Stumbling together through Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll - Part 1

[davidn]

As I felt I just didn't have enough video series in flight just now, kjorteo and I got together and revisited the game that started all of this in my life. Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll was a game that Kjorteo grew up with and mentioned to me when I was at work, in the context of the entire game being one continuous environment broken up into levels - and I wanted to do a playthrough of it and put up a video simply because doing a text one would have taken too long.

Getting the confidence to do that video was one of the best things that's ever happened to me - and though I didn't feel the gradual evolution over the last couple of years since I put that first one up, the difference in my voice between then and now is incredible... the original one is so timid!

Still, this time, Kjorteo was around to help - and through a surprisingly workable VirtuaNES netplay session, we bravely climbed the mountain towards the moon or whatever on earth is going on in this game. Our first chapter takes us halfway through the game by level count... but probably not by time spent or anger level. It's eighteen minutes, about five of which are spent on one screen.

http://youtu.be/8xhTttTVOiY

(Scrooge McDuck!)

Comments

[kjorteo]

David took his white :D face on blue background avatar because it's the default player character in ZZT and this was back before he had guest stars. For everyone else, he just sort of asked them if they had any character/color preferences. I'm a fellow ZZTer and put myself in a few of my own games, so I actually had a ready-made ZZTsona anyway. I've always been that sort-of-looks-like-a-sun character, you see, though the color has changed with my furry species and such. It used to be yellow in the ChocoboKick days, then blue for husky-Teo. David was the one who thought of the light-grey-on-dark-grey color scheme for making it woodrat-appropriate. :)

This video cuts out at the start of level 6 (out of 10 regular levels plus a stationary boss fight for level 11). On limited lives, no cheating, just my own skill and such, my single-player record is making it to the end of level 6 (well, to the fishtail/waterfall part, which I finally spent my last life in a failed attempt to clear.) The carpet bit at the end of level 5 ... somehow wasn't that much of an issue for me back then (because obviously I spent well over the 3 lives/3 continues threshold on that one stretch alone this time.) I don't know whether this is a lag/input delay thing or a "I used to be a lot better at this game, you know" thing, but I'm honestly tempted to admit it's the latter since the delay wasn't that bad. I mean, unless it was subtly messing me up, but ... no, this is just a really hard game anyway, I think. I mean, it's an NES game by Rare, it wasn't meant to be possible to complete by humans.

In my many years with this game, I have never seen anyone trigger the "you've fallen far enough to die from it" threshold right as he was about to land on the carpet with the exact timing needed to trigger that falling-into-the-carpet ... thing. That was amazing. Well done, David. :D

He didn't die by getting the tongue extension from the carpet. He died by jumping off the carpet, getting the tongue extension in mid-air, and then landing on the spike directly behind it. It's a bit confusing to parse for people who didn't grow up with this game, because there is no distinct "death by landing on a spike" animation; it just automatically triggers the "falling to your death" animation instead. (Note how I "fell" at around 7:05 despite being absolutely nowhere near the edge--that's because I landed on that spike.)

And trust me, if you think that was the most awful platforming segment of the game....

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

I'm just looking at the complete map of the mountain, and that final jump that you have to do to get to the last boss. I'm still horrified at what kind of distilled sadism would make someone put a level exit in the middle of a wall miles from anywhere at the end of an icy, sloping pathway like that. Whoever made this has no soul - or alternatively, feeds parasitically on the frustrated tears of others, I'm not sure which.

D.F.

[kjorteo]

The fact that I like this game suggests the latter.

[premchaia_pre4]

Er, that phrasing does just make me think “Flowey”…