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electricslide wrote:
I'd prefer:
"Speed/entertainment tradeoffs"
"Hits every duck"
If I felt this run had any chance at Moon tier, I would have done that.
But frankly, I don't believe this game has enough inherent entertainment value worthy of moon tier from a TAS perspective. This submission was always intended as a vault attempt; and for that reason, the speed takes priority in my opinion.
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nymx wrote:
Dang DrD2k9...shooting those ducks in the grass doesn't seem to be fair. Did you ever consider the little ducklings that were left behind after you killed the parents?
With that many ducks in one area....their population needs culling.
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The final input of this submission is the last input needed to beat the game. The extra input mentioned is simply required to transition from the 'Success' screen to the 'the end' screen which then loops back into level 1.
Here's a .bk2 with the needed extra input to loop.
For TAS timing; what is submitted is appropriate, in my opinion.
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mklip2001 wrote:
I didn't know Punch was quite so violent!
In many variations of Punch & Judy performances, Punch beats up/kills multiple other characters with his stick; including even the devil himself in some of those story lines.
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As the submission notes were already quite long, we felt it was better to include the following information in a forum post instead of in the submission notes.
Media Format
While there are disk images of this game available, we could not find reference to an official release on disk medium. We have therefore chosen to TAS this game using a tape image even though it results in a longer loading time.
Region (PAL vs NTSC)
For what it's worth, many C64 games released in one region work perfectly well in the other region with no glitches or impact to gameplay. This includes real media, not just emulation; while there were differences in the NTSC/PAL hardware, media from one region could be used on a system from the other region. The only times games tend to have issues being run on an out-of-region system is if the game is specially coded to deal with a particular region's frame rate.
Pyjamarama runs equally well using either PAL or NTSC sync settings with no obvious glitches resulting from being played in one setting over the other. As NTSC runs at a bit higher framerate than PAL, the game can be completed faster in NTSC mode. Other than gameplay speed, the only other notable difference is the pitch of various sound effects being slightly higher pitch in NTSC mode.
While we were able to find one reference to a North American release of this game, we have (as yet) been unable to confirm this elsewhere; therefore the submitted file uses PAL sync settings. If the judge/staff feel this one reference is enough to warrant the game being run in NTSC mode for publication purposes, we have also created a .bk2 using NTSC sync settings which is available in userfiles. The gameplay portion of the NTSC run is appoximately 6:31 (roughly 10 seconds faster) and the submitted PAL version is approximately 6:41. Total time comparison is roughly 11:06 for PAL and 10:45 for NTSC.
Here is a comparison video of the run in both regions. NTSC is on the left; PAL is on the right.
Link to video
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nymx wrote:
I can see that the "runs" don't stop. :) Well, DrD2K9...did you finally find the toilet in this game?
As the myth goes...
Only after building several maze-like pyramids, hiding away his riches in the dark corners of said pyramids, and purchasing a menagerie of (nearly) immortal beasts to protect said treasure; did Montezuma unfortunately realize that he forgot to include plans in these pyramids for daily necessities (such as restrooms)--which is quite unfortunate as he subsequently died of dysentery before a retrofit was possible. The E.Coli from said dysentery is rumored to have polluted the entire water supply of present day Mexico; dooming all who drink (while failing to first purify said water) to a shared portion of Montezuma's gastrointestinal distress. This has colloquially become known as Montezuma's Revenge.
EDIT: I put way too much time and effort into writing that.
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Pokota wrote:
Question.
Why do we care? We neither have nor claim to have exclusivity over tool-assisted superplays. To my knowledge, SDA neither has nor claims to have exclusivity over high-quality archives of live-play superplays.
To be fair, this forum topic was started essentially as an advertisement for SDA; basically trying to make people (who don't already know that it does) aware that SDA exists. Svimmer wrote:
...I'm obviously really just writing this here for all the new folks that may not actually have been exposed to SDA as a concept.
From there, the topic seems to have morphed a bit.
Frankly, both sites have unique value and independent audiences (even if there is some overlap from some users frequenting both sites). For that reason, I personally don't see a purpose in bickering about which site is better/worse.
