0xDEAFC0DE

But at this rate, I'll never get to read that red book from Kringle Krisis. 

On 12/20/2021 at 4:29 PM, spacepup said:

I also associate @ZeldaFreak and @ZeldaFan042 with Zelda games for some reason.

Hey! Now I'm the remaining Zelda King. Hahaha. No one could stop be now.

(also random aside 12/02/2021 will be the last palindromic date until 2030 at least with the MM/DD/YYYY format)

So, uh... I guess we can have a party now that the parents (Mods/Admins) are gone?

Apparently, the site is having DNS problems hence why there has only been two posts in the last 11 hours. For some reason it still works for me (at least on my desktop, it doesn't on my phone). So, if anyone is curious where everyone else has gone, you are one of the lucky ones that still has access to the site.

9 hours ago, G-type said:

> Examine red-and-white striped pole

That’s the North Pole, the northernmost place on Earth. There’s no tinsel covering the pole—that would be distracting.

Looks like we need tinsel from somewhere to beat the yeti. Maybe Santa's Workshop or Santa's House.

> Examine Book
> Take Book
> North/West
> North/West
> North
> East (to Santa's Workshop)
> Ask elf about tinsel

My map btw

+------------+   +------------+   +------------+
|   Cookie   | - | North Pole | - |  Santa's   |
|  Factory   | - |  (Start)   | - |  Workshop  |
+------------+   +------------+   +------------+
                       ||       \
+------------+   +------------+  \
|  Santa's   | - |  Santa's   |   \
|  Old Barn  | - |   House    |    \
+------------+   +------------+     \
      ||                             \
+------------+                    +------------+
|  Reindeer  | ------------------ | Candy Cane |
|  Paddock   | ------------------ |   Forest   |
+------------+                    +------------+
                                                 \
                                                   +------------+                    +------------+
                                                   | Ice Cream  |                    |    Yeti    |
                                                   |   Desert   |                    |  Mountain  |
                                                   +------------+                    +------------+
                                                                  \                        ^^
                                                                    +------------+   +------------+
                                                                    |  Gumdrop   | - | Sugarplum  |
                                                                    |    Sea     | - |    Isle    |
                                                                    +------------+   +------------+

Sorry I missed this thread for awhile and then didn't have time to catch up.

> Examine chick
> Ask Yeti about chick
> Ask Mrs. Claus about chick
> Out
> North (to North Pole)
> Examine red-and-white striped pole
> Question why their are directions other than south at the north pole
> South
> West
> South (To paddock)
> Take carrot
> East
> Ask Yeti to fell a candy cane
> South/East
> Examine Desert
> South/East
> Examine Polar bear

Just got my package as well!

48 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

isnt it 4th print?

1. TM

2. 5 screw, R, no rev-A

3. 3 screw, R, no rev-A

4. rev-A

oh well, who's really counting, certainly not those "investors" 

It's actually most likely the sixth variant box. It could be anywhere between 4th-6th variant based on only the front of the box but the 6th variant is far more common than the rest. Even looking at the back of the box we couldn't differentiate between the 5th and 6th variants because the only difference is on the box flaps that are sealed away. 

Also I should mention this is only talking about box variants. If you include things like how many screws in the cart, you also have to include things like the TM manual variant. So the three no rev-A box variants are NES TM, NES R old screenshot, and NES R new screenshot. 

But really none of this matters as the one that sold for $870k was a third box variant anyway. 

15 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Bummer, if I had used your firebug strat I would have beat him...  

After watching your video I realized my problem is I try to kill too many things when skipping them is faster. This stems from when I causally play games my natural instinct is to kill all enemies. 

34 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Okay, I've posted my scores on page 1; @0xDEAFC0DE too bad your 15 second better score died on the Joker...

I went back and checked the video of my failed run and I was two seconds ahead of you going into the Joker fight, so it definitely would have been a close one. 

11 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Okay, I've posted my scores on page 1; @0xDEAFC0DE too bad your 15 second better score died on the Joker...

