Posts for FractalFusion

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Here are some sample scripts that I made. The first one keys in second-player input based on first-player input. Select key changes the symmetry. This allows the two players to sync with each other. Motivated by the game Strike Gunner: S.T.G. (SNES autoscroller), but can be done with any game.
local d=0
local e=0

local key={}

while true do

  key=joypad.read(1)

  if key.select==1 then
  d=d+1
  end

  if d==4 then
  d=0
  end

  if d==1 or d==2 then
  e=key.left
  key.left=key.right
  key.right=e
  end

  if d==2 or d==3 then
  e=key.up
  key.up=key.down
  key.down=e
  end

  joypad.set(2,key)

  if d==0 then
  gui.text(1,20,"normal")
  end

  if d==1 then
  gui.text(1,20,"hmirror")
  end

  if d==2 then
  gui.text(1,20,"rotate")
  end

  if d==3 then
  gui.text(1,20,"vmirror")
  end

  snes9x.frameadvance()

end
The second one is a bot. This particular one is specific to Vegas Stakes (SNES) and tries to find combinations for the slot machine. It must be run from a .000 (F1) savestate which is in "The 2020" casino and points at the game option "Slots". This bot requires manual monitoring. The first line is a commented line. It is a list of timings.
-- 0 A 150 v_v_v_A 300 A_A 320 X

local c=savestate.create(1)
local d=0
local offset=0
local e=0

local ak={}
local vk={}
local xk={}

ak.A=1
vk.down=1
xk.X=1

savestate.load(c)

while true do

  while e>0 do
    e=e-1
    snes9x.frameadvance()
  end

  if d==0 or d==156 or d==300 or d==302 then
  joypad.set(1,ak)
  end

  if d==150 or d==152 or d==154 then
  joypad.set(1,vk)
  end

  if d==320 then
  joypad.set(1,xk)
  end

  d=d+1

  snes9x.frameadvance()

