TASVideos

Posted: 4/28/2007 8:16 PM

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Randil

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Wow, this got feedback really fast. :D

adelikat wrote:

Excellent! I tried to make a run of this some years ago but gave up because getting the gas canisters was so damned frustrating. I wish you luck on that.

I know what you mean, they can take some time manipulating. One thing I'm carefully planning is my use of gas. For example, the amount of gas you have when you beat a level gets carried on with you to the next level. Basically, if it doesn't waste any time, I try to manipulate luck to get gas wherever it's possible. It's usually better to have a bit more than you planned on, because sometimes arrows can be used to reduce lag at places you didn't suspect. By the way, "years?" :P The current run isn't that old. ;)

jaysmad wrote:

This must have been mentioned before but this game looks like megaman.

Actually, it hasn't been mentioned to me. But yeah, I'm thinking Mega Man 5, but with constant jumping. ;) Thanks for the feedback.

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Posted: 4/28/2007 8:01 PM

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Randil

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I'm bumping an almost 3 year old topic here... I'm working on improving Walker Boh's run of this game. So far I've done the first stage, and I'm about 1.5 seconds ahead. It's really hard to find improvements because Walker Boh's movie is really optimized, but using some clever tricks I've shaved off some time. :) If there's any interest in this run, I'll continue to post my progress here. If not... well, I'll just continue without bothering you. ;) Well, enough useless words now, here's the WIP. Please give feedback if you have any, or if you have any questions, I'll gladly answer them. :)

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Posted: 4/28/2007 5:23 PM

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Randil

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arkiandruski wrote:

I think they're trying to be positive with their statistics page, which I think is a good idea.

Well, the Movie Statistics page already includes things like "Least downloaded .avi" and "smallest amount of data downloaded", which aren't really that positive if you think about it. Anyway, this was just an idea I had, I won't cry myself to sleep if it's not implemented. :P

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Posted: 4/28/2007 1:55 PM

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Randil

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Would it be possible to include things like "Lowest Technical rating", "Lowest entertainment rating", and things like that too? Or is it only me who's interested in those things? :P

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Posted: 4/28/2007 6:58 AM

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Randil

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Guys, I really don't think it's nice to point out if someone's English has flaws and then shove it in their face. That's both irrelevant to this thread and, actually, pretty mean. Please focus on what we're actually discussing here. Oh, and please don't point out any spelling/grammatical errors in this post if you find any. :P

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Posted: 4/27/2007 8:46 AM

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Randil

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Here's a summary I've made of (considerably small) factors to take into account: (alden already mentioned some of them) *Does it waste any time making a 90 degree turn? If Pac-man stops for, say, 1 frame when doing this, it may have to be considered. *As alden pointed out, it's possible to enter a corridor, eat only a few of the dots, then make a 180 degree turn and exit. See my .fcm for reference. In fact, it would probably be better to have all the dots as nodes in the graph, and solve the problem after that. *Pacman's speed varies. Alden tangented on this when you said that the time it took between eating dots varied. From what I've observed, Pac-Man stops for 1 frame now and then. I don't know exactly how it works, but it's something like walk for 7 frames, stop for 1 frame, and repeat. *Alden said that eating gets registered from the left, so if the ghost's don't interfere much, it would be better to eat the map's last dot from the right, saving a few frames. :) Some of these are probably too small to even take into account. I think the best way would be to first find the solution to the graph I posted before, and then perhaps include some of these things. Any thoughts?

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Posted: 4/26/2007 10:42 AM

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Randil

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I spent some time finding out the length of each path. I even drew a map in Paint. :) Here it is: http://i19.tinypic.com/2m2huza.jpg Using this, it should be possible to write a program that finds out the optimal path. The black lines are the corridors and the numbers are the distance in pixels.

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Posted: 4/26/2007 8:06 AM

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Randil

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My avatar shows Squall from Final Fantasy 8. To be honest, I really don't know why, because although I do like FF8, it's really not my favourite game. It just happened that I decided to have Squall as my avatar, and I've had it almost all my time on this site.

