Hello, T+J community!

I was wondering if anybody had tried speedrunning the game Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics! for Sega Genesis. I don't see it listed here, and I was thinking of giving it a shot.

It's a simple platformer - get from Point A to Point B. There are very few actual forks in the road, but most screens have a few different "routes" based on whether you run along the ground or on platforms above. I imagine routing would be about maximizing the amount of time you can stay at a sprint. Additionally, there is a co-op mode in which both players share one screen, so you have to stay within a screen of each other or else one of you can't move. I wonder whether there's a way to abuse death to cause zips.

There are a few other things I've noticed. Damage doesn't stop your momentum when you are jumping, ladders are kind of broken (though seemingly not in any useful ways), and you can trigger some events (e.g. wrecking balls in Level 2) if the screen passes over the trigger, not necessarily your sprite. Thus, not damage boosting per se, but choosing when to take damage, could yield some opportunity to optimize times.

Is the game too linear to be an interesting run? I don't own capture equipment at the moment so I don't even know what use I could be to the community, but do let me know if anyone decides to do a run! I am bad at games, so I'd love to see this one blazed through.

No, you're right - it's me that's dumb. Not everybody uses the subtitles on their runs, and now I remember seeing them one time when someone (maybe Usiku?) was airswimming back to CC. Which is why I didn't bring it up. In the month and a half since I saw it, I forgot that part but remembered my own experience. All that was different was that I was on solid ground.

Edit: Granted, maybe I'm still not remembering this correctly/remembering the right spot? For the record, the scene I'm talking about starts with that whole "Hey there, little fella" deal, and I didn't even get as far as the gate before falling through.

I've seen that Google Doc, Narbe. I was thinking something literally in a database form, and including events that aren't currently glitched, for the purpose of doing find and sort functions. (In case it was helpful to pull up a list of every event in the game that will not activate without Tricky, then sort it by map, then sort it by SpellStone, etc.) I think based on Bamboocha's thought, though, it's going to be low priority. Congrats on sub-5, Bamboocha!

I forgot to mention this an eternity ago, but I got into that falling state while walking from ThornTail Hollow to LightFoot Village. I don't know if it was just a wrong loading or what. I had returned the first two SpellStones out of order; is it possible that certain areas registered me as on SpellStone 2 while others registered me as having completed it? The game actually played the subtitles for the cut-scene where you get mugged and imprisoned in the village as I fell into glitchy purgatory, so I guess it just didn't have one of the LightFoot models it was trying to call? I only bring this up in case something similar would be useful for maps that have multiple instances - any thoughts?

Edit: By "something similar," I just mean any situation where different accomplishments affect triggers differently around the game world, creating discrepancies in how far the game thinks you are. I definitely don't mean doing part of a ForcePoint Temple, then abandoning it to run clear across Dinosaur Planet. I guess my question, at its most succinct: is it likely that the game would overwrite some things if you accomplish an "early-game" task after a "late-game" one?

Bamboocha, that's exactly what I meant, and I was thinking of doing that for just about every event, not just the ones that are currently used for sequence breaking. For that reason, I would also want to include whatever is required for that cut-scene or event to play.

An example format would be: Column A: Cutscene/event description Column B: Cutscene/event location Column C: Item/state requirements Column D: Tricky Required? (Y/N) Column E: Result

I'm just wondering if having that data laid out in a systematic way would be helpful in generating new possibilities to try. Matches between Column E and Column C could be helpful to see laid out. That said, since you all have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the relationships between events already, maybe it wouldn't be of much use.

Man, I disappear for a month and stuff gets interesting! Clearly I should just keep away! :)

My spring break is in about two and a half weeks, and I was thinking of doing a cross between a casual run and some exploring/tinkering then. Since I'm not so innovative, would it be any use to anyone if I made a spreadsheet on Google Docs that we could update with information about every cutscene and any other trigger/state changes? Even if that doesn't lead to new discoveries, having a spreadsheet and a codified way of entering data would mean that we could do a sort, and pull up every moment in the game that has a certain factor in common. Then again, is this information that you already just pull from the game code when running emulator tests?

Also, I'm suddenly interested again in a way into Cape Claw while still swimming. Narbe, that one time I popped in your livestream, you mentioned that the ladder down the well is where the game loads CC. Does that mean Fox has to actually be in the climbing state to trigger it? Is there a way to trigger it, while still swimming, without getting stuck in that center column? I know there are too many reasons it won't work, but there's something irresistible about the idea of just swimming around all the puzzles and to the temple door. (I have to believe the SpellStone cutscenes are how the game loads the temple, so I won't get too greedy with my delusions!)

Man, suddenly I feel behind the eight ball, like I missed a major update. Does the new Ground Quake skip you found already render the first SpellStone moot? I'm surprised that Krazoa 2 early would still be slower - are you saying that you know it to be impossible without Ice Blast, or that you know it wouldn't trigger anything?

I also don't quite understand what's going on in that video (sorry, I'm really behind!) as far as the movement mechanics to get Fox into that room. That would be amazing, though - if you pick up the first one, will the game then make the LightFoot appear with the other one?

I'm not 100% positive, to be honest, but I have three half-formed ideas:

1. Ground Quake Early, if there's a way around that door. Save warp?

2. You could bypass getting the Mountain Pass Key, which at the very least skips the Fire Weed task and possibly offers other sequence breaks.

3. Rather than Krazoa 2 Skip, what about Krazoa 2 Early? I know there's a flame you're supposed to put out, and I don't actually know if you can just go through it like the ones on CloudRunner Fortress, so sorry if this is a bad suggestion. Otherwise, though, nothing would be stopping you from getting Krazoa 2 basically first thing, and I'm wondering whether that might not set the game to be steering you toward SpellStone 2, cutting out the first quarter of the game.

That's really cool! I still think that there's gotta be some way to profit from getting to Moon Mountain Pass while out-of-bounds. I could tinker with this some tomorrow morning. Has anybody else tried getting there via swim? You can get that passageway to load, but I don't know where the loading zone for MMP is.

Here's my novel manuscript based on that fun little chat tonight:

http://pastebin.com/ysLmShhj

I'm right there with you, Saos. I'm not a speedrunner myself, just riveted by the community and love learning the glitches, but this is one I'd love to learn. I actually just created an account on this site just so I could respond to you, because I was so glad that I'm not the only interested person who doesn't already run the game.

I've had two ideas for about a month that are just expansions of known glitches and tricks, but I haven't seen any mention of them being used online the way I think they might be possible. I'm assuming they're already known to be impossible, or just don't actually cut time, but maybe not?

I have a dummy account that I just kind of leave in the background of #Starfox on SRL IRC, just in case anyone ever were to start chatting about adventures. If you catch my nick there, please do reach out? I'd love to see what exploring is possible.