Think about it this way:
Having two independent RTA speedrun sites in existence, is no different than it would be if another TAS site popped up independently from TASvideos.org
Some people would prefer our site, others would prefer the other. Some people would frequently visit both.
There's nothing that suggests that these two independent sites should be forced to collaborate/agree on site regulations. Nor is there anything suggesting users on the first site should be held to the regulations of the second site.
Each site's rules and regulations are unique to that site and don't cross over to the other, even if there are similarities in those regulations.
IF one or both of these sites were trying to claim exclusivity, then I could see some grounds for debate. BUT, to my knowledge, speedrun.com (being the newer site) was not created in attempt to obsolete SDA (being the older site).
Also, to my knowledge, neither speedrun.com nor SDA has claimed exclusivity on being THE archive for RTA speedruns; they are each simply AN archive of RTA speedruns, independent of the other.
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As I mentioned in the discussion on the Coleco version: 100% routing would be an insane challenge to optimize, require significant backtracking, and be much, much longer of a run.
Personally, I don't think it would be any more entertaining than the now published Coleco run. Frankly, I think a 100% run would be less entertaining due to the significantly extended time/backtracking.
I do feel it would be vault eligible though.Side note: There are currently no RTA runs of this game listed on either speedrun.com or speeddemosarchive.com.
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That's an ambitious plan. Hopefully it will work out and yield a truly optimal run.
I'd recommend cancelling this submission in the meantime and creating a new submission when you're ready to present the new TAS.
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feos wrote:
[a bunch of stuff]
DrD2k9, do you have thoughts on that?
Runs where the difference in the stages is still present (for example, the Coleco version) would still need started at level 1.
As the level changes are made irrelevant because of the glitch in this case, I'm cool with a run starting at Level 3.
It'd be a similar decision to that which was made on C64 Congo Bongo where glitched movement patterns nullified difficulty increases.
Do you need a new .bk2 from me, or do you just want to use the one you made?
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The8bitbeast wrote:
As for the category I would suggest either going for perfect score deathless (the easier option), or imperfect score with deaths. Doing imperfect score deathless like in this submission seems weird to me. Maybe that's just me? I'd be curious to hear others opinions.
For this game, deathless only make sense to me if it's faster than a run that has a death; regardless of score. This simply isn't the case.
To me, this is a vault game with no real hope for moons/stars.
A 'Perfect Score' branch is not the fastest method of completion. In my opinion 100% for this game is defined by simply collecting all the treasures. Deathlessness shouldn't be a required qualification for 100% simply because it improves score; especially when death abuse allows for faster completion while still collecting all the treasures. Therefore, 'Perfect Score' branch is neither the fastest any% completion or fastest 100% completion; it is thus unvaultable.
Further, I don't foresee a 'Perfect Score' branch garnering high enough ratings to warrant moon publication, and as it's not vaultable, it unfortunately doesn't really have a place on our site.
As the requirements to simply beat this game at any% is equivalent to 100% collection, the fastest any% and fastest 100% runs are the same thing. Thus there is really only one potentially publishable goal of this game for our site; that being a singular vault run.
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I was wondering when someone (besides me) would get around to doing this game. I had started a TAS of it a while back and, frankly, got bored making it so I gave up.
As far as entertainment....it's too repetitive to be entertaining to watch. Pitfall was always one of those games that was more fun to play than watch, so moons/stars is out of the question in my opinion.
While I feel this run could potentially be matched by a human, I feel it should still be vault eligible.
The game has, in fact, already been beaten with a final remaining time of 1:42 by humans (see here). These runs also include perfect scores, not sure if the actual gameplay is slower than this submission or not.
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Wulf2k wrote:
Have there been any situations where it's technically ACE but so slow or limited that it's more interesting to just use it as a quick skip?
I'm thinking something like default data being an instruction to skip to the next room, but maybe if you spent 20 minutes arranging your inventory it would be ACE.
There are multiple cases where ACE has been used to simply skip game elements to reach the end faster without introducing new elements to the game or demonstrating something unrelated to the game itself.
