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The TASVideos website is an evolving collection of
tool assisted console game movies made by people from all
over the world. Why and How do we create them?
(An older version of this page is also available in Portuguese.)
Mission statement:
We here at TASvideos.org are committed to providing the best in tool assisted speed runs. This means that we hold our runs up to a high standard, only high quality runs will be published on the site. We also prefer quality over quantity, we wont take a run of a game that’s never been done before if the playing quality is bad, the same goes for improvement runs. We don’t claim that all our runs are perfect, but we do have them at a high quality. Remember this site is to provide entertainment, and should not be all about getting records.
We create these movies because they are entertaining to watch, and because we are curious how far a game can be pushed. The process of creating them is also a form of problem-solving and challenge to ourselves.
We are a diverse community, and each of us has different opinions as to what is entertaining, but in general we value speed, creative and unexpected solutions, and variety. The use of any bugs the game has is also considered a good thing.
We have written some guidelines to aid in achieving these goals.
All our movies are recorded with an emulator. What is recorded is not the video and audio of the game, but a long string of keypresses. The encoded movies in AVI or MKV format you see for download are what you get when the keypresses are fed to the emulator.
The most commonly used tools are save states and slow motion (frame advance). Save states rewind the movie to an earlier point in time, and allows us to redo a section of a game as many times as needed to succeed. Slowmotion allows us to remove the limitation of reflexes and pressing complex button combinations. See the emulator tool features pages for other tools used and more information.
One important thing to remember is that we are not competing in terms of playing skill, nor do we claim to. Indeed, we use tools to eliminate such human limitations. The most important skills are patience, preservance and ingenuity. Programming prowess also helps.
Best Examples from an Audience's Perspective
As Fast as Impossible: 10 Insanely Thrilling Tool-Assisted Speedruns
This article, written by John Teti, goes more in depth about what tool assisted speedruns are, and which are the top 10 examples that best demonstrate what these runs are about. Anyone being introduced to these movies should enjoy reading this article, which teaches newcomers how the movies are made, and chooses which are the ideal first movies to watch to become exposed to these speedruns.
Does this mean that anything goes?
Any way to create the movie file is considered okay. The most common (and easiest) way is to record the button presses manually in an emulator, but if you want to create the file with a hex editor, or program a bot to play the game for you, no one is stopping you.
The emulator or the game does not behave any differently than it would on a regular console. If the game world is not the same, it is impossible to know if the result is impressive. Since the final result is a string of button presses, it is easy to check if it plays back (syncs) with an unmodified emulator and game.
See the rules for more information.
Isn't it too easy when you have these tools?
Yes, playing and winning the game becomes easy. Doing it as fast as possible however, is not. We attempt to perfect the games to a godly level of precision,
which involves handling the game as if it were The Matrix ― observing
every slightest detail to gain control over it in ways that the game makers
never imagined. We search for perfection.
It is a massive undertaking to produce a good tool-assisted movie.
Sure, anyone can undo when they make a mistake ― but who can spot
the error that causes 0.1 seconds of delay in the movie? Who can
spot and abuse bugs in games to do seemingly unearthly
maneuvers?
Tool-assisted versus competitive gaming
We have sometimes heard people say that tool-assisted movie makers are ruining competitive gaming.
As of the writing of this paragraph, this site has been running for more than 5 years, and we haven’t observed any decrease in the amount of new non-assisted speedruns being made. Actually, our movies sometimes helps speedrunners plan their routes and techniques better. Occasionally we discover tricks that are also doable in real time with some training. We enjoy tool-assisted speedruns as much as non-assisted speedruns, and we recognize the value of both.
We try to do our best to prevent anyone confusing the tool-assisted movies
with non-assisted ones. We provide openly as much information as we can.
We try to explain everything that could possibly be asked (and are constantly
trying to improve the information value of these pages) and doing our best to
keep the movie audience informed that these movies are tool-assisted.
We do not submit our records at regular gaming sites, nor do we endorse the idea of other people doing the same. That would be as fair as having a gun in a
wrestling match ― we’re competing in our own class.
Further reading
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