Hope for passing the Killscreen?!

[f_symbols]

Ok guys, last night mitch was talking about a broken ladder glitch.  I did some experimenting today on my cab and had some striking results.  While alternating between Up and Down directional inputs, at a stupidly high rate of speed (4-way stick in danger), you can climb through space, bending to laws of newtonian physics, seemingly at will.  As you can see in the video, there were times when the vertical progress was rather fast;  I believe that perhaps this glitch could be further investigated to determine the optimum input pattern for space-ascension.  Here's hoping for 22-2!

http://www.twitch.tv/f_symbols/c/2415246

EDIT:  This was an attempt to see if the game timer would kill jumpman while he was suspended on the broken ladder.  The answer is still unknown, however we expect the game will just register it as a ladder position; meaning jumpman will die if the timer runs out, maybe...

http://www.twitch.tv/f_symbols/c/2415814

[Xermon54]

Me and Mitch did it easily on mame with Frame Advance, but I didn't expect someone to be that good at it on an actual arcade! I don't know if the kill screen could be passed if done perfectly (with frame advance).

Good job, Ethan! All these years of playing with the joystick finally paid off! You're freaking fast with the joystick!

EDIT: Since you  can't die from the timer when Jumpman is in the air, will Jumpman die from the timer if he's climbing in the air? Will the game consider him as being on a ladder, or being in the air? If it's the second option, then Jumpman can easily climb all the way to the top without dying from the timer!

[marinomitch13]

Yeah, first things first, does anyone have a mame KS save state they can upload? If a method/timing can be discovered for climbing quickly, passing the KS may be feasible. However, it may be pretty much coincidental whether or not you climb up or down, so, in the end it may be luck.

Another thing, it needs to be tested on the KS whether or not the game registers Jumpman as begin on a ladder when this is done. If he is counted as being in the air, then maybe the KS won't kick in.

[LMDAVE]

Have to admit, this is the first time I've heard/seen the broken ladder glitch. Interesting.

However, Even if you did pass 22-1, you still have the killscreen timer of 400 on 22-2 thru 22-6, and because of the way the killscreen bug works, if you did get to level 23 somehow, the new timer will be 1400 (maybe speed run can get through that), then L=24 will ben 2400, L=25 will be 3400, etc until you get to level 30 it'll be back to normal at 8000.

[stella_blue]

Yeah, first things first, does anyone have a mame KS save state they can upload?

Here you go, Mitch (see attached).

EDIT:  In case anyone is wondering, I didn't actually achieve a killscreen.  I created a save state at the beginning of Level 18-2 (the final stage of my "personal best" game).  I just wanted another chance to play it out and determine what my final score might have been, had I reached the end.  I created a second save state on Level 21-5 (death due to a fireball on the 6th girder) and another one at the start of Level 22-1.

Sorry I only gave you one life to experiment with, Mitch.

[Fast Eddie]

i just used the level cheat to get to the killscreen and the timeout does indeed kill you in midair...

still pretty cool though 

[Ohrami]

Hmm. I'm testing this but it doesn't seem to work. Is there some sort of pattern you have to follow?

[marinomitch13]

Pushing down is obviously bad, so you want to minimize activating this leaf switch as much as possible. Ethan and I found the best results when we were slamming the joystick up and letting the bounce-back barely trigger the down motion (you need to go down some amount to go up and get another 'glitch' upward). It's kinda a two-steps-forward-one-step-backward process... at best.

Ethan and I also seemed to notice a 'plateau' of sorts once Jumpman is halfway above the 2nd girder -however, we're not sure if this is from our own fatigue or from some element of the game's frame rate changing things due to sprites on the screen (I have a hypothesis that it is harder to utilize this glitch the more barrels/fireballs there are on screen, but that is just a guess based upon correlations I saw).

It would be amazing if there ended up being some sort of physical skill (kinda like T&F skills, but with the joystick) that could be learned to scale this quickly. However, even if this were to happen, I'm not sure the fastest rate of climb we've seen would even be fast enough to complete the screen :/ .

[Bliss1083]

I went with a long up and short taps down approach and had some luck. But you got to be hella fast to actually get it all the way up. I got smacked by a barrel after I couldn't get completely above it passing by. I never have seen this until today. Cool things I learn everyday about DK.

[stella_blue]

But you got to be hella fast to actually get it all the way up.

I beg your pardon?   

[Bliss1083]

Haha. Good catch! Surprised a that's what she said wasn't thrown in. Lol

[JCHarrist]

Here's what would happen if you executed the ladder glitch flawlessly on the killscreen AND got lucky enough to avoid all the barrels without pausing 

Using the ladder glitch on the killscreen

[xelnia]

Argh, looks like he's only 10-12 pixels/20-24 frames from the top. So close!

[marinomitch13]

Hahaha! Nice, Jeff! Well, I guess now we know the KS truly is the KS!