Battletoads Ghost

A Lua script for FCEUX that provides a speedrun ghost for Battletoads.

Why?

So you can run against yourself and see exactly where and how you gain or lose those precious frames. In real time!

How does it work?

On each frame it records your X and Y position and the sprite your character has, and then draws a matching sprite in the same location on the next run. The ghost is just an image drawn on the screen, it does not interact with the game in any way.

Instructions

1. Download and unzip https://github.com/juvester/battletoads-ghost/archive/master.zip
2. Open Battletoads in FCEUX
3. Open battletoads-ghost.lua in FCEUX (File -> Lua... -> New Lua Script Window... -> Browse...)
4. Make a savestate on whatever spot you want your runs to begin from
5. Load the savestate to beging a new run
6. If you want to save your current run to be the new ghost, press SELECT on your gamepad at any time during the run
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6
   • You should see a ghost on your screen that mimics every move you made!

Ghost models

Currently there are three different ghost models to choose from:

1. Rash: the toad you normally play with. Very confusing if opacity is not lowered since there are two identical toads on the screen.
2. WireRash: a wire-frame model of Rash. A lot less distracting than the normal Rash.
3. Mario (default): a lot smaller than Rash so it doesn't distract much. My favourite of the three.

You can change the model by opening battletoads-ghost.lua in a text editor and editing the settings at the top of the file. You can also change the ghost opacity there.

TODO

• Save the ghost to a file so you can load it later or share it with others.
• Level 12 (The Revolution) has some funky x-position magic that still needs to be figured out. A fixed x-position is used in the meantime.
• Toggle ghost saving on/off with each SELECT press. Show some indicator whether it's on/off.

Credits

• 3DI70R: For the idea of saving and replaying runs on FCEUX. https://github.com/3DI70R/mari-o-fceux-replay-edition
• feos: For most of the memory locations. https://github.com/spiiin/feos-tas/blob/master/LUA/BattletoadsHitbox.lua