Stumbling together through Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll - Part 3

[davidn]

Twenty minutes... for two levels, if you can believe it. kjorteo and I struggle together through the final stages of this alleged game, this artefact of pain distilled into the form of a cartridge. In it, we climb the last ice mountain stage (being more successful at going downwards), and then fight against one of the most ridiculously unfair bosses ever created by man or beast. Wish us luck... not with the game, because we've already done that - just with the recovery.

http://youtu.be/iOQc2cCQ-78

As an addendum, shockingly, Terotrous on the GameFAQs boards posted an entirely legitimate run of it - he gets through the game impressively unscathed until the geyser/waterfall section, and then is absolutely destroyed by the six tiles of right-sloping ice at the top of level 10, which claim two continues on their own. Nintendo games just... did not like to be beaten.

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

Teo. . . yes. :P

I'm honestly surprised there isn't another two or three levels on this game. I. . can't really imagine more than about a half dozen people having completed this game when it came out. Still, it seems like they could have done a couple of moon levels, rather than introduce a new gravity at the same time they add in a boss.

Also, is this really how that first level of the video begins? With an enemy charging across the player's position in the first second? It's difficult to believe that happens, yet. . it does seem reasonable in comparison to what else is in this game.

Also also . . DavidN is supposed to be the one with colour issues: yet you've been referring to the player colours as pink and blue, Teo. Those are the most orange and purple characters I've ever seen @_@!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I'd been wondering about that, so I took a screencap and messed with it in GIMP for a little bit...apparently Teo's viewing things with the hue 60 degrees off.



(The edit on the right is to let Kjorteo see them how they actually are if this is an issue with his monitor or eyes.)

[davidn]

Thank you for coming to my support! I was beginning to think I was going mad as well as colourblind.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was right and I was seeing things wrong due to the tint in my glasses. o_O

[kjorteo]

The "how it should look to Kjorteo" version shows Rattle as bright neon lime green and Roll as magenta. Are you sure that's how it's supposed to look to me?

Anyway, I get #ff8e71 for Rattle, a sort of coral pink. Roll's portrait is #ca85ff, or "Kjorteo-colored," but the in-game sprite is a much bluer #a48aff.

[kjorteo]

There's also this, of course.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. . .that icon is very blue. And very much how I remember the game when I played it. Yet, in the video, the snakes look very apparently orange and purple to me. Hmmm. . .

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I did a Google image search on "Snake Rattle n Roll," and everything that's come up so far has been the colorations shown in the video: Rattle's been shown universally to be orange, not pink.

I think your emulator might need the Tint knob tweaked a bit to the right. o_O;

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Good grief are we really having this deep a discourse over the coloration of a pixelated snake?

[premchaia_pre4]

Color calibration is Serious Business. ♪

[davidn]

I believe the idea is that if your monitor really were shifted 60 degrees in hue, you would see the right-hand picture as the correct colours as they are in the game - obviously not, as even I can tell (well, with some prompting on the green one) are bright green and pink.

#ff8e71 is mathematically pink (not always the best way to tell but the only way I can really 'see' colours) - but on Rattle's portrait in the middle up there, I get a much oranger #F77900.

[kjorteo]

Oh, sorry, I forgot to clarify and misled--I wasn't going by Xaq's guide. Or I was at first, but then ... hold on, let me start over.

The HTML values I gave were for what I see in game, not what I see in Xaq's image. I got them by pausing a clip pf the LP part 3 video at the top of this page, and eyedroppering that.

I actually don't know where Xaq got his screenshots, but I agree that Rattle is much more orange there than he(?) is in our videos. It could be an emulator ... difference of some sort. Remember how we started part one in one emulator, then ran into too many technical issues, and switched to a different emulator and started over? I never mentioned this before because the editing is almost seamless, but I can still sort of tell the point at which we switch because the color balance (or at least the brightness) suddenly changes.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I snapped a screenshot of Stumbling Together II, pasted it into 3 separate images in GIMP, then toyed with the hue on 2 of them.

Middle: Unaltered.

Left: Hue-altered to match your description.

Right: Hue-altered in the exact opposite way for reasons already explained.

[premchaia_pre4]

The NES output analog video to a television, right? Thus luminance/chrominance modulation. The exact colors would be uncalibrated and dependent on the scaling and biases of the output device; if the emulators are trying to emulate that and using different curves…

(If it's just the brightness it might well be global gamma correction, which of course can also have an effect on color perception.)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned under the pic, that was in case the color-off-ness was due to something with your eyes or your monitor; the hue on those was shifted the opposite direction, so that, if that were the case, it would shift to the right color.

Since you're seeing them in the color they actually are, however, that's apparently not the case....so, disregard the right third of the image.

[davidn]

We'd entered the level and then paused for a break, but pretty much, yes - the first thing that happens once you're out the door is that vague cube enemy just rockets towards you and probably cleaves through you both.

It's a weird change to the game, suddenly being on this plinth of cheese without any of the slope torture that characterizes the later half of the game... the Megadrive version does have an outer space level, but frankly I'm glad that the game makers chose to stop where they did in this version!

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, a Genesis port...! Is it improved (i.e. completeable) at all...?

[davidn]

I'm not sure. I'll check tonight!

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

From the depths of YouTube, I bring you this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZfucy9sGy8

They seem to have kept in the extra jumping height from the 'final boss' level, and in this one the nibble-pibblies jump around like... well, space hoppers. Also, they've made the time limit ridiculously tight, and apparently Rattle and Roll are jerks to each other in the Megadrive/Genesis version (as evidenced by the final score tally). I kind of like their NES incarnations better, anyway.

D.F.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

Supposing this version was released after, that would make the final level here the sequel, of sorts. The level seems strangely easy, with pathways most players can actually expect to traverse. It still needs to be played almost perfectly, but it doesn't seem impossible to complete with one life, unlike the previous four or eight levels.

Personally, I like the ending "see you next time for snakes in space" better than what's shown after the actual "in space" part. Though the cinematic is nice, and likely not something that could be done cleanly on the nes.

[davidn]

Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll: But They're In Space!

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

But they're in space??!?!!?!?!!!?????