Speed Demos Archive - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

This game is probably lesser known than most, but it was absolutely a part of my childhood. It's a wonderful game and the gameplay is top notch. I'm amazed that it isn't more popular with how unique and fun the game truly is. I'd like to start by saying that this game is so freakin random. Thanks to the help of some of my friends at tasvideos Upthorn and DarkKobold, they found out that the game has a 4 byte RNG, which is significantly larger than pretty much any other game. The creators of this game really did not want the game to be predictable. Fortunately, with enough tries you can get the right randomness. Then all you need to do is play it correctly.

The reason I use Toejam instead of Earl is because for one, I think he's much cooler, and two, his panic buttons are much more effective. Due to Toejam's smaller stature, his panic button jars are thrown from a lower center and thus have a better chance of hitting earthlings. Toejam is slower than Earl at pushing rocks however, but as I learned in the fifth segment, there's a way around it that makes the difference less severe. Now I'd like to discuss a few things about each of the levels.

Segment 1

Level 1: This is where the warp happens. I'm not sure who found it or how it was discovered, but thanks to TheLazenby who posted about it on the forum, it is now much less unknown. This warp allows you to warp to either level 3, 4, or 5. This shortcut on it's own saves about 10 minutes off of Arrow's run.

Level 5: I do a hyper funk zone here in order to stock up on panic buttons, funkvacs, and super jars. It takes only a minute to obtain 7 super jars, 3 panic buttons, and 4 funkvacs. That's approximately 4 seconds per item, all of which will probably save 4 seconds or more by themselves. While doing the third segment I learned of a way to get just a little bit more height out of a jump, so unfortunately my path Bustin' Bubbles is a bit slower than would be if I took a new path that I will most definitely put into my single segment run.

Level 6: The beginning of this level did not go as normally planned. Usually I would kill the 3 on top of the hill and jump down, grab the super jars, capture the tourist and use the funkvac on the harder enemies. Unfortunately the boy jumped down on me and I had to improve. It worked out ok in the end. At the end of that same room I was very unfortunate with the last 2 poodles that jump out. Only the first one jumped out at me and the other stayed hidden, forcing me to uncover him which lost a few seconds. I had many attempts fail because of the fungus in the last room and the bubble boy. Several times I got him stuck into the wall or I would be stuck bouncing and be unable to get to his jar before he would break out.

Overall: This segment overall was a savings of about 15:05 from Arrow's run with about 10 minutes of that being due to the warp. This is probably my worst segment. As I continued on my run I learned a lot of things that would help on this segment and not just on Bustin' Bubbles, but just about general gameplay and how to deal with some of the earthlings more efficiently.

Segment 2

Level 7: I can't tell you how many attempts on this level got screwed because of that cow at the beginning. The reason for the lame funkvac on this level is because I really needed the super jar for the box man. He's just much more difficult to deal with than most, especially on ice. Despite the bad super jar luck throughout all of this level, it turned out decently enough.

Level 8: The reason I captured the construction worker unlike Arrow is because he can unpredictable at times. I've had many attempts where he would be uncooperative and not let me capture him with the vac and be forced to go find him. In the following room after danger street you see me make a pretty glaring error with the tourist. I hit the A button instead of the B button, but I'm ok with it because I was getting too excited and the mistake calmed me down and brought me back to Earth, which allowed me to finish the rest of the segment nearly flawlessly.

Overall: This attempt was so significantly better than any of my previous attempts that it beat out my previous best by about 30 seconds and it was a nearly four minute improvement on Arrow's run.

Segment 3

Level 9: I can't repeat a lot of the words I used to describe this level, I suppose you wouldn't be able to tell just from watching, but it is truly one of the hardest levels in the game. I did do a large route change on this one, rather than the route Arrow takes, I opt to talk to Flarney who opens up a quick passage out of the underground area and puts me right back to where I started from. The leaves me with a couple less Super Jars I suppose, but overall the path is much quicker. The part with the fungus, the fairy and the two cows, was extremely fortunate this time around. I can't tell you how many times this part ruined a segment. This is also the segment where I really learned how to take out boogiemen properly.

