New York, USAIf anyone is interested here is the run I did offline yesterday. I will be doing more attempts live now that I know for certain this can be done.
I have completed a run without killing any enemies (other than the bosses, of course). Would you mind adding a category so I may submit the run? I am more than happy to talk about my strats, and I look forward to other people running this category as well.
I appreciate the honest reply. I definitely believe I can at least complete a single loop, and with a little luck maybe the 2 loop. I also just wanted to know as much as possible for when I run this game next week for a friends Halloween event.
Do the categories allow for you to use the A+Start command to pick up from the level where you game over? Sorry if I missed this information elsewhere, though I did look and could not find any reference to 1cc or anything like it. Thanks, and I look forward to running this mega-classic!
Thank you all for your patience! The board is now live with each ending being tracked as Individual Levels, and a full run category for those who want to find the fastest way to get All Endings. We look forward to watching your runs, have a great time and a Happy Halloween!
Hey everyone! We will be getting the categories set up very soon, just nailing down a few details over the busy weekend. We will update the board ASAP, thank you for showing so much interest already. We look forward to watching/verifying your runs, and appreciate the suggestions!
This is pulled directly from the SpeedDemosArchive KnowledgeBase, which I feel deserves to be distinctly posted here in the forum. My own thoughts on the matter are presented after.
"There are several differences between the ntsc-u and ntsc-j versions. The difficulty of this game (without a walkthrough) is absolutely ludicrous. My guess is that someone tried to tone down the difficulty a notch or two before releasing the game in the US (it's still ridiculous though). Anyways, some items have been moved around, some blocks take more jumps to destroy in the Japanese version etc. For the best ending category, this means that it's meaningless to compare the two versions. For the normal ending, you have to make five block breaking jumps more in the j-version. These extra jumps also mean that an extra mighty coin is needed in the j-version. This equals roughly an additional 3 seconds or so (depending on how fast one is to break blocks). On the other hand, there is a chest in round 17 (room 17-2 to be more exact) that is visible in the j-version but not in the u-version. That room is roughly 1 second faster on the j-version. So overall, the u-version has a few seconds advantage over the j-version, but one should probably not compare the two versions down to the second."
Although the difference in time seems negligible I feel this is enough to cause runners to alter their approach to each version of the game, thereby necessitating a split in the NES & Japan releases. From what I understand there is a possibility that the Europe releases have even more variables so this is being further explored after the NES/Japan category split is finished.
Hello! Stepping in to clean up this board and make it an inviting place for new & returning runners.
Immediate updates include: adding Switch to the platforms as previously requested, and considering new categories specific to the Famicom version as there are significant differences in performance (numbers of jumps to reveal hidden blocks, etc.) which will be further explained in another post here and/or in another section as appropriate.
I will also be adding another mod as I believe every game should have a minimum of two active mods at all times. Let's get this game some more love and everyone have a great time playing it!
Hey all, something I should have done when I added Cauldron% was to update the wording for any% rules.
Some may be confused as to the final text screen, so to clarify: you must "beat the boss" by using an Apply jellybean on the glitched boss room screen. After the Blob transforms back to normal form the final message is displayed and you may stop your timer.
Any other questions or concerns may be directed towards myself :)
The category is Cauldron% with two sub-categories. [credit:Polsvoice]
Based on the any% run except you run right after falling into the credits instead of going left.
As you proceed to the right you will pass through glitch screens that exist solely as continuity for the games mapping. Much exploring could probably be done if anyone is interested, though I currently have no clues.
Keep running right, there is a story that repeats as you proceed that builds on itself as you go further. It is supposed to be a joke though it seems to be translated strangely and is said to be possibly dirty?
As you approach the Cauldron you can either:
Death Warp: Run into the flames and respawn up near the switch.
No Death Warp: Use the Trampoline (or whatever?) to reach the switch without dying.
There is hopefully at least one more category in mind for the future, though it is going to take a fair amount of experimenting/exploring. But for now, please enjoy Cauldron%
I agree with that ruling, and I appreciate you letting it fly for now. I think we will have to get together on a more well-tested emulator and hopefully crack the sub20 mark.