It's not in a published TAS (yet), but the SMB3 run abusing the NES DPCM glitch with subframe inputs that warps directly to the end-game almost instantly after power-on is technically an ACE example that simply skips gameplay.
Link to videoThis SMB3 run is another example of using ACE for a game end glitch.
This Mega Man run also uses ACE for a game end glitch.
These are all examples of runs that simply use ACE to skip some degree of gameplay without adding any custom payload/demonstration.
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Regarding duping items: Wasn't it discussed somewhere else that duping doesn't qualify as 100% even if it causes a game to show 100% in the credits? The argument being that the all items had to be collected from their proper locations for a 100% run instead of simply being duped into existence.
My memory doesn't work near as well as some others here; but IIRC, it was in the discussion of one of the Zelda games.
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
I also think it would be worth trying a "max score" run i.e. collect everything you can get to, kill all the enemies you can and find the optimum treasure room run to collect as much as you can out of it.
In my opinion, this would essentially be a "100%" run. I'd define 100% as including all of the following:
-Visiting each room at least once
-Collect all Gold Coins
-Collect and use all swords (likely not enough in each stage to kill all killable enemies)
-Collect all torches (not sure if multiple can be collected within one stage or not)
-Collect all amulets
-Collect and use all keys (or at least as many keys as there are doors); if there are more keys than doors, finish the stage with as many extra keys as can be held (up to 5).
-Collect the maximum possible treasure/coins in the treasure rooms until time runs out.
Truly the only major difference between 100% and max score would be the requirement to visit all rooms in 100%. Theoretically a 100% run should yield a max score run.
Even if 100% didn't require visiting all rooms it would still likely yield a max score. The only major score variable would be optimization/maximization of treasure room coins collected.
FWIW, I have no desire to 100% this game. I don't think it would be any more entertaining, and it would be so much longer with all the backtracking necessary to accomplish 100%. I wouldn't be surprised if it eclipsed the 2 hour mark.
And the route planning would be INSANE!
EDIT: After further thought, I don't think visiting every room should be necessary. We don't require visiting every room in other games to get 100% (Super Metroid for example).
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I've got a message out to the C64 SMB creator to see if he thinks it may be related to the VSP scrolling. I haven't received a reply yet.
I'm guessing it has something to do with how BizHawk processes that scrolling technique.
I've also tested on VICE with no problems and CCS64 as well also with no problems.
EDIT: I received a reply from ZeroPaige (the SMB dev), who suggested I test Mayhem in Monsterland in BizHawk as it also uses VSP scrolling. After testing, I can confirm that it also exhibits this same twitchy background bug. So anyone wanting to update/improve the C64 core now knows where to look to improve this issue.
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Asnivor wrote:
EZGames69 wrote:
Do any of these versions contain less loading time for bootup? I wonder if it’s worth using them for this tas simply for convience of the viewers.
Its a standard tap file, so I could probably shunt it into a +3 disk image (*.dsk). However, this involves modifying the loading routines in the code so it knows to load from disk rather than tape.
A potentially murky area maybe.
Media conversion has been discussed before (specifically regarding commodore 64 games). The ultimate result of those discussions being that leaving things in their original/proper format is best unless the format conversion can be proven to be possible by a general user and directly on the original system without the need of additional/specialized equipment.
As much as I'd personally like to see shorter loading times on any system, I also understand the need for maintaining as much authenticity as possible in the media formats.
TL:DR - Stick with the .tap format and don't shunt/modify the code for a different media format/image.
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Going a bit off topic with this as it's not from IRC....but...
from heredwangoAC wrote:
The downside of an audience full of perfectionists is that you'll have to deal with us, well, asking you for perfection, but it will be oh so worth it.
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CrowdSorcerer wrote:
Hi! I'm a fan of both TASes and a player of competitive pinball. I found out that MAME supports a limited subset of pinball ROMs, including games from the classic 90s era like The Addams Family and Attack From Mars. I immediately wondered about opportunities for TASing, trying to imagine the ideal set of inputs to complete some objective as fast as possible. I stopped by #tasvideos on IRC, and they suggested that I join the forum and post my progress and ask for needed help.
