Posts for Randil

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
Joined: 4/20/2005
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Hey, I haven't been checking this program out in a while due to my computer breaking down, but I've finally downloaded and played around with the latest version. Overall, it's looking great. I really like the new interface, it gives much more space to the Frame Data section. Questions: 1. How does "Autofire Update" work? I mean, how do I insert autofire input with that function, and how do I change which button that is autofired? In short, I have no idea about how it works. :) Now for the usual section in my posts here: Bugs and "TODO"-requests: Splice movie function: *This function really needs an "Add movie" button. It's annoying having to drop down movies to that window. *It would be nice with the possibility to mark more than one movie. If I have, say, 10 movies in that window and want to remove them all, it takes some time as it is right now. *Once you're assigned Start and End frames for a movie, and you add another movie to the window, the Start and End frames you assigned for the first movie disappears. Maybe this is intentional? General: *If you open a movie, copy some frames, open the "View copy buffer" window and look at your frames, close that window, close the movie itself, and open "View copy buffer" the program crashes. Those are all I can think of now. I'll do a more throrough when I have more time. Good luck with the next version, I'm looking forward to it!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Allright, my computer is fully back up and running again! I can't TAS as much as I have lately, because school started again, and I've started playing World of Warcraft, and such things. :P I should be able to work at least 3-4 hours per week, if not more. It all depends on how motivated I am. CtrlAltDestroy: Do you know exactly how randomness in terms of where enemies appear work? It's obviously frame-based, but in some rooms I think I've managed to change the enemies spawning-places but holding down the "up" or "down" button on the controller while the new screen is loading (I might be wrong on this, but I think I remember this happening to me once or twice). This should probably be investigated further before continuing with the movie.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Hehe, this came as a surprise. Let me start by saying that I enjoyed watching this, and I found it very entertaining. Now to some feedback on the run itself: Generally, this run was of high quality. Knowing the game well, I couldn't spot any major mistakes that cost you time. On the other hand, it was hard keeping track of everything that went on, with 4 players running around. :P Not to mention how impressed I am that you actually managed to produce a 4 player TAS. I am very, very impressed by that. You also managed to create art without wasting time, such as jumping in different patterns before and after a boss. That looked nice. There were some small mistakes I could spot, such as walking instead of jumping down edges, and not using the "jump through roof" trick I use I my run. All in all, the lack of these small details cost about 2-3 seconds at most, I think. Another small complaint is the obvious lag. I am fully aware that you tried to minimize it, but even so, this 4 player run suffers from immense lag... It makes the run a little too slow. Do I think that this should be published? Yes, it being an impressive, entertaining and well done movie. However, I don't think that this should obsolete My run, because my run is 6172 frames (102.87 seconds) faster. I think that this should be published alongside the 1-player run. EDIT: Oh, and I voted Yes, of course. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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This is just something that caught my eye: The rating this movie has received actually surprised me. I thought this would get around 2.0 in entertainment and 9.7-9.8 in technical quality - Instead it has 5.7 in entertainment and 8.8 in technical quality right now. :P I compared this movie with a few of my other movies, and at the moment, this run has a higher entertainent value than both Guerrilla War and Kid Niki 2... I'm not so sure I personally agree on that. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Just for the record, I used the Memory Viewer and Memory Watcher a lot in this run, to find out exactly how movement works (in terms of pixels per frame), finding out things on how "randomness" works in this game, and all kind of things. So there were hard work put on this. And as stated above, I'm also always as close as possible to getting hit when making jumps, giving a small boost to the entertainment value. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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JXQ wrote:
Around frame 39000, after going down the stairs the first time, could you have went to the right, gotten that bone, turned around, gotten the bone under the stairs, then jump on the moving platform to the left and continue above the stairs? The way you do it now, you go down those stairs twice and up them once.
If I understand you correctly, the thing you're suggesting isn't possible. Normally, you can pass through pillars, however, the pillar just left of the stairs is orange, and blocks your way. In short, you can't walk through that pillar. If I could, your strategy would have saved quite some time, though. Good eye there. :)
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CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
Great, but now MY laptop is in the shop.
Do you know when you'll get it back?
CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
By the way, I found another fairy that can be used to instant-kill the level 3 boss. It's hidden in a flower.
Could you explain what you mean with "instant-kill" more exactly? I thought fairies flew away once you entered a boss area with them.
CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
So, if you don't even have to kill three of the five bosses, I think that skipping Minnie's weapon is definitely something to look into. My new concern with doing this is shooting the fairies. They each take 8 shots to attain and it's extremely difficult (impossible?) to blast one open before you get to it, even with 3 bullets.
