If they were planning on allowing the player to get more than 127 lives, you'd think they'd use a field 3 digits wide to display the life counter while they were at it.
Maybe it was easier to make it a signed variable and no one gave it a second thought.
I realize that the field is only 2 digits wide. Even if the assumed a player would never go over 99, why signed? I can't see how using signed rather than unsigned would be any easier.
TNSe wrote:
lol, thanks. But I did that. As I said in the chat, I could get it to give me a couple men, but then it would stop. The video I was suggesting would be getting 128 men, dying once, and then seeing the game over screen.
Why?
Why would it be a signed byte, though? If it was unsigned, a player could get 256 men before dying and getting the game over. You can't have negative men. Why did the programmers make that variables signed?
I thought about posting this, and decided not to. Then a couple days passed so I decided to post it. And here I am.
I was experimenting with Mario 1's lives to see what happens when I overflow it. Getting 256 lives does nothing, except restart the counter. But I found something interesting. The variable for lives is a signed integer. This means Mario could have a maximum of 127 lives. (If Mario has two men it's saved as 03. For Mario to have 127 men, the hex value for 128 is saved.) If Mario then gets one more life, it goes to -128. If you die after this, you get a game over.
A pretty strange movie to make/watch would be using that trick to get tons of men, until the counter goes negative, and then dying once and getting a game over.
Yes, you're obviously a god on this msg board with all of your 102 posts. Perhaps you could find another topic to troll and build your self esteem with.
Anways, maybe Bisqwit or someone can post their opinion whether or not they could do a run of this game?
Haha. Don't worry about it. I'm not trolling anything. I'm hardly a veteran of these boards, and I absolutely welcome you.
It's my fault for not being clearer. Often times, when people make a first post on a new message board, they say "hey guys!" or "first post." You included both. I thought it was just funny. I often say, "Hay guyz," as a joke, to make fun of noobs. The idea behind "hay guyz," is a newbie will try to make friends with everybody on a board immediately.
I don't dislike you or anything. My post was merely pointing out the "hey guys!" Welcome aboard.
Exactly. You can't do that in a speedrun though. One time I hacked Zelda 1 to give myself a higher ring. There are three legal ring values for the game, 00 -- no ring, 01 -- blue ring, 02 -- red ring. If, with 00, it took 1 hit from an enemy to hurt you, with the 01 ring it would take 2, and with the 02 ring, it would take 4. As you can see, it keeps doubling. But I realized that after the 08 ring, you become invincible. 2^8 is 256 though. I got hit more than 512 times without losing any life.
The reason for this is, the counter for how many times I got hit was 1 byte. It could only count up to 255. That's 11111111. To continue incrementing, 256 would look like 1 "00000000". The quoted part is where the game is looking to see how many times I've been hit. It, essentially, keeps going back to 0 and link will never get hurt.
But this glitch isn't legal because it's impossible to get a 08 ring in the game. Some counters in games you can manipulate though. Such as coins, men, score, money, etc. It's probably too unlikely to even consider, but could getting too many men in, for example, Mario somehow glitch the game in an adventageous way?
Maybe this is kinda out there. But could you overload a variable, and have that extra information spill over to the next location in RAM, which might help you out somehow?
I'd really like to understand glitches. How do they work? How do you discover them?
Sure, I've found my fair share by just playing a game until something weird happens. But could it be more scientific than that?
I recently watched Sleepz's Super Mario Bros. 2 vid. In the first level, he does some crazy shit to skip having to blow up the brick wall. This glitch appeared so strange to me, that I wonder how it was ever discovered.
Is it just luck? Or do you have a hunch? Do you say, "Maybe if I do this... something might happen."
A glitch is, in a way, error handling. Am I wrong about this? Maybe you have some boundary, like a wall or something, but you have something that propels you through it, like an explosion or something. Then maybe the game just continues to push your character through the wall, allowing you to skip a lot of stuff. Why does this happen, rather than a total lock-up?
Now, the game is deterministic. The better you understand the physics of the game, the better you can discover glitches. Take Mario Bros. 2 again, though. The physics were known, for the most part. But it took many many runs before this particular glitch to skip the brick wall was found. Knowing the physics may allow you to see glitch potential more easily, but what about the "hidden glitches." What steps do you go about finding them?
Hypothetically, if you had the source code, could you discover glitches more easily? You'll know, exactly, the rules the game follows, rather than having to learn them through observation. Would this aid in glitch discovery?
Your thoughts.
Sup goon buddy?
It was a few months ago this was big at SA. I thought about posting this then, but I felt it was too soon, and it would kinda be stealing.
This board has very die-hard classic gamers. They deserve to know about this coolness.
That's Link from Adventure of Link and Kuribo Shoe Mario from Mario 3.
I made one of the NES Mario also.
If you wanna make them go to the local arts and crafts store and buy these things called Perler beads. You set them on a grid, and iron them so the beads melt together. You can find sprites of your favorite game characters online pretty easily.
I kinda suck at making them, because I'm running outta beads (that's why only Link's head is done) and my board is too small.
Thought I'd share.
Peace,
Ramzi
33:51
-25:29
=
8:22
There is an 8 minute, 22 second difference between the last emulator run and Rodrigo's time. If you follow that route, and rely on luck (gambling) you have 8 minutes and 22 seconds of imperfect fighting leighway. Thinking of what the emulator is obviously better at, immediately I count the four blue darknut rooms, and the patras. Someone with your skills should be able to pull that off in 8:22.
Have you just been postponing doing a Zelda 1 run because it relies on luck?
I have played one game of "Ultimate Tic Tac Toe" in my life. And I'll never play it again.
My opponent was fierce. The game lasted for 45 minutes. My head was killing me at the end. Even though I was once very into chess, I was not prepared for this game.
Essentially, it's a huge Tic Tac Toe board (9 squares.) And in each square is a smaller Tic Tac Toe board. Where your opponent moves on a smaller board is where you need to play your next move. So, if he (in the top left square of the big board) marked the center square, your next turn has to be played in the center square.
The object of the game is to have either a Tic Tac Toe on the big board, or more wins of the smaller boards. If you direct your opponent to a square on the big board that's already been completed, he has to option of going anywhere he wants.
If you play it, you'll see how complicated it can get.
I wouldn't mind doing speedruns, except I'm not experienced or patient enough. I can't shave frames like the rest of you can. Also, I have a lack of time. :-(
That's Link from Adventure of Link and Kuribo Shoe Mario from Mario 3.
I made one of the NES Mario also.
If you wanna make them go to the local arts and crafts store and buy these things called Perler beads. You set them on a grid, and iron them so the beads melt together. You can find sprites of your favorite game characters online pretty easily.
I kinda suck at making them, because I'm running outta beads (that's why only Link's head is done) and my board is too small.
Thought I'd share.
Peace,
Ramzi