Airball, an unreleased isometric platformer, kinda like Solstice but as a ball. There are a couple of prototype ROMs but I ran on the the Retrozone version ROM, a 2007 reproduction, but it seems to be functionally the same as Proto 1. Overall goal is to collect 7 items and bring them back to the starting room. Get the Spellbook and then you can start turning in the other items. You can only hold 1 item at a time, so the route is travel to the items and deathwarp back, avoiding any airpumps as they act as checkpoints. For whatever reason after a game over, the Cross item will move from it's set location, to the room you game over in. So that is used to avoid having to go pick it up.
Three difficulties, the items all in different spots in each one. Medium and Hard you can die falling from too high and from overfilling the ball with air, Hard you die in 1 hit to damaging obstacles. Hitting Select in Medium or Hard toggles on super speed, I would assume a TAS keeps it on the whole time. Happy to share my maps if anyone plans to make a TAS.
RTA runs
Easy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0lgxf5Oie0
Medium - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIA2upiawqY
Hard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIlEJNVKrP8
Hey, thanks for bringing this up. Looks like a real cool game to TAS so I'm gonna put it in my bucket list. One thing you could do as RTA runner is to record a movie of a complete Hard run and upload it as user file. It doesn't have to perfect; the goal is to have it as a base line to build the TAS upon. It's much better than reverse engineering the route from the YouTube video.
Is there any accuracy that gets sacrificed from QuickNES? Or is this simply an improvement to the performance?
There is no accuracy sacrificed, at least as far as these tests show. I tried my best to keep the emulation intact and only improve performance. Adding more games and tests should help in making sure these optimizations don't diverge from the original emulator.
A small caveat for the benchmark is that I use partial save states for QuickerNES (e.g. for some games I do not preserve the nametable and sprite memory). This helps performance a bit in re-recording for botting purposes but wouldn't be useful for casual gameplay.
QuickerNES project is an attempt at making QuickNES even faster on modern x86-64 systems for the purposes of botting. Nevertheless, it preserves all functionality of QuickNES so it could be adopted into other projects. The main features are:
Core re-record performance improvement of 20~68% across 20 games (see benchmark results)
Implements all 54 mappers in the libretro fork (+mapper 70, which is a copy of mapper 154)
Test set of 28 movies that replicate QuickNES final state hash
Hi alex
Just checked the video. Seems like eXoDOS is a game collection and not an emulator per se. Instead it uses DOSBox to run the games.
If anything, any project that adds TAS capabilities to DOSbox would also benefit eXoDOS. However, I don't believe any such project exists. If you need load/save state functionality, I can recommend DOSbox-x:
https://dosbox-x.com/
For actual DOS tasing, the libtas+pcem toolkit is much more mature and readily available:
https://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/PCem
I recently showcased this TAS in the context of the PoPRuns 2023 event.
Link to video
If any admin would be so kind to attach this video link to the movie as 'includes explanation' thingy, that'd be great.
Thanks!
Was it really necessary to wipe the original submission comments? Those can still be useful to other runners/TASers after all, and just because a submission doesn't get published doesn't mean that people might not still watch it in submission form
Ok, adding my review:
* Sync: Yes. Tested on c-square's modified JPC-rr 11.2 with TASScript
Making it sync was a bit of a research task. (EDIT: which would have been much easier, had I read : feos' post, smh) This movie uses a different machine BIOS' than the ones provided in c-square's JPC-rr 11.2 redistributable. You have to download them from the Bochs repository and import them into JPC manually:
https://github.com/ipxe/bochs/blob/master/bios/BIOS-bochs-latest
You need to modify the movie file with this line, if you want it to reproduce with this BIOS:
BIOS 740f01be58103af0996220bdeb7c4d12 -> BIOS 21fa468b969329b6ac3571ead5b181e3
Similarly, a different VGA bios is used (Elpin) to properly display the game's text and prevent a desync.
https://github.com/ipxe/bochs/blob/master/bios/VGABIOS-elpin-2.40
As for the DOS disk, the standard FreeDOS image that comes with JPC-RR works just fine. For the game image, I used GoG's source removing the unnecessary files, according to the submission notes.