Level 10: This level is quite a break in the difficulty curve. It's much easier than the previous levels. It's also where I learned that throwing a jar upward at just the right time will result in a little extra height. It's actually much more difficult to pull off than it looks and I had quite the number of failures on it. You'll see it again on segment 5. Other than that I'm actually quite proud of the couple of shortcuts I found in the last area of this level.

Overall: I'm quite happy with this segment, minus the fairy fight at the end of level 9. It went well in all aspects except for that. I saved about four minutes and eighteen seconds on this segment. This is where I started to believe that I might be able to break the hour mark.

Segment 4

Level 11: The entire segment weighs on how well I do on this level. That first jump caused many many resets. If you watch it closely, you'll see I just barely miss clipping the ground on the platform above the funktivate spot for the super jar presents. The two ghost cows caused many of resets due to how much they loved to not show up until they were already on top of me. In case anyone was wondering, the reason I jump at the well is because if I didn't I would need to walk into the wall for about a second or so before I would be far enough into it that I could funk out of that area.

Level 12: There's a shortcut you can see me taking near the area with the poodle lady and the 3 female tourists. The one used to get out of the underground area is actually quite difficult to pull off because you have to standing in that exact spot to do it or it won't work. Here is where one of the most drastic changes from the previous run occurs. Arrow missed the Trixie spot near the beginning of the level that gives infinite Super Jars for the entire level. This is a huge savings to the previous run and makes the rest of the level easy to finish.

Overall: One of the easiest segments, there really isn't much to say about it. It was a good five minutes faster than the previous run mostly due to the super jars.

Segment 5

Level 13: Major route overhaul here. I'm able to do it because of the extra height I can get from throwing a jar upwards, which is done at the very beginning of the segment. Shortly after that I make a tough maneuver with the panic button to stay on top of a small platform. This requires a quick thumb going back and forth between left and right. On this particular attempt I tried something new with the area with two boogiemen and the box man, it didn't work out very well, but it wasn't too fail and wasn't much of a loss.

Level 14: This level also had a major route overhaul to eliminate all backtracking. I also didn't get the infinite funkvacs for two reasons. The first being that the infinite funkvacs are in quite an out of the way place making it tedious to get to. The second reason being that funkvacs take too much time and I'd rather rely on my ability to handle the situation quickly than to rely on the slow vacs. The only thing about this part that got me a bit upset was the boogiemen around halfway through. It just went all sorts of fail.

Overall: This segment went very well and I'm very happy with my routes. There's no telling how much was saved from better play and how much from the route changes but the overall savings is about 3min and 16 seconds.

Segment 6

Level 15: Another segment where I can't repeat the many words I said. Female tourist + 2 ghost cows = extremely painful to deal with. So many attempts ruined because of the trigger happy finger on her camera or cause the cows were in the most dastardly intrusive spot ever. On the following room I perform a bit of a panic button shortcut. And the rest of the level goes rather well, with the exception of bubble boy getting out of his jar. Waste of a super jar, but at least it would have only gone for a ghost cow, thus saving only one jar. I really wanted to death abuse here, but due to some problems with the games coding it made it not worth it. If you get the "all earthlings captured" message at the same time as you die, the controller no longer works and you have to reset the game. If you manage to die fast enough that the message doesn't show up, you'll be lucky enough to get two freakin messages.

Level 16: I use more funkvacs on this level than any other level in the game, and deservedly so. This level is pretty harsh. But on this particular attempt I managed to play it quite well and I'm very happy with it.

Level 17: This was my first attempt where I didn't get hit by at least one fairy.

Overall: I was very happy with this attempt, it went very well with a few exceptions.

Overall overall: This game is so loaded with randomness that I just had to basically make lemonade from lemons on every attempt. I guarantee that every segment is improvable, but it would require a massive amount of effort and more luck than I have patience.

Hope you enjoy watching the run, thank you to Arrow for his previous run which helped quite a bit on a few strategic decisions and route dilemmas. Thank you to LagDotCom for being a good motivator. And of course thank you to the many people that watched me stream and enjoyed the music. I hope I've made fans of the game.