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You want to make an AI Bot that beats anyone, right?
Theoritically you can make an AI Bot for any game, especially if you have access to the memory. Generally you have to make a database about all the characters properties, the length of their techniques in frames, the distance range needed to perform them, writing powerful combo patterns and making some strategies (go for fastest win or flawless victory).
The difference between a simple Chess game and other games is the complexity: the number of objects with far more properties, the various "bad" game code you have to deal with (hitboxes, lags, bugs, glitches, the "enemy cheats" things etc), and the unexpected things (unhandled exceptions/situations, memory corruption, etc).
Also take a look at the Mario AI
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cwitty wrote:
I guess I don't understand what you mean by a "simple project document"... that's what I tried to do with my original post in this thread.)
1. The (short) description of the idea/project (why/what/who/where/how/when)
2. The technical side of the project (how does the gameplay works (no need to write down codes), what type of communication, what are the requirements, recommended system requirements, etc)
3. Sample gameplay (with details, what should be the average length of a game-session, who am I play, hints, tips, etc)
4. Possible features (anything. or just a bunch of list of ideas)
I still recommend to write a project document with the sections I wrote and make a poll on the thread (I don't know that you have to make another thread to put out a poll).
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I think it's a bigger issue that can't be avoided, that Player 1 has an advantage over Player 2 in every frame on most of the games (missing tvtropes link: I mean the order of conditional statements regarding the "list" of Players). Not to mention mirror matches.
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This time I leave the quotes to make the post a bit shorter.
Regarding packets: You are right, it would be really complex to make it really fair for P2P. I think it would be really better to communicate with a server (as you mentioned earlier).
Tournament: I think that popular 2-player competitive games just like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter series should be a great candidate among TASers to "play" (tas) them, what would eventually leads to creating a scene with mostly the member of tasvideos. I think that a tournament or at least a ranked scoreboard would motivate TASers to play more.
Coming up with game rules/system: I'm curious that how many people would play this "project". So it would be a good idea, if you would make a simple project document or a technical specifications regarding the gameplay, and make a poll here at tasvideos forums to get a slight information about the possible number of gamers. Even a simple example of 2 player playing a Mortal Kombat versus fight would do it, no need to write the final algorithms or complex schematics.
I actually never programmed serious network communication codes, but I think I could help you in the developing phase or even after that if anything good comes out of this whole thing.
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I would like to see more TASes where the player has total disadvantage like this, however this TAS didn't amaze me because I never played this game so I can't imagine how hard would this be in real-time. According to your comments, it's impossible, so I vote a yes even if it wasn't that entertaining for me.
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cwitty wrote:
The question is whether you can manage to get your enemy's input for a given frame before you decide on your input for that frame.
- Timer starts from X seconds, press your inputs for the actual frame
- After the timer reaches zero, both players sends their input to the other
- Input displays, then go to the next frame
cwitty wrote:
If two players agree to play a game with some sort of hacked ROM, that's not cheating, that's just playing with a ROM hack. (Who would they be cheating?)
Making a hacked ROM with equal checksum (it's possible), so they can do hacked result of a game (it would be a problem if this project would be a "competitive scene" with championships).
cwitty wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "fake matches" or what you're talking about with a second emulator instance.
While playing a match, you could run another emulator in the background, where you put the exactly same inputs you play with your enemy. If you do everything correctly, the online game and your offline (2nd emulator in the background) will sync and you have the opportunity to try various actions before sending your real input to the match. For example, starting a LUA script that uses some basic heuristic algorithms to manage health preserves and maximize damage output.
cwitty wrote:
I talked in huge detail about how my system would allow game-playing rates of up to 14 frames/day, even if the players couldn't be online at the same time. I agree that this would be a very different experience from playing at something like 1 frame/second, which I never suggested.
Just to make sure: I love your idea and I would even play this thing, but 14 frames/day is REALLY slow. Of course it would be only the "real action" (intros, cutscenes and menu settings would be a bit faster, right?), it's still would be very long matches and they will mostly fail to end due to the lack of motivation after you realize you have no chance to beat the enemy since you made a minor mistake after sending 64 inputs through a week. Sorry if this sounded too harsh, but I think that some seconds is enough to a frame, mostly because you can't try possible outcomes nor "retry" the actual frame.
