Lyf How to reach or beat a GHS? (Part 7)

Some more tips

Almost any GHS came from the GHS holder’s several replays of this level.
Step by step. If you are not sure that you solve the level, don’t consider saving moves. If it can be saved by hundreds of moves, it’s prob. useless to consider saving 2 or 4 moves unless the 2/4 moves has no relationship with the hundreds of moves. If you believe moves can be saved, you needn’t consider about shots.
Devide a level into phases (that is, your savings in one phases won’t cause sacrifices in another phase). Usually it is easier to saving moves in a level with several phases. I am not good at the long level with no clear phases such as pure sokoban levels (eg. #0036, Picture 11).

Picture 11

My moves still stay over 1200 while VVI’s is 1073.
Make good use of lpbs. Open 2 windows, walk while watch the playbacks. I sometimes open 3 windows… the 3rd window shows the origin map.
Save moves no matter how insignificant it looks. I often only saved 2 moves but still had 20 moves’ distance (in the end reached or beat the ghs). Save the lpb and go on to see whether you can find more savings and the answer is often yes.
Break the stereotypes.
Eg. #0129. How to push the blocks in the left half? See Picture 12.

Picture 12

Eg.#0646. See Picture 13.

Picture 13

I put the block on N15 then went up and down for several times in order to make the AT at Column P shoot other ATs to death. Then if I repeat it once more, I will reach the previous GHS 139/63. However, there is a way to beat it: go to P14, shoot the AT to P4, go to N16, shoot the block to N2, go to M14, go to M15 to shoot the AT into water, then go to the flag. You can count the moves by yourself to see why it can save more.

If a ghs was beaten by many moves, it usually means: it can still be saved more. So I open the level file downloaded 10+ years ago, watching which levels are(During these years almost all ghs in lasertank.lvl file were beat at most ONCE). Then I worked at these levels with more confidence to beat it, not only to reach it. Eg. #0294 “3 Deep Little Wells”. 10+ years ago the GHS is 160+ moves; months ago it is 117 moves. So I start to work at it then now it is 97 moves.

The best GHS holders? In my opinion they are Iron and ccw. Iron’s solutions are very hard to beat and his counterattack is frightening. Ccw’s GHS can often reach the limit. Ihab is good at rotary mirrors and some deadly levels. VVI is good at pure sokoban levels. Mau is very hardworking. Jojo is good at find the limit of easy levels. They(and some others) are better than me… In fact my sense of solving levels is better than hunting GHS.

That’s all, thanks for reading this article.

This tutorial is written by Li YiFeng nick lyf.