General Tips and Tricks

This guide will contain some tips one should use in order to save time during a run.

All Mini games: 
You should(if the rules allow it) reset the mini game to get a better initial starting position for the first letter.

All cut scenes can be skipped with start.

You can press start immediately after you hit right to go to the next minigame.

Proof of concept

I was interested in speedrunning this game and I though that some things could be improved, 
Using a TAS tool I managed to prove several things that could be used to improve the run.



--- 1, It's not necessary to mash the right button to spin the balls faster ---

Imagine the speed of the balls as the settings on a fan, pressing once on the right button makes the balls rotate at a constant higher speed. As pressing left makes them spin at a slower speed. 

Holding the right button won't automatically reach the fastest speed tho, mashing until you don't see any noticeable speed change is the easiest way to save time RTA, but then you no longer need to do it, the speed remains the same after each ball is picked;

The ball speed defaults to what I later explain as "lvl 4" once you re-enter a game.

Technicalities:
A full revolution of the balls rotating has 256 frames of animation
there are 9 different speeds the balls can rotate.
considering the initial unchanged speed as the game starts as "lvl 4":

lvl 1 - ball rotation updates every 10 frames 
lvl 2 - ball rotation updates every 9 frames
lvl 3 - ball rotation updates every 8 frames
lvl 4 - ball rotation updates every 7 frames
(and so on)
lvl 9 - ball rotation updates every other frame

So to reach from the initial lvl 4 to lvl 9. you need to press the right button 6 times. 



--- 2. When you pick the ball matters ---

There is a 51 frame window where pressing the A or B button selects the ball that's on the bottom
Followed by 41 frames where pressing buttons won't pick any ball
(approximated frame counting)

The time it takes the ball to go from the wheel to the bin on the left side is almost identical if you pick the ball on the very first or the very last frame possible.

Although, if the ball is picked at the very first frame (as done on the current wr) there is a significant time loss by not allowing the wheel to rotate further before you pick the ball. 

In the following video I recorded two TAS and overlaid the recordings over each other.
On one recording I pick the "Y" ball on the very first frame possible, and on the other recording I do it on the very last possible frame. 
Then, if we consider the "A" ball the last one of the bin (I didn't do all three for simplicity) you can notice the difference in time the ball takes to reach the bin.

https://youtu.be/ZRpkfDGjDhA

In both recordings After the "Y" ball is picked, the "A" ball is then picked at the first possible frame to visually show the difference in time.

In conclusion of this, only the last ball of each game saves time by picking it on the very first frame possible, all previous balls should be picked on the very last frame possible instead.



--- 3. The game's RNG is weird ---

By using savestates and the TAS tool, I noticed that even though the letters used on the balls seem to be uncontrolable RNG, the position of the set of balls that are considered correct always starts on a fixed point on the wheel when the game starts regardless of when you select the stage. 

In other words, taking the previous video as an example, I made a savestate before entering the "A=A" stage,
the order of the balls were "Y" then "A" then "X". and the wheel started those letters on the following position:
https://i.imgur.com/JxA6baw.png

If I would reload my savestate, wait a bit, and then start the game. The letters in the balls would be diferent, but the position of the first, second and third ball is the exact same. (I even managed to get a savestate with the same "A=A" pattern as the current WR )

Tho if I would reload the same savestate, hop on to the "a=a" level, quit out, and then go to the "A=A" level. then the position of the balls would be different. The same thing if I would power cicle the console (reset emulator).

---

So far these are the three main things I've managed to confirm. I'm currently working on more TAS for this game to see if there is a possible way of RNG manipulation.

RNG Manipulation

Cool beans,
I'm happy to say a big part of this speedrun can be RNG manipulated, 

(there's a tl;dr at the end for those solely interested in knowing the optimal route as of now)

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[UPDATE 13/01/2019]

I started putting in practice what I stated below and I'm seeing things work in a very different way then expected.
A new thing I'm noticing is that quitting out of a game is not advancing the cycle of patterns as I initially predicted it.
If a game is played throughout (all three balls collected, screen transitions by itself) then, the cycles move as expected,
But if the game is quit (not sure if there is a difference between) before the balls load into view or after only one ball is collected the cycles don't advance as normal.
For now I'll just leave here that entering stage A=A after resetting the game gives pattern A1, and if quit out the following pattern is A6, I've not confirmed this by testing it several times. 

More studying later.

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[UPDATE 16/01/2019]

Uff, so I'm glad to say my mistake wasn't too bad,
I was only missing a piece of information that I will document in this update; It is true it will make the following sections obsolete but I'll label them accordingly and since there won't be much more to update from here I'll leave them just in case the information is useful to anyone.

