Aladdin for SNES - 5 hours to LP!

Guild · #1 07-14-2013, 05:56 AM

Foreshadowing: I'm going to ATTEMPT to complete an LP of a simple fun game in less than 5 hours, starting from the download of the rom and PMing False. That's right, this thread is a total experimental potential disaster waiting to happen. I don't even have time to plug my other LPs or make this part interesting! Click the BAD LPS tag to see them. Why am I doing this? Who knows. Blah blah blah, this LP probably sucks badly and you've been forewarned.

Update 1.1: One step ahead of the lawman.


The Genesis game was so much better than this one. Seriously, so much better. That's not to say this one's bad. I mean it IS, but I'm not going to tell you not to try it once. Mostly, SNES Aladdin consists of five moves and five enemies. You can swing from shit, jump off shit, bounce off shit, bounce in a different way off shit and toss apples. There are flying enemies that follow tracks and non-flying enemies that either toss projectiles or run at you. That's pretty much the whole game, really. The graphics aren't as good as the Genesis one, either. I especially disliked the bullshit "Apu gets lost in a pyramid" level that appears as filler; perhaps it's a troll by the creators because they knew I had this movie memorized.

Guild · #2 07-14-2013, 06:10 AM

Update 1.2: Prince Ali Abooboo.


Let's DOOO THIIIIISSSS!! Here's bounce type 1, where you jump off a springy thing like a curtain. Pretty neat, but you get no hang time. Time a jump for more air. Jump type 2 is where you have no hang time before you're either soft jumping free or high jumping free depending on if you hit the jump button in time or not after landing on certain things. It usually happens when Aladdin jumps onto a pointy object like a pole, stalactite or an enemy's head. We can also grab ledges, pressing up to climb up or down to drop down. Thirdly, here's us ending a swing-type move from a pole (the pole is halfway between Apu and us) resulting in a pretty neat flip. I love how acrobatic Al is. Chests must be bounced off of. Here's us also encountering some snakes whom we can bounce off of to kill. Time those jumps! They move up and down! I don't remember what Gold Scarabs do. Continues I believe. And we make it to the end of stage 1 part 1. Nice! We win two lives at a break time, where a wheel spins until we press Jump and then Genie's finger acts as a clicker to pick a prize. 2 lives! Useless since I'll be rewinding if we die! This chest has some bread in it. The only way, again, to open chests is by jumping on them like enemies. We meet a barrel tossing guard and it's a bit tricky to clear the barrel while also jumping up stairs. We get a 1 up. Useless! Beat stage 1 part 2, and now it's time for part 3. Here we see a new thing to jump on, but guess what? It's just a jump type 1 platform. There won't be any new moves the whole game! Too bad. Catching a Gold Scarab is hard! They pop out of the chest then zoom around juuuuust out of reach overhead for a bit, then disappear totally. We have to find a way to get high in order to catch them. I got this one somehow. See the bread? 1 heart refill. And then there's this slide I just remembered. They use this maybe 3 times the whole game? Sorta neat but not really explored much.

Guild · #3 07-14-2013, 06:16 AM

Update 1.3: Patience, Iago.


There's a short area and then a boss. We have to juke him into attacking so his sword's lowered, then leap onto his head 3 times in a row. Easy. This pattern eventually becomes a regular enemy pattern. Every time we hit him, he gets up and bum-rushes us with a Chrissaegrim-style hyperattack that can be interrupted by tossing apples. Have I mentioned apples? Oh, I haven't? That's because they're largely useless if you know how to jump and time jumps, so I don't really use them. But they can be situationally useful. I'll show some examples later. Ooh la la! Our reward for destroying Agrabah's last remaining semblance of order in the wake of total financial collapse and class warfare is to instantly hook up with the Emperor's daughter. Nice! I don't have much more to add for now, so enjoy some screens of various art from the next few levels!

Guild · #4 07-14-2013, 06:24 AM

Update 1.4: Raaawk! The lamp!


The game expects you to collect jewels. This has a purpose later. I of course ignore all that. Crumbling floors, guidance from Apu, and we encounter enough gold to render it worthless on the open market. These skeleton king enemies are invulnerable and have the same attack pattern as the first boss. Instead of dying or taking damage, they are merely stunned momentarily if we land on one while his sword's down. Best to just ignore them. On the left side of the middle screen there is a pair of dancing magic swords that are invulnerable, damage us if we jump on their 'heads,' and walk right under us harmlessly as long as we jump. This is their one and only appearance for a long time, and there are only 2 of them. CARPET RULES! The second area of the Cave of Wonders has log flume rides, ropes that open timed doors and other cool stuff. One thing Disney doesn't skimp on is art. One thing they did skimp on in this game was mechanics. The controls are clunky, Al takes for. ev. er. to about-face mid stride, and he has little momentum from a standstill forward jump. Duck, pull rope, duck, gun-on-the-mantle gem in background we can't do anything with atm. We find the lamp but what is Al looking at? Ruh roh!

madhair60 · #5 07-14-2013, 06:37 AM

Truth bomb: Genesis Aladdin is one of those platform games from that era where your hitbox is basically all over the place and there's no real sense of interaction between you and the environment, unlike this SNES version which is tactile as platformers get.

