Nach once suggested the idea of a kind of TAS where button presses were minimized. This page will host all TASes related to this topic.

Although there is no consensus on how these types of TASes should be ranked, Brandon suggests completely separating them into two categories: "minimum buttons pressed" and "minimum buttons inputted", both of which are defined below. In these divisions, runs with less presses or input will obsolete runs with more presses or input, and a shorter run with the same amount of presses or input will obsolete a longer one. However, the "record holder" for a particular game is the first person to reach the smallest amount of presses or input. Here's an example of a possible list of Super Mario Bros. TASes in the "minimum buttons pressed" category:

300 buttons pressed by John

• Added Super Mario Bros (JPN/USA PRG0) by Chris with 300 buttons pressed in 5:00.75 (2011-07-16)
  • obsoletes Super Mario Bros (JPN/USA PRG0) by John with 300 buttons pressed in 5:01.99 (2011-07-07)
    • Added Super Mario Bros (JPN/USA PRG0) by Bob with 301 buttons pressed in 4:59.88 (2011-07-04)
      • obsoletes Super Mario Bros (JPN/USA PRG0) by Bob with 301 buttons pressed in 5:00.30 (2011-07-02)
        • obsoletes Super Mario Bros (JPN/USA PRG0) by Bob with 301 buttons pressed in 5:01.66 (2011-07-01)

As you can see, John, the first player to achieve 300 presses, holds the rank. However, Chris' movie obsoletes John's.

This category means that the player tries to press as few buttons as possible. A button press is defined as one button down counting as one button press, regardless of how long it's held. For example, if a player holds down two buttons for 5 frames, the number of buttons pressed is 2.

This category means that the player inputs as few buttons as possible. For example, if a player holds down two buttons for 5 frames, the number of buttons inputted is 10.

bkDJ created a program that can calculate several statistics on the buttons pressed and inputted for a movie file. In addition, Brandon wrote a Lua script to track button presses and input. Its best incarnation is for Bizhawk. There's another version which works satisfactorily on several other emulators, which you can find at Brandon's TASing repository, tastools, and FCEUX's repository (It is set to be bundled with the release of FCEUX 2.1.6). For more information on both scripts, such as what platforms they support, see their tastools Wiki page.

For encodes of these runs, we have FractalFusion's DDR Input Lua script. It generates the input as if it were a song from Dance Dance Revolution, making it clear what the duration of the presses are. It also displays the number of buttons pressed on top. A few tweaks will be necessary to make it work for "minimum buttons inputted".

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Brandon/MinimumButtons last edited by Brandon on 2012-05-01 09:20:54
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