Cool Spot

foxhound

2006-06-24 04:12:51 am

>_> I love Cool Spot. Someone should do a speed run on the game.

Thread title:

MatrixTN

2006-06-24 05:22:05 am

You got a deletion wish?

Which version? I've been thinking about doing one on the Genesis version, but haven't really sat down to try one, currently working on a run on another game of choice.

Yoshi348

2006-06-24 06:44:09 pm

dinosaur from the past

You may love this game, but the magical speed run fairy does not.

MatrixTN

2006-06-25 12:42:45 am

You got a deletion wish?

Quote:

You may love this game, but the magical speed run fairy does not.

She probably wants to say "Make 7 up yours!" to the guy in the 7up commercials. I'd like to do the same by doing a run on it, as soon as I find some motivation. Can I get a belch, dinoman?

Rattle

2006-06-25 02:50:43 pm

I loved this game, always found it hard though. So a speed run can show me the error of my ways Grin

getter77

2006-06-25 03:45:12 pm

100% runs=great to watch

I used to dance around while holding chickenwings to the intro demo music of the puzzle based NES Spot game.... 8)

Otherwise, GIS on the newer ones. I remember Spot Goes to Hollywood nearly driving me and a friend insane...and we still never managed to beat it.

MatrixTN

2006-06-26 03:24:45 am

You got a deletion wish?

If I do one, it will be on Practice (easy) difficulty. Normal & Difficult (hard) I practically suck on. I barely beat Normal once. Virgin Games had a full completion on Difficult contest when the game first came out (beat the game on Difficult, with all UNCOLA letters collected) Some of the level names are rather punchline-ish (Pier Pressure & Wading Around for example) I like the bonus level music, wish I had an mp3 of the track.

DrPepper

2006-07-18 10:23:38 pm

Im a space invader!

I would enjoy seeing a run on this, was my favorite sega game, i only got half way through it though on normal, maybe ill finnaly get around to buying a sega and get this game 2 (even though I couldnt beat it on psp with a sega emu/ cool spot)

moooh

2008-10-01 11:12:10 am

Exoray

Since this game already had it's own topic I'm going to bring this one back from the grave instead of making a new one.

Just did a play-through of this game for the nostalgic experience. It would indeed be very interesting to see a speedrun of this game and I can see that MatrixTN still has it in his considerations list.

Pre-firing becomes key in this game due to the abundance of off-screen enemies you otherwise will run in to. Even more so when doing a speedrun. Lots of practice has to go into the jumping. Numerous places of this game consists of landing on things that are off-screen where just one miss will lead to a failed attempt. This especially goes for the horrible train level where you don't even have any reference points at all when jumping due to the background moving as well.
Normal mode any% is definitely doable since you only need 60 cool points in each level, which can mostly be picked up on route to the cage. Some exceptions occur, like the second toy level, but with some planning that one can be also be done without any major detours.
Avoiding the bonus levels is pretty much guaranteed since you won't be accidently picking up 25 points extra on a level Smiley

At the moment I don't have the time to attempt this run myself, although I'd gladly help with the route planning if someone decides to go for it.

Since this game already had it's own topic I'm going to bring this one back from the grave instead of making a new one.

Just did a play-through of this game for the nostalgic experience. It would indeed be very interesting to see a speedrun of this game and I can see that MatrixTN still has it in his considerations list.

Pre-firing becomes key in this game due to the abundance of off-screen enemies you otherwise will run in to. Even more so when doing a speedrun. Lots of practice has to go into the jumping. Numerous places of this game consists of landing on things that are off-screen where just one miss will lead to a failed attempt. This especially goes for the horrible train level where you don't even have any reference points at all when jumping due to the background moving as well.
Normal mode any% is definitely doable since you only need 60 cool points in each level, which can mostly be picked up on route to the cage. Some exceptions occur, like the second toy level, but with some planning that one can be also be done without any major detours.
Avoiding the bonus levels is pretty much guaranteed since you won't be accidently picking up 25 points extra on a level :)

At the moment I don't have the time to attempt this run myself, although I'd gladly help with the route planning if someone decides to go for it.

MatrixTN

2008-10-01 01:46:22 pm

You got a deletion wish?

Thanks for bumping, at the moment I don't know what I'm doing. Been screwing around with whatever for god knows how long.

tjevs

2008-10-09 05:14:47 pm

This game would actually make a great sppedrun, as you could run it several ways. Not only could you do a standard beginning to end single segment run, you could also do a 100% every button/letter/bonus round, and also run it on easy mode getting the minimum amount of buttons necessary.... So no more than 30 buttons a level. Although I'm not sure if this would work as I know in some passages you have to get buttons, such as falling down gaps or walking through tunnels. Getting the buttons would be no problem, but doing it quickly while getting it smack on 30 every time?...

