Demystifying Nightworld

[scarybeasts]

I quite like the idea of a side project of beebjit playthroughs of obscure platformers. Any suggestions?

Some ideas:

- Sim. I remember this as being kind of curious but hard as nails.
- Quest. For some reason I didn't get far on this one. Was it much harder than Citadel?
- Infinity. Never played it back in the day. An old thread about the game just got bumped recently and the claim was it had a big map.
- Impossible Mission. Also passed me by back in the day. From a cursory look, looks like it might have some depth to it?
- Imogen. Not so obscure but a fun game.


Cheers
Chris

[bob147]

Some good ones there, I tried Quest and was immediately enraged by how unfair the enemy difficulty is, seems like a good candidate

[Lum]

So I've discovered a way to reliably do that floor clip on exit after getting the first prism.

You need to be quick getting to that point as its much easier as the human, but simply land on the block immediately before the exit, one block lower, and then walk through the floor when you exit instead of jumping, keep walking in the next room and you'll eventually fall straight down. Managed to shave 10s off my time to prism 2 doing this.

What I haven't managed to do is actually complete another run since discovering this, have been unwell and seem to have lost my skills. Might take a break from it, but I reckon 8:30 to 8:40 is possible.

Other useful note for run timers. Looks like from hitting a key to start its 0.68 seconds until you get control of the character, so setting the timer to start at -0.68 and starting the game with whatever key you have set to start the timer gets you a nice accurate time.

[scarybeasts]

Some good ones there, I tried Quest and was immediately enraged by how unfair the enemy difficulty is, seems like a good candidate

BTW, in case you were thinking of making beebjit captures of anything else, I'd recommend waiting for v0.9.7 (or make a build from latest HEAD). We recently learned a bit more about the 6845 video timing chip and beebjit's improved modeling does throw some timings off a bit compared to v0.9.6. Capture files are much more likely to be forward compatible if made with v0.9.7 or HEAD.


Cheers
Chris

[bob147]

BTW, in case you were thinking of making beebjit captures of anything else, I'd recommend waiting for v0.9.7

Understood, thanks. I was still at the 'messing around in BeebEm' phase of the process, so happy to wait for the new version. Amazing how the 6845 keeps throwing new surprise behaviours into the mix, despite many emulator authors having spent decades reverse engineering it already.

[SteveF]

As an aside, apart from the drop from Room A into Room I, I've found no benefit to doing anything under Sunlight. Instead I would typically wait until metamorphosis into the Gargoyle.

It's not obvious to me why this drop would be better under Sunlight - can someone clue me in please?

[bob147]

It's because the only way to cut down falling damage of that sheer drop is to take a leap from room A and stick to the wall of room I to stop your descent. But Gargoygle has that huge jump arc meaning it's much harder to line up that jump.

[SteveF]

Thanks! There's a lot more to this game than first meets the eye, isn't there?

[Lum]

It's because the only way to cut down falling damage of that sheer drop is to take a leap from room A and stick to the wall of room I to stop your descent. But Gargoygle has that huge jump arc meaning it's much harder to line up that jump.

I've found as gargoyle if you jump as soon as you fall straight down after getting past the third statue, that works pretty well. Maybe a couple of pixels out would work better?

Thanks! There's a lot more to this game than first meets the eye, isn't there?

There really is, it's a fascinating game to speedrun because of all of this.

[md0u80c9]

Some good ones there, I tried Quest and was immediately enraged by how unfair the enemy difficulty is, seems like a good candidate

Yeah - Tony Oakden's platforms (Quest, Camelot and Starport) are three old favourites of mine. I think he made easier ones with time (it's all relative: Starport is 'completable'; Camelot is 'very hard; I think it's doable but I never did...'; and Quest is 'As hard as nails...' - I saw a solution to that a long time ago and I think I made it 75% of the way round at the very most and I genuinely don't think I could complete it even with the solution...)

Interestingly Citadel is one I never had back in the day, and I'm considering having a play with that when the time allows.

[bob147]

There's a guy posting under a youtube lets play of Quest who claims to have at least finished Quest with save states. Hopefully I can tempt him to comment when I get round to playing it properly!

[scarybeasts]

Understood, thanks.

Argh -- actually, better to wait for v0.9.8

I just found an stupid, old regression (from v0.9.4?) that messes up timing in -mode interp for some less common opcodes.
It does not appear to affect Castle Quest or Nightworld. It certainly affects Exile though (as does a separate JIT regression), so I'll get v0.9.8 out shortly in case other games might be affected.


Cheers
Chris

[Dave Footitt]

- Sim. I remember this as being kind of curious but hard as nails.

We had a bit of a look at SIM here

[Ed]

I've done it!

Returning to this forum to find that Nightworld speedruns are happening on Twitch is unfathomably cool to me! Congratulations on your world record. It, and your playtests streams, were a pleasure to watch.

... Quest. For some reason I didn't get far on this one. Was it much harder than Citadel?...

Funny you mention Quest. For me it’s the second most intriguing game, after NW.

[Lum]

Returning to this forum to find that Nightworld speedruns are happening on Twitch is unfathomably cool to me! Congratulations on your world record. It, and your playtests streams, were a pleasure to watch.

I would never have done it if it hadn't been for this thread, so thank you too.

I need to do an any% run at some point

[Lum]

I need to do an any% run at some point

5:39 any%, on real hardware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emLnSjSgWAQ

Now I just need to beat my emulator run on real hardware. I was 1 sec short last night, which sucked!

[bob147]

Another nice run

I accidentally found a nice move when trying out @SteveF's latest modified version (but I assume it works on the normal game too, he hasn't changed the jump physics), the second time you go through the secret room (where you actually grab the health) and need to drop down and take the teleport in the room below, you can bounce off the bottom of the enemy and get a diagonal fall right down to the teleport! Costs a bit of health but shaves off a few seconds if you can spare it.

See at about 05:00 in this video viewtopic.php?p=374759#p374759

[scarybeasts]

Hooray! An 100% playthrough at last, the ending after you get the fleece is very dramatic

Would it be ok to include nw16.cap in the beebjit GitHub repository? With proper attribution of course.
It's a good regression test. Checking the replay through to the end screen is very good at finding accidental timing changes / regressions.


Cheers
Chris

[bob147]

Go for it, happy to help support the emulator. I must get back to making a few more of these soon, I had my eye on Sim next. It seems to check all the boxes, sprawling map, ludicrous difficulty, not particularly well known.