Posts for Derakon

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Posted: 2/4/2010 4:32 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Start the new movie from a savestate created at the end of the old movie (thus, the old movie should run until you get to the title screen, or wherever you start needing to provide input for the new movie). Whatever you end up doing, there's going to be some timing discrepancies because you aren't starting from power-on; as long as you explain what those discrepancies are, I don't think there'll be a big problem. However, you really should get input from one of the judges before dedicating too much time to this. It's entirely possible that I'm not familiar with all of the rules regarding this kind of thing; it doesn't come up often.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/3/2010 9:48 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The general rule for runs that start from a "dirty" state is that you have to submit a movie along with the TAS that gets you set up for the TAS. So for example, the "alternate character" Castlevania runs use pre-existing TASes that beat the game with the normal character, while most (all?) of the Chronotrigger New Game + runs are based off a movie that was made awhile back that grinds everyone up to level 99 and then beats the standard game. That movie doesn't need to be optimized; it just needs to prove that the point you're starting from was achieved legitimately. As for speed upgrades, personally I'd say do without them at the start. You'll have plenty of time to show off hyperspeed R-Type throughout the game; it'll be nice to have a lead-in where things aren't quite so frantic.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/2/2010 4:43 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
I'm replaying this in J&C mode on Hard, and I discovered a loop against Balore: * Balore does his eye laser * Duck under it at the point where it finishes widening out * Jump-attack him (I get three hits in with the Alucard Spear) * He does the eye laser again I don't know that this would be particularly useful in a TAS, since his other attacks don't prevent you from attacking him in return, but I thought it was interesting enough to be worth posting. He seems to be willing to do this indefinitely; I've used it against him several times now (I tend to use the first loop of the Nest of Evil to train up new subweapons). Getting him to initiate the eye laser in the first place seems to be random, though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/1/2010 11:47 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Unfortunately, floor-watching is pretty much a requirement to get world-record-beating times, as I understand it. There's too much lag otherwise.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/1/2010 3:54 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Thanks for the encode, sgrunt! Ehh, I suspect this movie would be more entertaining if I'd watched Ren & Stimpy as a kid, which I didn't -- at least in part because I didn't like the animation or design, which the run used, which means I didn't like the visuals in addition to not getting any of the references. Voting meh. Seemed a decent run; I just didn't appreciate it.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/1/2010 1:02 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Ahh, I've seen a tool-assisted run of Duck Hunt before. It consisted of an NES, a TV, a gun mounted on servos, a camera, and a computer. Mind, the computer didn't have perfect accuracy, but it was pretty dang good anyway. And seeing it track the ducks, aim the gun, and then fire it was pretty entertaining.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/31/2010 11:46 PM
Post subject: Re: Uploaded to Archive.org
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Warp wrote:
I wonder if a shortening convention could be used for cases where there are so many authors. An overly long file name can be inconvenient (and some file systems have a limit on file name length, most prominently some commonly used data CD/DVD file systems, IIRC).