I understand that pinball roms are not an appropriate for the actual TASvideos concept, because ultimately they are not a video game. The visual aspect is likely to be a spastic flurry of conflicting animations, definitely not something that most people would find entertaining. And because most games loop the score back to 0 when the maximum score is reached, even if all the other things were not true, it still wouldn't be eligible.
With all that said, my small group of friends and I have been discussing a few different "attacks" for Lua speedrunning of pinball ROMs
- High score attack (get to max score)
- Wizard mode attack (complete the final "Wizard Mode" which many games feature after completing many other modes)
- 100% (complete all game features)
I've downloaded a recent MAME mainline and have a basic understanding that a callback occurs once every emulator frame. I'm able to write proof of concept Lua code that would eventually complete a high score attack. I'm not using MAME-rr, unfortunately, because the version it is forked from doesn't support the ROMs in question.
The issue that prompts my post has to do with the interaction between the "switches" which serve as the inputs to the ROM and the emulation of the ROM.
Briefly :
- There is a framerate of the emulation (which is probably the frame rate of the DMD (dot matrix display)
- There is the framerate of the actual ROM (which is how long a switch has to be held down in order to register a "1" state)
Is there some way, possibly by examining the MAME source, that I could determine non-experimentally how to ensure that all switch presses are registered? I'm not sure of where to start, but iteratively hacking at it out of MAME ignorance is opaque enough to motivate asking for help from the experts!
I don't have enough knowledge of MAME or Pinball machines to answer your questions, but dwangoAC may be able to help. I remember him showing interest in human speedrunning of pinball machines a while back. I think he even has a pinball machine or two of his own. Maybe he can offer some knowledge/perspective in this area.
You can likely find him in Discord.
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xxNKxx wrote:
Thanks your reply, but are you sure this things still following TAS rules?
This bug happen in verification movie file, the after file just enjoy from the before. Most pepole when watch the run will ask something "wtf, why this happened like as this", lol
Here's the rule.
If you choose to try the save-anchored route using a verification movie, it's a greater risk of rejection. But due to the glitch opening up another way of playing through a "new" game, a TAS of just the latter run may still be allowed (provided there's a verification movie).
Again, if you do everything in 1 complete TAS, you will have played from boot with a clean SRAM. The question here becomes whether or not the second run is even worthwhile. It may be considered trivial after having already watched through a nearly complete first run (minus beating the final boss) even though only the second run actually beats the game. In my opinion, running the entire game a second time (even if significantly faster than the first run) is likely going to take longer than just finishing off the final boss during the first run through.
If the save-anchored glitched save can be created in a verification run, the staff may allow a TAS just the 2nd run through. This would result in the fastest single completion of the game. I repeat, this method would likely require moon tier response from the community to get accepted/published.
EDIT: oops. Was in the midst of typing this when feos responded.
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xxNKxx wrote:
Hi! I have question need ask how about use a old save file for make new run
My current run: http://tasvideos.org/3707M.html
This guy found new bug can start new game with old file save: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiULZ-z99rY
although I can't understand what he wrote in his video, but I can understand how this bug work, something maybe like this:
- start new game then save to slot 1
- load save game to final battle
- use bug skip battle for run out battle then overwrite save to slot 1
- load slot 1 for start new game with all old stuff having
if this is allow, then I can make new run can saves alot time
A judge would have the final say, but this seems like there are two options you could take.
1) Do everything you've listed above in one TAS project. Then it would likely be eligible for vault if the resulting run couldn't attain moon tier.
2) Start a new save-anchored TAS project from "- load slot 1 for start new game with all old stuff having" and simply provide a secondary verification movie of how the used save file was generated. This verification movie would not need to be optimal; it just exists to provide proof of no cheating on the actual TAS. However, using this method would require enough positive response to warrant moon tier publication as runs beginning from a save file aren't vault eligible, IIRC.
Option 1 would be a longer total run, but would likely be vault eligible. Option would be a shorter run but likely not be eligible for vault.
