skater43 stitches Lolo/speedrun games

[skater43]

Picked up my cloth from the post office today, so we should be ready to start our next project. Haven't actually checked my thread collection yet, but details shmetails. I mean, black I have, white I have, variety of blues I have for sure, so there's three of the five colors. But I was able to get a raspberry crush cloth, so all the carpet I won't have to stitch. Debating whether I stitch Lala (little pink friend) or not. Color is the same as the carpet, but maybe for contrast/texture, it'll look better if she's stitched. Anyway, the next series of games we'll be stitching is the Adventures of Lolo/Eggerland. Block pushing puzzle game series that originated in Japan for the MSX computer. Got a sequel on the MSX2, before HAL, the company behind the games, connected up with Nintendo. Three games were released here in the US for the NES. Three games were also released for the Famicom (Japanese equivalent to the NES). Two games were also released for the Famicom Disk System (basically a floppy disk drive add-on to the Famicom. And I'm sure most of us are old enough to remember/know what floppy disks are). One game was released for the Gameboy, though only in Europe and Japan. And the European version greatly expands on the Japanese version. Those are all the ones I've played. Believe there's a PC game only released in Japan, too, but that's it for the series. Gamers out there will know HAL as the creators of the Kirby series and that has been their main focus these past 20+ years. Anyway, of the 11 games, I've beaten all but the one for the MSX2, so we've got lots of games to stitch. But we're adding a little twist. Plan to do all these Lolo games (and beating the MSX2 version is certainly a possibility; I've only played a few minutes of it) but also games I speedrun. Said for years I'm not a speedrunner, didn't have the skills/inclination. And then two years ago, decided to go for it anyway. Just a matter of finding the game or series that speaks to you. As it turns out, the Lolo games were right for me. So you'll see the time and date on the picture and that is my official time and date of publication on speedrun.com https://www.speedrun.com/users/skater43 (the other attached picture is from the end of the game where I took the screenshot and cut it down to a more workable size/cut out some of the extra fluff). Two other Lolo games I have deathless runs up and we'll be highlighting those times as well. Almost two years in the making, but we're still working on a deathless run of Lolo 2, so we'll hold off stitching that one for a little bit. And have tentative plans to speedrun at least a couple of other of the games. Doubt they'll be deathless, but I think Lolo 3 and 1J are doable. But if you look on my profile page above, you'll also see another game. Just last week, I got my run of Kero Kero Keroppi no Daibouken accepted. Seems appropriate, I literally wrote the guide on beating the game https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/57055 ... ouken/faqs (though I need to update it, having found I made an error due to poor emulation). But we'll be stitching something for that game as well, and any others I may speedrun in the future. I have patterns drawn up and ready to go for the four games I've run deathless, starting here with Lolo 1, so we are set for the near future. And, of course, we still intend to do Phantom Hourglass once we have that pattern, just to finish off the Zelda series. Meantime, we have a new series to start, so I'm excited to start busting these out.

[Firehawke]

Wow...what a great speedrun time! And such a fun pattern...have fun working on it!

[skater43]

Thank you. Obviously, there aren't a lot of runs, so saying I have the 9th best Lolo 1 time isn't as impressive/significant as say, Super Mario Bros., but I'm happy with it. Actually, few months ago, some one tied my time, so I'm considering going back and bettering my time (especially since the other run had a few deaths, whereas mine was deathless. So he clearly had some faster strats/execution). However, I don't just want to get a better time just to claim sole 9th place, that seems a little petty. So I'd want to move up a couple of spots on the leaderboard. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a gap between my time and 8th place. I mean, I shave 2 minutes off my time, I move up to 7th place. Problem is finding ways to cut 2 minutes off my time (I know at least one room I could save a fair amount of time. I basically did it the intended route, which is safe, but slow. So I could likely save 20-30 seconds maybe, just by improving that room). We'll see. Been almost two years now I've been working on Lolo 2, going for that deathless run and just haven't gotten it. Discouraging part is despite literally hundreds of attempts, only 5 times have I made it to the last floor/last 5 rooms with a deathless run intact. Couple of months ago, I blew it on the last room; that one really hurt. Next couple of months, I plan to push a little more, go a bit more intense and purposeful and see and may just save it for some future day. I have started work learning Lolo 1J, which shares a few rooms from Lolo 2 and 3, but is overall harder. I mean, it has 50 rooms, just like Lolo 1 and 2, but the run is almost twice as long. I also want to do a run of Lolo 3, just to get a time on the board. And likely Lolo 2J, too, but that's by far the longest and hardest. Doing the MSX version is also a possibility, but I'd have to route that from the ground up, and almost none of the rooms are used in later games. I do also have my Kero Kero run, so there may be other Sanrio games I'll look at.

As for stitching, pattern is coming right along. This is definitely going to be one of the faster projects I've done for myself. I've done all the black up top and will finish the outline of the egg early in stitch time today. I figure the egg will take about a week to fill in; it's mindless filling, but there's a lot of it. But a day to do Lala (almost certain I will stitch her), another day for Lolo, 3 or so days for the text and realistically, we're looking at finishing mid-March. Very full Sunday coming up here, but maybe Saturday or Monday I'll take a WIP pic, just so you guys can see how things are coming along. But almost certainly, that'll be the only WIP pic and next picture after that will be of the finished product (or, finished stitched project. We'll see what creative colors/ideas the framer comes up with for the final finished product).