Mr. K

2012-03-31 08:39:04 am

Yes

I'm going to run this. Right now it's going to be an easy mode run. There are a couple reasons for this. Normal mode does not give you the good ending. Hard mode turns ordinary levels into war zones and the amount of planning and memorization needed to optimize the levels is atrocious. Hard mode also doesn't have recovery items so you can't be as brazen in storming through levels. Easy mode also feels fast and makes it seem more like a cross between Mario and Contra.

The routing is done for Shell Shock. Wading around pretty much lets you head to the exit. Radical Rails is easy. Loco Motive isn't too bad on easy and there's what I guess I will call a mini sequence break there. Dock and Roll also has one, but I'm taking lots of hits in the process. I need to get Toy Time, Wound Up, Off Da Wall, Back to Da Wall, and Surf Patrol routed. I'll post videos of progress when I think I've got this down well enough to showcase something interesting.

EasilyAmus3d

Edit history:

EasilyAmus3d: 2012-04-04 02:17:14 pm

2012-04-04 02:16:05 pm

More useful than it ought to be.

I would love to see a run of this game! Definitely post your WIPs, I'd be interested to see what routes you're using. Especially for Toy Time. I could never remember where the damn cage is in that stage. Good luck!

Mr. K

Edit history:

Mr. K: 2012-07-08 08:10:52 pm

Mr. K: 2012-07-08 08:10:00 pm

2012-07-08 08:08:58 pm

Yes

Although I haven't posted anything in over three months I haven't forgotten about this game. I haven't really finished routing this, but I just did an easy mode run that clocked in at 19 minutes. I'm thinking that an easy mode run could probably end up around 16 or maybe even 15 minutes with better route planning. Toy Time, Wound Up, and Surf Patrol are the levels that really need to be routed. I've got a much better idea of what do with the other levels. I'll probably post a WIP once I finish routing these levels and post it.

I found a few memory address and scoped out what hard mode is going to be like. It definitely looks like it's going to be over an hour. I might be wrong, but that's just how it strikes me. The real nightmare is going to be route planning. A few maps have been completed for this game:
http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/MasterSystem/index.htm#CoolSpot
The Super Nintendo version is something of a port of the Sega Master System version with a few twists. The spot locations appear to be the same. The cage locations vary for a few levels.

A few words on the level differences between easy and hard mode:
Shell Shock - Ridiculously harder. The hermit crabs and bees make it almost impossible to get through the level quickly. The bees must be taken out because if they strike you, you get knocked off your balloon
Pier Pressure - More bees and a few worms, but it's not so bad
Off the Wall - There doesn't seem to be any difference in terms of enemies for this level so not too bad
Wading Around - Toy frogs that shoot water are there on hard in addition to some spikes. The spikes are tough to kill, but there aren't that many of them. Since you can't really get momentum in this stage anyway it won't cost time. The frogs aren't a danger if you move fast
Toy Time - Hard mode adds the airplane enemy, but these are much easier to kill than bees and nowhere near as fast
Radical Rails - No enemies on hard mode
Wound Up - Again just the airplane enemies and a few more robots and teeth, but nothing too terrible
Loco Motive - This level adds some enemies in tough places. More enemies on the train isn't much of a problem but there are some airplanes in bad spots
Back to the Wall - The new enemy the lightning bolt is added. It's not much trouble though
Dock and Roll - There are a few more enemies like the worms, but it's not terrible
Surf Patrol - This level is a beast on hard. There are bees everywhere.

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in seeing this game done on hard. It's definitely a totally different kind of run. An easy mode run lets you plow through everything, but a hard mode run requires very conservative play. There are no energy refills and you can only take 7 hits. Taking damage to save time is also not very attractive because you lose all your momentum when you get hit. In addition you have to get 90 spots to clear a level and 5 more for the bonus stage. Given how many enemies are there on hard, that's a ridiculous amount of work. To even start testing something like that we'd need all of the levels to be mapped out and we'd have to decide which spots to skip. It also wouldn't be a matter of just figuring out the shortest distance to collect the spots because we'd have to factor in how many enemies there were. It would be a ton of work and it would be hard to tell how fully such a route would be optimized. I know there was a TAS WIP that kind of fizzled out, if somebody finished one, it would help a lot. Right now I'm intimidated by how much work a hard mode run would take.

Although I haven't posted anything in over three months I haven't forgotten about this game.  I haven't really finished routing this, but I just did an easy mode run that clocked in at 19 minutes.  I'm thinking that an easy mode run could probably end up around 16 or maybe even 15 minutes with better route planning.  Toy Time, Wound Up, and Surf Patrol are the levels that really need to be routed.  I've got a much better idea of what do with the other levels.  I'll probably post a WIP once I finish routing these levels and post it.

