Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Tool-assisted superplay (TAS) of Nibbler Arcade 100 waves (5,859,130) (rev 9)

-Goal:
-To try patterns very hard to do in real life

----Notes----
-The game consist of 32 mazes in a loop.

---Scoring---
-Each dot earn you: Wave * 10. Thus, for Wave 25, you earn 250 points per dot.
-At the end of a wave, you receive (Time Remaining * Wave) points.
-Since the Wave number is used to calculate the points awarded, this is why the wave counter reset to 80 when it reaches wave 100.
- 1 to 99, 80 to 99, 80 to 99 ...

---Disappearing Dots---
-From wave 16, you can see that the wave can end before the snake eats all the dots.
-When the snake turn, it starts a new snake segment. And when the tail turns, it removes a segment.
-The program supports up to 32 segments, Trying to make a 33rd segment will end the wave instead of probably crashing.

---Length---
-It is possible to control, to a certain extent, the length of the snake.
-When you eat a dot, the tail will stop moving for 8 frames.
-So, the added length depends of the speed of the snake.
-The snake reached its maximum speed at wave 20.
-Except for the 'nibblero' version which is faster.
-But it is possible to make the tail move again before the 8 frames are elapsed.
-All you have to do is make the head stop at least one frame at an intersection or corner.
-At an intersection where you have two paths to choose from, the snake will stop and wait for the player to choose a direction. In this case, it is easy to wait a bit.
-In a corner where there is only one direction to go, the snake will itself choose the only possible direction after stopping at least one frame.
-The number of frames the snake will stop in a corner is:
Wave 1 = 13 frames, 2 = 9 frames, 3 = 9, 4 = 9, 5 = 5, 6 = 3 and 1 frame for all waves after that.
-Thus, if the player has not chosen the correct path in advance, the snake will stop at least one frame when he turns a corner itself.
-On the fastest waves the player has a great influence on the length of the snake.
-In my video, compare wave 78 or 96 (1 wait frame by corner) with wave 88 or 86 (0 frame by corner) nibbler is much longer on wave 88 and 86
-In conclusion, if you want the longest snake, you have to pre turn all the corners and intersections that are near an eaten dot.
-If you want the shortest snake, wait a few frames at the intersections and do not pre turn corners.

---Versions---
-There are 7 versions of Nibbler in MAME
nibbler: (rev 9)
nibbler6: (rev 6)
nibbler7: (rev 7)
nibbler8: (rev 8)
nibblera: (rev 9, alternate set)
nibblero: (Olympia - rev 8)
nibblerp: (Pioneer Balloon conversion - rev 6)

---Timer---
-If you do not eat dots, after 100 timer units, the timer will decrease very quickly.
-If you stop, the timer decrease slightly faster and after about 150 units the timer decrease very quickly.
-Total time when moving, without eating any dots, until the timer reaches 0 is about 13 seconds.
-Total time without moving until the timer reaches 0 is about 9 seconds.
-But on 'nibblera' the timer never decrease very quickly.
-Total time when moving is about 47 seconds.
-Total time without moving is about 26 seconds.

---Life---
-You gain a life every 4 waves. Except for 'nibblero' is every 8 waves.
-When you die, you lose a life, and if you have any life left, you can continue to eat the dots that you did not eat.
-But on Nibbler rev 9, starting at wave 32, when you die, all the eaten dots of the current level will reappear. This makes the game much more difficult because you don't have the choice to clear all the dots on each wave with one life if you want to progress in the game.
-I demonstrate that in the TAS by dying on wave 32 and 100.
-When the life counter reach 100 it starts showing strange numbers and letters. These are hexadecimal numbers coming from the program ROM.
-Here is the list of numbers displayed instead of the lives left beginning at 100.
-Be aware that the numbers are slightly different from one version to another. (not enough place to list here)
rev6: FF FF 08 D8 A5 BC 0A C9 63 90 02 A9 63 A8 B9 A6 41 F8 18 65 B2 85 B2 A5 B3 69 00 85 B3 A5
So: 100 lives display FF, 101 = FF, 102 = 8, ... 127 = 85, 128 = B3, 129 = A5
-If you go over 128 lives, the next time you lose a life, you will be game over because with a signed byte, 128 = -1 which is less than 0.
-So, if you see B3 (128), don't reach A5 (129).
-After A5, the only way not to be game over is to reach 257 lives. So, if you manage to not die once for the next 512 waves, the lives will wrap around at 1.

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-In the 80's a friend (AGA) and I played a 48 hour game to reach the billion.
-We did it in Montreal at the Arcade/restaurant Chez Paulo which was one of the only arcade in Montreal that was open 24h.
-We did that just for fun, no one knew about it.
-We did that on a rev 9. To my knowledge no one has done that. All the billion scores I have seen on the internet are done on rev 6.