The Addams Family is neither a very good game, nor one I have any particular relation to or fond childhood memories of. I'm not even a fan of the Addams Family (never watched the TV-series or the film). I mainly picked this game because noone had ran it before and because I thought it suited my gamestyle. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that...

If you're not familiar with this game, here is a small description for you to catch up. You play as Gomez and your objective is to save six family members who have been captured by the family's attorney. They are scattered around the Addams mansion. You can get to some of them directly (Thing, Granny, Wednesday and Lurch), while there are requirements for rescuing the others. Pugsley is stuck in a hole in the house (you see his legs sticking out on the left side of the house) and needs a shrinking potion to get out. The shrinking potion is composed of three ingredients (bone, blue egg and fog). You need to go a bit out of the way to collect all of them. The last family member, Morticia, can only be reached after having rescued the other family members and having collected at least 1 million dollars. The money requirement is another reason to get out of the way in this game. The game has a reputation of being difficult because of poor hit detection and unlinear gameplay. While the first is very much true (and even taken advantage of in this run), the manual is actually pretty well-written and give you good hints about everything needed to complete the game.

Thanks to sda for proving that sharing and transparency are great virtues and will lead to excellence. A huge thanks goes to Ventuz (author of the current tas) for giving me a flying start (too many strategies to mention were picked up from his tas). Thanks also to him and Walker Boh (previous tas) for trying to answer my questions about some game-related stuff. The last thanks goes to nesbozz who found this game for me.

Start - Entering the wood
-------------------------
Not much to comment on except that I missed tricking the spider to go left just before entering the ball room.

Wood - Pond - Wood
------------------
The wood is tricky to run in an optimized manner (both ways) in a no-death run. Time is obviously lost in sketchy turning and so on, but I won't even try to estimate how much. The run's biggest mistake comes in the pond, where I had to wait for the first jellyfish one extra cycle (2,5 seconds lost).

Attic
-----
The hardest section and also the one requiring the most luck. Triggering the bats is random as far as I can tell. This time I got lucky by both triggering the bat at 13.31 and at 14.05. They are both pretty much required for a run of the attic to look nice. I also managed to nail all the three jumps where money bags are collected from the level above (one of trickier stunts execution wise in the game).

Chimney - Treasury
------------------
Got unlucky and bounced off the second bat in the chimney. The only other thing I would like to comment on is that I messed up entering the door to the library. It cost a second and looked pretty ugly.

Treasury-End
------------
A glitch made me "double-jump" on the last stair (with the evil attorney). This meant I had to jump on his head a third time and take some damage which almost cost me the run one second from the end. I think that was a near-death experience both for Gomez and me...

From what I can see, the obvious execution mistakes and/or bad luck in this run cost maybe 7-8 seconds. In theory, more time was lost due to for example unoptimized turning, waiting for falling objects, not entering doors at the earliest possible frame and it's also possible to squeeze more time out of the pond level. The unintentional hits represent a fair amount of the energy lost during the run. By optmizing this, more damage could have been taken elsewhere to save time. Personally, I don't feel tempted to go for a riskier strategy though, because some margin is needed in order to offset the more than cheap hit detection and the random areas of the game. More than one decent run has ended because running out of energy, without necessarily having made any big mistakes.

For an introduction, I refer to the comments for the no-death run (provided it hasn't been beaten by the time you read this).

Before going on to the run commentaries, I would like to thank sda for being a model in transparency and for inspiring players to invest time into creating a steady stream of mind-blowing runs. Huge thanks goes to Ventuz (author of the current tas) for giving me a flying start (too many strategies to mention were picked up from his tas). Thanks also to him and Walker Boh (previous tas) for trying to answer my questions about some game-related stuff. The last thanks goes to nesbozz who managed to provide me with a copy of Addams Family.

Start - 3rd death (outside the tomb)
------------------------------------
No big mistakes. (but not much can go wrong either)

- 4th death (inside the tree)
-----------------------------
The run's biggest mistake comes in the secret room, where the exiting is messed up.

- 5th death (the conservatory)
------------------------------
No big mistakes. (but not much can go wrong either)

- 6th death (kitchen)
---------------------
No big mistakes. Pretty close call with the energy meter completely depleted in the end.

