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Fastest to X lines doesn't seem interesting, as it would just be an extended version of the highscore TAS. It will go on infinitely long, and any number of lines reached would be arbitrary. It has already been done (unoptimized that is): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8uKJpPHNN0 (there are more parts to that movie, check the channel, or the related links movies)
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I've been doing some thinking. It will take way too long for a regular marathon game to max out the score to 99.999.999. You get 24000 for a back to back tetris, and 48000 for a triple T clear. Even with a low estimate, it will take a TAS over an hour to get the maximum score.
Instead, level 20 can still be unlocked to play the line clear mode, which ends after 25 lines. The question here though is... what would be a good goal? Getting 25 lines as fast as possible? Getting a score as high as possible? I think both have their issues. Getting a score as high as possible would mean dropping unnecessary pieces at the end (I could imagine), as dropping pieces gives also points (also on level 20?). Either way, suggestions what the goal for a TAS of this mode could be are very welcome.
Another problem I thought of was the marathon mission mode. Previously, I said that clearing missions as fast as possible would give the highest possible score... and this is still true... but there is no penalty for not clearing a mission. You have to COMPLETE 40 missions... which means that you can choose to not complete a mission that will take longer, and set up the next mission, in order to clear it with one block, and get the maximum amount of points. This would obviously be a lot less entertaining. The goal could therefore not be anymore "aims for highest score". But if it's just a fast completion of 40 missions, then there is no need to unlock level 20 and aim for score at all. What to do?
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Wow, looks very nice, keep it up!
(The way the screen is split up is quite annoying though... maybe an encode with a black bar in between the size of the actual gap would make it better (although that would mess up the already strange DS ratio aspect even more :S))
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ShadowOfMyles wrote:
The coin ship...
Does this thing appear randomly or is there something I can do to trigger it?
Thanks.
You should try google first for questions like these... this is what I found within 5 seconds:
Treasure Ship
In Worlds 1, 3, 5, and 6, you can turn a Wandering Hammer Brother on the
map screen into a lucrative Treasure Ship. Here's what you have to do:
1.Have at least one Wandering Hammer Brother left on the map screen. 2.
At the end of a level, hit the Roulette Block like normal. After the
timer counts down giving you the time bonus, if your Coin total is a
multiple of 11 (i.e. 11, 22, 33, etc., but NOT zero), and if the tens
digit (the second number from the right) of your score matches the
repeated number in your Coins total, you'll get the Treasure Ship to
appear on the map screen. Example: 55 coins, score of 27650.
Of course, you get 50 points per second remaining after you hit the
Roulette Block, which affects the all-important tens digit of your
score, so you'll have do a little planning ahead. Just keep in mind that
if you stop the timer on an even number, your tens digit won't change.
If you stop the timer on an odd number, your tens digit will increase by
5. So, if you're at the Roulette Block with 66 Coins and a score ending
in -60, you'll want to stop on an even number. If you have 88 Coins and
a score ending in -30, you'll want to stop the timer on an odd number.
The Treasure Ship contains 169 Coins and a hidden 1-Up Mushroom just
before the end pipe.
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mega_man_3 wrote:
Baxter wrote:
1) If you have balloon left after a boss battle, which would be possible for you after brightman for instance, as you could save a balloon with your strat, then you can save time by using the balloon to move to the center of the room after brightman is dead to skip the animation (like we did for pharaohman animation after the battle). Going to the start menu to select balloon will cost a lot, but skipping the animation will still save a few frames.
This reminds me of that glitch I saw after the boss in Dive Man's stage from the '06 run. I think this glitch gave way to the one demonstrated after the Pharaoh Man and Bright man boss fights. Great find on this one!
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I got the first mission time trial time down to 9.60 seconds. Something makes one a bit more confident about the time is that the missions aren't random, only the order is. For each level of difficulty you seem to get the same 10 missions, only the order is random. With random, I however don't mean particularly manipulatable for a TAS. It seems like only playing a game will change the order. Same is true for the blocks you get it seems, which can't really be manipulated either. This is quite different from NES tetris, but here you can hold one piece. With a bit of planning it's nearly as good as being able to manipulate pieces I'd say.
Edit: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1003921956/Tetris_DS_Baxter.fm2
Here is a link to the movie. Just replace ".fm2" by ".dsm" after downloading to play the movie.
