Difference between revisions of "Addams Family (NES)/Any%"

Latest revision as of 15:43, 19 March 2023

The route discussed and shown on this page uses deaths to save time.

Route discussion

Quest items

About the "incentivized" dependencies:

• Both the wooden key and the snorkel are found in rooms reached via the left landing. The wooden key is in the room further away and it's difficult to imagine a route, where it would make sense to first collect one of the items and then return again to the left landing to collect the other.
• There will be a few seconds of a splash screen when picking up the wrench if Granny has already been saved. That is skipped completely by getting the wrench before going to Granny.
• The furnace is a little out of the way and it's difficult to see a scenario, where it would end up saving time by visiting it twice. So Wednesday should be freed from the freezer before heading to the furnace and saving Granny.
• Having Thing saves time when doing the freezer and furnace. By avoiding health loss in the freezer, the furnace can be played more aggressively, saving time.
• Thing is useful on the roof to avoid losing time dodging falling tiles
• The umbrella is technically not needed to get the fog. However, unless something is found to skip the 1M$ requirement for entering the last room, the money bags in the chimney (next to the fog machine) need to be collected and the umbrella is needed for that.
• Right after the wrench has been collected in the pond, it makes very good sense to teleport to a bone room from the pond's secret room. Since the bone is found in the green bone room, it's literally on the way after the wrench.
• After death abusing in the garden after picking up the bone, you'll be at the foot of the tree and it's logic to then use the occasion to enter the tree and collect the blue egg.
• Letting Lurch play the left music manuscript early on would open up several shortcuts in the chain room. An idea could for example be to use the shortcut to the kitchen after giving Lurch the right music manuscript, which would be a faster way to get to the hallway than having to go through the gallery. The problem is that Lurch can't be summoned again until he has actually finished playing a music manuscript. So getting the left and right music manuscripts played one after the other would introduce a lot of downtime waiting for Lurch to finish the first one, without enough tasks to complete in the meantime. Without introducing additional trips back and forth to the library, the right music manuscript should therefore be used first as the pond needs to be done fairly early in the game.
• Pugsley can be reached either via the chain room, which requires giving Lurch the left music manuscript, or by dropping down in Pugsley's room. Unless some major discovery is found on how to free Pugsley, the latter doesn't fit the item route (at all).

The theoretically fastest route is indicated by violet arrows. By studying the item dependencies in the chart, there should only be three possibilities that are not immediately slower than the violet route (or simply incompatible).

Orange route - Collecting Thing has a few benefits.

1. There are two money bags on the way to Thing that need to be replaced from elsewhere if Thing is not collected
2. By activating Thing in the freezer instead of tanking damage from the snowballs near Wednesday, time can be saved in the furnace by taking more damage. Not to mention that it can be challenging (but possible!) in a real-time speedrun to get through the freezer and the furnace on just one lifebar.
3. There are 10 falling tiles on the roof that each need to be dodged, costing up to almost half a second each (and that's the theoretical limit - losses in real-time are going to be bigger). Other than the time loss, dodging the tiles can be a challenge in its own right and the birds dropping stones on Gomez will lead to additional loss of health, which can become a problem towards the end.

In theory, it's a few seconds faster to skip Thing. However, the challenges that are introduced by skipping Thing both increase the difficulty of surviving the route and also require tighter execution to avoid additional time losses compared with the theoretical optimum.

Green route - First collect the umbrella in the conservatory and then head to the kitchen/freezer/furnace or the other way around?

Other than maybe a few pixels of difference from entering/exiting the door to the kitchen, both options are of the same distance. The difference instead lies in the health management. By first heading to the conservatory and the umbrella, you'll enter the kitchen at full health. If the kitchen/freezer/furnace is done first, the lifebar will already be somewhat reduced from the walking outside the house. Since health is a big concern in the kitchen etc area, but not for picking up the umbrella, it's better to first go to the conservatory and then to the kitchen and beyond.

Red route - Group everything on the right of the hallway or group the right and left landing together?

If Thing is collected, it should be done before visiting the freezer, which gives two options. Either the first time entering the house, meaning the right and left landing are done together (orange route). Or it can be done the second time entering the house, after visiting the tree to get the blue egg (red route). In that case, it's everything on the right side of the hallway that is grouped together. It's not obvious from looking at the different movements involved which option is faster. However, it turns out the latter is almost a second faster in theory. Likely more like a few tenths of a second in a real-time attempt though.