  if d==1200 then
  d=0
  offset=offset+1
  savestate.load(c)
  e=offset
  end

end
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
I assume you mean last surviving player has 0 dollars since having 0 dollars (or even having nothing) is not the same as going bankrupt. It is possible but the outflow of money from the game must be significant. By outflow, I mean the money that a player loses that goes to the bank. That means either a lot of mortgaging and house buying-selling or landing on squares or drawing cards that lose money. The easiest way is with only two players. That's not to say that it is easy.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
If the human loses and there are two or more CPUs left, I'm sure they continue playing (since it is possible to set up CPU-only games). However, the last surviving player wins, so not everyone can go bankrupt.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Just use the most recent version (v11 and later will do). I like it when bosses are skipped. However, I don't know the extent to which leveling up can be skipped. One still has to level up to the most powerful unskippable boss. What now is the most powerful boss for which a skip is not known?
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
I was able to play back the movie. I like the action, so voting yes. It sometimes desyncs, sometimes not. I found out that it is less likely to desync if turbo is not used excessively.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
I missed the game due to work, but congrats to Detroit. Henrik Zetterberg (a Swede) wins Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP. Angerfist will be very pleased.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
upthorn wrote:
I was actually referring to your assessment that Bisqwit was doing it in order to belittle AKA, rather than that he was doing it in order to try to increase the utility of AKA's future posts.
Knowing AKA, I'm sure it was both. AKA has shown time and time again that he does not care about message clarity, which means that the only way to try to "reform" him is to offend him, something that will almost certainly not succeed. Though I have nothing against correction, I have something against insincerity. Things like "Sorry, had to" (what Bisqwit wrote) or "No offense" imply precisely the opposite. Also, it was because of AKA. Bisqwit would never reply to xipo or parrot14green the way he did to AKA. If Bisqwit made a response to AKA's message about the AVI complaint as well, even a rebuttal (rather than focusing only on his language), it may have been seen in a different light.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
3rd overtime now. Detroit has been the stronger team through the first two overtime periods. Edit (merged post): Pittsburgh wins 4-3 in 3OT. Scored on a 4-minute powerplay as well. Next game is June 4 at Pittsburgh at 8:00 PM ET.
Rridgway wrote:
Detroit. Detroit. Pittsburgh. Detroit. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. Detroit. Mark my words.
Oh dear.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Detroit leads series 3-1. One more game to win. Detroit is leading game 5. 3-2 with six minutes left. Nice knowing you Pittsburgh.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
DarkKobold wrote:
Atari TASing probably won't ever happen since I can only think of 3 Atari games with finite endings: Pitfall (100% treasure), Indiana Jones and Lost Ark (God I loved that game, even though I could never beat it.), and E.T. (The death of Atari! YAY!)
Games don't have to have endings to be TASed. We could have some score 'em ups, similar to NES Tetris. I believe that Adventure has an ending too. (Note that the term "finite ending" is a redundancy).
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
nice run, but you used bots, and that's gay.
We don't call it tool-assistance for nothing. As long as the game is unmodified, anything goes. I once created a movie with the help of a RNG simulator. It would have been practically impossible without it.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Completed Fortress stage 2. Now 4 minutes and 4 seconds faster than the published run. Some questions that I forgot to answer a while ago:
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Burner man: 1. After the first icewall trick, you climb a ladder then there's a thin floor above you and a wall to the right, can you not glitch in this upper-right corner?
There's not enough room to put an Ice Wall there.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
2. You glitch into the floor for the first of the two doors that lead to burner man, but then you jump out of the floor as opposed to zipping through the door as was done in pirate man's level. Astro man: 1. At the first door, same thing as burner man #2.
For most gates, it is only possible to enter the next room by touching the lower part of the gate. On the other side, the wall is too thin to keep me in.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Astro man: ... 2. At the part where the floor moves you up into spikes, there's an upper-left corner. I think I've seen zipping through spikes before, but I don't know it's limitations. Also the floor moves up right next to the left wall, was thinking you might be able to glitch in like an item-1 in RM2.
I need Shock Guard for that, and I would rather use it for the zip in Ground Man's stage. Or I could use invincibility from damage, but I decided not to. I would also need to cancel Ice Wall using the menu.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Astro man: ... 3. At the part where you zip through a 1 screen room and continue zipping after it, there's an upper-left corner after the room with a long ceiling you eventual glitch into anyway. There's also an upper-right corner in the 1 screen room which would be even better if that worked.