Wow, very nice. As you might know AngerFist, Shinryuu and I were also working on this (although we only completed 2 stages over a long period). The wip of these two stages is here: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1739183648/Mega%20Man%204%20first%20two%20stages.fm2
(Use FCEUX to play the fm2 file)
Here is a comparison between the two wips. "+" means you are faster, "-" means we are faster. Everything is added up, so +1 for room 1 means you were a frame faster in room 1. -2 in room 2 means we were 3 frames faster in room 2, which means that we reach the end of that room 2 frames faster (-3+1=-2)
Pharaohman
Room 1, +1, It is possible that we waited a frame here to get better randomness in the next room.
Room 2, -3
Room 3, +12, You handled this room very well, nice.
Room 4, +13
Room 5, +17
Room 6, +17
Boss health depleted, +31, Your uncharged shot was great, getting a large distance between you and pharaohman. Made your version 14 frames faster!
Black screen, -43, You forgot to do the glitch where megaman jumps to the center of the room to skip the animation! (Check the above wip to see it.)
Brightman
Room 1, -40, we started the stage at -43, so you saved 3 frames here.
Room 2, -31, nice strategy here! Using mega buster for the first part seems so obvious :)
Room 3, -31, You used a balloon more here, which wasn't needed, as our version was equally fast.
Room 4, -30
Room 5, -35, Strange different strategy you got there. I'm surprised actually it is only 5 frames slower.
Room 6, -31, You use the ladder zip glitch here, which we also discovered, but only after we were done with this stage. We might have gone back to redo this.
Room 7, -42, I think we did a better job in avoiding lag in this room.
Room 8, -42
Boss health depleted, +3, You did a lot better job here. The trick you constantly use was not unknown to us, but we only used it once in our version. Using it constantly saves a good amount of time it seems, very nice.
Black screen, -27, What is really important for the explosion is that the boss is at the horizontal center of the room. Vertical position doesn't really matter. It might save a frame or two if he's in the perfect center both horizontally AND vertically, but it doesn't matter if he is vertically in the air or at the ground (if he's not in the perfect center). The explosion leaves the screen last horizontally anyway, so this should be focussed on. We killed him at the perfect horizontal center, which saved us 30 frames here.
There are two other things that will save time for you:
1) If you have balloon left after a boss battle, which would be possible for you after brightman for instance, as you could save a balloon with your strat, then you can save time by using the balloon to move to the center of the room after brightman is dead to skip the animation (like we did for pharaohman animation after the battle). Going to the start menu to select balloon will cost a lot, but skipping the animation will still save a few frames.
2) After brightman, it might very well be a good idea to do drillman instead of ringman. At drillman's stage, only bright flash is used, which you already have, and the dive missles damage the boss 3 hp, which is the same as a charged pharaohshot, and with your strategy, pretty much no time will be lost at the drillman bossbattle either. Doing drillman first will give you access to rushjet at stages like skullman's stage, which allows for way faster glitching through the wall than using balloon, so this will no doubt save time. (This glitching might save time in other stages and places too).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I also liked some of your strategies for the ringman stage. Using balloon a bit different at one of the earlier rooms, being damaged by the big ring enemy and using more pharaohshot during the stage. The new pharaohshot strategy saved also time here compared to the published run, although the boss X position could be better. Maybe having rushjet can save time in this stage also?
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I was actually thinking of starting off with the timetrial missions, and then getting level 20 to the marathon mission mode. I do agree with the regular marathon end the movie with (if that doesn't take too long). A more structured completion might enable people a little more to see what the actual objective is of what's currently being done. Doing them in a more random order might provide more variety though.... maybe subtitles, or at least a short text at the top of an avi could state what the goal is...
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I was thinking a bit, and if it's played good enough, it should be possible to get the maximum score for catch in a single go, without having to unlock selecting level 20 first. I am however against this option, since it would be nearly impossible to even remotely optimize. It would mean you would get only 1/20th of the points at the start versus what you would get at the end... so at the start, it would probably be best to move on quickly... but when?
I'm still in favor of one playthrough that unlocks level 20 quickly, and then one that gets the maximum score as fast as possible starting from level 20. I think this will be the most entertaining and just the best option.
I guess a TAS would look something like this:
- Complete all 5 mission time trials in record times.
