Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel

2012-04-27 03:08:43 pm

Anyone played this game? I got it when I was like 6 y.o. and never completed it. I picked it up again to beat it and realised it had some potential for speedrunning being as fast when skilled as it is. I even found an exploit in 5 minutes where you just hold up and forward for most if not all of the boat stages and can keep your speed the whole level without worrying about getting hit. I didn't find a run of it other than cpadolfs tas's so I just wanted to see if anyone knew more about it.

Oh, and I realised why I never beat the game. Apparently there's this glitch where I don't penetrate the roof when wearing the jetpack in the factory so Zero just falls down to the floor again and the controls are locked... Anyone that knows anything about this? Is it just my cart or what?

Thread title:

mike89

2012-04-27 04:17:10 pm

SEGA Junkie

Wow, awesome! I ran a tourney with this game in it a couple of years back, I've been wondering when somebody would try and work on it for real.

Feasel had the best run that week, you can get it from here: http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/sda_tourney_6_week_1_zero_the_kamikaze_squirrel57.html

TimpZ

Edit history:

TimpZ: 2012-04-28 10:53:50 am

2012-04-28 10:53:03 am

wtf is an smv :p? Anyways if I'm even gonna think about running it then I'd need a working cart. I tried playing it 3 times and every time the same thing happened, bump against the ceiling and controls are locked... I'd probably going to ask cpadolf for help if I'm gonna run it but otherwise, anyone knows if there's maps of the stages and stuff? Or anything? It's a pretty unknown game after all...

TimpZ

Edit history:

TimpZ: 2012-04-28 01:50:34 pm

2012-04-28 01:45:23 pm

Okay so I did a quick test run, I got 25-isch min without much effort and a lot of retries in the lava stage (I tried to fly past the swinging steel thingies and it worked, albeit after 10 tries :p). Also the last boss is a bitch.

I found out what an smv was and although I got some to work, feasel's did not. What version did he use, E? U? JP? Russian?? I don't know but the emulator won't accept it. I got an european smc file and an us sfc file if that matters, otherwise a youtube video would be great.

zoonel

2012-04-28 05:28:00 pm

Go play spacechem !

hi,
try http://code.google.com/p/snes9x-rr/downloads/list , Snes9x 1.51 rerecording v6 can play feasel’s file (rom used was (U) [!] ) If it doesn’t work try the other versions of the emulator. Also check the page 2 of the link from Mike89 it has good advise.

TimpZ

Edit history:

TimpZ: 2012-04-29 08:40:08 am

TimpZ: 2012-04-29 07:58:45 am

TimpZ: 2012-04-29 07:58:44 am

TimpZ: 2012-04-28 06:18:44 pm

TimpZ: 2012-04-28 06:12:08 pm

2012-04-28 06:11:53 pm

Quote from zoonel:

hi,
try http://code.google.com/p/snes9x-rr/downloads/list , Snes9x 1.51 rerecording v6 can play feasel’s file (rom used was (U) [!] ) If it doesn’t work try the other versions of the emulator. Also check the page 2 of the link from Mike89 it has good advise.

Thanks, it gave me some good tips :).

I think I've gotten hang of the mechanics so I decided to try some IL's. First up is the beach, tell me what you think.

Playing like this is pretty tight and it took me a while to figure out the correct jump/spin/dive's that made me go where I wanted. Seems you can manipulate enemy spawns too by being very high in the air (spawning two or none at all etc.) I used 1 (one) savestate between the levels.

JordanParks

2013-01-16 08:54:50 pm

I have been speedrunning this game recently and have a time of 15:30 which is from when I turn on the console to when I get the final hit on the boss. I would love it if other people wanted to race it with me or try and figure out skips/glitches.

JordanParks

2013-01-16 09:03:12 pm

Quote from JordanParks:

I have been speedrunning this game recently and have a time of 15:30 which is from when I turn on the console to when I get the final hit on the boss. I would love it if other people wanted to race it with me or try and figure out skips/glitches.

