Simon speedruns Jazz Jackrabbit 1

[Simon]

I caught interest in Jazz Jackrabbit 1 speedrunning.

This is lots of memorization and dexterity. The speed is so high, you must memorize enemy locations to react in time during jumps.



Damage boosting in JJ1 feels like flying. When you hit an enemy, it knocks you back into the direction you came from. If you have held the wrong direction long enough before the hit, you bounce off enemies into the direction you want to go, almost at full speed, invincible.

When I made this topic, my times were around 35 minutes, and the world record was 30:32.

Update 2016-11-17: World record get! And continuing to improve.
Update 2018-01-13: I broke the 28-minute barrier with 27:57. We believe 27:00 is humanly impossible.

Twitch channel
speedrun.com leaderboard with best run

-- Simon

[grams88]

Oh my speedrunning can be very difficult. That is a close time Simon, you might have the potential to beat that time of 30:41, you never know. If there are any ways you can shave a few minutes off the time go for it.

[ccexplore]

I caught interest in Jazz Jackrabbit 1 speedrunning.

This is lots of memorization and dexterity. The speed is so high, you must memorize enemy locations to react in time during jumps.

Honestly, I'm surprised that you caught interest at all. Speedrunning feels precisely like the kind of grindy, execution-heavy activity that I imagine you would eschew.  Granted, if you're okay with letting other people beat you out of your record by mere seconds (or frames!) on the grindiest of details (and god help you if the game's physics includes pseudorandom elements), usually there are many broader glitches, backroutes, tricks and other strategies to help you get to the ballpark of an optimal route, and I can imagine Simon catching some interest in that sort of thing.  Maybe.  Actually still not that much given it's not even a tool-assisted speedrun, it sounds like one actually executed manually completely unaided.

All that said, best of luck and would love to see a video eventually, even if it falls far short of world record.

[Simon]

If there are any ways you can shave a few minutes off the time go for it.

There'll be a reasonable shave of 30 seconds to 1 minute by... not dying. The best time still had 1 avoidable death. Levels take between 20 seconds and 1 minute, death moves you back to their beginning, and you lose weapons.

I caught interest in Jazz Jackrabbit 1 speedrunning. This is lots of memorization and dexterity.

Honestly, I'm surprised that you caught interest at all. Speedrunning feels precisely like the kind of grindy, execution-heavy activity that I imagine you would eschew.

it's not even a tool-assisted speedrun, it sounds like one actually executed manually completely unaided.

<_<;

Yeah, it's real-time attack.

Grinding and mindless repetition is acceptable here, because it's an end-in-itself. There's no purpose outside of training for this particular game. When I fail, it's for my own fault, but it doesn't impact anything else.

(and god help you if the game's physics includes pseudorandom elements)

Physics can be chaotic, but not random. Gadgets spawn once they're very close to the screen. Most gadgets behave in a pattern according to passed time since their own spawn, that's easy to anticipate.

But certain gadgets move in a pattern according to time since level start. This is harder to plan. At least one place feels random, can cost seconds. Not a worry yet.

tricks and other strategies to help you get to the ballpark of an optimal route, and I can imagine Simon catching some interest in that

The route is a mixture of my own knowledge, Vortale's real-time WR, and a TAS. Most of it comes from the real-time WR. I do some things differently on purpose, but most are different only because I haven't practised the better method.

All that said, best of luck and would love to see a video eventually, even if it falls far short of world record.

Thanks! Maybe I can talk Icho into screencasting from his machine. :-]

-- Simon

[Simon]

34:30 yesterday night,

and another 35:15 this morning. Still lots of potential over yesterday's time.

Zero deaths will save ≥ 20 seconds yet.
Play JJ 1.0 instead of 1.2 for ≥ 15 seconds. Minor level differences. Published runs use 1.0.
Memorize Sluggion 2 for ≥ 10 seconds. I lack most theory here.
And lots and lots of execution in all the hard levels.

I shouldn't be playing games all day, I'm an adult. >_>

<Ramond> I'm disappointed
<Ramond> the forum overview showed "Simon practices Jazz" and I had my hopes up :p
<Ramond> turns out it is a speedrunning thread, which is still cool nonetheless

-- Simon

[Akseli]

This thread is awesome.

