Posts for LagDotCom

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Being quite familiar with the game, I'm shocked at just how many bugs there are in its programming. Extremely fast paced and interesting game mechanics make me give this a definite yes. The level transitions are a bit annoying though.
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This reminds me of the whole furore about fractal based compression of images. Did that ever happen? Is it still being researched?
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Post subject: Re: Object-based video compression arrives
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moozooh wrote:
“The potential of object-based technology is so great that it seems counterintuitive to what most people know about compression,” said Euclid Discoveries’ Chief Software Architect Chuck Norris.
I wondered if this was ever going to happen. :) Object-based compression seems really obvious to me for compressing movies, I mean... all 2d games draw stuff by sprites, and some 2d games run on a Gameboy, for god's sake. If that's not evidence of great compression, I don't know what is!
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Cut off another 14 frames from 1-2. I now think I'm ready to tackle 1-3 once more. On the side, to help me with editing rooms I've already done before, I've made a sort of 'movie library' program which can slice up and stick together movies much like you can do manually in a hex editor. It's nice telling it 'Create Movie' and 'All Latest Versions' and seeing your work pop out. :) It doesn't create the VBM header though, so I copy that back in afterwards, which also acts to preserve the re-record count. Happy am I. Edit: Vision 1-3 redone with a massive improvement, almost 3 seconds in total, thanks to some enemy spawning manipulation in the second room. Also a silly dance. :) Edit: And now Vision 1-4 is done. It's almost auto-scrolling, but preserving momentum is much more important here.
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Aye, my last name is Davies. Fear the welshness. :)
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I've been using the memory viewer since I did a bit of poking and found the values for position, etc:
Offset 0x03002920
0 short X position
2 short Y position
4 short X screen offset
6 short Y screen offset
8 byte  Invulnerability flicker
There are other values around there, but I haven't figured out what they mean yet. I've been doing the best I can to make sure my X position is always changing by the maximum possible amount, but because of Klonoa's very low speed (in terms of game characters) preserving momentum is less important in this game than many other platformers.
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Also it takes so long to replace a move because of all the stupid dialogs.
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No animation animations. Confusing! I guess it's the game checking for added effects and such? But Hydro Pump doesn't have any... truly odd. Maybe it has a REALLY complicated damage function. 8)
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primorial#soup wrote:
animation for it is slow, about 55 frames slower
Wait, doesn't every Pokemon game have an option to turn off battle animations? It flips itself back on for 'final' battles in some of the games though, frame counting will be important there.
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I watched the first two levels again and saw too many mistakes; those have now been replaced by version 4, but I haven't redone 1-3 yet. I've discovered this game is fairly friendly to hex-editors, but edits of an odd number of frames desync. This is because Klonoa moves 1, then 2 frames at max speed... this annoyed me when I completed one room a frame faster, but the next room one slower. Alas! Quickfalling isn't always as useful as it seems, because it reduces you to hovering speed for one frame (loses ~2 frames of running). In tight hopping situations it has been implemented, such as when gems are in awkward formations. Look at first post for updates. Or just the TAS link in my signature. Enjoy!
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Mostly English, slightly Welsh. All white British then.
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Ok, I've also done Vision 1-3. Here is the new link. Also if you don't want to watch the first two levels again, here's a savestate.
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Yes, hovering/flying is very slow horizontally... In those two cases so far, it's probably worth it. When you jump off an enemy and throw it downwards, the game shifts you upwards a handful of pixels over 5 frames or so. However, during this time you can't control Klonoa, except for a slight bias on which side of him he throws the object. This is probably to prevent abuse from grabbing enemies right out of portals and using them twice. It's possible to fire the Wind Ring again as soon as you get the upwards speed, as shown near the end of 1-1. Haven't found another use for it so far, but I'm sure there will be later on. EX-3 requires you to use this maneuver in order to complete it. I think some of the Boarding stages need you to hover (at least to get 100%), but there it doesn't cost you as much/any speed.
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Being a big fan of the series, I've decided to attack the first GBA game. For those who don't know, this game is a very solid 2d platformer with a simple movement set. The focus of the games is on puzzles rather than dexterity, though the stages EX-1 and EX-3 rely on superior acrobatics. Comments welcome! Technical Stuff ROM Klonoa - Empire of Dreams (U).gba WIP v19 Improvement Finished 2-1, 408(!) frames ahead Tricks Long Jumps Some jumps which the designers probably did not intend are possible with frame-by-frame precision. Quickfalling One frame of hovering applies maximum downwards velocity, at the cost of a few pixels of horizontal movement. Spawn Manipulation Portals take a number of frames to produce another enemy once you have destroyed the first one it provides. If the portal is still on screen (or very nearby) when the enemy is destroyed, it immediately starts to spawn another. This can be manipulated to provide enemies earlier or later. Ladder Exits Exits which are reached by climbing can be triggered earlier than usual by holding a sideways direction. Brick Grabbing Bricks are not meant to be grabbed through low ceilings (that you can't carry them under), but it is quite possible with frame advance or just lots of tries, unassisted. Embedding If you throw a brick and are still inside it when it begins to drop (after hitting a wall), you can still move around, occupying the same space as it. You are unable to shoot the wind ring but can still jump out. There are also some doors that let you stay inside them when they close, and still exit both ways. Damage Boosting Firing a wind bullet and turning just before you hit a moo sends you flying in the opposite direction slightly faster than if you had just walked it. It also pushes you upwards a little, useful for extra high jumps. Exact frame gain depends on the situation.
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It always desyncs for me in the Ifrit battle; Sabin attacks normally instead of performing a DA. Playing back from the savestate doesn't help either. Great work so far though! Loved the manipulation on the Whelk.
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Doh, I forgot Gyarados was odd that way. I too suspect you may have trouble with the Drowzees, despite Gya's outrageous Attack. How many levels would you gain from doing the office first? About the Metronome from before; I did a little experimentation, and the duration of the button press does affect the move. I imagine manipulating the damage of the move chosen would be some kind of hell, though. I played back your Mew run until the Metronome decision and chose to erase Water Gun in favour of it. Using a savestate at 209721 and luck manipulation I managed to roll: bone club, egg bomb, fire blast, growth, leech seed, lick, poisonpowder, razor leaf, selfdestruct, sludge, smog, solar beam, stun spore and waterfall with wait times of 0-2 frames. It only seems to matter which character is displayed last when holding the button, is this just one example of Pokémon making the Gameboy's hardware stutter?
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I'm glad you're researching it so much; it reminds me of the Diablo II runs up at SDA for which changing class has resulted in a better time. What TMs are you feeding to Gyarados when he is caught? As mentioned Dragon Rage is a bit low on PPs.
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Sounds cool and entertaining. I would certainly watch this.
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Very nicely done! One thing that did make me laugh was when you chose not to learn Metronome... surely that could kill anything of your choice? Or would the waiting time to luck manipulate be too high? Or just not enough PP?
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I wrote a detailed response to his run somewhere in the discussion thread... let me find. Here Not sure how many of these points would directly benefit a TAS, however.
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