Just made an account, if anybody wants to play some SNES games with me you can msg me on skype my name is JordanParks

Omnigamer

2013-05-01 11:59:17 pm

All the things

I'm planning to work on this game soon. I haven't actually done any routing other than testing some of the TAS tricks. Wall jumps are definitely possible in real-time, although they're 1 frame and I can't find a good cue for when to press it. It allows you to skip the miniboss in 2-2 and potentially an earlier part of 2-2 as well, but that requires two consecutive wall jumps. Again, possible in real-time, but I question its consistency for multiple consecutive repetitions unless a more consistent method is found.

I tried to get OoB in a couple places but the walls are pretty good about pushing you back to where you started right away. Doesn't mean that it's not possible, but I haven't found anything yet.

mike89

2013-05-02 02:11:43 am

SEGA Junkie

Awesome Omni! I wholeheartedly approve.

Obvious resources: the TAS, feasel's video from the speedrun tournament in the second post. Wall jumping sucks balls, but it's early enough in the game that you kinda have to do it. It actually skips two minibosses in 2-2 if you do them right.

feasel

2013-05-02 12:37:27 pm

difficult and stupidly random

Yeah what Mike said: those walljumps suck but you really have to do them because those 2 minibosses take forever. I never found a good setup for the timing, i just mashed and reset if i didn't get it quickly enough.
Good luck. Can't wait to watch the attempts.

Omnigamer

2013-05-02 12:51:02 pm

All the things

FWIW the earlier skip I mentioned in 2-2 that requires two consecutive walljumps is the same one that's in the TAS; you never even see the first miniboss by going this route. I'm not familiar enough with the stage to say time differences between just completely skipping the miniboss or encountering then passing the miniboss.

If anybody is curious about damage, most attacks do 1 damage but the crouching nunchaku do 2 and are really quick. The stage 2 bosses have 5 HP each.

With regards to "hovering": not really possible by human hands, but you can pretty reliably slow your descent. I'm not sure where this would be useful yet, but it's good to know. Works pretty well since you have 3 buttons you can mash on to get it going.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-04 10:01:01 pm

2013-05-04 08:19:17 pm

All the things

I'm working on routing the stages while watching zero's speed (7E0015; 2 bytes, signed, little endian). Realistically your max speed seems to be 1796 off of a glide boost, but there are some conditions that allow you to go faster. The problem is that I'm not exactly sure what those conditions are.

I've been able to unreliably get speeds of ~2048, but it's only after longer glides and it seems to have a one-frame window. The TAS achieves speeds up to 2156 or so. That extra bit of speed can mean a lot, but it needs some reliable method to set up for it for me to consider putting it in the route since it would mess up a lot of jumps and other things. In any case, just being able to watch the my speed during routing is a huge help and I'm able to maintain a constant speed of 1796 through both of the beach stages.

EDIT: I should also mention that there's a very awkward effect if you hold a flipkick (L or R) while on a sloped surface. In particular, the very small slopes in the caves will work with this. You'll end up with more height than you would otherwise, although still not as high as a double jump. Still, may be some useful properties to it. Also as stated in the TAS notes, briefly tapping the flipkick while on a downward slope will give a slight boost to your speed (1566 vs 1280).

I'm working on routing the stages while watching zero's speed (7E0015; 2 bytes, signed, little endian). Realistically your max speed seems to be 1796 off of a glide boost, but there are some conditions that allow you to go faster. The problem is that I'm not exactly sure what those conditions are.

I've been able to unreliably get speeds of ~2048, but it's only after longer glides and it seems to have a one-frame window. The TAS achieves speeds up to 2156 or so. That extra bit of speed can mean a lot, but it needs some reliable method to set up for it for me to consider putting it in the route since it would mess up a lot of jumps and other things. In any case, just being able to watch the my speed during routing is a huge help and I'm able to maintain a constant speed of 1796 through both of the beach stages.

