Stumbling through Snake, Rattle and Roll

[davidn]

As I've frequently mentioned, I grew up with Commander Keen, Jazz Jackrabbit, Mylo Steamwicz and a whole host of perpetually smiling ASCII #001 characters, and so I never experienced or have even heard of many of the games that my friends remember so fondly. A couple of nights ago, kjorteo sent me a fascinating map of how the NES game Snake, Rattle and Roll is actually one coherent environment, a rarity for level-based games, and I decided that I wanted to try it for myself.

So I went in, armed only with a vague idea of the objective of the game and the knowledge that it was meant to be very, very hard. My initial plan was to make a written post out of it, but I realized before I even started that it would take ages to remember, document and show my thoughts and reactions. So instead, I've joined the legion of awful presenters on Youtube, having stuck a microphone in front of my face so that you can experience me speaking about what I'm doing, muttering to myself or making a variety of exasperated noises.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gedsm2InUgE

This is an unlisted video for now, so that the entirety of Youtube doesn't stumble across my faltering attempt to provide running commentary - and I'm aware that watching someone do this when you're familiar with the game must be like screaming at an exasperatingly dim contestant on The Crystal Maze. It's only now I look back at it that I realize it's obvious that the segments you've picked up double as your hit points, and that your tail flashes when you have enough to exit the level, eliminating the need for checking. But I've now had requests for a couple more, so I might see if I improve on subsequent attempts.

Comments

[igorium.livejournal.com]

Reminded me of that classic "Super Mario frustration" video

[davidn]

Hah, I'd never seen that before now - but if the Nintendo's reputation for games with extreme difficulty is true, then I think I'll end up like that if I keep doing these :)

[kjorteo]

I want to say that it's fairly impressive that your very first blind playthrough attempt of this game got you to almost the end of level 4, whereas the best I can do after all my years of practice and experience having grown up with this game is somewhere around the middle of level six. To be fair, though, the difficulty does ... escalate as you progress. Even though they're both Rare games, it's actually not like Battletoads where they stuck the infamous Turbo Tunnel right there in level three or anything.

[davidn]

I have also not played Battletoads - another one for the list!

I liked it enough to try it for a second time this evening - I had actually forgotten how nerve-wracking it was to have progress not backed up by saving the game state every few seconds! You weren't joking about the sheer bloody-mindedness of those magic carpets - but somehow I got past the awkward blinking one on my first attempt, and struggled to reach a precarious downward hopping section in level 6. That was also an impressive moment - silently introducing a new powerup that looks vaguely like a croissant to let you swim up a waterfall, and I only managed to get past that part by happy coincidence when I was hit on the head by the thing that was otherwise spewing bells on to the already inadequate platforms.

[kjorteo]

You are officially can get as far as me, then! Clearly, I need to be playing this game more, if you caught up that quickly....

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, David routinely outshines me in games that we both play. I think he's just Better.

[davidn]

I think that years of improving hand-eye coordination can get you very far even in games that are completely unfamiliar... just being able to read the movements of things and react to them. This, of course, doesn't help with the things that the game springs on you out of nowhere, such as the falling anvils at the top of the fourth level (which would have been good to include in this video - I actually continued after I switched it off and got to the start of the next level).

The jumps where you have to go round corners are still pretty murderous, and I lost a lot of lives at the start of level 5 trying to skip the carpet before I realized that you just couldn't fall more than about four layers.

[kjorteo]

Also, all you need to know about Battletoads is that Kayin, the guy who made IWBTG himself, saw fit to reference its legendary difficulty here (in the "Techncial") section. The vast majority of mortal human players can, on about the second or third try, make it to the infamous Turbo Tunnel in level three, and then stop (or are very forcefully stopped) there.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

And now I'm liveblogging your narrated playthrough!

... somehow, this is the first time I've noticed how much your accent reminds me of Scrooge McDuck. (That is a very charming thing.)