It's faster going into an upper-right corner. As for the 1-screen room, I have no control there. As for the screen before it, I must touch the gate to advance.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Dynamo man: 1. After the conveyor belts there's an electric station in an upper-right corner, if you could glitch in here this could allow zipping all the way to the sub-boss room.
I tried, but I couldn't. There doesn't seem to be enough room.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Dynamo man: ... 2. At the next conveyor belt part, could you use those blue blocks as a wall and glitch past them?
I also tried the blocks at the beginning of the level. Unlike level structure, they push Forte out, so it doesn't work.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
X2poet, your avatar is very distracting and may cause epileptic seizures. Please remove it. It is also too large. Avatars should be 100 pixels x 100 pixels at most.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Completed Fortress stage 1. Saved about 13s in that level (mostly because of Counter). The run is now 1m 53s ahead.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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Posts: 3254
Just a warning. The RNG for wild encounters is based on step. So it may not be possible to avoid encounters before getting Repel (even if it is possible to change this based on the previous battle).
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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Looks good so far. I see you figured out the intro skip. I'm using v1.51 on Windows XP, so I don't know why I can't record properly. A few things (even if you already know this): - The second bee should be manipulated to avoid using the ball enemies (which cause lag). - Jumping at the bottom of the downslope saves 3 frames (which is not in my published run). - Make the first two carts turn around going right, and destroy the robots in them right when they are about to turn around to the left after passing you. This allows using the carts to propel forward a bit. - The second cart out of the ship should be destroyed with a reverse pellet+charged shot (to do this, shoot a charged shot and immediately shoot a pellet while close enough but not too close). - After destroying the second cart, X should be positioned so that the ship doesn't move sideways before Vile comes out. - It is possible to have Vile jump straight upward close to you. How far behind is this run to the published run?
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
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Yes they are, but I didn't realize at first that you were using ZSNES. I tried it out, and realized that the frames on which you press keys while recording do not correspond to frames on which keys are pressed while playing back. In other words, desync. Despite this, I have made a movie skipping one of the intro cutscenes, but now for some reason, there is a huge delay when clearing the main menu in playback mode (even though it was cleared very fast in the recording phase). Some serious non-correspondence happening here. If you want to see the movie, ask for it. Because of the above, I cannot tell you where to press Start. I also would like to know how you managed to make a ZSNES movie without much problem.
Post subject: Sierra AGI Games (King's Quest 2, Space Quest 1/2) (TAS)
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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Since modified DOSBox still has problems with input recording working on other machines, I decided to make (not too serious) TASes of AGI games using GBAGI, an AGI emulator (more accurately, interpreter) for GBA, in conjunction with VBA. Note that emulated emulators are not allowed on this site (plus the interface deviates from the actual PC games). Because GBAGI was designed from a GBA point of view, the text parser is replaced with an interface is similar to those from, say, NES Maniac Mansion. However, it is slow. There are some critical bugs with some of the words (e.g. "close" not registering properly) which I can only solve by modifying the Words.tok file (using AGIStudio) prior to creating the ROM. There is also a keyboard interface but it does not type; it only keys (e.g. used for function keys) and is even slower. On the other hand, Fastest Speed is not ill-defined as it is on PC, so I can use it. Also, events that depend on "real-time" (independent of game speed) occur much faster than on PC. Note that the times have no correspondence to my DOSBox speedrun times. Only AVIs are available at the moment. Input files may come later. King's Quest 2 in 5:30 (requires modification: "keys" to be placed in word group "key") Pretty much the same path as my speedrun, except: - I luck-manipulate by entering an "I don't understand" command. I do this once in the pawn shop because I can't call the genie when the sorcerer is around. - I only call up the genie twice. - I kill the snake with the sword instead of using the bridle. This means that later, I must avoid the poisonous brambles near the castle. - I somehow already wear the cross when approaching the ghosts at the castle. Unknown whether it is legit or an emulation problem. - I show off a few glitches in the castle (one of them was already in the speedrun). - I fall into the water while holding the fish. Don't know how I missed that before. - I kill the lion with the sword instead of using the meat. - Good ending as usual. Space Quest 2 in 10:52 Version 2.0F ("cheat") Linear and straightforward path. - Due to how GBAGI works, I do the whistle first before the spore. - I used the glitch to skip the berries as usual. - I did not pick up the rock while near the landing platform. Instead, I did a sneak underneath the platform and called the guard down. - It is slightly faster to go to the right elevator first and do floors 5, 4, then 3 (backwards from the speedrun). I didn't want to do it that way in a speedrun because of the floor waxers (less time wasted for a failed speedrun plus less risky and easier to open the doors). - Again, I luck-manipulate by entering an "I don't