Hello, I've been recently working on an optimized TAS of this game and I hit a little snag that I don't understand. In all the speedruns the spider boss is killed in 4 hits (1 bowling ball, 3 fully charged clubs) even though it appears to have 50 hp. In my attempts it requires 5 hits since each hit does 10 damage.

Is there something I'm missing?

Also, as I'm going I'm creating a resources page here: https://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/TheFlintstonesTheSurpriseAtDinosaurPeak

If there's any information I'm missing or have wrong, please let me know, thanks!

If I remember correctly for some reason the bowling ball at the beginning deals double damage with the right timing. Couldn't explain to you why though

Wow that was a fast response. It seems you are correct, slightly delaying the bowling ball throw results in 2 consecutive 10 damage hits. I guess this is similar to the double slingshot hits on the monkey boss which only works on the very first hit for some reason when he's still standing.

Maybe it has something to do with his initial animation or state, but I'm not entirely sure. I think now I'll have to see if there's anywhere else something like this could happen. Thanks for the swift response!

I've TASed this game. From my research, that is not entirely correct. If has to do with the sub pixel your character enters the fight with. What happens is the spiders hitbox is active a frame before the fight begins. This then goes into the fight beginning which results in the hitbox being activated again which causes the two hits.

yeah I figured it would have been something that has to do with the start of the fight cause it didnt seem possible to do it in any other place.

I've seen your TAS and I've been using it as the only reference point for the entire run because I didn't know very much about the game going into this. I did find a slightly new strategy for the triceratops boss fight and a faster elevator section in the cave level, but other than that nothing is drastically different so far.