.. if I had you in my cell, I would probably make your ringtone ohh, ahh, a foot! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gedsm2InUgE#t=2m32s)

.... keep on licking the foot to win. And you say it was kjorteo who suggested you play this, yes?

anyway, "Manic Toilet Seats" is going to be the name of my new NES cover band

So (Kjorteo, or some other expert?) how do you finish the level if you get to the end and you've lost too many pieces from taking damage, and there's no fresh manholes left? Do you just have to start over?

.... an extra life that turns into a bomb! Seriously, that has to be a new low in the "petty cruelty to your players" department.

"I don't know what you're complaining about!" "... I've just been reminded!" Yes. XD

Man, this is a pretty technically proficient game for the era though, isn't it! All those sprites onscreen, everything bouncing around... it's really hurting for the lack of a second layer though, when you can't quite slip behind corners until you're completely obscured... I'm surprised they didn't use the trick from Mario 3, with a second sprite with higher sprite priority but lower layer priority.. (I guess they didn't have that many sprites left to throw around, really!)

I just noticed the title of the upload; "stumbling through" is a good way to put it :) That's always a bit more fun than watching a friend play a game where they know what they're doing, isn't it... just rifling through a folder of ROMs and going "what the sweet hell am I doing".. I'd watch more of it :) Come to think of it, I guess that's half the appeal of Retro Game Master / Game Center CX, isn't it?

[kjorteo]

Those dispensers (the things davidn refers to as gramophones) are infinite. Just go back to one and hang out around it, eating all the Pibbleys (he was wrong in his assumption that entire dispensers are dedicated to faking you out with bombs; they're all the same, they all shoot either Pibbleys or bombs completely at random, just to keep you alert) until you're full again. Mind the time, though.

He was right about the manic toilet seats, though. That really is what they are. I am the proud owner of an actual physical cart and its actual physical instruction manual, in which they are listed as Krazy Seats. (The manual also has all sorts of important information, from how to even win with the whole get fat/use scale/exit door mechanic, to tips like how the real non-bomb extra lives flash.)

Also, hush. :o

[davidn]

He's got a point about the foot-licking - I hadn't noticed!

In my second attempt, I pretty much relied on the gramophones to supply me with sufficient tokens to reach the end and actually found myself ignoring the manholes for the most part - going forward to clear the level a bit before going back to a dispenser makes things a lot easier, as you can progress in relative ease to the scale after eating enough tokens - or nibbling Pibbleys. With terminology like that, I feel like that episode of Blackadder where he's feigning madness by putting a pair of underpants on his head and two pencils up his nose.

I'm surprised the manual was that... useful, to mention that the real extra lives flash and everything - I thought that they would just leave it to the player to get hit and work it out. But then, I remember that I really could discover things that I didn't know about games in manuals in those days - now, they tend to be intuitive enough for you not to need one.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

Or else they have a painfully long and overly wordy forced tutorial.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

or no manual at all.

[davidn]

Scrooge McDuck! That's a new one. I think I'll have to add another name to the list. Didn't he have some sort of Sean Connery affectation? The doctor I went to last year said that I sounded like him, as well, even though nobody else in the world speaks anything like him. I will admit, though, that my reaction to the foot's appearance did have some oddly operatic influences that I hadn't previously noticed. And... I never thought of that. But how appropriate :)

I was very impressed with how the game looked, especially bearing in mind it was made 22 years ago - I don't know the technical aspects of how the NES handled its sprites, layers and graphics, but I mentioned being surprised at the look of it as far back as that banal comment I muttered about the sparkly 1/2 Player selection cursor at the very beginning. I did notice the... perspective-defiance in one or two places, but I really could forget that it was a NES game most of the time.

The timing of that absolutely vindictive extra continue/bomb was eerily perfect... I'm glad that people seem to have enjoyed this so much, and it's certainly giving me confidence that it's worthwhile doing more :) Little Nemo and Marble Madness are already on my list.