the ghost glitch, it took away my shockwave upon restarting

i definitely have some practicing to do lol.

r0bd0g

Edit history:

r0bd0g: 2015-09-10 07:03:12 pm

2015-09-10 07:01:36 pm

Go to iron key screen do hp under flow get hit twice by the snowballs grab the hp refill on that screen and use the shockwave. Detour to shockwave between getting iron key and going to morgue btw. Even if I record on vhs I don't have a computer to capture it with. There are still minutes to save but it's down to optimization now.

JoshButro

2015-09-11 10:44:46 am

practiced that last night, it works Smiley

so thats about 2 minutes saved, firefly will be ~5, so im going to try another run this weekend, should get below 1:30

so i will run that, and see what else can be skipped/rerouted