I found a few memory address and scoped out what hard mode is going to be like.  It definitely looks like it's going to be over an hour.  I might be wrong, but that's just how it strikes me.  The real nightmare is going to be route planning.  A few maps have been completed for this game:
http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/MasterSystem/index.htm#CoolSpot
The Super Nintendo version is something of a port of the Sega Master System version with a few twists.  The spot locations appear to be the same.  The cage locations vary for a few levels.

A few words on the level differences between easy and hard mode:
Shell Shock - Ridiculously harder.  The hermit crabs and bees make it almost impossible to get through the level quickly.  The bees must be taken out because if they strike you, you get knocked off your balloon
Pier Pressure - More bees and a few worms, but it's not so bad
Off the Wall - There doesn't seem to be any difference in terms of enemies for this level so not too bad
Wading Around - Toy frogs that shoot water are there on hard in addition to some spikes.  The spikes are tough to kill, but there aren't that many of them.  Since you can't really get momentum in this stage anyway it won't cost time.  The frogs aren't a danger if you move fast
Toy Time - Hard mode adds the airplane enemy, but these are much easier to kill than bees and nowhere near as fast
Radical Rails - No enemies on hard mode
Wound Up - Again just the airplane enemies and a few more robots and teeth, but nothing too terrible
Loco Motive - This level adds some enemies in tough places.  More enemies on the train isn't much of a problem but there are some airplanes in bad spots
Back to the Wall - The new enemy the lightning bolt is added.  It's not much trouble though
Dock and Roll - There are a few more enemies like the worms, but it's not terrible
Surf Patrol - This level is a beast on hard.  There are bees everywhere.

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in seeing this game done on hard.  It's definitely a totally different kind of run.  An easy mode run lets you plow through everything, but a hard mode run requires very conservative play.  There are no energy refills and you can only take 7 hits.  Taking damage to save time is also not very attractive because you lose all your momentum when you get hit.  In addition you have to get 90 spots to clear a level and 5 more for the bonus stage.  Given how many enemies are there on hard, that's a ridiculous amount of work.  To even start testing something like that we'd need all of the levels to be mapped out and we'd have to decide which spots to skip.  It also wouldn't be a matter of just figuring out the shortest distance to collect the spots because we'd have to factor in how many enemies there were.  It would be a ton of work and it would be hard to tell how fully such a route would be optimized.  I know there was a TAS WIP that kind of fizzled out, if somebody finished one, it would help a lot.  Right now I'm intimidated by how much work a hard mode run would take.

MatrixTN

Edit history:

MatrixTN: 2012-07-12 10:08:07 pm

2012-07-10 12:37:04 am

You got a deletion wish?

The cage in SS is also higher up on Normal & Hard (on Genesis, don't know about SNES version).

Mr. K

2012-07-11 10:55:27 am

Yes

This isn't finalized, but here's a preliminary route for Pier Pressure:

Mr. K

Edit history:

Mr. K: 2012-07-11 11:21:59 pm

2012-07-11 11:21:12 pm

Yes

Here's a preliminary route for Wading around. I still need to do a bit of research to understand how Spot's acceleration works, but this will be the route. With more practice, the jumps can be a bit lower to the ground and some frames can be saved in tons of places, but you get the idea.

Note: for that bubble that you float with, you have to hit it from the top to get enough height to do the shortcut.

Zeupar

2012-07-14 08:21:23 am

Sonical!

I'm glad to see you are still working on this and look forward to a finished run. Good luck!

Mr. K

Edit history:

Mr. K: 2012-07-15 01:57:23 am

Mr. K: 2012-07-15 01:56:56 am

Mr. K: 2012-07-15 01:55:57 am

2012-07-15 01:54:00 am

Yes

Thanks Zeupar! Routing this game is coming along a lot faster than I thought it would. Also here's Radical Rails. I know some frames can be knocked off here, but this is more or less what Radical Rails will look like:

Not much to say other than that I do a few strategic jumps to keep up acceleration. You can hit the cage from the top rail, but I've decided sliding down and coming at it from the bottom is definitely faster. Toy Time route is almost done, I'm still tinkering with it and I'll probably never be happy with it. It's a bit tricky. Loco Motive is also almost done. The biggest obstacles right now are Wound Up and Surf Patrol. The Wall levels aren't too bad, it's just a decent amount of memorization. I've got a pretty good idea of what to do for Dock and Roll and with some more polish I can start thinking about attempts.

moooh

2012-07-15 04:05:14 am

Exoray

Looks like pretty solid routes so far!
If I find the time I'll be trying them out and see if I can spot any improvements.

