"Terry The Turtle" - item completability?

[IRF]

However, I have now managed to find a way to collect those two awkward items in Cheat Mode. I manoeuvred Terry to an equivalent position to directly underneath the two items, in another room, and then switched rooms (via the cursor-based JSW64 Cheat Mode room-swap mechanism).

That way, I got Terry embedded in the floor directly underneath the items, with his sprite's pixels aligned with the items as much as possible. I then jumped straight upwards. When you are mid-jump, the sprite's INK attribute stretches up through three character rows at times, and since the Terry sprite is only about five pixels high, an attribute collision with the items was able to take place before a pixel collision with the guardian caused either death, or (with Forcefield activated) the switching off of the Draw Willy routine (which needs to be executed in order to collect items).

[jetsetdanny]

21 hours ago, IRF said:

So in summary, I couldn't find a way to obtain any of the 'Forbidden Holy Items', but at least hopefully I have put your mind at rest that you haven't 'missed a trick' in that regard!?

Ian, thank you SO MUCH for analysing this issue! Indeed, you have put my mind at rest that I haven't missed anything. And the timing has been very helpful as I will soon set out to re-record the first file in question (the Yellow version).

I also congratulate you on collecting the last remaining items in the Cheat mode 👍. This is not pertinent to my YouTube videos (as I don't use any cheat modes in them), but a testament to your tenacity in pursuing the specified goal 😉.

[jetsetdanny]

21 hours ago, IRF said:

I didn't check out the Vector Edition either, but if you say that there is no way to be able to drop down into Styx twice during the same game (presumably because the linear nature of the route doesn't allow for that?), then I can't see how you can collect both items (unless a gust of wind can blow Terry sideways as he descends - or I suppose it might be a sea current given the nature of the setting - or unless he can take a fat pill to expand his sprite across four columns!)

Yes, the linear nature of the route doesn't allow for dropping down into Styx twice during the same game AFAICT.

The question would be whether there isn't some kind of exit somewhere which allows Terry to go back to an earlier part of the route and drop down into Styx again. However, I couldn't find any such exit, and the layout of the map doesn't suggest there is one.

[IRF]

24 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

The question would be whether there isn't some kind of exit somewhere which allows Terry to go back to an earlier part of the route

That much is technically true, in so far as the room Hidden Chamber is first encountered early on in the game (before Styx) - where only the area to the right of the partition in that room is accessible - and then later on in the game (after Styx, I believe) a pair of teleporters allows you access into the area of Hidden Chamber to the left of the partition, and back again to the same 'zone' (the jungle-themed area - not sure how that works in a sub-aqueous environment but there you go)...

24 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

and drop down into Styx again.

... That's where the problem lies - once you teleport back to an earlier part of the layout, you cannot do anything but teleport forwards again. So a second bite of the Styx Cherberus isn't possible.

[jetsetdanny]

In view of lack of any further feedback that would contradict what has been established so far, I published the videos of walkthroughs of the four versions of "Terry The Turtle" on the JSW Central YouTube channel. Here they are:

Yellow (Normal)

Cyan (Intermediate)

Red (Hard)

Vektor (Special Edition)

There is one correction I need to add, though, to what I wrote before. There is one uncollectable item in the Yellow and Cyan versions that I failed to mention. It's in the room "Shell Shock!" (023). I am pretty sure it cannot be collected, because, first, there is no way to get where it is to grab it, and, more importantly, the player gets trapped in that section of the map, so even if they could reach it and collect the item, they would have to desist from it in order not to get trapped.

So my final verdict on the collectability of the items in "Terry The Turtle" is as follows:

Yellow version: It is possible to collect 93 out of 157 items. 89 items can be collected without loss of life. Four more can be collected if you deliberately sacrifice one life in the room "U-852 Secret Load & Kill Screen" (124). The uncollectable items are: the uppermost item in "Hidden Chamber" (012), the item in "Shell Shock!" (023) and 62 items in "U-852 Secret Load & Kill Screen" (124) (including 13 items in the enclosure at the upper left and 49 items in the central part of the room).

Cyan version: It is possible to collect 61 out of 73 items, all of them without loss of life. The uncollectable items are: the uppermost item in "Hidden Chamber" (012), the item in "Shell Shock!" (023) and 10 items in the enclosure at the upper left in "U-852 Secret Load & Kill Screen" (124).

Red version: It is possible to collect all 48 items, without loss of life. This is the only version that is item-completable.

Vektor version: It is possible to collect 72 out of 135 items (even though the message on the status bar suggests there are 68 items to collect). In fact, 68 items can be collected without loss of life. Four more can be collected if you deliberately sacrifice one life in the room "U-852 Secret Load & Kill Screen" (124). The uncollectable items are: one item (either one) in the room "STYX - THE RIVER OF HATE" (068) (when the player falls down from "DESCENTION" [069], they can collect either one or the other item; later on, there is no way to go back and fall down again in order to collect the other item) and 62 items in "U-852 Secret Load & Kill Screen" (124) (including 13 items in the enclosure at the upper left and 49 items in the central part of the room).

[IRF]

The item in 'Shell Shock!' can be collected in the Red Version by taking a route through a room called 'The Point of Fear', which doesn't seem to be accessible in any of the other versions of the game. Have you tried looking using JSWED to see if 'The Point of Fear' exists in the other variants? (And if so, are there any items in that inaccessible room which are thus also uncollectable?)

Also, what is the Up Exit setting for the room 'Shell Shock!'? (Again interrogation of JSWED - which I don't have to hand right now - can answer this.) You suggest that the upper area (and item) in 'Shell Shock!' are not just inaccessible, but inescapable - but it looks like Terry might be able to jump up into the room above from the area where the item is located? (Depending on the nature of the white skull in the vicinity - it gives the appearance of a Fire cell, which would block upwards progress, but in the next room below there are identical skulls that are just crumbly blocks.)

[IRF]

9 hours ago, IRF said:

The item in 'Shell Shock!' can be collected in the Red Version by taking a route through a room called 'The Point of Fear', which doesn't seem to be accessible in any of the other versions of the game. Have you tried looking using JSWED to see if 'The Point of Fear' exists in the other variants? (And if so, are there any items in that inaccessible room which are thus also uncollectable?)

Also, what is the Up Exit setting for the room 'Shell Shock!'? (Again interrogation of JSWED - which I don't have to hand right now - can answer this.) You suggest that the upper area (and item) in 'Shell Shock!' are not just inaccessible, but inescapable - but it looks like Terry might be able to jump up into the room above from the area where the item is located? (Depending on the nature of the white skull in the vicinity - it gives the appearance of a Fire cell, which would block upwards progress, but in the next room below there are identical skulls that are just crumbly blocks.)

To answer my own questions (after opening up the game in JSWED):

First paragraph - No (and therefore also No.

Second paragraph - the Up exit from Shell Shock! is set to itself. The skull is crumbly and won't kill you, but Terry can't fit into the gap to exit upwards anyway (I forgot that his attributes - which are what interact with solid blocks to determine whether and where he can proceed - are bigger than his pixellated sprite.)

Edited June 13 by IRF

[IRF]

Oh, and I concur that the item in Shell Shock! can't be collected in the Yellow and Cyan variants (unless you use Cheat Mode!) (And just to point out - in case anyone was wondering - that item isn't present in the Vector version.)

[jetsetdanny]

I fully agree with all of your comments, Ian 🙂 .