I enjoy both and the Genesis game was the one I grew up with but in retrospect the SNES version is deeply superior.

Guild · #6 07-14-2013, 06:58 AM

You're probably right and it's probable I got these two games confused! Whatever! Bad LP continues undeterred!

Update 1.5: I can't believe it: I'm losing to a rug!


Oh Apu! trombone sound It's not lava, it's molten fucking gold, how cool is that. At least that's how I imagine it. Could be wrong! Who knows in this brave new universe where Madhair schools me soundly! Fuck yes rising platforms! Fuck yes random ass screenshots of nothing! This LP just broke the record for fastest LP in history and nobody knows why the attempt was even made! Done! And now the truly FUN level that's not awful! OH YEAH BABY! A giant wave of gold chases us, approaching and receeding, while rocks fall along set trajectories and the walls tunnel up and down, requiring lots of quick reflexes. This part's hard and awesome and I can do it without really even trying very hard because I rock. Here's me wiping out twice total necessitating a state load at the start to conserve lives. Get it rock

Guild · #7 07-14-2013, 07:07 AM

Update 1.6: You little punim there!


Interesting thing I heard once: The creators of Aladdin thought it was subversively funny to make Genie say Yiddish words to his middle-eastern friend Al. WHACK! Apples are useless unless you're fighting flying swords or in one other instance which we'll get to. These platforms change faces when we step on one. I think they also subsequently fall, but I can't remember even though I JUST beat this level. Genie makes an appearance for this part. He summons various objects for us to jump 1 or jump 2 or swing off. It's actually very fun but it was scary hard when I was a youngster. If Genie fucks his clone is it masturbation or incest or stealing a joke from Sharkey? Leap! Swing! Stick the landing. Al's a regular acrobatic wonder.

Guild · #8 07-14-2013, 07:20 AM

Update 1.7: (*very* dryly) Ecstatic.


Showcasing some acrobatics. I don't know why I screencapped these, but there you go! We get a continue (big whoop) and now it's time for scary creepy tongue escalators. Anyone else grossed out by all this self-absorption Genie seems prone to? I mean the guy's everywhere and we're walking all over him... something sexual and dark about it all. I think this is where I get whatever bisexuality I may deny having closeted up. Somewhere in childhood, tied to this game and Genie's scary ass tongues of annoying. At the top of the tongue shaft it's some boingy heads. I like how they look smashed down. Go Disney animators! Great art in this game. THESE are the ones that fall. A twice-repeated puzzle is to jump to a high one then WAIT while it falls till we can hit a lower one. Escapes what? Genie's mind? What the hell is actually going on here? This djinn needs a psychologist.

Guild · #9 07-14-2013, 07:26 AM

Update 1.8: A whole new world!


Oh, that makes sense now. The hell is this bullshit? No snow level, but instead a pyramid level? Pff. Yeah, I'm not commenting. Figure out what's going on yourself. Boss music, a pharoh head with a tail... wait a minute. bounce on pharoh head Abu! Yaaaaay! Let's get the shit out of this pit!

Guild · #10 07-14-2013, 07:37 AM

Update 1.9: A thousand pardons, O patient one!


See that middle image there? That's a whole mini-level filled with gems and clouds and that's it. Rather a nice intermission. It takes me 3.1 seconds to zoom through it by holding fast-forward. I even got us a few gems lol Gaaah, this fuckin' place. Here's where I start using apples on things. There's a bit where you have to jump from a moving platform onto another one, only they're exactly 1/2 a pixel too far apart and you MUST use an enemy to get to it, but if you KILL said enemy you gotta reload him by going left then back again?! And it's just annoying to me that it took me 5 minutes to do that one little damn stupid part. But this area does get a little stupid later too.

Guild · #11 07-14-2013, 07:52 AM

Update 1.10: You're speechless, I see. A fine quality in a wife.


