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Its definitely not worth submitting. This is basically just me learning about the game for now. I even used the slower PAL version so in fact the movie would be longer (in terms of play time.)
If something were worth submitting it would be aglar's complete game WIP which is well over a minute faster. If I could make that kind of improvement I would have submitted it already. : )
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I noticed this game has a very old and obsolete submission. So I figured it would make a good short project before I try to find a bigger one.
It seems this project was abandoned several times in the past, let's see if it can be completed in time for the 10 year anniversary of the original publication. (Even though being obsoleted is not much of an anniversary gift.)
I would be happy to work as a team if anyone is interested : )
If it helps add support, here is a complete game WIP which is already a 10 second improvement over the existing submission. It syncs with the (E) ! Rom and on FCEUX 2.2.2.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19872286978671407
I know it is not as fast as Randil's level 1 WIP, but for now I stuck with the 'does not take damage' tag as in the original submission.
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As I search for a more interesting project, I decided I'd look at Boomerang kid.
I looked back at RChokler's WIP and re-synced it. It turns out there are 2 faster stage choices (so far.) I also did some other minor optimizations. So far I am a few seconds ahead. Well, after the menu anyway, somehow he was able to start game input about 100 frames earlier then me, which I'm guessing is emulator or ROM differences. This is on FCEUX 2.2.2 and the !p ROM.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19826986828362588
Also I noticed this from the submission of Robin Hood:
Dwedit wrote:
According to Bootgod's NesCartDB, the ROM with the CRC32 of B89888C9 is the correct dump, and it doesn't work correctly in FCEUX. The alternate dump rearranges the banks to work around emulation errors.
FCEUX seems to be emulating mapper 232 just plain wrong. Writing 10 to 9000 should select outer bank 02, but it selects outer bank 01 instead.
edit: checked the code, it intentionally has a hack to work around bad dumps, that should be taken out.
But I'm not really sure what the implications are. Quattro Adventure seems to be a rather rare case.
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Alright new WIP, got down to 4:57.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19629482226888684
NOTE: I tried using the [!] ROM but when I did it loaded boomerang kid instead of Robin hood, so... I think I will just stick with my current [!p] ROM for now.
I looked at the secrets again, and they are mapped also to 0661 and 0662, there doesn't seem to be room for another secret since 0662 starts at 'I'.
I also looked at the new enemy killing secret but it doesn't seem to impact anything higher in memory, which from what I can tell means it only effects the current room, even though I don't know exactly how.
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Oh, nice thanks for making that video!
The run continues to get shorter bit by bit I saved another 100 frames.
I also found a glitch that saves some lag, whereby you pick up a treasure one frame before getting hit by an enemy (in this case an arrow.) With enough actions on screen the damage animation of the hearts doesn't occur, its helpful only once but stops a lot of lag.
EDIT: I finished the key map above. If there is another warp similar to 'C' then it is the fourth bit in 064A. I also found a new 'hidden key' (XX, the 3rd bit of 0642) but as yet I don't know what it does. It is located in the same room as 'F' near the bottom of the chains. Actually, it is activated when you kill the red enemy near where the 'F' path opens up. Although I can't yet determine why this one enemy triggers this bit or what effect it has.
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Well I can't seem to find the perfect [!] ROM, I guess I fail at the internet.
But in the mean time I got down to just under 5 minutes thanks to some better use of damage and hitting a platform timing.
WIP V2:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19519483698146179
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Oh so that is what that 'p' means, ok I will get the right ROM.
I tried looking over the secrets and how they are mapped. I found one that was way out of the others range:
064X
:::: 7 : 6 : 5 : 4 : 3 : 2 : 1 : 0
0 :: 00 00 01 02 02 03 04 05
1 :: 07 07 06 06 06 08 09 10
2 :: 10 11 XX 13 13 14 12 15
3 :: 16 17 18 20 20 21 21 19
4 :: 19 22 23 23 24 24 25 25
5 :: J 26 27 26 29 29 30 30
6 :: 32 32 33 40 34 34 31 35
7 :: 35 39 39 37 37 38 38 36
8 :: E 15 12 G F 28 28 Q
9 :: P A B D O N L M
A :: K C I ? 0 0 0 0
So far that J is the only one I found so low in the memory.
