Game Boy Weekly Contest Round 7: Sneaky Snakes

[Red | 435]

Hello and welcome to the seventh round of the Game Boy Weekly Contest!  Ever play Snake Rattle 'n' Roll?  Tough game, right?  Do you think it would be easier if it was 2D side-scroller?  Well, find out with this week's game, Sneaky Snakes!  Collect power-ups and 1-ups to reach higher stages.  Careful!  This is a distance/low score competition, so the more items you collect, the easier your score will be to beat!

Rules:

-Play until Game Over or you beat the game (you may not use continues)

-Submit a picture of the pause screen at the beginning of the furthest level you reached

-You must reach Level 2 to submit a score

-If you beat the game, take your picture on the Final Score screen

-Furthest distance wins

-If more than one player reaches the same stage or beat the game, lowest score wins

-You have until 11:00 PM EST on Sunday, January 19, 2020 to submit your score.

For general contest rules, click here:

https://www.videogamesage.com/topic/1468-game-boy-weekly-contest-leaderboard-rules-20192020/

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

SCOREBOARD:

Game Cleared - 88,350 (0xDEAFC0DE) +11
Level 13 - 253,250 (arnpoly) +10
Level 7 - 58,150 (ecmyers) +9
Level 5 - 41,800 (Splain) +8
Level 3 - 23,175 (BriGuy82) +7
Level 3 - 34,825 (Ausden) +6

Edited January 20, 2020 by Red

[BriGuy82 | 762]

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Level 13, 55400

[Old picture] 

13 is hard (10 can be too) 

Edited January 19, 2020 by 0xDEAFC0DE

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

The End, 153125

[Old picture]

I played around with an emulator to get practice and find all the extra lives. The first run after resulted in my first completion without continues. I think I finished with 4 lives left after a really messy final boss. Still a lot of room for improvement on the score. 

Is anyone else playing? It's getting lonely in here. 

Edited January 20, 2020 by 0xDEAFC0DE

[arnpoly | 198]

15 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

I played around with an emulator to get practice and find all the extra lives. The first run after resulted in my first completion without continues. I think I finished with 4 lives left after a really messy final boss. Still a lot of room for improvement on the score. 

Is anyone else playing? It's getting lonely in here. 

Yep, I’m here! I’ll post my score later but I got to Level 13 and I think I got to the final boss playing out my continues. This game is really fun, I really should finish it off, but I’m not that excited at the prospect of an hour-plus attempt right now so my score will stand. Don’t forget to post your completion in the Game Boy thread too!

[Ausden | 323]

Why am I not able to open the gate on level one? 

[arnpoly | 198]

18 minutes ago, Ausden said:

Why am I not able to open the gate on level one? 

You gotta eat enough pebbly things to grow your snake long enough until it flashes, then you will be heavy enough for the scale.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

1 hour ago, arnpoly said:

Yep, I’m here! I’ll post my score later but I got to Level 13 and I think I got to the final boss playing out my continues. This game is really fun, I really should finish it off, but I’m not that excited at the prospect of an hour-plus attempt right now so my score will stand. Don’t forget to post your completion in the Game Boy thread too!

Cool. Looking forward to seeing your submission. I was stuck on 13 too for a long time. It's much harder than the previous levels. I ended up just practicing it with an emulator until I got more consistent with it. 

I posted to the gameboy completion thread yesterday when I beat it with continues

[Ausden | 323]

34,825

 

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Ausden

[Red | 435]

@Ausden

Please check the rules.  This is a distance/low score contest.  You have to take your picture on the pause screen so we can see which level you reached.

[Ausden | 323]

@Red yeah I realize right after I posted. Did an edit to show correction

[ecmyers | 97]

Level 7, 58150 Level 6, 41925

Slow progress is slow!

Edited: Managed to squeak into a new level! 

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by ecmyers
Updated score

[arnpoly | 198]

Level 13 - 253,250

Pro tip: Do not care about the score at all. Much more fun that way!

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

The End, 101650

[Old picture]

Decreased my score by over 1/3. Mostly due to a trick I found to save several thousand per level. Also skipped a couple extra lives that were harder or required extra items. I finished with 7 lives to spare so I still have some room for improvement. I may do one more run.

BTW if anyone's curious, the final boss as regenerating health (found with an emulator as the health is not shown on screen), so it's much better to be aggressive otherwise the boss will just heal while you avoid his attacks.

2 hours ago, arnpoly said:

Pro tip: Do not care about the score at all. Much more fun that way!