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Posted: 4/25/2007 8:22 AM

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Randil

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Well, if level 256 is really entertaining, you can always make a run that starts from a savestates that goes to level 256. I haven't played level 256, so I don't know what it is that makes it interesting. Oh, and this topic should probably go to the NES-section. We are talking about Pac-man for NES here, right?

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Posted: 4/25/2007 7:28 AM

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Randil

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Here's my (unoptimized) attempt. I actually made it months ago, just for fun. It's 133 frames faster: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/5242/pac-man-randil-level1.fcm In order to find the fastest route, one would probably need to go through a lot of mathematical analyses. This is clearly an optimization problem, and even though it's quite hard for a human to find the fastest way, perhaps one of you programmers out there could write a program that finds the fastest way in Pac-man? ;) Anyway, I'll see if I'm motivated to do some more testing on this. It's not the most fascinating game out there, but hey, it's Pac-man. :)

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Posted: 4/21/2007 11:57 PM

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Randil

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I guess I should read through the posts before asking questions. :) I just noticed it wasn't mentioned in the author's comments. Thanks for the answer.

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Posted: 4/21/2007 2:38 PM

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Randil

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Looks good. Yes vote here. I'm wondering though, why did you press the R- and L- button now and then?

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Posted: 4/17/2007 2:45 PM

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Randil

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Kitsune wrote:

the "Takes no Damage" information is false.

Ooops. :P You're right, sorry. I was tired after a long day of TASing when I wrote that. I'll remove the "takes no damage" tag from the comments. Thanks for the yes-vote. :)

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Posted: 4/16/2007 10:38 AM

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Randil

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Bisqwit has now replaced the movie-file with one that includes this extra input. This makes the movie almost 30 seconds longer, though. :)

Truncated wrote:

I would also like to take the opportunity while I have your attention to point out that loose means to make something looser. When you are slower you lose frames (single o). :)

Noted. I replaced all the "loose" with "lose" in the author's comments. :)

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Posted: 4/14/2007 9:47 AM

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Randil

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Thanks for all the input, guys.

Mechuyael wrote:

You appear to have forgotten the final button input to get from the Minnie-Micky-Alice pose screen to the 'The End' screen, if it even matters. Voting 'yes'.

Damn, you're right. Should I replace the .fcm-file with a new one that includes this perhaps? Or does this thing matter? Can a judge give his feedback on this please?

KDR_11k wrote:

I suppose it wasn't possible to somehow make minnie leave the witch boss room without going downstairs?

If you mean that we should leave the witch-room while Mickey is still upstairs, then no, it's not possible. I too don't understand exactly what you mean here though. :P

CtrlAltDestroy wrote:

I think this run can still be improved by anywhere from 30 frames to 2 seconds. I'm not sure where exactly, but that's just my gut feeling. I still can't believe we couldn't get that fairy to kill the final boss with.

I agree. To answer this I'll just quote moozooh: "this game must be really a pain to TAS with so much luck (and lag) involved." That pretty much covers it. :) This game is so extremely random that you can never ever be sure you've completed a level as fast as theoretically possible. If you save 1 frame in one room, you might loose 15 frames in the next room. The same goes for loosing frames. In any case, both me and CtrlAltDestroy did our best on this. Can it be improved? Absolutely. But you would probably need a bot or some in-depth knowledge on the game's memory addresses to improve this much further. I too would estimate the time that can possibly be saved here to about 1-2 seconds or so.

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Posted: 4/13/2007 4:46 PM

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Randil

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I've done more testings today, and I still can't get it to work. I'm submitting this movie now, since I beat the last boss. Expect it in the workbench soon! :)

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Posted: 4/11/2007 8:26 AM

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Randil

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Have you had any luck yet, CtrlAltDestroy? My Internet broke down at home, so I can't check out this forum too much in the next few days. I'll see if I can do some more testing too, but if we're still stuck on this place after some more time, I think it's safe to say that it simply takes too much time to manipulate luck there. In that case let's just kill the last boss without the fairy.