Mr. K

2012-07-15 11:32:45 am

Yes

Thanks Moooh! Here's a route for Toying Around that I'd really like your thoughts on. Enemy management can be a little bit better, and I'm still kind of on the fence about it.

moooh

2012-07-15 02:14:03 pm

Exoray

Did some testing around to see if I could find some alternate paths for Toying Around.

You can reach the jump to the upper platform from the rightmost shoelace, even though it looks like you can't. It's just a damn precise positioning that's needed. This would allow for taking one of the lower paths which has quite a few spots lumped together.
However, even if this was faster that jump is so annoying that it would be too risky to even consider this path in a run.

I went ahead and tried to see if you could possible skip having to detour for spot 25 or 26. At first I was thinking of replacing these with the two that are behind the blocks to the left of the cage platform, however you need an accelerated jump to reach these so jumping there and back seems to only be barely faster.
You can skip spot 25 though and just make an extra jump to grab the spot above the card stack that is right above your current 30.

Feel free to try experiment and try getting those two behind the block near the end. I haven't played this in awhile so I keep messing up acceleration timings all the time so you might be able to make these faster after all.

Did some testing around to see if I could find some alternate paths for Toying Around.

You can reach the jump to the upper platform from the rightmost shoelace, even though it looks like you can't. It's just a damn precise positioning that's needed. This would allow for taking one of the lower paths which has quite a few spots lumped together.
However, even if this was faster that jump is so annoying that it would be too risky to even consider this path in a run.

I went ahead and tried to see if you could possible skip having to detour for spot 25 or 26. At first I was thinking of replacing these with the two that are behind the blocks to the left of the cage platform, however you need an accelerated jump to reach these so jumping there and back seems to only be barely faster.
You can skip spot 25 though and just make an extra jump to grab the spot above the card stack that is right above your current 30.

Feel free to try experiment and try getting those two behind the block near the end. I haven't played this in awhile so I keep messing up acceleration timings all the time so you might be able to make these faster after all.

Mr. K

Edit history:

Mr. K: 2012-08-14 10:50:58 am

2012-08-14 10:50:25 am

Yes

Posting to say that I haven't forgotten about our favorite 7up mascot. Moooh, the Toying Around jump off the rope looks like it's frame perfect. It can save about 2-3 seconds if I change the route. I'll probably post another video using it, but I don't want to think about incorporating it into a run right now. I have been doing some routing for Off Da Wall. I was painfully close to getting a major sequence break there. It makes me sad.

The spot where the cage is at is pictured first. In the second picture, this area is accessible very early on in the level. While we would have to do some backtracking, this could save a ton of time. The problem is that I can't scroll the screen any higher than this and while I don't know if the cage is loaded in this picture or not, hitting the lock seems impossible. The third picture is taken from a very minor sequence break I found accessing the same cage from below. While this does save some time, it's not as major as what we'd save if the first trick worked.

Posting to say that I haven't forgotten about our favorite 7up mascot.  Moooh, the Toying Around jump off the rope looks like it's frame perfect.  It can save about 2-3 seconds if I change the route.  I'll probably post another video using it, but I don't want to think about incorporating it into a run right now.  I have been doing some routing for Off Da Wall.  I was painfully close to getting a major sequence break there.  It makes me sad.

The spot where the cage is at is pictured first.  In the second picture, this area is accessible very early on in the level.  While we would have to do some backtracking, this could save a ton of time.  The problem is that I can't scroll the screen any higher than this and while I don't know if the cage is loaded in this picture or not, hitting the lock seems impossible.  The third picture is taken from a very minor sequence break I found accessing the same cage from below.  While this does save some time, it's not as major as what we'd save if the first trick worked.

Attachments:

2012-08-15 11:28:45 pm

Yes

This is not perfect by any stretch, but here's the route for Off Da Wall. You lose all momentum when you get hit by an enemy but the nice thing is that if you are in the air you keep your momentum until you touch ground. I'm not sure how optimized I expect these levels to be in a run, but we'll see how it goes when the routing is done. So far that still leaves Wound Up, Back to the Wall, Loco Motive, Dock and Roll, and Surf Patrol. I'm definitely the most concerned about Wound Up. The rest shouldn't be too bad. Dock and Roll is pretty much a race to the finish with a few minor sequence breaks.

Mr. K

2012-08-16 10:19:19 am

Yes

Wound Up is finished. While the route might be tweaked in a few minor places, I think it's pretty good. There are 7 spots in two clusters behind the blocks at the end. The spring mechanism that pushes you up is really weird. I was expecting it to be a lot worse than this. Surf Patrol and Back to the Wall are the only real hard ones to route that are left.