Joined: 12/26/2006
Posts: 256
Location: United States of America
moozooh wrote:
[D]oes taking damage during play save really a considerable amount of time?
Taking damage saves considerable time on the bonus screens that appear after each level, but not during the levels themselves. That's why I'm against the idea.
FractalFusion described a scenario in Sonic the Hedgehog here where acheiving a slower per-level time would actually result in a faster overall time. Of course, in a tool-assisted speedrun, the very idea is absurd, which is why the movie "ignores delays caused by bonus effects". To me, taking damage (which doesn't save any time in the level) to save time in the after-level bonus screen is equally silly; if the idea of a TAS is to demonstrate mastery over the game, why would I run into enemies on purpose for (almost) no good reason?
It doesn't look like there's any need to take damage to save level time at all.
But I am concerned that, after what will probably be hundreds of hours of hard work, someone will come along and "improve" the run simply by using a ROM with an easier difficulty level. I would like to complete my run on the US ROM on the hardest difficulty (taking no damage) and also avoid this scenario if at all possible.
moozooh wrote:
I suppose you're fully familiar with the tools?
I'm a little fuzzy when it comes to using savestates to rerecord (so far I've just been using "stop movie" -> "play movie" -> "seek to frame" -> "resume record from now") but I'll figure it out. Right now the larger issues have my concern.
Joined: 12/26/2006
Posts: 256
Location: United States of America
Time to bump up this thread. : )
Rocket Knight Adventures was one of my favorite games from childhood. After thoroughly enjoying other people's tool-assisted speedruns, I'm inspired to try one out myself.
Dan_ wrote:
[...]don't compare times with the published movie. It sucks :P
Well, OK then. I intend to make a movie that doesn't suck. ; p
So far I've only completed under twenty-four seconds worth of gameplay, so it's too early to post a WIP, although it is "so far" faster than both the published run and Dan's unfinished (?) version three run. I have a feeling I'll be able to make a very high-quality speedrun eventually.
I do have a question though.
I'm using the US version of the ROM on "Hard" mode, which is equivalent to the "Crazy Hard" difficulty on the European and Japanese versions. In this mode, some enemies and all bosses have more hit points, and one hit instantly kills the main character. Whereas in the PAL and Japanese ROMs this difficulty level requires a hidden code, it is immediately selectable on the options of the US verison.
I think that the "Hard" (or "Crazy Hard") difficulty is approriate for a tool-assisted speedrun, which is supposed to show the game completed under the most challanging conditions. I absolutely hate Dan's idea (no disrespect) of taking damage intentionally throughout a level to save time in the after-level bonus screen (time which I feel doesn't really "count" toward the speedrun anyway), and I don't think that taking damage will save that much time otherwise.
If I need to, it would be fairly trivial to "convert" my run over to the Japanese ROM, since I keep a journal of which buttons are pressed on which frames and why.
My question is, if I continue my run on the hardest difficulty of the US version and my run eventually gets published, will I have to worry about someone else using a different ROM with easier bosses and the ability to take damage to save time on the bonus screen, copying everything from my run and calling it an "improvement"? That would be pretty insulting if the other run had no other improvements to offer.
Any comments? And please understand that I don't mean to offend anyone, I just want to make sure that my hard work is put in the right place.
Also, are Dan, Lezard, and MangaManiac59 still working on this game?
Joined: 12/26/2006
Posts: 256
Location: United States of America
OK, I understand. A lot of Sonic the Hedgehog movies fall into this category because of the huge "time bonus" at the end of this level -- nobody would ever suggest running the level slower to reduce the time bonus and make the overall time "faster", even if that were possible.
A question, though: Sonic the Hedgehog also has a "ring bonus" at the end of each level. Suppose I complete each level in the exact same amount of time -- same number of frames and everything -- but collect fewer or no rings to save "bonus time", thus decreasing overall time by several seconds, even though each level time is the same. Am I correct in assuming that this would not be considered an improvement because the existing movie "ignores delays caused by bonus effects"?
I don't assert that this is possible, just hypothetically...