Looks like it doesn't matter anyway considering Bert. Crazy that we are all within 30 seconds of each other. 

Now I'm going to see what you did differently in your video. 

6 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Just watched: wow your firebug strat is pretty quick and 100% safe, that would knock 40 seconds off my run.  And I didn't know you could de-spawn all the dudes in the clocktower like that, but I don't think it saves any time, though it conserves possible loss of health bars.

Anyway, great run.  I'll post mine shortly...

The firebug strat isn't 100% safe. Sometimes he just decides to punch you and I've never figured out what causes it. In the video I got lucky and he never did it. 

I figured all of the clocktower enemies could be despawned, it was just a matter of figuring out the setup. It's definitely slightly slower but safer. But strats like that let me skip all the droppers. 

 I guess it's time to post my results.

Batman: Completed, 15:28

I'm not entirely sure on what the timing is supposed to be, so feel free to retime. Here's the video description with notes on the run:

Macross: 999,900 = 9 points

I didn't even intend to hit 999,900 exactly, but it lined up perfectly. Thank god the shooter was easy because I normally suck at them.

Oops, posted a bit early.

I tried a couple more times and improved by 30ish seconds. I've had a run die on Joker that would have been 15 seconds faster than this one, but I've about hit my limit for the week.

19 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Are you using the "quick kill" strat for Firebug?  I can't get that one down so I'm cheesing him the slow way, which adds on almost a minute to my run.  If you've got Firebug figured out, you'll surely beat my time.  But either way, I've got a decently clean run outside of that one boss (and those damn jumping demons), and I plan on watching football all day, so I've already reached my final time as well...

I definitely don't do the quick kill as I found it too risky. But it looks like I'm still doing it a bit faster than you. I kill him in 32 seconds in my run.

1 hour ago, docile tapeworm said:

Has anyone asked “why is Batman purple?” Lol

I've had the same thought. I assume the answer is the NES palette is limited.

In other news, I finally got a run on a decent pace through to the end. No clue if it's fast enough to beat Bert and Ernie, but I'm happy with it at least. I've had slightly faster runs die to Joker, but they were only ~15 seconds faster. I could probably clean up another 15 seconds on top of that, but if I want to go much faster than that, I'll need to go for better and possibly risker strats. Not sure how much time (if any) I'll spend on it tomorrow, so I may have reached my final time.

1 minute ago, docile tapeworm said:

You guys no death this thing yet?

Yeah I did yesterday. For some reason, today I keep losing runs to Joker even though I was beating him consistently before. I've gone back at figured out a better strategy I think, so I'll see if I can get some faster runs done.

4 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

What, for the next time we play Batman?

No, I mean if someone where to post a decent video of them beating Batman now, the others could learn from it to do better before Sunday's deadline.

7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Another reason to hold off posting.  Although in fairness, Batman has been done to death online, so I doubt any of us has come up with something better

Yes and no. Of course there are hundreds of completion videos, but not many of them are people trying to speedrun Batman at our level. I can't learn a whole lot from watching the WR speedrun, because there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to learn all that in a week. Whereas, I'm sure we all have some of our own strats that aren't optimal, but still pretty fast while being consistent.

1 hour ago, docile tapeworm said:

That’s always the deal with posting any score early on any given week.

Why would it matter if it’s a video or just a picture? Is posting just a picture an acceptable entry?

not only is Bert’s time for Batman gonna be good he probably beat the other game too. That’s the idea I would be playing with anyway if I was in.

The difference with a video is your opponents can watch that video and possibly discover better strats that might help them beat you. 

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

No, but I came very close numerous times tonight, so it's just a matter of time.  I get to the Joker on one life over 50% of the time now, so I've memorized my run... much like you, I'll try and optimize it after I've accomplished the no-death run.  Once I've done that, I'll start taking major chances and hope for health drops and whatnot, see if I can brute-force a fluky run...