Normal keys start at 0640, but clearly there are only 40 of them. I noticed some of them effect 2 bits, so might have to look at it a bit more closely, maybe more secrets need to be found? Normal keys seem to be scattered throughout all the addresses.
I will complete this list to see if any secrets should still remain.
It seems that secret H does not effect any of the flags in these addresses, it could be dealt with differently
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Ahhh ok thanks I get the idea now.
Well with some fairly obvious optimizing so far I am all the way down to 5:13 using the same route.
With the reset added in should be down to 5:10
hmmmm wonder if I can find another 10 seconds to get below 5 minutes...
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Ok I got a WIP together of the entire game. This was a fun game to TAS, short, action filled, and visually nice.
It was much faster then I thought it would be, under 5:30.
Of course, most of the credit goes to klmz and Bag of Food for finding all the relevant tricks.
Now I will go back and optimize, any suggestions are welcome, this is a first pass.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19470000730123155
Oh yeah, one thing I don't get, Bag of Food mentioned something about 'inserting a reset' to skip the intro screen. I downloaded klmz's run and it worked but I can't figure out how to recreate it. Can someone more knowledgeable point me in the right direction?
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I looked over my whole run again and came up with another 5 seconds worth of savings (mostly due to going the right direction in level 6.)
Also doing the ending correctly.
Hmmm if I had one more decent trick I could get under 24 minutes.
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Ferret Warlord wrote:
I'm referring to the bit around 13:50 in Plex's encode. You take the long way around some containers instead of taking the path between them.
OTL
Ahh good catch, I completely overlooked that when I changed the route, I guess I watched it too many times.
Please CANCEL this submission. Maybe I'll take another look at it.
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Ahhh my mistake ending it wrong sorry about that. Will fix it when I get the chance.
Lets see...
The boxes in the long hallway in level 6 can't actually be destroyed (assuming you mean with soldier's bomb) so you can't go straight through them.
The soldier's bullets only stay on screen as long as he is on screen, so i don't think its possible to actually open the cell doors any quicker by switching to him.
I think I would need to at least destroy the top robot arm to get the switch as fast as possible.... Surely my next run will have no autoscrollers.
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Samsara wrote:
Alyosha wrote:
I think that message was added by whoever made the rom, as I've seen the live run didn't have it.
What's the filename of the ROM you're using? Is it a perfect dump ([!] at the end of the filename)? If the ROM was altered, it might be rejected just because of that.
Hmmm... I looked around and didn't see one with a [!]
But I did double check and the live run didn't have the first screen (only the start screen) so maybe i was just mistaken.
Also I saved 100+ frames so far optimizing, glad I looked over it again.
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SoulCal wrote:
Good job on the ninja boss getting him to fall in a hole you created. That's quite a bit of time saved from just that.
I also find it amusing that they have a notice at the beginning of the game saying that this game is prohibited from public display...I guess they didn't expect something like youtube or twitch to exist back in 1990. :p
Thanks for giving me the idea, I honestly didn't consider it.
I think I'll give the run one more complete look before submitting it.
I think that message was added by whoever made the rom, as I've seen the live run didn't have it.
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feos wrote:
I asked, because that game interested me, I tried to make maps for it (but this thread has a better version of them anyway), then I wanted to do reversing for how unknown things work, and also noticed Bag already figured them out. But if you have a question regarding game's behavior, post right away. I'll dig into anything that's not known yet.
Cool thanks. Yeah I noticed there was a lot of available data but somehow no complete TAS. Seems like a fun one to run so I think I'll give it a try.
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Ok new and improved complete game WIP here.
Improvements:
Ninja Boss done quicker with some (lucky) luck manipulation
New route in Level 6 skips a switch
Lag reduction
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19339569269457274
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Finally figured out the ninja boss.
Well kind of. His position is obtained by a looping routine that constantly performs
INC $002A
CLC
LDA $002A
ADC $0023
STA $002A
$0023 is incremented every frame.