I would gladly help you if you would write down some guidelines regarding the gameplay and the motivation of playing this (online competitive scene, achievements, entertainment, variety). I'm also concerned about the number of players/TASers interested in this type of gameplay experience.
edit: you should do a poll on the forums after you come up with the rules and the system
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Sorry if I misunderstood you cwitty, but I still don't know what's your conception.
If I'm correct, you want to make a "gaming on demand" type of service where the TASers only get the "media" (this means you have no access to the memory, can't do any LUA scripts and I don't even want to think about copyright issues).
The disadvantages of gaming on demand is hosting at least one server (money), making a lot of scripts for various emulators to get the most desired settings, restricting TAS features (short note: not everyone has high-speed internet, so it would be a pain to send and recieve HUGE packets at short intervals. that's why I recommend P2P+external program to send only the required inputs which results in VERY small packets).
At my method, the only disadvantage I can think of is that you can decode your enemies inputs/packets (but you can't alter it, since it won't sync), but it's really not a big deal. At first I thought it would be pleasible to show the enemies input display for frame to make the "gaming" a little bit "educationable", "learnable". Also another security hole would be that 2 gamer could cheat with "unexisting" ROMs, that could be avoided by making a script that replays on a 3rd computer that checks and verifies the results and actions etc.
The only thing I'm afraid of is: the gaming. Since the games are deterministic, if you win 1 time a game, you just have to send the very same input series/movie file, and you will always win (this is a huge issue especially when you try to abuse this with a friend to make fake matches or just simply running another instance of the emulator that instantly updates as your match so you have a very little time to test some "possible improvements"). This can't be avoided, only one way: introducing various "extra" features that at RANDOM intervals gives you the ability to make a frame skip (without action), stepping 1 frame back, removing 1 button from enemies input (for a frame), etc.
edit: spellings. and also a side note: gaming on demand would be the same as playing a game at 1 frame / sec. it's another thing than using emulator features that TASes demonstrates and uses to show those godlike movements and experience.
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This could be done much easier. You should write an external program that handles the connection between A and B.
Both of them loads up the same emulator with the same settings and the same rom. When they start the game, both of them has a limited time to make an input at every frame. At the end of the current frame, A sends his input to B via the external program (that hooks the buttons pressed in the emulator) and vice-versa. This method will work if the emulator and the game has no desyncs.
Of course you can elaborate this with comparing checksums and "game state" at various frames to ensure it's really syncs and an "end game state" to verify the winner of the game. Also note that this method enables TASers to use LUA scripts and nearly anything that possible within the limited time (even the use of the "restart" input on various consoles, not to mention savestates (just simply handle these with the external program)).
edit: here's an illustration. also a side note about the web service method: it's only neccessary if you want to restrict TAS features entirely, which is actually the opposite of what TASing really is.
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Generally the route selection depends on your goals. Most of the games has a minimal "freedom" to choose your desired path and (sometimes) get rewarded with a unique award that only possible to require if you go on that way (let's ignore memory corruption this time). One of the reasons that games' has multiple TASes with different characters/routes.
The first factor should be the "achieving fastest possible time" by selecting the shorter route. If the cutscenes are skippable, you could try "aims for fastest real time" which actually not a bad idea especially for Arcade games (comparing with world records etc). Otherwise I would rather watch action for longer time than watching a generic cutscene where I can't see any TAS crazyness. (Of course it depends on the time (how long is the cutscene, how long the game will be longer etc).
I can't watch the wip now, so I can't help you more, sorry.
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This game is (in)famous about it's difficulty level. However it's become easier if you learn the various enemies' moving patterns and plan a lil bit before take action, not to mention gaining the power ups in early game leads to victory.
Since this is an auto-scroll game, your only choice is raising the entertainment. I suggest you to choose the hardest difficulty by finishing the game 2 times in a row, or press Up on both controller at title screen and enter the S4FHFB password. And go for maximum kills. It requires much more dodging. I think I would vote it with a yes, but not this. I stay at meh to show that the game isn't the worst choice.
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chiefsizzlechest wrote:
Is there anyway to run .exe files on a mac then that you know?