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Posted: 4/6/2007 8:38 AM

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Randil

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There is no strict rule when it comes to number of yes-votes. The purpose of the voting system is the give the judges an idea of how popular and good a movie is. Ultimately it comes down to the judges whether to accept a movie or not, despite the number of votes. In any case, even if a movie has a lot of yes-votes, if the encoders don't have time to encode a movie at the time being, you'll just have to wait a few more days for the .avi. :) Seeing how hard they've worked lately, I don't think it will be too until they get encoded.

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Posted: 4/6/2007 8:26 AM

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Randil

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True, but my point is pretty much that each published movie has a genre, you know the one in the box in the upper right corner. I was thinking that it should be the genre in this box that should be used for each movie. So, for example, a player has 4 movies published. One of them has "Genre: RPG", two of them "Genre: Puzzle" and one "Genre: Platformer". The table would look something like: Puzzle games: 2 Platformers: 1 RPG's: 1

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Posted: 4/6/2007 7:16 AM

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Randil

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I guess it's because many publishers have school break right now, with easter and all. Some of them are probably out of town for the holiday even. We'll probably see some encoded movies popping up on the main page soon. :)

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Posted: 4/6/2007 7:11 AM

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Randil

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Looks great. :) Just an idea, would it be possible to implement a table with all the game genres you have TASed? I mean, every run that's published belongs to a certain genre (like puzzle, RPG, etc), so I don't see how this can be too hard. What do you think?

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Posted: 4/5/2007 3:09 PM

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Randil

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If you manage to reach the room before the boss, it might be a good idea to check out exactly how many frames we save by killing the final boss with the fairy. If "time it takes to manipulate luck to make fairy spawn" > "time saved on the boss by using the fairy" we'll just kill the boss normally. As it looks right now, even if we do manage to make a fairy spawn, it might take too much time. Good luck, in any case! PS: I'm at my mom's house now, and I'll be here over the easter weekend. I'll won't be able to TAS anything until monday or so... BUT I will be able to check out the forum, and even submit the movie, if you manage to beat the whole thing. Just don't feel any pressure or anything, it's not like we have a deadline on this. Do this if you feel like it and have time to. :)

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Posted: 4/5/2007 3:01 PM

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Randil

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Shinryuu wrote:

why there isn't SHINRYUU FOR NINJA Topics ? :/

Don't be sad. :) Look at my signature! PS: After you're done with the MM2 run you're working on, I'll totally ninja-vote for you. :)

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Posted: 4/5/2007 2:49 PM

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Randil

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Yeah, I have to agree with you, Virtual Alex. JXQ makes amazing runs, both in terms of entertainment and quality. I personally consider him as one the best TASers on this site. I know JXQ isn't a big fan of the "Ninja" title, but still, I believe many people regard him as one. At least I know I do. Keep it up, JXQ! :)

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Posted: 4/3/2007 9:33 PM

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Randil

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Nice find. :) I've made a few more attempts to get the fairy without luck. But i did learn some stuff about randomness in this game. I'm not 100% sure about this though - I used the cheat-function to enter an area with different conditions. So, here's a summary of fairy-randomness in this game! :) Things that I know affect randomness: *Which frame you enter the new area. This is the most trivial way to manipulate luck. Things that could affect randomness: *The enemies' positions when you enter the new area. I'm not sure about this, but I guess it could make a difference. *Which frame you entered the previous area. What you've done before seem to have affect on randomness. Things that don't affect randomness: *Your current HP. *Your current score. *Mickey's and Minnie's position when you enter the new area. Basically, all this randomness is pretty confusing. I just hope we can get that fairy to spaws without too much more work. Unfortunately I'll be away from home for a few days now, but I can continue working on this on Friday or so. We'll see how things turn out. If you want to, you can go ahead and try to get that fairy to spawn. Oh, here's an .fcm that gets the fairy - however, it took me about 9000 frames to get it. ;) You can just fastforward to around frame 33000 where I get it. This is if you want to check out the memory values when I entered that area that time. Here's it is.

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