* Previous Work: DrD2k9's own previous movie (Movie #4447M) played on a similar setting. This movie improves it by almost 2 seconds.
* General Optimization: I really recommend OneShortEye's documentary on this game's WR history and read previous submission notes to know the level of trickery that goes into beating this game fast. The TAS, of course, takes this to an extreme. The level of optimization is clearly visible and there's nothing I can add to it. I'm mindblown by the new tricks, especially the beanstalk yolo skip.
* Entertainment: Watching this movie at different speeds (see provided encodes) provide totally different experiences. However, as with any TAS, it takes some knowledge to truly appreciate the level of trickery. I would love to watch a TAS-specific documentary to dissect every step of the movie.
Hi DrD2k9,
I've tried to reproduce the movie but ran into a problem. I got the right game and FREEDOS images, but the BIOS, VGABIOS, and version of the emulator I downloaded (JPC-rr 11.2 w/ TASScript 2.01) are incorrect.
I cannot seem to find the one you used anywhere. Can you please give me a pointer as to where to find it? Thanks
Here's my quick review.
* Sync: Yes. Tested on BizHawk 2.9 (Core: NesHawk)
* Previous Work: NhatNM's previous own movie [https://tasvideos.org/2398M|2398M] played on FCEUX 2.2.1. This movie improves it by 10 seconds.
* Boot/Menu Optimization: I could not improve it.
* Routing: The player chooses the pink girl character who seems to be the fastest in movement and attack. This seems to be the optimal routing choice, given The game mixes beat'em up stages (can only advances after you defeat the active enemies) with get-to-the-end-as-fast-as-possible stages. Some other stages include autoscollers and boss fights. Perhaps boss fights might benefit from a stronger fighter, but of course this would lose time in the running stages.
* Gameplay Optimization: I took succinct look at the inputs and their seem very optimized. I played around with it and found that, if you're not careful enough, some lag frames will creep in when some objects (e.g., barrels, dogs) are not dealt with and they start to accumulate. So I can tell special attention to lag management was done in this movie.
* Last Input Optimization: I attempted to improve in the last input but did not succeed.
* Entertainment: The author inserted some cool moves whenever waiting was necessary, which is always nice.
I vote yes.
I've found many minor improvements in this movie that I'm working on. Do you agree to have me as co-author (and let someone else judge it)?
Also, I noticed you let some enemies live for the sake of saving few frames there and there. I think that's a bit counter-intuitive for a movie that aims to complete the challenging stages. Would you mind if I included those missing kills?
Sure, I agree on both aspects. Thanks for your hard work.
Wow, I'm glad to see the skip glitch being used in TAS. Thank you.
I quickly checked your movie, and noticed a few things:
* In battles, you can charge the gauges faster by rapidly pressing R button. And, the kick is a bit stronger than the normal punch. (I uploaded a sample movie)
* After getting the gold cloth, if you fully charge all the gauges, Seiya sometimes wears the gold cloth and his firepower increases. But, due to a bug, if you use the gold cloth once, the next enemy's defence will be increased. You can fix the enemy's defense by calling some ally. (This technique is used in the later Mini4Rider's video)
FYI: Mini4Rider uploads a glitchless TAS video (part1, part2). Unfortunately the movie file seems to be unavailable, but it looks optimized well. For example, it seems to take a faster route in a cave.
Thanks TaoTao, this is all very useful information!
@Nymx: I'm gonna go ahead and produce an improved movie.
I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess that it's a matter of hosting costs. FM3 movies contain a bunch of superfluous extra data (e.g. ,stored intermediate states, a.k.a. green zone) that can make them rather large. They could go as large as Mbytes or more.
On the other hand, FM2 movies are compact and still contain all other people may need (inputs only plus some minimal metadata) to inspect your work.
Hey,
I'm currently TASing this game:
NES
Galaxian (J) (REV0) [!]
SHA1:A2C837C589E0FADEA7626E0245914F1B0C7948FD
MD5:4D2A95F9258DADE4511715DD7C310D38
It seems like the game loops indefinitely without changes in difficulty (as far as I could tell, tho). Only difference for level two onwards I noticed are:
- You can choose where you start the level since you can still move after you beat the first level.