- Complete mission marathon to unlock level 20 (as there are no special goals, besides unlocking, this can be done in a playaround style).
- Start mission marathon from level 20 to aim for the highest possible score.
- Complete catch mode quickly to unlock level 20 (could have as a goal "complete all levels as fast as possible" which will give a very different movie than the highscore movie, as it uses big combo's).
- Start catch mode from level 20 and try to max out the score as fast as possible.
- Play push mode.
- Play versus mode.
- Complete 200 lines in regular marathon mode to unlock level 20.
- Start regular marathon mode from level 20 to max out the score as fast as possible (this should only be included if it doesn't take too long).
Then there is the mode where you start off from a certian height... level 20 would need to be unlocked here first also, if a certain highscore were to be made. Don't know if this should be included. Maybe a few playarounds here and there if something cool hasn't been included yet.
Either way, should these modes be completed in a systematic order, as just listed, or for instance first unlock a level 20 at a mode, then do a different mode, and later come back to that mode starting from level 20 to get a highscore? Ideas?
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Warp wrote:
Kuwaga wrote:
If you take things like radiation into account, it seems you assume for no particular reason that every intelligent life has to be similar to that on Earth.
As long as there's no tangible evidence of any other type of life, I have to assume that it's highly unlikely to exist. (If it were likely to exist, we would have noticed by now.)
I'm open to possibilities, but I don't base my views on what might be possible, without any kind of supporting evidence.
Why would we have noticed by now if it's likely to exist? Distances are huge, and civilizations might have a tendency to blow themselves up, or other unfortunate events might happen.
FODA wrote:
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Bisqwit wrote:
3. if biological life somewhere else in the universe had any consequence to us, I'm sure YHWH would have mentioned it.
Does this mean that if it turned out that biological life somewhere else in the universe did have a consequence to us, that this would change your faith?
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Slightly offtopic, but I still think this site should have a regular dr. mario run. I don't think I could improve my submission timewise, but I think the movie can be made more interesting.
I noticed that pieces nearly instantly appear in versus mode, whereas in single player mode, it takes quite a while for dr. mario to throw them. I think a great submission would be one that played versus and:
- First game, player one wins as fast as possible, without player 2 dying and, if possible, player 2 not giving any input at all. It should be possible since player one being very fast will probably send player 2 a whole stream of garbage.
- Second game, the reverse, only player 2 input, but player one still wins. Player 2 is however not allowed to die, but has to complete player 1's game by sending lots and lots of garbage.
- Third (and last) game, maybe a playaround? Maybe completing the game as fast as possible by using the exact same input for player 1 and player 2 (one would have to avoid garbage then). Of course, player 1 should win to end the game... but player 2 doesn't have to give the same input for the last frame or so.
I would love it, if someone were to make a TAS like this.
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I think I'm done testing catch... the leveling up is pretty much the same as with mission marathon:
- Make 4x4 grids to clear blocks, this will also increase your health if it isn't at its max and shoot beams of light. You will lose health if blocks reach the bottom, if you rotate into blocks, or if you hit a metroid. If your health is empty, it's game over.
- Scoring works as follows (I think): For each block that sticks to your main block, you get 10 points. If you have a 4x4 block or bigger, you will get N*N*level*10 points. N is the amount of blocks that are part of 4x4 boxes. Note that it's quadratic. Using the light to kill a metroid also gives points: 1000*level.
- Once again, you can only select levels 1-5 at the start. Similar to mission marathon, after clearing blocks twice, you move on to the next level. So after clearing 10 times, you are at level 6, and 38 times, you reach level 20. After clearing 40 times, the game ends, and you get the credits. When returning, you can pick level 1-20, and it's also finite, so once again 40 clearings.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This mode will take significantly longer. My slowed down test which got 40 clearings twice was about 18 minutes. A TAS should be a LOT faster though. Normally, you will get 10 seconds after you get a 4x4 grid, to add more blocks, but this can be skipped, by triggering the light instantly. A run which unlocks the level would probably do that often.
If it is possible to make a 112 combo 40 times at level 20, the total score will be maxed out to 99.999.999. (For reference, at cyberscore, the record for biggest combo is 102) This is most definately possible, so I guess the goal would be to get that as fast as possible and then die.
I'm curious to see how this mode will look when properly TASed... will it be interesting and short enough to see it cleared by forming 40 combo's twice? My guess is that it will be.
