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

[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.