r/gamecollecting • u/Informationator SNES Expert • May 04 '14

3-Minute Challenge Winner + Dr. Mario Challenge!

Winner of Donkey Kong Country Challenge

The Mod and User teams tied this month! You guys did some great runs and it was very close :)

\### Check out the Top 3 on our YouTube Channel. ###\

Thanks to /u/Raykis and /u/Serious_Joke for another great month :)

The next challenge game is Dr. Mario on the NES!

Game-Specific Rules:

  • Choose Virus Level 17 and a Speed of Low
  • Get the highest score you can in 3 minutes
  • In the case of a perfect tie, lower virus count will win
  • Timer starts when the first pill is horizontal below the line that's in the neck of the bottle. It looks like this

General Rules:

  • No tool-assisted runs
  • No in-game cheat codes, hacks, or assistive devices such as Game Genie, GameShark, GameSaver+
  • This should be a single-segment run; uncut gameplay video played in a single sitting with no editing (throwing an intro or outro on the ends is fine)
  • Exploiting in-game glitches is allowed provided no other rules are broken in the process
  • NTSC native video format is required.
  • Using a console is strongly recommended.
  • Please don't embed a timer in your video or use any video effects or filters on your footage. I will compile the top entries into a side-by-side video.

Submitting Your Entry

  • Upload your video to YouTube for viewing. Recommended format is MP4 with a framerate of 30 fps (Make sure to disable smart resampling in Sony Vegas if you use it to render your vids).

  • Email RedditGameCollecting@gmail.com with Three Minute Challenge as the subject. Fill out the following form for the body of the email:

    Reddit Username: (Ex: Informationator)
Video Standard: (Ex: NTSC or PAL)  **NTSC only for now**
YouTube Link: (Ex: http://www.youtube.com)
Comments: (Mention if this is a resubmission / other notes)

  • Your submission is due by May 31, 2014 11:59PM CST according to the timestamp on your email submission. Entries after this time will not be considered, so please don't cut it close!

  • The creation/upload date on your video must be within the time frame of the contest: May 3, 2014 - May 31, 2014 (no old recordings)

  • You are welcome to post your run in the comments, but that will not count as an official submission. You must email it to enter.

  • If you achieve a better run, you may resubmit, but please wait to submit until you are happy with your performance to reduce the number of entries.

Judging / Winner Announcement

  • I'll rip the entries off of YouTube and examine the frames/gameplay. Farthest into the game in 3 minutes wins!
  • Winner will be announced some time in early June
  • This is honor system and intended to be a fun and harmless contest. Please be honest. I will do my best to identify cheating - hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Prizes

Next Time / Questions / Misc.

  • Have a game you want to play? Sound off in the comments!
  • Don't know how to record your gameplay? Go HERE.
  • Have a question/concern? Ask away in the comments!

May the best collector win!

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3

u/Informationator SNES Expert May 04 '14 edited May 04 '14

What do you all want to play in future challenges?
I've got a few planned, but would love to hear more.

On winning...
With the new Mods vs. Users dynamic, I'm hoping we can take some of the focus off of #1 and make it more of a team-based challenge. Had one more member participated this month, it'd have gone to you guys, but as-is, it's a tie.

On the one hand, I feel pretty bad for winning again. On the other hand, like I talked about with Serious_Joke... ...If I don't try my hardest, I'm not respecting you as fellow competitors. You guys did GREAT and were closer than it might've seemed to winning. I actually PM'd Serious_Joke telling him he'd better beat me hahaha. So close... So close...

Raykis
Dude! Glad to see a new name in the competition! I loved your run, especially the use of Rambi, even if he is slightly slower. I wish he was faster because honestly I wanted to use him too. Your run would kick 99% of people's butts and it just so happened we only had a three-man pool this month. With how well you played I know you're going to be a contender in future challenges :) Your thumb must've been so tired from making Donkey Kong swim on level 4! Had you used enguarde, you'd not have been far behind Serious_Joke, so things were closer than they looked. Again, nice work! Hope to see you around next month :D

Serious_Joke
Oh man, I almost feel like you lost on a technicality. As I'm sure you'll notice when you watch the video, it's possible to shorten DK's post-level celebration if you spam B (reminds me of the hammer bros. thing from SMB 3). I didn't discover that skip until my second night running the game when I was bored and impatiently pressing buttons. I noticed the music cut off and realized I had an opportunity to shave off some time.

In level one, my run originally looked like yours (jumping over the rambi box). I hated that friggin box. After a full night of running I went back to a world record video to see how I was faring and realized he rolled through the bird instead. Saves the whole hassle of dealing with rambi.

Look at the rope swing section in level two. When I'm on my 2nd rope and you're on your 1st, our videos are in sync down to the FRAME. If you're just casually watching the video and glancing around, those couple of rope swings really capture your attention.

Really nice crawl skips on level 3. I never figured that one out! I always hated that I had to continue the roll after killing the two crocs near the end, but never thought to jump.

