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Also, I recorded in Windows, which has this annoying restriction about how many buttons can be pressed simultaneously.
I had the same problem, but after switching my keyboard configuration the problem was solved. I used to have A, S, D, and W for movement, J for the X-buster, and K for jumping. But when I switched J to L and K to ";" I was able to press more buttons at the same time. So by leaving one as a letter key and switching the other to a non-letter key, everything worked out fine.
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Michael has just directed me to a newer version of snes9x that can rerecord from save states, making it possible to make a video. I'll probably give that a shot
I'll be looking forward to it :). I had to plan out some shortcuts and tricks in my run get it under SnapDragon's 00:50, with time most notably saved in Oil Drum Alley and Platform Perils. I'll make a full list of them once my run is ready for download. I know now that with only EXTEREMELY precise movements it is possible to get 00:47 without saving. Thanks for your input Michael and Alex, I'll start recording on VHS for my final version now.
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should we start choosing judges then? It wouldn't be too difficult, for example the users already involved in ALttP planning would be ideal judges for that game, same goes for the users in the SMW thread etc.
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It would also be interesting to see how fast it's possible to do the game by just running through it without getting 101% btw.
the fastest route would be to use the warp glitch right after beating Jungle Hijinx. You may still have to use a few bonus rooms though, since some of them save time. Not as entertaning, but you're probably looking at something around 30%-40% completion finishing the game as fast as possible.
I know that, but I think the speed can be very much increased by doing a rerecordable time attack.
using rerecords, the time would be a couple of minutes faster than the legit run using the DKC timer.
Edit: Just did another run of the game and got 00:48 with three hits and zero deaths. My time just before Platform Perils was 00:43.
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just found another way to save 5-10 seconds in what I find to be the hardest level: Poison Pond. It's extremely risky though. Also, I found a way to get past the last mincer quickly without getting hit on purpose. So that's another few seconds.
unless Penev knows some good time saving strategies.
He should stop by this forum some time. I probably know some strategies he hasn't thought of as well. We may even come up with some new ones.
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alright, after doing about a half-dozen runs of the entire game on the SNES console, I've come to the conclusion that something like 00:48 or 00:49 is already pretty much unbeatable. It takes an amazing amount of skill just to get through the game without getting hit at all. Here's a summary of my runs:
50:00 (July 12)
48:00 (July 9)
51:00 (July 9)
57:00 (July 8)
50:00 (July 7)
49:00 (July 5)
48:00 (July 3)
In my latest run, I died about three times and still managed to get 50. In fact, the only way I can pull of 48 minutes is if I don't get hit at all and play through the whole thing perfectly, which has only happened a couple of times. So yes, I'm confident that 48 is unbeatable, and unless I can pull of a 47 minute run any time soon, I'll just go ahead with that.
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do you think there should be a category of users qualified as judges? They could be people who are each specialized and educated about certain games and could really help ease the work load. That way only quality runs that pass the judges' approval would be passed on to and encoded by the movie publishers. Just an idea.
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Although I won't be making any tool-assited runs
Emulators can be very useful in legit run training. Do a speedrun on an emulator and use the fewest amount of savestates as you can. That will tell you around the fastest time you would reach in a legit run with your current abilities if you do not make any mistakes. They also provide an easy means of practising difficult sections of games over and over without having to start from the beginning if you die or mess up.
I think it would make more sense if the page that lists all the players links to their personal pages.
Every user can have a homepage, but not every user on this forum is on the "Players" page. I think to be on there you had to at some point had a run published on the site, which excludes people like me :). So there should be a link to homepages on the main menu as well.
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oh are you working on a time attack for this or just speed run? because getting hit to move faster isn't something i would be crazy enough to try in a speed run.
I'm currently not working on this game, I was referring to the Light World Speedrun I did some time ago. I got hit by the ray by accident but it ended up helping me. My only intentional hit in that run was bombing myself to get the moon pearl.