The standard way this is handled in other publications is to pick a primary author and then add "et al", e.g. "Flygon et al".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/31/2010 6:00 PM
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Derakon
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...it looks like someone decided to actually port I Wanna Be The Guy to the NES. Yikes.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/31/2010 5:55 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Wow, I actually managed to watch all of this? Go me. And go you guys! Nice run! One question: after the second EXTEND warp, you spent a long time with both players being one letter short of getting another EXTEND. Why didn't you complete one of them? Did it just take too much time to set up the combo for it to be worthwhile? Of course, you did then use the warp twice in rapid succession. I'm curious: did you use a button configuration where P1's inputs were P2's reversed inputs for some of the levels? Also man, human Bob has a major case of hypothermia.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/30/2010 1:48 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Thanks for the encode, Aktan! Looked good to me. The beginning confused me until you reminded me that Jump costs mana per-jump, as opposed to being a duration spell that allows you to jump for awhile. Otherwise, pretty tight-looking work.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/30/2010 1:46 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
If this poll were "pick your top two" then Crusader of Centy might well be winning right now. I know it was my second pick (right after Megaman 2).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/29/2010 8:34 PM
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Derakon
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The sprite limit should just be a matter of drawing; it doesn't generally affect game calculations (i.e. you can interact with sprites that aren't drawn).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/29/2010 4:33 AM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
You have to get the TAS-enabled versions of SNES9x. Unfortunately they aren't available compiled for OSX. If you know how to program, you could try compiling them yourself; alternatively they probably work pretty well under virtualization -- but that's basically equivalent to running Windows.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/28/2010 11:24 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Some people interpret things different ways. However, I suspect that most people will view this the way it was intended, so I don't think it's worth changing.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/28/2010 10:00 PM
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Derakon
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Mind, it shouldn't have to be Lua. Best coder of the year, maybe? Then we could count contributions to emulator code, the TAS movie editor, and things like that.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/27/2010 3:58 AM
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Derakon
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Thanks for the encode, Aktan! I found this to be pretty dull myself. I watched until about halfway through world 2 before stopping; the gameplay didn't seem to be picking up any. Voting meh.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/27/2010 2:48 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Actually, movies can get away with being filmed at 24 FPS because, unlike games, they show everything that happened during a frame. If someone is running in a movie, then you'll see their legs blur slightly each frame, so even though the movie is shot at 24FPS, you can still "see" more "frames". Games render the current state of the universe at discrete moments, though, so every frame is sharp and has no visible motion. Therefore you need to show more frames to not look choppy. Movies could render at a higher speed, but you'd need to triple all the infrastructure related to video content (cable TV, DVD capacity, etc.). And I don't think the gain would be particularly noticeable. It'd be better, sure, but the gains would be less than you'd get from, say, improving resolution.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/26/2010 3:35 PM
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Derakon
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Which brings to mind the other canonically bad-to-TAS (and just bad-in-general) game, Front Line.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/25/2010 3:26 PM
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Derakon
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One question: how is subtracting '0' equivalent to bitwise-anding 7? '0' is 48, or 110000 in binary; 7 is 111 in binary. Let's try 57, or 111001. Subtracting off '0' gives 1001 (9); bitwise-anding 7 gives 001 (1).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/25/2010 2:33 AM
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Derakon
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I'd prefer any% Tails over start-from-100%-save Tails too, for that matter, since it would save us from having to listen to the super music all the time.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/24/2010 2:28 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
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Keep in mind that the beginning of S&K involved getting all of the super emeralds, so the first few stages would be different. And once those are done, the later stages might be different because he's not preventing himself from using the horizontal underflow glitch.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/22/2010 6:25 AM
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Derakon
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Oh man, I used to play this on my dad's Commodore 64 back in the day. I never did figure out how to stop in the BMX course, so I always crashed at the end... I don't really remember it that well, but what I do remember should be suitable for some kind of playaround.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/21/2010 6:51 PM
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Derakon
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Because the BLJ is sufficiently different from "normal" play to make for a much different watching experience. Your question is a bit like asking why there's a category for (say) Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance that doesn't use wall-sinking. Of course, whether or not the judges consider the TAS worth publishing has yet to be tested. But I suspect the run will get a good reception. SonicPacker: semantics. You know what was meant. We don't have to have a perfect objective definition to base a run on.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/20/2010 11:55 PM
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Derakon
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I'd be leery of any "awards" that are even slightly based on rerecord count, given how trivial it is to change. Granted, I'm not certain how else you'd quantify "amount of effort dedicated to TASing", which seems to be what you're going for here. I guess you could go by total length of published movies, but not all games are equally hard to TAS. Compare a scrolling shmup to a late-era Castlevania, for example; in the shmup much of your rerecords are dedicated to dancing, while in the Castlevania much of your rerecords are dedicated to optimizing very bizarre movement systems and manipulating luck.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/20/2010 3:27 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Toothache wrote:
I don't know what manipulating AI behaviour is classed under, but it should also go under luck manipulation imo because you are changing the programmed behavior into a more favourable one, it is still using an RNG or pseudo-RNG and therefore still subject to luck manipulation. At least, this is how I see it.
It depends on how the AI is implemented. For example, changing your position so that you convince a deterministic AI to move closer to you would count as AI manipulation, but it's not luck manipulation.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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