EDIT: I should also mention that there's a very awkward effect if you hold a flipkick (L or R) while on a sloped surface. In particular, the very small slopes in the caves will work with this. You'll end up with more height than you would otherwise, although still not as high as a double jump. Still, may be some useful properties to it. Also as stated in the TAS notes, briefly tapping the flipkick while on a downward slope will give a slight boost to your speed (1566 vs 1280).

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-07 09:48:06 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-05-06 11:56:38 am

2013-05-06 11:55:08 am

All the things

I played around with speed stuff a bit more, and I think I'm starting to understand it. The distance you fall doesn't have much effect on your boost speed, but it does have a pretty significant effect on your glide distance. Holding the downward glide for just a few frames longer can increase your horizontal reach by a ton. But again, it doesn't seem to be a primary factor in the boost speed.

Upward sloped surfaces will affect your speed, however. Glide boosting into a slope will give you pretty wildly varying speed; off of the initial slant in Beach-2 I have gotten speeds around 1850 without doing anything special. What's even more peculiar is that this restriction only seems to be for moving to the right; I can consistently get to 2048 with glide boosts to the left. I'll keep playing around with it and see if I can't come up with a good way to set up for 2000+ speeds.

Now about the cave skips. Being able to do the double walljump in Cave-2 would be a huge time savings (~30 sec if first try) but I still don't have a consistent way to do the wall jumps. My consistency is getting better with timing single button presses, but it's still a long way from being able to rely on two in a row. It's about 30 frames after colliding with the wall which seems fine, but I can't think of any rhythms to hit it consistently. Just being able to do one would save time on both of the wall crab minibosses, but only if you hit it in the first two tries. Escaping the first crab is also significantly harder than the second. In light of this it may be better to instead set up for killing one or both of the crabs and getting out of the pit normally. It's much easier to do this on the second since it starts on a platform where you can nunchaku him to death pretty easily. Damage is a concern though; there's no reason a run of this game shouldn't be deathless.

Hopefully I'll have everything routed by next week so I can start streaming attempts. Look forward to it?

EDIT: Cave-2 is such a pain in the ass. I think I'm leaning back toward the double wall jump since it saves so much time and I'd have to do a wall jump anyway going the other route. I've done triple wall jumps a couple of time, but it's still nowhere near consistent. Attempts may be a bit painful.

I played around with speed stuff a bit more, and I think I'm starting to understand it. The distance you fall doesn't have much effect on your boost speed, but it does have a pretty significant effect on your glide distance. Holding the downward glide for just a few frames longer can increase your horizontal reach by a ton. But again, it doesn't seem to be a primary factor in the boost speed.

Upward sloped surfaces will affect your speed, however. Glide boosting into a slope will give you pretty wildly varying speed; off of the initial slant in Beach-2 I have gotten speeds around 1850 without doing anything special. What's even more peculiar is that this restriction only seems to be for moving to the right; I can consistently get to 2048 with glide boosts to the left. I'll keep playing around with it and see if I can't come up with a good way to set up for 2000+ speeds.

Now about the cave skips. Being able to do the double walljump in Cave-2 would be a huge time savings (~30 sec if first try) but I still don't have a consistent way to do the wall jumps. My consistency is getting better with timing single button presses, but it's still a long way from being able to rely on two in a row. It's about 30 frames after colliding with the wall which seems fine, but I can't think of any rhythms to hit it consistently. Just being able to do one would save time on both of the wall crab minibosses, but only if you hit it in the first two tries. Escaping the first crab is also significantly harder than the second. In light of this it may be better to instead set up for killing one or both of the crabs and getting out of the pit normally. It's much easier to do this on the second since it starts on a platform where you can nunchaku him to death pretty easily. Damage is a concern though; there's no reason a run of this game shouldn't be deathless.

Hopefully I'll have everything routed by next week so I can start streaming attempts. Look forward to it?