$002A is where the final value of his (X) position is obtained, by:
$002A AND $017A (I assume $017A is used for X and some other address used for Y) this address seems to be affected by player input.
multiply by 16 and add 40 for offset and store $04A5.
Unfortunately this makes the fight almost completely random, or rather, too computationally intensive to bother. But with enough trial and error I got him in the right spot. In another day or 2 should be complete.
The time should be around 24 minutes flat, I hope.
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SoulCal wrote:
I loved this game as a kid. Too bad that the last level is pretty much hell with it's size and so many areas that are pointless to go thru.
Anyways, I watched the run and verified it myself. I watched the lag counter and noticed it shot up in several places in the last level.
Notable areas to improve things:
1. Level 3 - when fighting that ninja boss, I believe you can kill him by making the floor collapse under him. If you can manipulate that right, you should be able to finish that fight several seconds faster. And holy crud the lag on that boss is horrendous. Like 300 lag frames.
2. Last level - when going thru the room with the falling floor, both times if you would have killed the guys throwing the flame sticks, you can reduce a dozen or so lag frames by killing them instead of letting them live. Also kill the guys that try to push you around. Both times going thru that room the lag counter went up a good 30 units.
3. Last level - The room with the magnets lags a lot too. I'm not sure if you can do much about that other than kill enemies or make them not shoot at you.
4. Last level - One of the last rooms that has a breakable floor, the lag counter went up like 90 units. Is there a way to reduce that lag by killing enemies, or do breakable floors just cause a lot of lag?
I guess that's all I have for now. The run total had I think 700 lag frames. I'm not sure how much you could save from lag reduction, as several areas of the game are just prone to it. Overall entertaining, great strategy for the snow level boss, and good use of those enemies that push you around.
Thanks for the suggestions. Let's see here...
1. I will try that, need to figure out a bit more detailed how to manipulate him (I know roughly its based on directional inputs)
2. I redid this whole area with the soldier and it does eliminate those lag frames. Its actually better to keep the the second shield guy alive, as he pushes you closer to the left wall then the autoscroller would otherwise allow, saving a couple seconds.
3. wasn't really anything I could do here, enemies just aren't on the route
4. The lag here is every 5th frame, ouch. Unfortunately it is caused by the shield guy, which I can't kill quickly until I reach him but by then its already too late.
Ahhh I found a big route change though. Turns out you don't need to hit the 1st switch in the last level at all! Saves ~ 30 seconds.
I think everything is looking pretty good except for that ninja fight. I'll post another WIP when I get it.
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feos wrote:
Woah, where you got that (nick)name? Sounds shamelessly Russian :D
It is from the main character of 'The Brothers Karamazov' a famous work of Russian Literature. I use the name for most of my online accounts, current political climate not withstanding : )
TheAxeMan wrote:
Awesome, Mission Impossible!
Your run looks good up until the last stage. Your planning and overall route look fine but I am sure you could have saved time in the last mission by using your gas grenades more and maybe taking more damage. You hardly use any of them and there are a lot of red briefcases. Maybe on some other stages too.
The highlight is of course using the green shield guys, very neat trick.
Ahhh yes you are right, I went back was able to save 100 frames by managing smoke a bit better in level 6. Thanks for the advice. I will include the changes in the final submission.
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Ok the run is done.
Since this is my first one it says I should post here before submitting it, so here you go.
Some notes for those curious:
Lvl 2: You might notice I get hit once. This is because at full health, after I finish the level and get to stage 3, it spawned an alarm where the key card should be. Taking a hit solved the problem (alternatively it could be firing one less shot form the boat that was the reason, I am not positive.)
Lvl 3: After beating the ninja I am slightly to the left of the door. Same reason as above. When ending directly in front of the door and running through level 4 the optimum key card location is an alarm instead. Could just be my route, again not positive.
Lvl 6: Anyone who can figure out how to glitch past the trap door after beating the grey suit guy can easily shave a couple minutes off of this run. I could not.
Overall I found this game difficult but a good learning experience. Seemingly minor things could completely throw off my route.
Anyway here is the final product. Please comment. I hope it is worthy of submission so I can move on to a game that is more fun : )
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19266734267865337
