Beetlejuice (NES)/Game Mechanics and Techniques
From SDA Knowledge Base
Contents
- 1 Animations
- 2 Scares
- 3 RNG
- 4 Enemies and objects
- 4.1 Delia's art pieces
- 4.2 Beetles (side view sections)
- 4.3 Beetles (overhead sections)
- 4.4 Cavern monsters
- 4.5 Cloud elevators
- 4.6 "Fish in cauldron"
- 4.7 Flies (overhead sections)
- 4.8 First boss
- 4.9 Flowers
- 4.10 Football legs
- 4.11 Lights
- 4.12 Mouse
- 4.13 Second boss
- 4.14 Spiders
- 4.15 Sweepers
- 4.16 "Urn with bouncing ball"
- 5 Buffered inputs
- 6 Glitches
- 7 Open questions
- 8 Selection of known RAM-addresses
Animations
Movement mechanics
Time cost comparisons
Scares
| Name | Cost | Shots | Special ability | Comments |
 Medusa head
|
100 | 1 | Freezes "floating skulls" (found in some bug holes) | |
 Birdman
|
150 | 2 | Increases jump height | The jump ability allows for shortcuts and is very useful in a speedrun |
 Two-headed man
|
200 | 3 | 1-hit kills the sandworm on Saturn | |
 Skeleton
|
250 | 5 | No damage from bees, 1-hit kills the beehives (both only found in level 1) | |
 Umbrella head
|
400 | 9 | None? | The manual hints about giving some sort of advantage against the octopuses in the sewer stage |
 Ogre
|
500 | 12 | 1-hit kills the cavern monsters in level 2 (Storm drains) | |
 Ghost (called "spooksheet" in the game)
|
600 | 15 | None? | Only available in the graveyard level. The manual does not seem to hint about any special ability. It sounds more like it's an "all-purpose" scare with lots of shots. |
 Snakeman
|
750 | 19 | None? | Same comments as for the ghost scare. |
RNG
The RNG-addresses in RAM are $24-$27. They're calculated by various operations between themselves and take the result of the previous set of RNG and the global timer ($3BB) as seeds.
The RNG-function is called by various events that require a new set of RNG. This can result in the RNG being calculated from several times per frame to every few frames or not all (if nothing loaded in memory requires RNG-values.
There is no indication that the RNG-values would be possible to manipulate in real-time. In TAS-conditions, the RNG can be manipulated to a certain extent by performing actions that trigger the RNG-function to be called. Beetlejuice's movements don't impact the RNG-function, but e.g. throwing a potion (in the overhead section) will create additional calls of the RNG-function.
