Chuck Rock (SNES) (Run Up! Official Time: 11:55)

[Emptyeye]

Emptyeye's foray into obscure games continues!

Chuck Rock is a platformer that takes place in prehistoric times. Your character, Chuck Rock, can attack with either a belly bump (Yes, really), a jump kick, or by picking up and throwing rocks. Amongst the gaming members of my family, it's known for having an awesome intro theme (For this reason, it holds the unique honor of being the first SNES game played when I moved into my present apartment) that gives way to awesomely average game play when you actually press Start (I didn't say I actually got beyond the title screen...).

Anyway, I actually beat the game for the first time earlier today (I could never figure out how to harm the last boss), and it seems like it's a pretty speedrunable game with a neat shortcut or two--there are points, especially in the early levels, where you're supposed to go around patches of terrain that harm you, but you can simply go right through them with enough health. It's also a pretty quick game, too, particularly once I get some running strategies down. My main concern at this point is really finding enough verifiers--this is probably even more obscure than Astyanax.

Has anyone besides me heard of this game, or would like to see a run of it?

[Enterim]

Never heard of it, though it sounds pretty cool.

[sunburstbasser]

Unga Bunga!

This game is shit, but I'm willing to pirate it if a verifier is needed.

[NoiseCrash]

Never heard of it, but I'm always up for seeing new runs. I'll have to take a look at the game.

[AKA]

I certainly have heard of the game and no way is it a bad game. Perhaps maybe a little too simplistic for some people. I did a TAS on it a while ago so it will probably be worth checking it out for routes and general strategies throughout the game. As for the last boss the best area to attack is it's head because it you land three hits in quick succession it will slowly back off to the right half of the screen where it becomes invunerable for a short while. You need to attack it early enough so that you knock it onto the right half of the screen, where it imeadiatley comes back again. I'm more than happy to verify a run.

[Medeon]

I never heard of it, too, but I'm interested in seeing a run of it.

[Emptyeye]

Okay, so we've got several "I've never heard of this but would watch it anyway"s, and a couple "I'll verify"s with varying opinions on the game itself. My own thoughts are that it's somewhere between sunburstbasser and AKA's assessments--"shit" is going a bit overboard, but "thoroughly unremarkable" is probably an accurate assessment overall.

In any event, practice will begin in earnest after tomorrow, when I (Hopefully!) go back to my parents' place to grab my PC controller (That I thought was here, but apparently not...). Suffice to say that trying to speedrun a console game on a keyboard is just...no. Doesn't work. But after tomorrow, I'll be doing my usual routine of practicing on an emulator, building up the run piece-by-piece until I'm ready to start console attempts.

[Moostafar]

I've never heard of this game until I read this thread, so I can't really say anything useful. Thank you for pointing out the intro music kicked ass though(added to my collection!) and good luck to you, I'll be watching!

[ShinerCCC]

Do it rigthth, EmptyEye!

Also wtf you are short. Do you bother to do crossovers?

[Emptyeye]

Do it rigthth, EmptyEye!

Also wtf you are short. Do you bother to do crossovers?

Fuck that Shiner guy!

Also wtf this isn't a ddr topic. But yes, on faster stuff, I do generally crossover.

Incidentally, in practicing on an emulator, for some reason Level 2 doesn't emulate properly. See here for a slightly more detailed explanation; suffice to say that it makes it a bit difficult to practice level 2 on an emulator. Oddly, if I can get past it, Level 3 is fine; haven't tried the last two levels yet.

[AKA]

ZSNES Yuk 

Use SNES9x instead. If you still have problems with that use GENS.

[Emptyeye]

Maybe I'll try that.

Incidentally, I have watched your TAS of the Genesis version. There are TINY differences between the games (The boss of Level 3 only moves up and down in the SNES version, for instance), but I think overall it'll be a lot of help for route-planning and such. So thanks for that. Indeed, all the versions seem pretty similar actually.

[Emptyeye]

Fuck that double-posting guy! Wait a sec...

Anyway, SNES9X does the trick emulation-wise. I think I can beat all the bosses reasonably quickly except, oddly, the first one, where it'll depend on if I can get a good rhythm going with tossing and immediately picking up the rock. For the T-Rex, I've found that the best, safest place to stand for console play is actually the middle platform. If you stand right on the edge of it, with proper timing, the T-Rex will simply run into your belly bounces. It's not the absolute quickest way of doing things, because he gets hit, goes back to the right, then back towards you, but it is the safest, and I frankly had trouble hitting him multiple times on a pass anyway.

Practice is going well. I'm going to probably take notes my next time through to remind myself of potential trouble spots in the run. Level 1-2 is actually one of the harder ones, because I utilize a shortcut that takes most of my life.

[AKA]

Whats the shortcut in 1-2?

I'm aware of one at the start of 1-3, but it requires a very well timed damage boost. You need to get damaged and still be holding jump button at the very peak of a jump. It also had another use as it manipulated the rockfall later on so I didn't get hit by any falling debris.

[Emptyeye]

Ah, it's the one you take about 40 seconds into the .AVI, only I was doing it a different way (Just jumping directly into the spikes). Your way is even quicker, though I still hit the spikes twice. Oh well. I'll have to re-watch the TAS and see what else I can pick up (Your way of attacking the T-Rex boss doesn't seem feasible on the SNES).