The Wizard's Warrior: The Quest Begins is a 1987 text adventure, developed by Crusader Computing. In it, you play as Randorlorn, a wizard, in its quest to assemble a party of adventurers to undertake the real quest, which takes place in the sequel, High Odds... which wasn't ever released.
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
Model used: 48K (Model 128k and upwards fail to boot the game)
Aims for fastest time
The solution used is based of the one in https://solutionarchive.com/file/id%2C6914/ with various modifications.
Optimization-wise all the typical stuff is done, words can be shortened up to 5 letters, some actions have shortcuts, like O to OPEN, or T to TAKE. There's IT and ALL keywords. IT can be used in place of the last noun used, and ALL does the command its attached to to whatever it applies to in a screen, ALL can also be used to take just one item, since using ALL is faster than using the shortened version of the noun, tho if the item will be used right after its better to don't use ALL and shorten the next command with IT.
There's also some weird inconsistencies, for example, you cannot use IT to replace HORSE, and SAY can be shortened to SA when saying to someone, but not when just saying something outloud.
Also, in the start I drop the staff and come back for it later is because the saddle is apparently too heavy to lift if you also have the staff. Dropping it there is also faster than not taking it on the first screen and coming back to it there, mainly because the drawing of the first sreen, and the extra screen transitions, takes longer than writing the two commands to take and drop the staff
Achieves best ending (?). If you reach the end without the whole party the game gives you a fail screen, not sure if that would be considered an actual ending or just a fail screen.
Based on this statement from the submission notes,
...quest to assemble a party of of adventurers...
I'd argue that this submission is not a "best ending" but just a general ending. It seems the presented goal of the game is to assemble the party. If the game tells you that you've failed because you didn't assemble the full party, then you've not beaten the game.
To me, a game outright telling they player that they've failed in the main goal means that they didn't beat the game even if they otherwise reached the end of playability. So if it's required to have the full party in order to get an ending that doesn't say "failed," that's a minimum requirement for the game to be considered beaten.
I realize that some games have multiple endings where it may report you failed some sub-task(s) presented while still achieving the main goal. In these cases we'd often consider such an instance a "bad" ending or not the "best" ending. But when a game only has 2 ending possibilities (effectively You Won or You Failed), then winning must be achieved to consider the game beaten.
Since we generally don't accept unbeaten games for publication, I don't think a run of this game that finishes faster by not getting (or, if possible, losing) party members would qualify for publication under a "bad ending" branch.
Achieves best ending (?). If you reach the end without the whole party the game gives you a fail screen, not sure if that would be considered an actual ending or just a fail screen.
Based on this statement from the submission notes,
...quest to assemble a party of of adventurers...
I'd argue that this submission is not a "best ending" but just a general ending. It seems the presented goal of the game is to assemble the party. If the game tells you that you've failed because you didn't assemble the full party, then you've not beaten the game.
To me, a game outright telling they player that they've failed in the main goal means that they didn't beat the game even if they otherwise reached the end of playability. So if it's required to have the full party in order to get an ending that doesn't say "failed," that's a minimum requirement for the game to be considered beaten.
I realize that some games have multiple endings where it may report you failed some sub-task(s) presented while still achieving the main goal. In these cases we'd often consider such an instance a "bad" ending or not the "best" ending. But when a game only has 2 ending possibilities (effectively You Won or You Failed), then winning must be achieved to consider the game beaten.
Since we generally don't accept unbeaten games for publication, I don't think a run of this game that finishes faster by not getting (or, if possible, losing) party members would qualify for publication under a "bad ending" branch.
Ah, ok, I wasn't sure, I'll remove that line.
This TAS gets the whole party to the end so it should be good then.
