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The Adventures of Gilligan's Island (ntscus) (nes) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Decision: Reject

Reason: Some planning and execution issues. Runner intends to improve the run as well.

https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationfiles/1334/

This run will be available for a month. After that these link(s) will no longer work.
Thread title:  
Run Information

The Adventures of Gilligan's Island (ntscus) (nes) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/gilligan/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by March 6, 2015.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.
Edit history:
ktwo: 2015-02-22 08:04:43 am
A/V: I watched the submitted video, which checks out (classic NES-capture). If anyone else reads this, I suggest watching the vod instead (click on the run information link). Since there are no run comments provided, the vod might contain some useful information.

Gameplay: I haven't played through the game, so it's difficult to comment on the route (very much backtracking and such, so route errors would be costly). I did read a bit about the game and played it for a few minutes in an emulator though. The game mechanics are pretty awkward. It's easy to lose time because Waldo Gilligan won't cooperate. Either by mistiming jumps or just getting stuck on things. The game seems pretty luck-dependent as all the ropes and food are random and you need several of each. This is to say that I understand if everything doesn't look perfect. And there are a lot of things that don't look perfect. There are a bunch of questionable things:
- Why jump into the water when you want it to drag you to the next screen as quickly as possible?
- One (or a few?) menu trips seemed to be because of not knowing how many items had been collected. Even with the random factor, I believe this shouldn't be necessary if you play the game enough.
- I don't recall where, but it seemed like one (or a few?) places where there was a bit of hesitation regarding the route.
- I don't know how random some of the enemies later in the game are, but it seemed like it should be possible to get out of their path in some rooms, since Gilligan frequently got hit and you had to wait for him to get back on the feet.
- Quite a lot of mis-timed jumps and places where you entered a room too early so Gilligan didn't follow.
- The inventory management didn't seem optimal. It seems like you start each level with the same items. Unused items at the end of the levels are wasted time because of the countdown. I understand that the randomness of the item drops makes it difficult to account for every possibility. But for example level 2 seemed poorly planned. You only used rope three times. Since you started the level with two ropes, you were in the clear once you got the first rope drop. Any additional drop was just a bonus that could (and should) have been used to save time. At the end of the level, you had three to spare. Quite a bit of time lost because of this.

Even if some of my comments above could be incorrect (like I said, I only have a very basic knowledge of this game), I believe there is still a bit of time to cut off here. Still, the game is awkward as shit and my gut feeling says that a lot of things also went right in this run. I'm a bit conflicted, but I'm gonna let my soft spot for obscure nes-games take the overhand.

(very weak) accept

Edit: Looking at it again, the background is bouncing a bit. It's nothing reject-worthy imo, but if there is a way to fix it, it would be worth looking into re-encoding.
So yeah I looked at this twitch recording of this run:
http://www.twitch.tv/darbian/c/4657952

And yeah it provides a bit more insight. E.g. the sand pits require you to mash the buttons to move through faster.

1:00
mistake that costs about 2 seconds.
1:35
Another one costing more than that
3:30
This one is a bit more neutral because though he had to wait for two screen transitions, the guy at least gets closer to the exit when he go back. I still think it may have lost time overall. From the twitch recording I can tell this was because the runner thought they had another rope for some reason so they could rope Gilligan in instead of waiting.
8:20
Here he only has to use the rope because Gilligan wasn't close enough to follow him. The runner's own comment to this is "horrible mistake", and yeah it would have been pretty useful in the last chapter. I think it might have saved some 10 seconds on the round trips.
15:30
The runner says G can never enter the boss room he's about to go into, which makes the little wait unnecessary.

Main ways this could be improved:
-practise timing the room exits so you're sure Gilligan is following you though TBF it looks a bit finicky (it makes me feel like he's walking a stubborn dog): 9:25 has a transition that looks like it can't possibly fail but it does so we gotta give the runner some berth on this. Later on there's a few that I was sure would fail but didn't.
-Make sure not to pick up extra items so they don't tick down in the score screen (very small thing).
-Memorize the route better - as ktwo thought there were small herps here and there.
-GODLIKE ROPE DROPS: there's hardly a limit to how good this can get actually. You'd have to start using ropes earlier and just hope and pray to get to stock up later. In any case you should be aware of different ways of using them so any extras do not go to waste. And use this as a basis for knowing when a rope that's a little out of the way is worth picking up. If nothing else remembering how many you're running seems purposeful even though it doesn't take long to check. It looks unprofessional Cheesy
-Hack the game so the inane babbling doesn't get rendered. It doesn't even stop in the boss fights.
-Boss RNG in this run actually looked pretty good.

The runner should try this kind of technique for getting the distance between Gilligan and skipper to be what it normally is when they walk: when Skipper is running far ahead, when he gets to the door (or just somewhere along the way) he should turn back and walk towards G. Then at some point when it's close to that distance he should turn back around. Then he should do a very short release of the directional button and keep going. By doing this several times until G also stops for that micro-interval you can "buffer" getting that distance. This having been said this doesn't seem to guarantee getting the guy to follow. Anyway just an idea.

All in all this doesn't feel like teh urn yet even though you can tell it's not the first run they've done. It improves on a previous record by almost 2 minutes which tells us it hasn't been run a lot. The runner knows he's making little mistakes like waiting when he shouldn't be here and there and picking up items better left uncollected.

rather weak reject
ktwo: I'm not sure the items are always the same at the start of each mission. If they are then my rather weak reject is a slightly stronger one, but what I thought was happening was they carried over (even though they look like they're being tallied and taken away). I might be wrong.
You can verify by counting the number of items picked up in a level and then compare with the inventory during the first menu trip. That way, it looks to me like you start each level with one food and two ropes. I haven't played the game long enough to complete any levels, so this is just from my observation during this run.
Hi guys.  I think it's been about 6 months since I submitted this game.  At that time I had no plans to return to it, but I think I will go back and try to clean this up a bit in the next few months.  As some of the comments above noted, the game is kind of awkward, specifically with managing Gilligan.  Rope (and in some cases food) drops are another pain to deal with, since you're essentially gambling anytime you decide to use one versus wasting a few seconds to grab Gilligan.  That being said, a lot of the points above are valid.  I haven't watched this run in a while, but I recall running out of ropes in the last episode and having to manage Gilligan a bit toward the end.  I'm confident I can improve this run (hopefully by a minute+), it's just a matter of getting around to it again.
Decision posted.