EDIT: Cave-2 is such a pain in the ass. I think I'm leaning back toward the double wall jump since it saves so much time and I'd have to do a wall jump anyway going the other route. I've done triple wall jumps a couple of time, but it's still nowhere near consistent. Attempts may be a bit painful.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-09 11:31:20 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-05-09 10:57:00 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-05-09 10:52:15 pm

2013-05-09 10:26:10 pm

All the things

I have up through Lava-1 routed, but the new thing I wanted to share is that there are certain parts of the environment that you can glide through but cannot jump into normally. In particular, there's a solid spire in Lava-1 that you can glide into. It tells me a couple things:

-Zips and OoB almost certainly exist for this game, just a question of how useful they would be.
-When stuck in the boundary, you can move left and up, but not right. For example, you can walk normally to the left, but after you can't walk back right.
-Tree level might be interesting if I can find more places for this.

Lastly, this game is going to be a huge pain to get a good run in. That is all.

Some other oddities:

-The jetski sections have slightly variable speed. You go faster when you press forward, typically to about 1568. Your speed can change a bit if you tap it again however, from anywhere between 1544 to 1600. The difference is hardly noticeable to the eye though, but it makes the stage go about 30 frames quicker.
-Also in the jetski stage, falling down certain whirlpools will pause the game? No idea why. You can unpause it normally, but just seems like a really strange thing to happen. Might be useful in some future crazy wrongwarp.

And a new skip in Tree-2. Just before the Dive Test 9, you can wall-jump up to a higher branch that leads directly to the boss. Not even the TAS does this.

I have up through Lava-1 routed, but the new thing I wanted to share is that there are certain parts of the environment that you can glide through but cannot jump into normally. In particular, there's a solid spire in Lava-1 that you can glide into. It tells me a couple things:

-Zips and OoB almost certainly exist for this game, just a question of how useful they would be.
-When stuck in the boundary, you can move left and up, but not right. For example, you can walk normally to the left, but after you can't walk back right.
-Tree level might be interesting if I can find more places for this.

Lastly, this game is going to be a huge pain to get a good run in. That is all.

Some other oddities:

-The jetski sections have slightly variable speed. You go faster when you press forward, typically to about 1568. Your speed can change a bit if you tap it again however, from anywhere between 1544 to 1600. The difference is hardly noticeable to the eye though, but it makes the stage go about 30 frames quicker.
-Also in the jetski stage, falling down certain whirlpools will pause the game? No idea why. You can unpause it normally, but just seems like a really strange thing to happen. Might be useful in some future crazy wrongwarp.

And a new skip in Tree-2. Just before the Dive Test 9, you can wall-jump up to a higher branch that leads directly to the boss. Not even the TAS does this.

Omnigamer

2013-05-10 09:37:08 pm

All the things

I did some runs tonight, with the best coming out at 15:40. This was with an unintentional, very costly game over. It also took some time to get the wall jumps, although I got the double in the cave on about the 5th try. My consistency is going up, but still a ways off. I definitely need to only practice it on console, since the timing is different on emu. But anyway, probably another 2-3 minutes to shave off. I'd really like to see a run in the 12s, but we'll see where things go once I polish up the last couple stages. Unfortunately Zero doesn't work with the Game Saver.

TODO:
-Properly route all of the factory stages and practice the bosses.
-Properly route Tunnels 2 and become more consistent at it.
-Keep practicing wall jumps.
-Polish up Forest 1, and a bit on Forest 2.
-Practice the hell out of Beach 2. No reason I should be missing the transition jump.

I'm considering doing a theory TAS to see what a possible time is using my routes, and then I'll have a better idea for what a submittal estimate will be.

I did some runs tonight, with the best coming out at 15:40. This was with an unintentional, very costly game over. It also took some time to get the wall jumps, although I got the double in the cave on about the 5th try. My consistency is going up, but still a ways off. I definitely need to only practice it on console, since the timing is different on emu. But anyway, probably another 2-3 minutes to shave off. I'd really like to see a run in the 12s, but we'll see where things go once I polish up the last couple stages. Unfortunately Zero doesn't work with the Game Saver.