There's an open source software that emulates Windows applications:
http://appdb.winehq.org/
However I don't recommend it for TASing (TAS results may vary!). You should first test existing N64 tases that syncs perfectly. But even after this I wouldn't try it.
edit: http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX
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Warp wrote:
create a tutorial on how to find (and interpret) the randon number generator code for a game.
I actually planned to make a newbie-friendly RAM search video-tutorial similar to CheatEngine's 1st time tutorial. Mostly for avoiding motivated and interested players making TASes without optimizations and knowledge.
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Sorry if my post sounded too "easy".
I'm glad that you know programming. Here are more advanced links you should watch:
http://www.romhacking.net/ - You can download various disassemblers for various platforms (left side menu Utilities, "Debuggers/Special emulators" for category). Most of them comes with technical documentation.
Also you could search for your desired consoles disassembler websites, for example
NES: http://nesdev.parodius.com/ (very detailed informations and useful utilites and many other things regarding NES)
I don't know famous GBA disassemblers. As mentioned above, I heard of a SDL version of VBA that let's you disassemble games. Maybe romhacking.net has information about it.
edit:
Zero100 wrote:
Also, what language are bots usually written in?
Lua is far enough for it. You can easily retrieve memory values and write different algorithms to do various tasks like pressing A if you have 3 lives and there's a mushroom 24 pixels away.
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I'm curious that did you read the tasvideos general wiki page? I did 16.50 @ StadiumA1 after 10 minutes overall gameplay (I watched the 15.70 vid). I can't even see your optimizations. I don't know anything about this game, but I think you miss many things like gathering speed as fast as it possible. I "jumped" off with 302 speed from the 1st ramp, also optimizing the landing leads to obscure bugs (at the 2nd ramp the game ejected me out of the field to the grass after bouncing once on the final end section) and "speed boost" manipulating.
Sorry for writing a bit too harsh, but I think you should understand the purpose of TASing a game, and not just literally make use of the "frame advance".
Please read these links, and feel free to ask questions in the Newbie's Corner or even here (according to the topic of your question).
Wiki: WelcomeToTASVideosWiki: RulesWiki: TASHowTo
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DarkKobold is correct. First thing you should think about is your actual goals. Please read this Post #261693.
So here's your choices:
If you want to make a 100% perfect TAS, you should know everything about that specific game. You will need to learn the console's language, disassemble the game with an emulator step-by-step, rewrite your results/code to make it easier to read for humans after figuring out the variables, understand the code execution, writing down ALL possible glitches/bugs that leads you faster to the desired end game state and don't forget that possible memory corruption holes are a bit harder to figure out just by watching the code for 1 time. You should also play the game normally and explore everything in the game to know the possibilities of the memory values and gamestates.
If you want to make an impressive TAS, you can ignore disassembling. There are many games where common game design/programming code flaws exists, therefore it's easy to abuse it without knowing the exact code behind it. As DarkKobold mentioned, you will have to figure out memory addresses, also LUA helps you to make various actions automatized (generating pseudo-random input to get the desired RNG value), drawing/showing useful values you needed from frame by frame (subpixel values, specific state values, etc) and other.
I'm strongly advice you to consider about the time you want to "waste" for a specific TAS. Also I recommend to try disassembling "easy" games where there are no many objects/levels/data, not to mention the console choice.
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And I thought that Maxim and Sonic are the fastest characters... great job, keep up the good work Ryuto!
edit: well maybe Mario is better than a kiwi but who cares
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dunnius wrote:
MESHUGGAH, I already posted about the large amount of down time and lack of tricks available to get the fastest time (tricks really slow things down) in the Pilotwings thread quite some time ago, and nobody responded. So the question was already asked.
This should mean something. And don't think that I'm telling that this game worths nothing. Read this post further more.
hegyak wrote:
It's pretty damn impressive. Yes vote from me.
MESHUGGAH, try and recreate the tricks shown in the video.
Stop attacking me. Pilotwings is one of my favourite games, I played very much on the real SNES. Now look at this TAS. Aims for fastest possible time by skipping all the entertainment. I understand that it's good to see that various games can be pwned under N minutes, but really... Also I didn't said anything bad about the technical side, I wrote what I saw, so how the hell did you come up with this sentence? You vote yes, I vote no. End of story.
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