- You can even pre-shoot so you can hit one of the enemies as they spawn
- Score, lifes, and stage indicator (flags) are conserved.
My question: would a fastest-stage-1 submission be an acceptable category? If not, could somebody propose a more adequate ending criterion?
Thanks
-------------------------
Addendum:
For ease of analysis, the following movie solves the first level:
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638246861273711808
And here is a ram map:
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638246862016140343
Wish I knew what was happening in more detail so it could be a bit more interesting. Maybe more detailed author notes would help? However this is obviously a very good (6 minute) improvement over that older submission. This game reminds me of the Godzilla game for NES in a way since they have the two main modes. Meh vote.
Hi CoolHandMike, thanks watching and the feedback. Yeah, given the reception the game had also in Xipo's submission, it was very hard for someone who hadn't watched the anime (or can read japanese) to understand what the game is all about. So now I made an [https://youtu.be/SyORA4TyHh8|explanation video] where I clarify aspects of the lore and the gameplay, if you'd be interested in watching.
Dimon12321 wrote:
One of the few Japanese NES games I've played in my childhood. What a great discovery the bot has found! That screen scroll that immediately takes to the end of a level.
Yes vote.
But I'm still wondering what was the point in decreasing your health during the battles, if you could just take damage. It would drain more cosmo points?
Also that cosmo draining on the last battle. What it necessary?
Thanks for your message!
* But I'm still wondering what was the point in decreasing your health during the battles, if you could just take damage.
Taking damage is bad in two aspects: it takes a long time for the attack to end while it depletes your energy, but more importantly, it affects both your life and cosmos. While we do want to die, we don't want to have our cosmos decreased, as we need it for the battle! So the best solution is to manually set HP to zero and parry the incoming attack. Since we are still in zero HP, we still die, but the attack does not affect our cosmos.
* Also that cosmo draining on the last battle. What it necessary?
Yes, so that our attacks last for fewer frames. This is a seemingly wasteful investmnet, but we still kill Saga in the same amount of attack cycles, and waste less frames at the end of each attack.
There is a Chinese TASer whose work I like and I would very much like to reach out to.
https://gong-lue.com/https://space.bilibili.com/64514
I've been trying many ways to reach him but (a) I cannot message him on Bilibili (the site requires responding some weird questionnaire) and (b) QQ does not allow me to login even though I do have a Chinese phone number (don't ask how).
I would like to ask our Chinese colleagues on tasvideos.org to please help me reach out to this guy. Thanks
I've started to work on a NG2 pacifist movie (I don't guarantee I'll finish it though). During my research I came across this submission from 11 years ago. This movie is beautifully made and, in my opinion, would meet today's standards for publication. I would love to see this re-judged and perhaps ultimately accepted.
As a viewer/player, my only objection about this movie is that it includes "No Damage Taken" as criterion for pacifist%. This is today not clearly a requirement, as we have plenty of pacifist publications where the only requirement is not to damage enemies or items (see: [4812] NES Ninja Gaiden "pacifist" by MESHUGGAH, eien86, feos, Marx, jprofit22 & Scumtron in 11:16.89[5034] NES Castlevania "pacifist, minimalist" by eien86 & Challenger in 10:55.42). It also misses the chance to use Shurikens to beat the first boss, which would be definitely allowed. These are minor comments which wouldn't preclude publication, were I to judge it.
Hey Judges,
I'd like to ask (plea) about the acceptability of a disk set for Apple II's Prince of Persia.
md5sum: ad841fb8aa3753a1f90f078de65370a5 prince of persia side a (san inc crack).dsk
md5sum: ddd3af336482d65521d043eea0283df1 prince of persia side b (san inc crack).dsk
I searched high and low and could not find an original (uncracked) copy of the game. These disks contain a version of the game that overcomes the game's copy protection. Other versions of the game I found out there are also cracked, with the addition of hax0r l33t screens that ruin the experience.
Since this game's protection is only logical, and not an interactive screen like in [5206] DOS Prince of Persia by eien86 in 13:59.15 or [5296] DOS Out of This World by eien86 in 09:56.54, I'd say there's no content lost.
Either an approval that I can go on with these images, or someone finding actual original copies (and a way to overcome their protection via inputs) would unblock me in starting this project.
Thanks!