[Simon]

<SimonN> I'm hanging out in mumble
<SimonN> I will be playing JJ but up for discussion meanwhile
<Akseli_> I will hit the mattresses pretty much now, I tried again to go to bed in 10 pm but it's 16 minutes over already.. :-P
<SimonN> okay, good night then :-)

33:35, no deaths.

I have ordered a new desktop computer, I should have that in a week or two. I plan to install Arch Linux and will try to screencast from there. The wise internet believes that screencasting on Linux has improved within the recent years, Open Broadcaster became open-sourced and cross-platform.

As Icho puts it: We will see.

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

I have ordered a new desktop computer

Wow, a new computer just for JJ??!? Talk about serious commitment.   Of all the possible reasons for Simon to finally get a new computer, I would've never guessed anything like this in a million years.

[edit: okay in hindsight, I guess that assertion is a bit exaggerated.  I mean, certainly not JJ specifically, but clearly "the computer is not powerful enough to do something I wanted" is an obvious candidate reason. ]

Is there something I'm missing here by the way?  Did Simon like just graduated and got his PhD or something?  October is usually not what I think of as vacation time, and other typical reasons for have a (seeming) sudden increase in free time tend to be of the bad news variety......

[Simon]

clearly "the computer is not powerful enough to do something I wanted" is an obvious candidate reason.

Yeah, I think this is it.

I have wanted to get a new machine for a while. This laptop is either loud and slow, or terribly loud.

I choose loud and slow, but then D Lix debugging build takes 19 seconds to compile for 21,000 lines of code. That's annoying for reasonable iteration. D compiles very fast, but it's tricky to get incremental builds, the recommended solution is to just build everything.

I have Debian 6 installed from 2011, and don't want to risk updating. By now, I fear that everything would break left and right. Instead, I want to keep this laptop as a backup, and bet my money on a new machine instead. I'm trying a vendor who builds absolutely silent machines.

Wow, a new computer just for JJ??!? Talk about serious commitment.   Of all the possible reasons for Simon to finally get a new computer, I would've never guessed anything like this in a million years.

This is such a cute reaction, thanks. Made my day!

Did Simon like just graduated and got his PhD or something?

Nah, no PhD yet.

I was on a one-week summer school, no wifi in my hostel room. After math during the day, I found perfect evening fillers in JJ1 running and going to bed early. What an aftermath. <_<;;

-- Simon

[Simon]

Video: Simon plays JJ1 Episode 2, 117 MB, 5:12 minutes, with commentary.

I have my new machine. As promised, here's a first video for download. Smooth video, and I invested the time to add both game audio and commentary, which I haven't managed to record in one go.

Enjoy!

-- Simon

[Akseli]

Pretty swell. It was January 2011 when I last played Jazz Jackrabbit 1 (and therefore I can't remember the details very accurately), but I certainly have rated it as one of my favourite DOS games. Also, it appears that I have played a different version of JJ1 (1.3) that made, for example, Orbitus 2 pretty difficult to beat, although really memorable.

Still one solid looking, entertaining run with some neat tricks and informative commentary there, with some golden JJ1 music and nostalgy.

[Simon]

Thanks!

-- Simon

[mobius]

I know nothing of this game, so I was doubly impressed to see this looks to have non-linear levels much like Sonic, perhaps even more so?
Speedrunning is difficult. Not something I'm good at at all, so I'm always impressed at seeing it done.

[Simon]

Thanks for taking a look, even without prior knowledge.

Yes, some levels have large-scale branching. You can explore all of the level and find lots of hidden secrets. The game has bonus stages and hidden levels even. The speedrun doesn't visit them though.

Early Sonic games were inspiration for JJ.

-- Simon

[Simon]

First fully-recorded deathless run.

I haven't timed this with any extra programs. This was a twitch stream; if the movie was accurate, then it was between 33 and 34, but I'll be modest and write 35 minutes.

Happy: Technoir 2, I get the difficult spring in the middle, and do a hard damage boost near the end. Fanolint 1, I keep all four shields. Sluggion 2, so smooth.

Unhappy: Diamondus 2, but didn't reset because I needed a test recording. Marbelara 2, I want to boost off the very first enemy, but run into him instead. I invented this boost, but maybe it's too fickle.

-- Simon