Money

There is in total 1.056.300$ in the game (+ the money that can be collected on the balcony, but they're of no interest in a speedrun). In order to discuss which money items to collect, it's useful to consider the money bags (worth 10k each) separately from the other items. The two tables below list all money items in the game, how out of the way they are, if they're recommended to be included in the route and any relevant comments. Some things to consider before getting into the details:

• The time cost is based on (sometimes a bit rough) TASing, so the real-time cost will likely differ a bit
• The time cost can depend on route choices and it's not always easy to summarize this easily in text

The first table lists all money bags (10k) in the game:

Regardless of it's a TAS or RTA, the target to aim for is 940k$ of money bags.

• Collecting a money bag in the gallery while death abusing requires precise movements for only a comparatively small overall gain (~half a second) compared to collecting the rightmost money bag while heading for the ballroom. It would require another level of optimization of the speedrun before a death abuse in the gallery should be considered.
• If Thing is skipped, so are also two money bags along the route. The best candidates for replacing them are the top two ones in the blue bone room.
• Assuming Thing is picked up, it's theoretically a close call between the top two bags in the blue bone room on one hand and the bag in Fester's room + the top right one in the attic. However, in practice it's likely going to be bigger execution losses in a RTA in the blue bone room than getting the Fester+attic bags. None of the alternatives require any impossible inputs to get the theory time, so it's in the end going to be what works best for the individual player.

The second table lists all other money items (with a value <10k).

It's difficult to see any real alternatives to collecting 60k in smaller value items:

• Collecting less items and compensate by another 10k money bag would clearly not be time-efficient.
• Collecting more items to reach 70k would end up being very time-consuming and clearly not pay off by skipping just one 10k bag (the top-right one in the attic would be the candidate in that case).
• There is a decision regarding whether to collect the 500$ bill in the garden or in Pugsley's room, but other than that there aren't really any good alternatives for collecting other items with the 60k target in mind.

Section-by-section route discussion for real-time speedrunning

The route described in this section follows the violet/red route in the flow diagram above. While it's in theory faster to skip Thing (by several seconds), there is quite a bit of execution required where time will be lost in a real-time speedrun compared to the theory. Preliminary testing indicated that skipping Thing ended up losing time, while being both considerably more difficult to complete and relying more on good RNG (especially on the roof). If someone were to put in enough practice, it's possible that skipping Thing could end up saving time also in a real-time speedrun though.

Since the blinking animation during the invincibility period after a death is lost in a 30fps online video, the emulator input files used to produce these movies are also shared, File:Addams Family Any% inputs.zip

Start to Crypt

https://vimeo.com/750646144

• It's worth keeping in mind that there is one frame of possible movement between the cutsceen where Gomez walks towards the mansion and the splash screen with the hint about the gravestone leading to the crypt.
• It's theoretically possible to jump on the skeleton's head twice before it moves to the left side of the small platform. See any published TAS. This requires precise movements in small time windows and is considerably harder than a trick of the type "click a specific button during one frame". It saves roughly half a second.
• Jumping while riding the lower bone platforms in the red room triggers the movement of the upper platform and results in less waiting time on the left side. It's possible and theoretically faster to jump one more time than shown here, but the time save is small and requires precise execution to save any time. Clipping into the wall is done automatically by buffering a jump while ducking and riding a bone platform.
• Going first to the left in the blue bone room is faster than starting to go right since it allows for more damage to be taken, resulting in less waiting time when taking the death at the spikes in the garden.

Left landing

https://vimeo.com/750646164

• By jumping diagonally left from the right-most box in the toy room, the upper right box can be skipped. This requires a small pause before the jump though. While this results in a more direct route and can visually give the impression of being the better choice, it's theoretically a few frames slower than first jumping to the upper right box (due to the aforementioned pause). This time difference seems to also remain when executing in real-time. However, the time difference is small and it's recommended to individually time out both routes to ensure the route choice is based on individual execution.
• Whether to directly drop down after grabbing the snorkel in the toy room or jumping back one box to the right and then drop can be difficult to visually assess. The latter is faster in theory (seems to be confirmed by real-time testing), but the time difference between these two options is small. However, dropping immediately down results in taking damage against the toy bear. That health is better spent elsewhere in the left landing and that's another reason for why jumping back one box to the right before dropping down is recommended.
• Due to the hitbox of the wooden key being shifted slightly to the right, it's faster to jump back down on the right side of the platform after grabbing the key, instead of continuing to the left and dropping on the left side.
• It's theoretically faster to grab the second $500 bill in the garden (to the right of the house, by bouncing off a ghost) than taking the one in Pugsley's room. However, exiting Pugsley's room without grabbing the $500 bill will require some back-and-forth movement that will lose time in a real-time attempt compared to the theory. Preliminary testing indicated this time loss to be bigger than the time gained from grabbing the $500 in the garden. But individual execution will come into play here, so it could also end up being faster for some players.