TODO:
-Properly route all of the factory stages and practice the bosses.
-Properly route Tunnels 2 and become more consistent at it.
-Keep practicing wall jumps.
-Polish up Forest 1, and a bit on Forest 2.
-Practice the hell out of Beach 2. No reason I should be missing the transition jump.

I'm considering doing a theory TAS to see what a possible time is using my routes, and then I'll have a better idea for what a submittal estimate will be.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-12 12:34:52 am

Omnigamer: 2013-05-12 12:33:55 am

Omnigamer: 2013-05-12 12:21:50 am

2013-05-11 10:49:15 pm

All the things

So I've routed the remaining stages and revised a couple other routes. In doing so, I've also discovered a death warp in Factory 2 in addition to clipping through a slope. The latter is not useful, but may be applied elsewhere. The death warp saves a lot of time and puts you in a great spot for starting the boss rush. Basically you just need to do a double jump next to the tesla coil on the 2nd floor then get yourself caught in one of the end rollers. This will warp you over to the trolley. From there you can do some classy spring jumps to get up the hill.

So yeah... I'm really looking forward to getting some runs in to see where the time comes out.

EDIT: I made a quick and dirty theory TAS using my current best routes. I will upload the video soon. It timed out to 11:59 SDA timing; this makes me think that 12:30 would be a good goal. I also timed out the two routes in Cliffs-2: going through the first miniboss costs about 7 seconds if done perfectly compared with a perfect double walljump. So I think I'm going to start going that way instead. The time spent trying to get such perfect execution would probably kill off any gains it would give and drive me insane during attempts.

EDIT2: Video of the theory TAS below. The number on the right side is my horizontal speed.

So I've routed the remaining stages and revised a couple other routes. In doing so, I've also discovered a death warp in Factory 2 in addition to clipping through a slope. The latter is not useful, but may be applied elsewhere. The death warp saves a lot of time and puts you in a great spot for starting the boss rush. Basically you just need to do a double jump next to the tesla coil on the 2nd floor then get yourself caught in one of the end rollers. This will warp you over to the trolley. From there you can do some classy spring jumps to get up the hill.

So yeah... I'm really looking forward to getting some runs in to see where the time comes out.

EDIT: I made a quick and dirty theory TAS using my current best routes. I will upload the video soon. It timed out to 11:59 SDA timing; this makes me think that 12:30 would be a good goal. I also timed out the two routes in Cliffs-2: going through the first miniboss costs about 7 seconds if done perfectly compared with a perfect double walljump. So I think I'm going to start going that way instead. The time spent trying to get such perfect execution would probably kill off any gains it would give and drive me insane during attempts.

EDIT2: Video of the theory TAS below. The number on the right side is my horizontal speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMa6XbIaJyk

mike89

2013-05-12 02:21:27 am

SEGA Junkie

Looks great Omni! Love the AI loop on the lumberjack boss, I really struggled with that one. Smiley

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-14 03:30:20 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-05-14 03:29:37 pm

2013-05-12 11:28:54 pm

All the things

I had a 14:14 last night, but there's still plenty to come off of it. The wall jumps are hit-or-miss; sometimes I get them really quickly, and other times I give up on them. I'm also torn between going for the double wall jump (quicker) or going through the miniboss's chamber (more annoying, only need one wall jump). I can pull off either, just a matter of how my consistency. I also really need to cut down on deaths in Tunnels 1, which is probably the main place I can save time other than Factory 2, which is related. I will definitely shoot for sub-13 and hope to get 12:30, but at this point it's hard to say how realistic that is with all the stuff that can go wrong. In any case, more attempts to come!

EDIT: I have a new route for Tunnels-1, which should help a lot with consistency. One of these days I'll actually time out a cue for the glides in Forest-1 and Forest-2 as well.