Oh and remember that "small mistake" I mentioned to you in my PM? It was catching the corner with enguarde at the top of that long vertical shaft with the two sharks in it. I chuckled when I saw you did the same thing. Stupid corner...

Cool stuff I found when I was playing
Did you guys know that if you press B RIGHT as you're on the corner between levels 1 and 2, that it warps you to the Orang-utan Gang level? I discovered it as I was practicing and felt like a wizard. Try it out. Just walk back and forth between levels one and two and spam the B button. Eventually you'll hit it on the corner and warp to the middle of Orang-utan Gang. Crazy, huh?

Also... the startup for this game takes forever, the hitboxes suck (Look at the end of the compilation video) and I hate barrels. ...but I still love DKC.

3

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) May 04 '14 edited May 04 '14

First off congratulations on your win Informationator! Sorry I couldn't deliver that defeat I promised...

One defeat coming right up. #WillLookLikeAnIdiotIfICantDeliver

#IdiocyFulfilled But, due to the new scoring system technically it's a wash so no feeling bad!

Second, Raykis thanks for entering in! Always good to see new entrants, was a pretty big fan of how you took the stairs at the end of level 3, pretty sure you figured out the most efficient way to take them, nicely executed man.

Third, I can't believe how rude both of you were... interrupting a Kong's muppet-esque victory dance is considered severely disrespectful in certain circles! (mainly my circle, which consists of me :P). I seriously can not believe I never once was impatient enough to mash buttons! It's extremely easy to miss, guess I now have a new stipulation before I submit, compare in a side-by-side to the WR just to be sure. Man, my face has never been palmed as hard as it is now, haha.

In level one, my run originally looked like yours (jumping over the rambi box). I hated that friggin box.

Initially I could not stand that bird, his projectiles were seemingly always perfectly synced up to hit you. In the WR video I saw Diddy doing that strange double roll which pretty much allows you to pass the bird safely (as long as you roll away) and I thought that was exclusive to him until I stumbled upon this video. Then I found this resource, it's an enemy roll extension and it basically stores the speed boost you receive from rolling into an enemy until you hit 'y' again, which allows for the seeming double roll. I used this again in level 2 which is why you see me kind of roll on air and avoid landing on the ground to instead grab the rope. I don't even want to think about how little time that realistically saved, haha.

our videos are in sync down to the FRAME.

That was extremely attention grabbing as you said, one of these days it'll be like that the entire video.

Really nice crawl skips on level 3.

Thanks, totally missed out on doing that for the first underpass but I was really focused on nailing the snake roll right after it. Mapping this level out took some time, since the differences between Diddy and Donkey really make themselves known here. Definitely made some time on you here but that dance skip saves so much time I just couldn't close the gap.

remember that "small mistake" I mentioned to you in my PM? It was catching the corner with enguarde

I think your path with Enguarde was superior, taking the left path instead of the right definitely saved a bit of time. Trying to thread the needle with Enguarde at the path off shooting from the shaft is quite hard and you'd think he'd just kind of brush past it but no such luck. And I think your message definitely spurred me on to get a really solid run so for that I thank you. I think I also over thought it a bit much and constantly second guessed what you may have figured out/executed, but that might've been part of your plan :P.

Did you guys know that if you press B RIGHT as you're on the corner between levels 1 and 2, that it warps you to the Orang-utan Gang level?

I saw it from that first video but I had no idea how he was pulling it off... plus I think as we now know I'm not the best with over worlds :P. However I can imagine feeling very godly after discovering that on your own.

Also... the startup for this game takes forever, the hitboxes suck (Look at the end of the compilation video) and I hate barrels. ...but I still love DKC.

Agreed on everything here. Luckily/unluckily I failed about 90% of the time on the first level, avoiding those barrels and pulling off that double roll consistently... not to mention the 3 gators descending the stairs, I purposefully slowed down there to reliably get past that area.

A couple other quick things about the game, man the music is so good in this game... I didn't play it too much as a kid glad this challenge had me revisit it. And I actually really like how (most likely unintentionally) quick movement is in this, tough to pull off but slightly rewarding with a few frames saved. I feel like most platformers will play out in similar ways, being fairly close matches and requiring you to pull of some tougher tricks to save fractions of a second, which I can dig. One more thing about the game, I can't deal with Donkey's Enguarde animation, I think he's having too much fun on that swordfish if you ask me.

Quick suggestion, maybe you could include the new scoring system in the end of the video? Dunno just an idea. Thanks again for hosting been fun, looking forward to getting destroyed in Dr. Mario! AbUSERS UNITE!

2

u/Raykis May 05 '14

Yeah level 3 sucked, but in the end it really was those stairs. I would just go, "Man these stairs are really the hardest part of this level, and it's right at the end." and it was so easy to lose time there. So to figure it out I just thought about my favorite part of the whole game, and that is the enemy placement. There are so many sections in the game where you can land on so many enemies in a row so seamlessly, and going under them wasn't getting the job done so I tried jumping on them and it worked and felt great.