- 7th death (the wood)
----------------------
For those not familiar with this game and think that the pond is similar to the swim levels in super mario bros, think again. You need to tap the button at a very precise frequency in order to ascend, making the level far beyond "tear-your-hair-off" frustrating to navigate. Anyways, I messed up a bit at the spanner and exiting the pond could have been faster, but otherwise it went well. Again a close call with no energy left in the end.
- End
-----
The attic is the most random area in the game and I have never gotten a run with perfect luck through it. Some time is no doubt lost here because of bad luck, but also because of a couple of badly planned jumps. I'm very happy though that I succeded with the three very risky jumps where you pick money bags from the level above. If you jump too high, the run is over and too low looks unpolished.

I estimate around 5 seconds lost due to glaring execution mistakes and/or bad luck. More time was obviously lost due to unoptimized turning, waiting for falling objects, not entering doors at the earliest possible frame and the swim level can always be done faster. I don't dare to estimate how much time it represents though.

Let's round this off with a small faq section.

Q : There is more a direct route up the tree. It involves a risky jump, but you took a safer and longer route along the floor ?
A : It's true that the normal (intended) way up the tree involves a tricky jump at the start. It might look like this would be faster since it's more direct. However, this jump will trigger the bat to the left and you have to wait for it to come down before continuing, which takes more time than taking the lower route. It's only about half a second though, so not a big deal.

Q : How do you know that this is the fastest route ? Have you really tried everything else ?
A : Everything is a strong word here. This is basically a slightly modified version of the current tas route, so I'm not completely wrong at least. I have done a fair amount of research and this is simply the fastest route I came up with. There are two mysteries that remain. The role of the music manuscript in the middle is unclear and I haven't found anything hidden in Fester's room. The manual hints in a way that can be interpreted as if any of these could yield something good. To be honest though, I don't think they do. If you notice anything that I've overlooked, please contact me !!!

Q : You already died 7 times. Why didn't you go all the way and use also the last death to save some time ? Or even taking 1 or 2 extra lives to allow additional deaths ?
A : First of all, you can only pick up 1 extra life. While there is an extra life in two places, taking one will result in the other disappering. Second of all, there are actually two more death possibilities that I've given some thought. The first is in the green bone room (death warp from top to bottom). While you'll reach the door faster than descending normally, you will need to stand still on the spikes outside the tomb waiting for the invincibility to wear off before you can die again. The second place is immediately after exiting the mansion the first time, allowing you to warp right below the tree. While this is a closer call time wise, again you need to stand still on spikes and wait for the invincibility to wear off (and then lose the right amount of energy before continuing up). A third place where dying would warp you to a different place is the gallery (with the icebear). If you die on the left side, you'll start on the right side of the room. This doesn't help anywhere with my route. Should someone come up with something I've missed and try a different route, this might be worth giving a thought though.

Q : Do you really need to rescue ALL of the family members ?
A : Well, Lurch plays the piano and allows you to access the pond (money + spanner) and the secret river. Wednesday gives you the attic key (allowing you access to the fog machine on the roof and a lot of money) when you thaw her out in the furnace. Granny fixes the fog machine once you find the spanner. Without Pugsley, you can't open the door to the treasury (where you weigh in the 1 million). Morticia triggers the ending... The last family member is Thing. Trying out the roof without Thing would be pure suicide and there are money bags around him that you need to collect anyway. I don't know if it's possible to complete the game without rescuing Thing, but the time picking it up is more than earned back by using it.

Q : Speaking of Thing, was the use of it really optimal ?
A : Well, the benefit of the first and last use of Thing are pretty self-explanatory. The second one saves two seconds (avoiding the first 3 bricks on the roof). I don't believe I stop that much in any other parts of the game to make better use of it. Being able to run through the last stretch of the freezer (on your way back, with the falling ice) would yield something similar in saved time though.

Q : How much money is there in the game ?
A : The question has crossed my mind, but to be honest, I don't know. There are two more secret stashes containing 5 000 each. There are two dollar bags that I don't pick up in the chimney (the tas manages to catch one of them though). There is also one dollar bag I didn't get in the gallery (with the icebear). Grabbing it costs 8 extra seconds, but there just isn't any other single money bag that is so much out of the way to make it worth it. I also skip two diamonds (one outside the house and one in the pond), that are a little out of the way. There are also small value items scattered around that I don't pick up. I would guess that in total there is between 1 050 000 and 1 055 000 dollar in the game.