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if you can get a few enemies to drop red rupees, you'll never have to gamble. I'm not sure how to abuse the randomness yet. Whether it depends on how you kill the enemy or when you kill the enemy, I'm not sure; some seem more predisposed to dropping red rupees though.
Not if you get pushed in the direction that you want to go in. In LoZ, Sleepz sometimes got enemies to push him to get through rooms faster.
it's harder to do in ALttP, but in my light world run, I was able to travel quite a bit getting hit by the statue sentry's ray in the Desert Palace.
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What about the glitch I used in 4-2 in SMB? Should that have been allowed?
I was referring only to ALttP: teleportation or moving outside the game's boundaries allow you to skip large portions of the game. In SMB it saves a few seconds.
As for dying you don't have to get hit alot waiting to die. You could get hit along the way in places where it will cost little to none time.
makes sense, guess I wasn't thinking. In that case, hits would have to be planned out well, as each one costs a half second delay or so. Do you have an idea of some places where you'll use death to save time?
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I'm pretty sure the fastest route for the Light World has been discovered. What remains is finding an extensive route for the Dark World that also includes routes within the actual dungeons themselves. There are shortcuts you can use to get past dungeons areas quicker, like getting hit with a bomb to get the moon pearl sooner. The Cane of somaria and the hook shot could probably achieve similar results in later dungeons.
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I did a speedrun of this game and I can tell you that the delayed punch is something you get better at with a lot of practice to do consistently. Pause slightly before delivering the punch, and if you take the same amount of damage then you didn't time it correctly; just keep trying :) . It is the only way to TKO Tyson and Sandman in the first round.
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I'd be interested in hearing what Penev would have to say about this game. I've never tried a save-state run yet, but 46 minutes is a decent time.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to try out a tool-assisted run once your non-assisted run is finished? Would be great on this site!
I'd like to see a tool-assisted run of this game. I'm moving straight to ALttP once my run is finished so I don't know yet if it'll be me who'll be making it. I have this game pretty much memorized so I would gladly help out in its production in any way I can.
Edit: I would also like to see a time attack of the Espresso, Rambi, Enguard, and Winky bonus levels getting 999 as fast as possible.
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I think it's more productive to let people focus on their own projects which would result in more videos being published each month rather than have a large group of people focus on only one game. You'll probably get only a handful of people at most who'd participate. Kung Fu, the most competitive game on this forum only had around 6 people making runs for it.
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here are some ideas I've come up recently with that may help me reach the faster time:
-staying on the ground instead of using the trees in Jungle Hijinx.
-not using Winky in Winky's Walkway.
-using the Necky in Tree Top Town instead of Gnawty to get to the first bonus barrel. (use the boost from roll-attacking the Gnawty to make Necky appear sooner.)
-avoiding getting Expresso in the beginning of Ice Age Alley.
-skipping the first bonus room in Elevator Antics then getting it later using the start-select method; also could work in Snow Barrel Blast. I'm sure the start-select trick could be abused more.
-purposely getting hit by the last mincer in Poison Pond.
-using Donkey Kong against Queen B. and Dumb Drum instead of Diddy.
-using only Diddy in Platform Perils.
any comments or suggestions?
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deliberately break the written rules of a game
maybe you can show us where these rules are written?
The fact is that there are still people who can't tell the difference between legitimate and illegitimate speedruns. The best way I can think of solving this problem is to use a disclaimer that people will be able to understand. When I say people I'm specifcally referring to the 1000s of 14 year olds who receive these videos over peer to peer connections, links posted in ignorant forums, and AIM conversations daily. They are the ones spreading the lies and misinformation, certainly not myself.
I agree with you here. This is the same reason why I would like to see a disclaimer. However, in your argument you are only representing the cons of emulated runs, that is, their threat to legitimate run submissions. Emulators are not the source of cheating, as you can cheat very easily on the original console: record yourself playing each level of a game separately and save the best times, next, append all of those recordings of the separate levels all together in one VHS and call it a continuous run of the whole game. It can be done.
Emulator runs are useful because they demonstrate to the legitimate player near perfect play which in turn gives the legit player something to practise toward.