Pond

https://vimeo.com/750646183

• When walking down the stairs from the left landing on the first possible pixel (so a 1-frame trick), it's possible to walk through the bannister to get down to the gallery. If not, it's necessary to jump above the bannister before dropping down. The latter is ~0.3s slower.
• While it might feel slightly easier to trap the polar bear in the gallery in the bear trap, it doesn't cost any time to keep it free (neither now, nor later in the game). It will however deplete a little of Gomez' health before exiting to the hallway this one time. More health can be useful to get through the pond, but is not worth spending any detour to trap the bear for.
• Spawning of the birds can be considered an RNG-element in a real-time speedrun. They can be manipulated/despawned in a TAS by adding jumps, but it depends on the state of the RAM and it's difficult with the current knowledge to see how they could be manipulated in real-time.
• It's worth familiarizing oneself with the swim mechanics to understand the options available for speeding up the pond.
• There is a route decision at the beginning of the pond. Either taking the faster option of staying near the top and taking some damage or going a bit slower, but staying away from the ceiling and saving health. An expected time difference should be around 0.5-1 second, depending on the execution and how aggressive/defensive the play is. With practice, the choice can be adjusted by looking at the health bar before jumping into the pond and estimate how much leeway there is for fast and aggressive play.
• Another route decision comes near the money bag. Should one
  

a) drop down to the left of the jellyfish?
b) drop down to the right of the jellyfish?
c) partly swim through the jellyfish while dropping down to the money bag?
While 'c' is for obvious reasons the fastest option, it also means taking damage to the jellyfish. Health will generally be a problem in the pond, so taking damage against the jellyfish is often not compatible with also taking an aggressive route near the ceiling at the start. It's difficult to execute the same way in the pond due to the swim mechanics, so comparisons tend to be approximate. But preliminary testing seems to favor 'a', since the time saved from swimming more aggressively at the beginning of the pond is often worth slightly more and also results in an overall better health situation (and hence more attempts surviving the pond).

• Note that by turning left after the spanner allows Gomez to swim up while being inside the wall.
• The teleportation from the bonus room to the green bone room is described on the game mechanics page, teleportation glitch.
• Grabbing the extra life costs ~0.5s. If it's collected, the extra life in the freezer will disappear (and vice versa). The extra life in the freezer can be expected to cost less time than that though and should therefore be the first choice if the route requires an extra life.
• After teleporting to the green bone room, one should hold left as that will drain the health a few frames faster than falling straight down.

Tree

https://vimeo.com/750646057

• It's possible to death abuse at the top of the green bone room to exit that room faster. However, the next death in the garden will be much slower because of waiting for the invincibility to wear off and the time it takes to deplete a full lifebar. Overall, it's clearly faster to not take a death in the green bone room.
• When exiting the crypt, it's possible to jump once on the rope, which is faster than climbing the rope normally. However, the time this saves is small, around 0.2-0.3s, and if the jump is too high, Gomez will jump to the bottom of the screen, soft-locking the game (possible to get back by dying to the skeleton though).
• If Gomez doesn't move far enough to the left at the start of the tree, the first bat has a tendency to get below Gomez resulting in bouncing off it too early.
• There is some randomness to when the bats are triggered inside the tree (or is it pseudo-randomness, depending on player inputs?). The main variable with the route shown in the linked movie is whether the bat sitting above the platform reached at ~0:31 flies down before Gomez reaches that point (in the movie, it does). If yes, a bit less health will be lost at the top of the tree, which can be compensated by spending slightly more time on spikes (1 damage/frame). If the bat is still there, it will follow Gomez up and drain some health along the way. It's up to the player to practice both cases and to adjust accordingly to arrive at the top with as little health as possible.

Thing and Umbrella

https://vimeo.com/750646066
https://vimeo.com/750646074

• The first video uses a death abuse to get out of the right landing. The second video uses the flying glitch to get through the same section. The first method is slightly faster, but this also requires an extra life to be collected (when using the route described here). The fastest extra life is the one in the freezer and it costs roughly the same time that is saved by the first method. Based on the current knowledge and the route shown in this section, it therefore becomes an individual choice which one works best. If faster routes were to be found in the future, requiring more or less deaths, it could sway the decision towards either option.
• The health route in the first movie is very consistent to drain Gomez' health down to 1 before the death abuse in the right landing.
• It's possible to clip through the bannister instead of jumping over it after walking down the stairs after the right landing (see comment under the pond). It again saves ~0.3s to clip through the bannister.
• When death abusing to exit the right landing, the conservatory will require fairly strict inputs. It's necessary to buffer all of the jumps (or else Gomez will die before reaching the umbrella) and it's also necessary to jump from the table to the chair below the second plant and then directly to the umbrella. The jump from the table to the chair is a moderately precise half-jump. Once learned, it should be possible to perform more or less consistently though.