These swords that walked around in Cave of Wonders now spawn off the swords on the back wall, dropping to the ground, walking a short way, then leaping into the air to spin toward us. Apples are the only way to kill them. Otherwise, just jump over them. Large toothy statue rock things on chains drop down to smash us but we can also platform on them. Finally, large snake heads reminiscent of Genie Jafar can be hopped on, but they disappear into the wall for a few seconds after, necessitating quick jumps and more accuracy. That area was the worst area, but there are TWO MORE bad parts upcoming. Bad part 1: These wall mounted lamps drop after one back-forth swing, requiring us to stay the hell off the ground as they resultingly explode into ground crawling fire waves. It's nice for killing enemies, but the game puts archers under them so we have to hit the archers with arrows, grab the lamps and then jump overhead, leaving the archers to die in the flames. I'm only annoyed because I don't like using apples. Iago harasses us intermittently by dropping bouncing skulls into the general area. I was so happy he was a good guy in the cartoon series. Here you go, three bad screencaps! This... ...stupid... ...fire! It rises up and then drops down and makes life a little hard. Luckily this is it for areas I hate in the whole game, but combining this with switches we have to hit to switchblock track-bound platforms is not very interesting to me, and guess what.

Guild · #12 07-14-2013, 07:58 AM

Update 1.11: Giving you your reward. Your eternal reward!


This is it! Boss form 1. Jafar tosses his staff into the ground and lightning shoots out of it in two directions. Jump to avoid that. When he swoops, try to catch him early enough to take damage, recover and then hit him while you're high enough from the knock-up of the hit to land on his head. Or use the chicken jars he summons. Whatever. Ok, this is actually a rad fight. The floor transforms into a snake body and we gotta time our jumps at times to avoid the fire exposed by the snake's undulations, landing Jafar's snake body returns from the depths to catch us. You'd think he'd just do somersaults.

Guild · #13 07-14-2013, 08:03 AM

Update 1.12: Good help is so hard to find these days, isn't it, Aladdin?


Most of this should be evident, but he's spitting eggs and we can use them to hit him. Or just keep jumpvoiding the fire pit and wait for him to dive in to attack as slowly as a viper caught in molasses. Both work.

Guild · #14 07-14-2013, 08:05 AM

Update 1.13: Itty bitty living space.

Guild · #15 07-14-2013, 08:09 AM

Update 1.14: CREDITS!


There we go. You're welcome. I apologize. Look at that, some jewels. I wonder if getting ALL of them does anything? I'll try it later. That was exhausting! 2 hours to spare. I'm the best/worst! Per Bad LP tradition, this thread has been rated 1 star. Thanks for reading!

Yimothy · #16 07-14-2013, 08:35 AM

An entire LP in less time than it takes me to do one update. Bravo!

Shinkirou · #17 07-14-2013, 09:55 AM

I am not sure that is a game I'd want to play honestly, but the fact that you did that in five hours is impressive none the less.

ozacrot · #18 07-14-2013, 10:37 AM

Guild you are a crazy person but I am glad that your outlet for crazy is doing so many LPs

Guild · #19 07-14-2013, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shinkirou

in five hours

Three hours, nine minutes, actually. *huffs and polishes cufflink*

Oz and Yims: *bow* Thanks!

Edit: It's more about the game than me or my presentation. A love letter to a beautifully rendered mediocre platformer.

Shinkirou · #20 07-14-2013, 11:37 AM

Now the real question is how many times have you played it before? :P

Guild · #21 07-14-2013, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shinkirou

Now the real question is how many times have you played it before? :P

Couple dozen game overs max.

Shinkirou · #22 07-14-2013, 12:05 PM

That says you have either not played it too much, or you have amazing Disney platforming talents. I choose to believe the latter.

Guild · #23 07-14-2013, 05:20 PM

Nah man zsnes rewind key

realtalk: this was my first platformer after mario and I adore this game to death, everyone should try it once just to see what us platformer fans were dealing with in that time period... not stellar but pretty darn good!

Guild · #24 07-15-2013, 12:20 AM

Alright, there won't be anymore Bad LPs by Guild that are this quick'n'dirty. This one was partially an experiment to see what kind of reaction a sudden new completed overnight LP would get here, as well as being a test of my method for making them and the speed it lends to the process. There's a lot to be said for adding jokes and rambling more, this LP is rather clinical and boring, really. But! Successful completion anyway. For what that's possibly worth.

The other reason I did it was I had to stay up all night so I could sleep the first 8 hours of the car ride home so I could stay awake enough to drive us the rest of the way home from Yelm, WA to Placerville, CA just now. Whew, what an amazing vacation. <--shut up about your vacation and make the superpost you have planned in Everything so you can drop it freako

If you want to read a good LP, check out Mogri's latest one which has lots of reader participation and shows what happens when someone who cares takes their time.

Not that I don't care. I just... well I sorta care? I'm pretty type B about art maybe.

Guild · #25 07-16-2013, 10:15 AM

Believe it or not, this is the halfway point of this LP.

That means it's time for a badvertisement!

Are you sick and tired of reading good LPs about games that don't suck?

Of course you aren't, but that's not going to inhibit the lameness of...

In a world of doors you want to open and humans you want to eat...

...play as a hungry beast with a penchant for the finer things in life...

...coming soon to an LP forum near you!