Omnigamer

2013-05-15 12:12:29 am

All the things

I hit a 12:47 last night. Getting closer to a respectable time. I will definitely break the 12:30 barrier, but I will have to decide how much lower than that is reasonable.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-05-26 05:14:39 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-05-26 04:35:32 pm

2013-05-25 01:20:01 pm

All the things

New minor route changes for Forest-1 and Cliffs-2 that save 2-3 seconds each and are a lot more consistent. I've also been playing around with the door trigger at the end of Factory 1. cpadolf's TAS is able to enter the room at full speed and skip the trigger to close the door. I've done it once and only once in playing around with it. I will dig in to it a bit more and see what the actual mechanics are behind it. I found the address for its flag, but as best I can tell it's based off of position.

EDIT:
So I've done the instant skip at the end of Factory-1 a few more times, but I still don't have a great idea of the exact conditions. It does depend on your speed, but you don't need to have ridiculous 2000+ speed like i thought before. You should be able to do it with the regular max speed of 1290, but it looks like it's frame-perfect+. Like just having that speed isn't enough to trigger the bug. In any case, you get far enough into the room before the HP of the camera is set and you will just automatically leave the level. It doesn't look feasible for real-time right now.

On the other hand, I have worked on a different strat for that section that is a bit harder but allows me to save some 6-8 seconds if done correctly. I'm going to try to grind it out a bit more and see what happens with it.

EDIT2: Video below.

New minor route changes for Forest-1 and Cliffs-2 that save 2-3 seconds each and are a lot more consistent. I've also been playing around with the door trigger at the end of Factory 1. cpadolf's TAS is able to enter the room at full speed and skip the trigger to close the door. I've done it once and only once in playing around with it. I will dig in to it a bit more and see what the actual mechanics are behind it. I found the address for its flag, but as best I can tell it's based off of position.

EDIT:
So I've done the instant skip at the end of Factory-1 a few more times, but I still don't have a great idea of the exact conditions. It does depend on your speed, but you don't need to have ridiculous 2000+ speed like i thought before. You should be able to do it with the regular max speed of 1290, but it looks like it's frame-perfect+. Like just having that speed isn't enough to trigger the bug. In any case, you get far enough into the room before the HP of the camera is set and you will just automatically leave the level. It doesn't look feasible for real-time right now.

On the other hand, I have worked on a different strat for that section that is a bit harder but allows me to save some 6-8 seconds if done correctly. I'm going to try to grind it out a bit more and see what happens with it.

EDIT2: Video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZjR2KmcDnA

Omnigamer

2013-05-31 03:53:12 pm

All the things

Some notes from SGL last night:

-I timed out Jorf's method for climbing up the initial trees in Forest 1. If done perfectly, it is pretty much even with the average case for my old method. I say old because in testing everything out I found an even faster route that is about 1 second faster than either Smiley

-Changed up the jumping pattern in the final section of Tunnels 1 (right after the cannonballs). No more difficult, but saves probably half a second.
-Some small optimizations in Cliffs 2, mainly just making better use of acceleration.

I should stream more attempts soon. I think the bar has been raised (lowered?) to sub-12:15, so I have a ways to go.

JordanParks

2014-01-11 05:32:20 pm

Glad to see new strats have been found. So in a perfect run it's looking like sub 12 is possible?

Omnigamer

2014-01-12 01:28:47 am

All the things

Sub 12 is very possible, and was my initial goal before I fell out of practice. 1145 is probably a high end goal using the vest known real time strats.

JordanParks

2014-01-12 03:42:36 pm

Oh wow, and I thought I was doing good when I had sub 15 for the first time. That double wall jump to avoid the first boss in 2-2 is what gets me usually, but I haven't compared alternate routes in that stage to see how much time you actually save. It's pretty comparable if you just go right and get inside the first wall boss and use the Nun-Chuck to kill him quickly. I have been using my timer from when I first hit START to the last hit on Ektor but I noticed you had a delay set so it starts 7 seconds after the START selection (first in game movements), is this the general consensus on when to start?