Kitchen area

https://vimeo.com/750646088

• There is one frame of possible movement when entering the kitchen, before the splash screen shows up. So you should hold left on the d-pad after entering the door in the hallway.
• By doing a small jump on the upper platform in the kitchen after the splash screen, Gomez will not use the umbrella when dropping down to the freezer entrance.
• Ducking as an icicle hits Gomez takes one health, while walking or jumping through an icicle takes two health. There is some randomness (or at least outside real-time player control) in the damage taken both in the freezer and in the kitchen, so having an additional health buffer can be useful. If health remains when approaching the right side of the furnace, it can be spent by more aggressive jumping through the fire on the way up to Granny. It can also be spent near the exit of the furnace by not stopping for the vertical bouncing flames (they will always drain Gomez' health a bit without any stopping).
• There is one frame of possible movement in the furnace before the splash screen with Wednesday appears. So left should be held when entering the furnace.
• Everything in the furnace runs on local timers when objects are loaded in memory (= about to appear on screen). Manipulating object positions without losing more time in the process is therefore generally not possible.
• There is a very minor trick that can be done for the death abuse in the kitchen. By buffering a jump during the screen transition from the furnace, the first knife will start moving to the right earlier. Some care needs to be taken though. It's a very small time-save and there is a risk of jumping too high and overshoot the knife.

Pugsley

https://vimeo.com/750646109

• The flying glitch is again used.
• The exact game mechanics behind the triggering of bats in the attic have not yet been described and are with the current knowledge therefore to be considered as RNG.
• While the first and last use of Thing (in the freezer and end of the roof, respectively) are fairly intuitive (and even recommended by the manual!). The best use for Thing the second time is maybe not immediately apparent. It can be beneficial to use Thing a second time in the freezer or use it in the furnace. However, using Thing a second time on the roof is the fastest by some margin.
• Just like the triggering of bats in the attic, bird spawns on the roof have not been fully described and are to be considered as RNG.
• The position of the first bat in the chimney is important as it determines whether it can be bounced off for grabbing an additional money bag. How its position is determined when the chimney loads has not yet been described though. But from frame-by-frame testing, different timings for entering the chimney or even time-neutral actions such as adding small jumps on the roof can change the bat's x-position when spawning. However, no pattern has been identified and with the current knowledge, it's to be considered as RNG.
• The two other bats in the chimney can also be problematic by being in the way and forcing Gomez to bounce off them and lose time. The second can generally (always?) be avoided by moving Gomez more towards the right (obviously without skipping any of the money bags). This can result in taking some damage though. The third and last bat is often more difficult to reliably avoid. It's best to move as much left as possible (again, obviously without skipping any money bags) and hope that it slips by to the right. Some spawn positions seem difficult (impossible?) to avoid though.
• Around one and a half second can be saved in the library by pulling the rope to call Lurch before moving the stool. However, calling Lurch first only leaves a small time window (5-6 frames of execution buffer) for grabbing the left music note and getting back in time to Lurch (if you're not there on time, a very costly splash screen with Lurch asking why Gomez rang will appear). Several non-trivial movments will eat the available buffer. As a result, the difficulty is roughly that of a "press a button on a specific frame" type of trick. The exact time gain depends on how far the stool is pushed to the left, but should be somewhere in the range 1.3-2s.
• Note that there is enough time to avoid taking damage in the study without losing any time overall as Lurch playing the music note is on a fixed timer.
• There is one frame of possible movement in the garden before the splash screen with Pugsley appears. So one should hold right when exiting the chain room.

Morticia (end)

https://vimeo.com/750646125

• With damage taken in the attic, roof and chimney being slightly RNG-dependent, health can be a problem towards the end. If health is low, damage from the balls (?) thrown from the windows in the garden can be avoided. Just make a quick stop slightly to the left below a window and the ball will pass by overhead. It's rarely worth doing this for the first ball, since it doesn't do much damage, but it can make a difference at the second ball, for only a small time cost.
• It's worth familiarizing oneself with the row mechanics on the secret river.
• Note that there is a potential $100 surplus when following the route described here (one more $100 bill had easily been possible to collect on the secret river).
• There is no RNG in Gomez' room, but Fester's imposter can easily get out of the pattern if Gomez jumps in the wrong places. This is easier to experience than to try to put down in writing.