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1-Up!
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Spelunker (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verifier Responses

Quote:
It's too bad when I was learning this game to find the global timer and that it affects the geyser.  Makes speedrunning the game less enjoyable.  I'm also not a huge fan of death warping, but at least there's strategy involved in it.

Because of the global timer, the small mistakes in the first 2 1/2 sections are meaningless.  There are a couple things, though, that could add up to 14 seconds.  Noticeable one was climbing down the entire rope prior to red key in section 3 when you can jump from the rope to the third level platform.  Saves two seconds.  Finding 12 seconds elsewhere is the issue, though.  I also wonder if it would be at all possible to miss the coin and bag near the bat in section 2.  That'd be more time right there.

After the geyser, I'd expect flawless execution since that's were the best time would be.  One minor mistake getting the final key, but that's it.    Also, no ghosts, which is lucky.  Got two in my best deathless run.

Speaking of which, I compared it to my deathless run and was going to say how many cycles death warping saves, and it I was going to say 3, but the timing looked off, so I looked more into it.  The geyser at its peak when we both get to the geyser is 37 seconds difference, which of course 14 isn't a factor of, so I was confused.  Then looking at the video, from power on (or reset), I wait five seconds to start, while the runner starts immediately, putting the difference at 42 seconds, which is three cycles.  So the timer starts on power on, not game start.  Thus timing can be calculated to determine the best wait time for game start to manipulate the geyser to be at the top at the best possible time.

Irrelevant for this run, as it's a pretty easy accept, but the time is indeed beatable in SDA terms.  Also kind of makes my opening statement untrue, but I found this all out while typing out verification comments, so I'm leaving it in.


Quote:
Audio/Video: No video problems (checked all 3 qualities), but the audio seemed like it was behind at a consistent .5 seconds or so.
Cheating: None detected.

Beyond that, verifier #1 did a really good job summing up the run itself (and finding out even more about the geyser timing). No ghosts is extremely lucky. And while there may be time to save from optimizing the point where he presses start + jumping over a couple more items to allow for better death warps, this is still an easy ACCEPT for now.

I'll leave out any comments about the random speed pickups, since the runner touches on that at the end of his comments.
...what? The above counts as not leaving them out? Get out of here! *shakes cane*


Quote:
I don't have much to add. It's a good run and I accept.

I did test the TAS strat of picking up two speed potions to get infinite speed, and it seems pretty doable in real time. However, if each pickup is a 1/4 chance, then you're looking at 1/16 runs even getting to that point (I don't know if they're truly random though or can be manipulated). Then there's the matter of actually controlling the character at that speed. It would be very difficult to complete such a run, but the game is really short so someone should give it a go.


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'Dandy J!'
Thread title:  
Edit history:
Darkwing Duck: 2013-10-12 01:12:35 am
Highly Evolved
Well, now that I've put some time into it, I can report my findings.

Turns out the geyser cycle ISN'T 14 seconds.  It's about 16 and change.  And looking at when the two runs actually started, the with deaths run is about 4:15/16 from game start, and the deathless is 4:48 when the geyser shows up. In playing tonight, I had several runs start at different lengths of time between power on/reset to game start get the peak of the geyser at 4:32.  Thus, the geyser is set at game start, not power on.  As such, 16 seconds would have to be cut to get to the new cycle, which is really disappointing.  I've found 10, maybe 12 seconds and not sure where the rest would come from.

It's a real kick in the knickers.
Thanks for all your hard work guys, really appreciate it! I've done a savestate run on this, with the most optimal item-skipping route I know of, and was still about 3 seconds shy of making it to the previous geyser cycle. Using speed-up potions would surely be a feat, even if the game is short. Personally I'm looking into running the Spelunker HD / Minna de Spelunker EX Challenge levels some time in the future, but I may still do more research on possible speed-ups runs in this game.
Highly Evolved
Quote from Dandy J:
Thanks for all your hard work guys, really appreciate it! I've done a savestate run on this, with the most optimal item-skipping route I know of, and was still about 3 seconds shy of making it to the previous geyser cycle. Using speed-up potions would surely be a feat, even if the game is short. Personally I'm looking into running the Spelunker HD / Minna de Spelunker EX Challenge levels some time in the future, but I may still do more research on possible speed-ups runs in this game.

That sounds about right.  Crazy things like ghost death warping and maybe bomb death warping might help.

And I think you can save one mini steam cycle after the geyser, which is about one second.  I was one tenth of a second ahead of your time before I botched the final jump on an attempt.
Highly Evolved
Learned that I can get that geyser cycle without the 1Up.  Missed a key in level 4 that cost one second. 
What's the end time and first level time for this run? I might be able to find some possible improvements in my old notes.
Highly Evolved
Quote from jeffsledge:
What's the end time and first level time for this run? I might be able to find some possible improvements in my old notes.

The end time doesn't matter so much as the geyser cycle.

It's the 4:17 geyser cycle, so we need the 4:00/01 cycle.

First level is 1:28.7 as I timed.  I've beaten it by three seconds.  More if you get a bomb instead of a 1up (skip the bomb on the bottom of the level), but that'll hurt your time overall.

I've beaten level 2 time by six seconds.

I've made up a 3.5 second gap in level 3 before the geyser.  So that's 12 or so seconds on ideal levels.  I've had to wait at most two seconds for the geyser on my best overall time up to the geyser.
Skipping the coin on the way to the upper key saves ~2.5 sec after death warp.
Getting the bomb from the random item thing saves ~10 seconds.
Grabbing the last bomb takes around 1.5 seconds.
I wrote down "bomb suicide -0:01" but I have no idea what it means.
I think just better death warps and rope jumping was enough to reach the next cycle if you get the random bomb at the start.
Edit history:
Darkwing Duck: 2013-10-17 07:48:12 pm
Highly Evolved
Quote from jeffsledge:
Skipping the coin on the way to the upper key saves ~2.5 sec after death warp.
Getting the bomb from the random item thing saves ~10 seconds.
Grabbing the last bomb takes around 1.5 seconds.
I wrote down "bomb suicide -0:01" but I have no idea what it means.
I think just better death warps and rope jumping was enough to reach the next cycle if you get the random bomb at the start.


You get one less death abuse if you get a bomb and not a 1up on the random item.  Slowest death warp is 8 seconds, I think.  How does a bomb save 10 seconds?  We don't have infinite lives.

Bomb suicide is using bomb to die (have it explode after key acquisition).  Not sure which key you'd do it for.  Mine cart, I suppose.
Getting the bomb saves 10 seconds because you eliminate the need to get the first bomb at the start of the game. You go straight for the random item and the second key.
Highly Evolved
I suppose that would work and get the random item near the first key in the second section.  Reduces likelihood of success by a lot, but it is what it is.