Difference between revisions of "Cv1/tricks"

Revision as of 14:01, 23 March 2021

Some useful game mechanics are explained on TASVideos.org as well.

Movement

Simon moves at a consistent 1 pixel per frame. Walking is the same speed as jumping. While traveling on stairs, he moves more slowly. A damage boost has Simon travel at 1 pixel per frame, but loses 22 frames to hit and recovery frames. Whipping or using a subweapon takes 23 frames on the gorund or 22 frames while in the air. If landing with an attack, Simon will not be able to move until the attack animation is over.
If falling or jumping off of a 4-block height or higher, Simon goes into a clunk animation which loses 16 frames. This can be prevent by whipping on landing (can only be done off of a jump), as the whip animation takes precedence over the clunk. The earlier the whip, the less frames Simon has to spend locked on the ground on landing. With a perfect whip, zero frames can be lost from the landing.

Staircases

When pressing up in proximity of stairs, Simon gets pulled towards them and stars climbing the first step. It's possible to do this movement more optimally by pushing up while perfectly below stairs, instead of while in proximity.
When approaching stairs frontally (such as the ending staircase in stage 01), the timed up press saves time on a 2-frame window, where the first frame save either 1 or 2 frames, and the second frame saves either 2 or 3 frames. If late on the up press, 1 frame is lost if late by one frame, 3 frames are lost if late by two frames, 5 frames are lost if late by three frames, and so on.
When approaching stairs from the back (such as the staircase in stage 07-1), the timed up press saves either 1 or 2 frames on a 1-frame window, and being late still loses time. This is not recommended on these stairs.
It's also possible to achieve this time save with a jump that lands Simon perfectly below the stairs, and a buffered up press. It's important to note that the forward direction needs to also be held on landing in order to not lose time.
This also works on stairs that go downward as well (such as the final staircase in stage 13).
Chained staircases (the ones in stage 07-2, stage 08-1 and stage 17-4) have some subtleties to them as well. Compared to purely holding up:

• In stage 07-2, holding right+up loses 1 frame, while holding left+up saves 2 frames.
• In stage 08-1, holding either right+up or left+up saves 2 frames.
• in stage 17-4, holding left+up loses 1 frame, while holding right+up saves 2 frames.

Backward Jump

By pressing the opposite direction that Simon is currently facing and the jump button on the same frame, it's possible to get what's known as a "backward jump", which makes Simon jump in the direction that was pressed but with him facing the other way. It's also possible to get a backward jump while coming off of a staircase by buffering the direction opposite of the staircase and jumping on the first possible frame.

Critical Hit Glitch

The whip's hitbox is normally only active for one frame. But if Simon gets hit the frame after the whip's hitbox spawns, it glitches out and remains active for more time. There are multiple kinds of Crits:

• Normal Crit - This one occurs when a hit is taken in normal conditions. The whip hits for 5 or 6 frames.
• Stairs Crit - Crit while Simon is on a staircase. This hits for a lot more damage.
• 2-Block Crit - When a Crit occurs as Simon is standing in a narrow height (2 blocks), it hits for a lot more damage than the Normal Crit as well.
• Ceiling Crit - If a Crit occurs just below a ceiling, and the hit causes Simon to fast fall to the ground, the Crit lasts until SImon touches the ground again.

Clips

If Simon gets hit just below a standable platform during the ascent of his jump, he will clip through it.

Framerules

A Framerule is a mechanic that only allows the player to progress in increments of x amount of frames. Imagine a bus stop, where every bus leaves every x amount of frames: it doesn't matter whether you arrive early, or just before the bus leaves, you will always catch the same bus and leave the bus stop at always the same time. That is, unless you miss the bus and have to wait for the next one to arrive. This means that to get a perfect time you don't need to play perfectly, but just well enough to catch the same bus as someone who played perfectly.
Screens that end with a door are affected by a 16-frame Framerule. Note that any other screen in NOT affected by Framerules, nor does it influence the screens that are. Screens that are affected by Framerules have their own timer that stars from the last black screen transition, and those rooms and those rooms alone can only be completed in increments of 16 frames. Any frames gained or lost in other rooms are truly gained or lost.
The way the game slows down the player to wait for the next Framerule is by holding the door semi-open until the moment the metaphorical bus arrives. This means that the door will open very quickly if a framerule has just been barely caught, and it will open very slowly if a framerule has barely been missed.
Lag frames are truly lost and don't count towards the Framerule timer. Screens that are affected by framerules are:

• Stage 01-2
• Stage 02
• Stage 04-2
• Stage 05-2
• Stage 07-2
• Stage 08-2
• Stage 11
• Stage 13-2
• Stage 14-2

Items

(To be added)

Enemy Item Drops

Items that drop off of enemies are manipulable. Whether or not an item drops off an enemy is dependent on a frame counter that starts at the beginning of any given screen. Every 16 frames of that counter, a check is made to see whether an enemy is dying on that exact frame, and if it is, it drops an item.
Which item it drops is controlled by this chart:

(Note that technically this isn't exactly how the game's code sees this chart, but for the purposes of simplification it's been laid out this way)
When first booting up the game, this chart starts reading from Slot 0. When an enemy drops an item, it provides the item corresponding to the current slot, and then increments the current slot by one. After Slot 3, it cycles back to Slot 0. For example: the first item to drop in Level 1 would be a Stopwatch. If another item then drops off another enemy in Level 1, it will be Holy Water.
The current slot carries over throughout the levels, so getting a Stopwatch in Level 1 and then getting another item drop in Level 2 would result in a Money Bag.
If a subweapon attempts to drop, but Simon is already in possession of said subweapon, the game will SKIP that slot and provide the next item on the chart.
If an important item is already present on screen, the item drop will turn into a Money Bag. This will still increment the current slot.
If a title screen demo gets an item drop, this will advance the current slot and carry over to the main game. It is recommended to reset the game before every run to prevent the demos from affecting gameplay.

Enemy Patterns

A lot of enemy patterns are only a function of how many frames have elapsed since the start of the screen and Simon's current position on screen. This allows for pattern manipulation on enemies such as the Bat Boss, Birds, and the Mummies. White Skeletons are also affected by RNG on top of the factors mentioned above. Notably, they have a set amount of patterns (sometimes a single possible pattern) depending on those two factors. The exact pattern gets chosen at random. This allows for a smaller extent of manipulation.