Oh, but that takes out half the fun. It gives you some risk-reward challenge. That said, the human "possible" TAS I made scores 58,225. So, even I didn't go for all the crazy possible low score strats. I'll upload the video tonight. It's fun to watch.

Edited January 20, 2020 by 0xDEAFC0DE

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

The End, 88350

I did another run, this will be my last. Overall performed better and cut out 13k. I left off I think around nine extra lives from my route (saving 9k, still going for 14 others). The final boss was a bit sloppy, and I knew I was running low on lives. I killed the boss but then died on one of his spikes. I really hoped that wasn't my last life. Luckily it wasn't, and when I checked and saw I had no lives left. I think I know a better strategy for the final boss, so if I were to try again I could probably leave out more extra lives.

[arnpoly | 198]

46 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

BTW if anyone's curious, the final boss as regenerating health (found with an emulator as the health is not shown on screen), so it's much better to be aggressive otherwise the boss will just heal while you avoid his attacks.

Oh, but that takes out half the fun. It gives you some risk-reward challenge. That said, the human "possible" TAS I made scores 58,225. So, even I didn't go for all the crazy possible low score strats. I'll upload the video tonight. It's fun to watch.

That’s consistent with the enemies and final boss in Snake Rattle N Roll on NES. Makes things pretty tough when you gotta stay on him real close but not too close!

I say don’t bother with score because it’s progression first. I’ve seen lots of people in the NES contests obsess over low score and then have problems beating the game in the first place. Low score after that is fun I agree, but might have been tedious for this game. I didn’t beat it anyway so I’ll never know!

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

2 minutes ago, arnpoly said:

I say don’t bother with score because it’s progression first. I’ve seen lots of people in the NES contests obsess over low score and then have problems beating the game in the first place. Low score after that is fun I agree, but might have been tedious for this game. I didn’t beat it anyway so I’ll never know!

That's fair. I probably did focus too much on not getting power-up early on. But I was used it when I finally was able to beat the whole thing.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Here's the human possible TAS video I promised. Finishes 75 points above ecmyers level 7 run, but is a very difficult route (at least without getting the extra lives).

Video description:

Spoiler

This is a loosely optimized human possible TAS of my route for this competition.

General Comments:
To progress each level takes an additional gray food starting with 8 for level 1 (or half that for the white food). 
The power-ups get you 1000 points each so avoid all you can. I only got extra lives and clocks when necessary.
At the end of the level you earn points for each additional segment you end with. So, get hit down to no segment after ringing the scale.
White food gets you a bonus of 225 while gray gets you 125. This means white food will get you less bonus per food unit. I don't bother only getting white level 10 on because it's too hard (and you'll probably waste time).

Level 1: Again only get the white fish here which you will need 4 of. There's an extra life in the warp but I found it more trouble than it's worth since you also need a spring.  After ringing the scale there's a convenient mushroom to damage yourself on.
Level 2: This level you will need 4 white balloons and 1 gray. One extra life is easy to get below the falling platform. Another is in the second warp zone, but really hard to get to, so I would skip it.
Level 3: 5 white drips. Not much else to it.
Level 4: This contains the first level warp we'll take (there was one going from 3 to 6, but this is better). Right before the first water, damage yourself on I spike to get hit onto a high platform. Dig and you'll find a warp to 9.
Level 9: 8 white spring. Extra lives below at 4:54, two left and up at 5:03, and one under the bell that you damage yourself on.
Level 10: From this level on I stop trying to only go for the white food. There is also a level warp, but I like the one in 11 better. Extra life at the end.
Level 11: Go straight to the end to reach a level warp to 13. Extra life above at 8:39, and to the top right of the warp (but requires spring so just skip this one). I'm pretty sure the clock jump at 8:46 is pixel perfect. I've only gotten it twice in runs (not that I've done that many runs).
Level 13: Extra lives below at 9:06, in warp to the left of 0:15, and below at 9:23. Other clocks at 9:11 and 9:30.
Level 14: Extra lives at 12:09, above at 12:25, down-left at 12:34, above the scale (drop from above), to the left of scale, and above at 14:15.
Level 15: Extra lives right at 14:52 and below at 16:50.
Level 16: Extra lives two up right at 18:02, at 18:23, right of warp at 18:46, and far right at 19:25. Extra clocks above and below the extra life at 18:23, and at 19:17. The final boss regenerates health so be aggressive. Try to pin him to the left wall, and don't let him jump over your head.

[Splain | 2,560]

Happy to be here, lol

Level 5, 41800