Maybe, if all these modes are completed twice (once to unlock the levels, once for high score), should they be done in a more random order (as in, unlock levels, then do some other mode, then come back to set highscore)?
===============================================
Edit: Oops, when making this post, I thought the combo score was maxed out at 999.999 (see charge at the bottom):
It turns out however that more will be added to the score though, which should make it possible to get 99.999.999 and aim for fastest time getting that. I changed the above post accordingly.
(Also note how nicely the above and bottom screen connect. It's as it is one big screen instead of two.)
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OmegaWatcher wrote:
If you clear enough missions in marathon mode, the game ends and the credit screen appears. I don't really know if all modes with marathons work like that, but it's a nice end.
I just did some research on the mission marathon mode:
- Clearing missions is the only way to gain points. There is a time limit for each mission, and its length depends on how high the level is. If you can't complete the mission within the time limit, you will get 4 garbage lines, if you complete it within the time limit, the four bottom lines are cleared.
- After some testing, I think the scoring works like this: for each mission you clear, you get (1000+1000*level)*(1+%timeleft). This means, if you clear a mission at level 1 with no time left, you get 2000, with half of the time left, 3000, with all time left 4000. At level 20, you get 21000 for a cleared mission with no time left, and 42000 with all time left.
- You can only select levels 1-5 at the start. After 10 cleared missions, you move on to level 6, 12 to level 7......... 38 to level 20. If you cleared 40 missions the game will stop, and show ending credits (these can be skipped by pressing start). If you return to the mode, you can select the levels you reached, which in this case would be levels 1-20. The game stops again after mission 40, showing credits, but since you can start at level 20 from the start, you will get a much higher score.
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I was extremely glad that this mission marathon mode wasn't infinite. If it was, getting the maximum score of 99.999.999 would take a TAS about 1.5 hours, completing 2500 mission :P
Since it is finite and is only 40 missions, I think I'll do the marathon mode also. First a playaround movie that unlocks level 20. Then a movie that starts from level 20 in an attempt to get an ultimate highscore (which involves being as fast as possible... as completing missions fast gives more points).
Including a versus game against a level 5 cpu is probably also fun, and maybe two push games (I read that it's possible to get a draw there, if all blocks are cleared, which sounds like fun).
Then there is marathon mode and catch mode. Both have the same 'problem' as mission marathon, as you need to play through it once before being able to select level 20 from the start. I'll need to do some research on these modes first though, checking how the scoring works, and if catch is finite as mission marathon.
Any suggestions or info are very welcome :)
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OmegaWatcher wrote:
If you clear enough missions in marathon mode, the game ends and the credit screen appears. I don't really know if all modes with marathons work like that, but it's a nice end.
Touch mode is not that ficed, I think you can arrange some wild combos. Puzzle is really fixed, so no.
And excellent video, Baxter. I'd vote "yes" right now =p
Thx. As of now, touch mode isn't really an option... due to stylus recording. I think it would be incredibly hard to TAS also. I'd say the other modes should be enough.
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I think this game might be interesting for a TAS. It is quite different from the published tetris games, as it has sonic drop, hold, SRS and so on. There are also quite a few different modes that might be interesting.
I made a TAS of mission mode on easiest difficulty:
AVI
I think a submission of this game should include all difficulties, and a few other modes too... maybe a bit of playaround at the end might be fun as well.
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sixofour wrote:
Well, I do not typically like TAS Videos, maby because of how they are advertised more so than how they are made. Like you will have a video of a guy beating some game in 14 seconds without making a single mistake at all... no one ever mentions that he played the game very slow, plays with recorded chops, used a bot, or downright altered the game in some way. Rather its present as "some guy with good skill playing a game", and when you put that next to people who actually do speed runs it basically steps all over them.
Well, at this site, all movies are clearly labeled as being tool assisted speedruns, with a link to the site for more information. None of the TASes use cheats, or play an alterned version of the game (besides obviously hacks). I'd say it's a bad reason to "typically not like TAS Videos"... as it more sounds like you don't like the people who pass them off as non-toolassisted speedruns. Either way, you won't find those people here...
It turns out however that more will be added to the score though, which should make it possible to get 99.999.999 and aim for fastest time getting that. I changed the above post accordingly.
(Also note how nicely the above and bottom screen connect. It's as it is one big screen instead of two.)