When Start is pressed, depending on when you do it inside the Ball picking game, the cycle which comes next gets incremented by 5, 10 or 15. 
The moments where this happens depends on if you picked a ball or not. 

Explaining with an example. If you just turned on the game and enter A=A, the first patterns appears (A1)
If you press start to exit the game to the main menu:
- before the first ball is picked --> the pattern you'll get if you enter A=A, a=a or a=A/a will be A6 (A1 +5 = A6)
- after the first ball is picked --> the pattern you'll get if you enter A=A, a=a or a=A/a will be A3* (A1 +10 = A3*)
- after the second ball is picked --> the pattern you'll get if you enter A=A, a=a or a=A/a will be A2 (A1 +15 = A2)

it's still correct that if you let the game send you to the next game the pattern is simply the next one in sequence (A1 +1 = A2)

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[ARTICLE 1]

Stages "A=A". "a=a" and "a=A/a" are manipulable, though unfortunately I've not been able to find a predictable pattern on any of the remaining stages. (This means for now there will still be a good part of RNG to the run as is so far)

There are 13 patterns that the first three stages cycle through from the moment the game is turned on.
The pattern that will appear on the game advances in sequence every time you enter the "ball" juggling game. 

A1 is the pattern you will get regardless if you first enter "A=A", "a=a" or "a=A/a"

If I label the initial position of the balls as they appear before moving like so:
https://i.imgur.com/JCbxbrm.png

The patterns are as follows:
https://i.imgur.com/L6AQpYI.png
(notice how there's 14 on the image, though pattern 3 (A3) is the same as pattern 11)

The patterns as I mentioned cycle, meaning after pattern A13 comes A1, and it loops,

To the right of each pattern is a count I made of how many frames it takes for a perfect run of each of them
This initially proves that pattern A7 is the fastest.

Resetting a pattern and reentering the same stage loses approximately 100 frames of time

[OBSOLETE INFORMATION, skipping alters patterns as mentioned previously]
T̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶"̶I̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶X̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶,̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶?̶"̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶l̶l̶o̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶:̶
https://i.imgur.com/b3MdKe5.png

O̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶f̶t̶,̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶s̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶(̶f̶r̶)̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶w̶e̶e̶n̶.̶

 ̶A̶n̶ ̶e̶x̶a̶m̶p̶l̶e̶:̶ ̶ ̶
i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶A̶2̶ ̶(̶1̶8̶0̶8̶ ̶f̶r̶)̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶A̶3̶ ̶(̶2̶2̶3̶7̶)̶ ̶f̶r̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶4̶0̶4̶5̶ ̶f̶r̶
I̶f̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶d̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶A̶3̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶A̶6̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶A̶7̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶3̶7̶6̶2̶ ̶f̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶
(̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶4̶x̶1̶0̶0̶ ̶f̶r̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶)̶


A̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶i̶f̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶ ̶d̶e̶p̶e̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶:̶
https://i.imgur.com/3vcCcS9.png

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[ARTICLE 2]
[OBSOLETE INFORMATION, skipping alters patterns as mentioned previously]

T̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶o̶r̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶A̶n̶y̶%̶ ̶n̶o̶r̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶%̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶,̶ ̶.
A̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶%̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶o̶w̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶l̶s̶e̶ ̶e̶l̶m̶o̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶r̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶
A̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶%̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶1̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶.̶

T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶l̶l̶o̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶%̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶e̶s̶t̶:̶
https://i.imgur.com/ReyDAYG.png

A̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶i̶f̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶:̶
https://i.imgur.com/RBkfbGa.png


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[ARTICLE 3]
This information is mainly important for Any%

This table reflects the fact once on a pattern, finishing it advances the patterns by one, but when quitting out of the stage the patterns get incremented by 5 after the first increment.
https://i.imgur.com/GgtRCqG.png

A simplified table:
https://i.imgur.com/rZeJMgb.png

I wonder if this is coincidence, but these patterns loop, meaning technically A5, A7 and A12 are all ideal patterns to begin your run in, but A7 is the easiest to reach from booting up the game
https://i.imgur.com/j8gFqtv.png

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Finally, the ideal route so far is as follows:

Any%

Boot up game -> enter A=A (A1) -> play and let the game send you to the second game (A2)
Quit out to main menu before picking any ball.
 --- You are ready to start the run ---
Enter and play A=A (A7) -> quit out once second game starts (A8)
Enter and play a=a (A12) -> quit out once second game starts (A13)
Enter and play a=A/a (A5) -> quit out once second game starts (A6)
and then you're on your own for the next stages, good luck!

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100%
[UNDER CALCULATIONS]

Nome	Autore
General Tips and Tricks	Slamphibian 7 years ago
Proof of concept	Tobür 6 years ago
RNG Manipulation	Tobür 5 years ago