Game:

Snow Bros. (1990)

Duration: 35:33

291 views

3

A 1-credit clear of the arcade game Jump Kids, played with WolfMAME 0.222. Score: 1,237,400. Below are some notes on this obscure, cursed game.

Jump Kids is a single-screen platformer very similar to Tumblepop. (Snow Bros or Bubble Bobble are other notable games of this style) Korean developers like Comad released a lot of single-screen platformers in the 90s.

1cc strategy:
- Hold the attack button to slap monsters around, then throw them away from you. A defeated monster can crash into another monster to defeat it. Jumping or turning at the moment when you finish a monster off can toss it differently.

- Each non-boss stage has a fixed set of items hidden at fixed places. Items are revealed when a defeated monster zips past them. There's an attack power-up and a speed-up, both very valuable, which last until you lose a life. There a red "CLR" square that immediately clears the current stage. There's a hammer that gives you terrific attack power, and an invincibility (to everything except spikes) shield; these just last a few seconds. There are baby faces with various expressions that you can collect for a 1up. There are also various score items.

- You face 5 stages (4 stages plus a boss battle) in the first world, 6 in the second world, then 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 in the rest. Like many single-screen platformers, this is a long game!

- With 75 stages in all, you need a very low risk approach for each. The key to most stages is the first few seconds. You need to safely deal with the screen when it's crowded, and prevent monster-dispensers from making it even more crowded. Once you're halfway through the non-boss levels, the rest is easier. I made notes on how to begin each level - for instance, 9-6 is "mash J NE, JW, U, U" (meaning: mash jump to jump as early as possible, jump up and right, then jump and wiggle to defeat enemies, then jump up 2 levels) One tricky thing is that a strategy that works perfectly one time might fail another time because of randomized enemy behavior. Power-ups matter for the route too: You can start 6-4 easily by holding right until you pick up the invincibility...but only if you have a speedup.

- Wiggling the joystick left and right is quite effective for stunning and defeating attacking enemies. Often "jump and wiggle" is the way to make your way up the screen.

- You can choose which world to start on, and after than you do the rest in counter-clockwise order followed by world 9 ("LAST") in the middle. After some time investigating I concluded the default order is the easiest. It lets you avoid some really nasty levels you face if the "north" or "south" world comes very late in the rotation, and it lets you fight the summoner and snake bosses at low rank.

- Getting extra lives is important. You get one extend each time you collect all 9 of the baby face icons. I routed the first 2 worlds to get a 1up in 2-5 (as early as possible). Level 9-1 has a guaranteed 1up along the bottom. And you can expect to get a third along the way, without needing to go out of your way.

- Monster dispensers keep functioning after they've taken lethal damage; don't get killed by their final monster spawning on you.

- Some boss battles are easy. For both hand monsters, you can jump once and just hold attack (assuming you've got the attack power-up). The mech (world 6) is easy once you know the strategy. Some boss battles are hard. The summoner (from world 2) is one of the harder ones since he can decide to box you in. The final boss (from world 9) is very rough. After a while I felt like I had a feel for where it's safe to stand; standing SSW or SSE (along the bottom not all the way in the corner) seems to be mostly safe.

Other Statistics