Hello everyone! I am here to breathe some life into this fantastic game, and to do that I will be looking into a possibly new start timing. This game has a similar questionable start timing so I may have to measure the timing from start press to character appearance/control and recommend runners use a delay on their timers. In any case I plan on frame-counting runs just to stay on top of things in the event that the podium becomes a tight race.
Other than the possible new start timing (and the retimes to follow) I would like to try and introduce a new category. Either 100% or All Water Cans, or possibly both? The bonus rounds after the levels/boss fights would be up for debate in 100% because the presents seemed randomized and may possibly make it impossible in certain instances to grab every item.
I would also like to introduce DarthTyrael as a mod. as well, he is someone who can be trusted to uphold the rules and perform timely run verifications to the same golden standard as myself.
As of today I am all done re-timing both categories on the board. I added Polsvoice as a moderator so we can have two active mods on this board (hoping to hear from Zephyrz as they were crucial in teaching many how to run this game from what I learned) and hopefully we can breathe some new life into this board with new and returning runners.
If anyone has any questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise please feel free to reach out to me using this sites DMs :)
As I work my way backwards through the board to re-time obsoleted and final run times I am noticing a few things:
- Not everyone uses the most recent rule for the ending time (prior to 4/22/2022 update), leading me to believe the ending time rule must have changed more than once throughout the years before I got here.
- Some runs seem to have other small errors or oversights that require me to make a judgement call on the fate of the run, be it obsolete or otherwise.
In most every case I will try to reach out if the impact is on a final submission though in some cases I have decided to make the call be it to re-time with a note or reject the run with a note. If you feel you would like more explanation please contact me through this sites messaging system :)
A simple coordinate display can be enabled with the Game Genie codes XAKKEZXY UGKKOXXK. Note that all other status bar updates will be disabled until you change screens, due to a lack of Vblank time.
The first set of values is for the boy, and the second set is for the Blob. Each value represents the character's current screen number, X position, and Y position, respectively.
(I think there would be at least a few people who could get some use/fun out of this!)
An early preview of the game in Nintendo Power featured a grape jellybean that turned Blobert into a wall, instead of the ketchup one featured in the final. A later issue then revealed a "code" to turn him into a wall by giving him a honey jellybean then switching to ketchup and tossing one in the opposite direction while the blob is transforming. This will result in a brick wall, which no longer has any use in the game.
Category name update to better reflect the requirement of the run. Grabbing all the treasures for verification, as well as the vitamins from the health store to defeat the final boss.
If it turns out that you can buy the vitamins with anything less than all 22 treasures than a new category could be on our hands. We will tackle this as/when it comes up.
The times, they are a changing... No, literally. As I gain more experience as a mod I can start to see the need for a better Start time.
Since not everyone uses an input display (an extra piece of equipment for those on real hardware) and the original Start time is based on pushing the start button I feel like that is not the most solid way to time the run.
As per the run I received this morning (4/22/2022) I feel like the more reliable (findable, provable) start timing for this wonderful game should be after pressing start at the first appearance of the Blob.
I noticed there are a few frames between the title screen transition to the screen with your house/street, but then it's a few more frames before The Boy and The Blob appear on screen (including the icon next to the lives, which appears at the same time).
So it is on me to go through and re-time all the runs on this board, mostly it will be a matter of milliseconds but still, this is a short game and every frame counts.
I expect this will take my entire weekend. To help I plan on adding another mod. who has helped me mount this task before.
So if you notice the board is all shook up and looks wrong, please be patient! I will post again here in the forum when it is completed so everyone knows all is well.
As of April 3, 2022: the rules for the end timer have been changed to reflect a more accurate means of measuring the runs. Current times on the board are being retimed to fall in line with future submissions. Thank you all for your time and effort in making this game and its speedruns take off like a rocket!
Thanks everyone for all the confirmation. I wasn't recording so I couldn't be entirely sure, it all happened so fast and I was confused. But I am happy to hear that was indeed was happened, I don't think I will be getting that in a run any time soon :)