understand" command, or go back and forth between two screens. This is to avoid floor waxers. - It is possible to move exactly when starting to light the wastebasket, but going to the next screen renders the game unbeatable, so I go diagonally instead (as far as possible without going to the next screen). - Good ending. Wait, there's a good ending? Actually, it's not documented, but in game version 2.0F, there is an extra "bad message" if you don't stop the clone launch before escaping and ending the game. The rest of the ending is as usual. Space Quest 1 in 8:14 (requires modification: "close" deleted) - There are some graphical glitches caused by entering commands too fast (the GBAGI interface makes it easier to do this). - I breeze through the skimmer minigame. It's supposed to be humanly impossible on Fast or faster. - It is possible to leave the key in and not have the skimmer stolen (although it is a chance thing). - I luck-manipulate. First, I want the alien at the machine to die fast. Then, I manipulate to win at the machine. Sometimes it is faster to ring a non-winning combination than to manipulate an "I don't understand" command many times. - I enter the ship so fast that when I leave, the merchant is wandering around and walks over the dialog from the alien. - In the Deltaur, when you blow your cover, it is possible to get by the wandering droid even if it is following you. The result is that your character assumes the zapped animation at the next screen but can move as normal. There are a few other games to do but I am not doing Police Quest (without a major hack) because of numerous critical errors in emulation.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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Solon wrote:
1. Can someone confirm the button-press sequence for skipping the maximum of the opening? I had a lot of trouble doing it, and couldn't stop the title screen from fading in completely, which leads me to believe it may be SNES9X specific.
Press Start on the following frames: 358, 393, 445, 447 Don't worry too much about the intro stage. The opening stage is one of the most aggravating parts of the run. So far, the best intro run is OgreSlayeR's intro stage. I think we can use it while crediting him but without making him co-author. But try to beat it first. Don't forget to jump at the beginning; it saves a frame. Here are some memory addresses that you can use for Snes9x memory watch. Horizontal position of X is most important now. Compare with my run a lot. 7E00B4-7E00B5: Horizontal position of camera (pixels). 7E00B6-7E00B7: Vertical position of camera (pixels). 7E0BCA-7E0BCB: Horizontal position of X (pixels). 7E0BCC-7E0BCD: Vertical position of X (pixels). 7E0BFA: Dash, frames remaining 7E0BFF: Charge (counting down) 149 blue 79 yellow 1 pink 7E0E8F: Enemy 1 HP 7E0ECF: Enemy 2 HP 7E1F7E: Hadōken capsule visits.
Solon wrote:
2. I could use some tips on taking down the Insect-O-Copters. I can't seem to get them on-screen without going too far and then being forced to either take damage before I can finish them, or run backward to dodge (which also wastes time.) (This is probably where I lost most of the time that I'm behind FractalFusion on.)
Watch my run. Either get it to use the gun or missiles (not the rolling ball enemies) and autofire it. It may help to check enemy HP in memory watch.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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I've had problems with -x264encopts in older versions of MEncoder; specifically saying that it is not a valid option (despite appearing in the manual). I don't know about newer versions.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
Bisqwit wrote:
mr_roberts_z wrote:
I realize this is pretty nonspecific, but what things do you find funny? For example..TV shows, websites, stuff like that.
Aside from normal humor, I find some things funny that most people don't find funny, and vice versa. It's quite hard to specify. I like amusing things, irony, etc. I don't like most jokes that put someone/a group into weird light, such as blonde/negro jokes or Chuck Norris jokes. As an exception, I do like some lightbulb jokes, such as this one about lojbanists: Q: How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light bulb? A: Two: one to decide what to change it into, and one to figure out what kind of bulb emits broken light.
I guess a lot of TASVideos members are like that, including me.
Bisqwit wrote:
okaygo wrote:
䑥慲⁂楳煷楴Ⱐ坨慴⁰牯杲慭浩湧慮杵慧敳⁡牥⁹潵⁧潯搠慴㼠坨楣栠慲攠祯畲⁦慶潲楴敳?
Sorry, I don't speak Chinese.
I see. Our favorite joke is to take lame "jokes" and make them lamer. It's some kind of fad. As if I didn't know that already. :|
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
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It only increases pellet damage. Charged damage stays the same. I can help with certain details.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3254
The first part of the description (where it mentions gamesharking) is a joke description, just to be clear about that. Is your main concern that the "joke description" of gamesharking may be taken seriously by users of YouTube?
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
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Game of few words done fast. Yes vote. Have you checked if it is faster to guess the gnome's name correctly and do the beanstalk route?
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1946)
Joined: 6/15/2005
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Xkeeper wrote:
what
This sums up my reaction exactly.
N. Harmonik wrote:
Any chance of a run of this game being done without this glitch?
http://tasvideos.org/1489S.html Though now it is far from as fast as the game can be beaten, even without Missingno./ZZAZZ. At least it is a demonstration (other than this submission) of beating the game without allowing a single enemy move. P.S. If you mean whether someone would start a new run on Pokemon Yellow without using the glitch, then I doubt it.