Honestly, Stage 3 is the hardest part of the game for me: Stage's 1 & 2 are cake, as are Stage's 4 & 5 - even the Stage 3 boss is the only one I have trouble with outside of the Joker.  I don't have a strategy for him other than button mashing, so if I get there with less than half life, he takes me down.  Whenever I get my no-death through Stage 3, it goes straight to the Joker...

Huh, interesting. I'm actually not that bad at the joker and the stage 3 boss I have no problems with. Although, I button mash him too and farm the dropper before if I don't have the health. I know how to kill him no damage but it's way too slow. The stage 4 boss is the one I hate as I'm not consistent. 

7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Well, I'm still getting to 3-1, but at least I shaved some time off my run.  Not gonna bother updating though, I know I can do infinitely better, but I do need to find a way to conserve some ammo on the level 2 boss...and to get around the timing of the jumping gorilla dudes as well.  Those beasts are assholes!

@0xDEAFC0DE Yeah, most of those pointers I more or less figured out, but the first gear wall on 2-3 is a great tip...now if only I could pull off the jump properly   Thanks for the tip on 1-2 as well, as I knew you could despawn them, just didn't know exactly where they despawn   The dropper is probably a more reliable method of gaining health than the end of 2-3 where I usually do it, but man, I just can't seem to figure out the best way to do it without getting murdered   This game is pissing me off though...it's like I can do shit right, but I keep fucking up the execution on it.  Like every goddamn time.

My strategy with getting out of the level 2 boss with ammo is just to go into it with nearly full ammo. And yeah the jumping enemies suck. The best way to farm the droppers is to keep just the right distance away that you can still hit them while they are falling. 

4 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

I just woke up wondering Is wampson going for four in a row?

Lol, I wouldn't be surprised. 

7 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

My progress is posted already.  Nothing new to report.

I'm watching your run now. I use the batarang by default on most enemies. I find it's way easier than punching as it requires less precision and you tend to gain more ammo than you lose. To despawn the spike cars in the upper left of 1-2 you need to jump on the platform a bit further to the right. I wouldn't recommend farming for health on those enemies in 2-2 (but if you do it's probably easier with the batarang). If you can hold out there's a dropper in 2-3 (which I actually didn't know you could destroy, I stun it instead and make a break for it). To jump past the gear wall drop a bit later in 2-3, you have to make sure you aren't pressing a direction on the D-pad to get full air control to avoid the gears. For the level 2 boss you can stand just to the left of the electric pole when hitting the second weak point.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I think whoever has the balls to run through those jumping demons on Stage three will win, as that's the only spot in my run that I'm actually at a standstill... but if you've already got that covered then you're ahead of me...

Lol, definitely not. I still cheese the hell out of those. It's probably where I lose the most time compared to the speedrun.

Have you got a no-death run yet?

And I completed a no death run. Then I tried again and got one 3 minutes faster. That one had no major mistakes but had time to save everywhere. Plus there are probably faster strats I can start using now that I'm more comfortable with the game.

But I should probably also stop procrastinating and start working on Macross. 

How's everyone else doing?

Still haven't started Macross, but tomorrow I'll be ready to record my full game runs of Batman. I feel confident I'll be able to do a fast-ish no death run eventually. I tried another one at the end of the night and only had one stupid death in 5-1 (didn't time it but it felt around 20 minutes).

1 hour ago, the_wizard_666 said:

True, although neither is "ain't" and yet everyone knows what that means

Some cursory research has shown that the term was coined in the late 80s to describe games like Mario, but it encompassed everything from Contra to Donkey Kong.  Literally anything with platforms to run on and jumping mechanics.  Hence why it shouldn't be a separate genre from "action."  Of course, this is best left to the off-season, as it's just semantics with regard to the competition right now.  Just more of a commentary on why @0xDEAFC0DE is actually good at a "platform" game

I'm a mixed bag when it comes to platformers. Some I'm good at and some I suck at. It probably helps I'm applying myself more than normal given this is the finals. Still, even if I do well at Batman, I'll probably fail miserably at Macross. I haven't even touched it yet.