Right. It sounds like it needs quite some planning whether or not to pick up Minnie's weapon. Once my computer is back, I'll do some testing. It would be great if we found the memory address for whether or not Minnie has a weapon. If so, we could just shut it on and off, testing different areas with and without her weapon.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I just wanted to let you all know that my computer is getting fixed right now, and I'll have it back by the end of this week. This means that I can start TASing this game again somewhere around Saturday or so. Just so you know that I haven't forgotten about this. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I don't know if this matters much, but even though this movie is only 1 frame faster, in this movie, I try to do jumps more impressive, and be as close to dying as possible. So if you watch this side by side with the P&G run, you will see that they're somewhat different. I know that this game is boring to watch. It's not that fun playing normally either. But this is also a competitive game, and as Moozoh said, I knew how to improve level 3 in this optimized game, so that's why I submitted this. I was pretty hesitant to submitting this in the first place, but since experienced TASers like adelikat and JXQ said that I should go for it, and after some consideration myself, I decided to submit this movie. I'll also add a part on the author's comments where I mention P&G accomplishment on this run on Famtasia. It's absolutely worthty to be mentioned. I don't know if this movie is publishing material. But it's short, and it shouldn't take too long to encode, I think. If it doesn't get published, at least it could perhaps have a link to it in the description. I don't know if this clears anything up, but I wanted to throw it out here. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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AngerFist wrote:
So sorry Randil, I have to vote no because I really didnt feel this run was entertaining (neither was Phil&Genistos or Arcs). Doesnt feel good voting no for the first time of a run made by you :(
Hey, don't worry about it. :) I can understand it if you didn't like watching this movie, it's not that much of a great game. But on the other hand, it's beats an existing run. As JXQ stated above, if this game didn't have a run in the first place, I'm not so sure that this run is entertaining enough to get published.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I'm guessing that FCEU screwed up the timing because the published run was hex-edited. But that's only a guess. I've never encountered this problem before.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Allright, I've looked into this matter closely. It is indeed FCEU that timed the current run wrong. If you watch the current with frame display on, you'll see that it is indeed 12262 frames long, making this submission 1 frame faster.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Wouter Jansen wrote:
This is a mere 1 frame improvement over the Phil and Genisto's TAS.
When I follow that link, the time there says 03:23.68. Can anyone explain me how 03:24.35 is 1 frame faster?
Hmm... It seems that it's something wrong with the published run's fcm-file. Although FCEU says that the fcm is 12161 frames long, it's actually 12262 frames long. Weird...
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I'm also sure that this movie can't be improved further. So I'll go ahead and submit this movie then. Expect a new submission in the workbench soon! :)
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adelikat wrote:
Randil wrote:
Not that it really matters, but I saved 1 frame on the level where you jump on balls. Each jumps wastes 1 frame, and by making one less jump, I finished 1 frame faster. Yay for big improvement! :) Besides that improvement, all other levels are exactly as fast, so yes, this run is most likely very much optimized.
You have to be kidding me. I tried to improve this run, had I known about the improvement I would have published this hex edit. I must admit I am skeptical, do have an .fcm?
Yes, I do. This movie does beat the current run by merely 1 frame. That frame was saved on level 3, as stated above. I also get 980 more points than Phil. I'm hesitant to submitting this, as it's only 1 frame faster... What do you think? On the other hand, this is a very competitive game... But submitting this run would really feel like "stealing" the work entirely, because it's only 1 frame faster. I'm quite torn on this... EDIT: The rerecord count is screwed up. I edited the movie a few times using TAS movie editor, and the rerecord count got lost somewhere on the way. The real rerecord count should be around 5000 or so. Just so you know.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I've tried to glue the movies together with the TAS movie editor, but with no luck... It seems that the enemies positions are different, so it doesn't seem like any movie-editing works. You probably have to redo the run from from the level 1-1 movie... Sorry about this, but at least it was worth a try.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Not that it really matters, but I saved 1 frame on the level where you jump on balls. Each jumps wastes 1 frame, and by making one less jump, I finished 1 frame faster. Yay for big improvement! :) Besides that improvement, all other levels are exactly as fast, so yes, this run is most likely very much optimized.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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Thanks for the support. I'll try to fix my computer as soon as possible - it's in my interest too to TAS this game. :) If possible, it would be really helpful if you found the memory addresses for pseudorandom events, like where enemies spawn and what you get when destroying a lamp/window. Those would proove very useful as you can understand. I've already found the more trivial addresses, like position, screen position, Mickey's HP, and stuff like that. I'm gonna be pretty busy now with new-years-eve and all that, but as I said, maybe I can be up TASing again withing a few weeks (At least sometime in January I hope). In any case, I'll keep in touch.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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I have some bad news... I accidently dropped my laptop (twice actually), and now it's all screwed up. It works, but barely. I won't be able to TAS for a while now, until the laptop works fine again. :( I'm really sorry about this, but it's nothing I can do. If I'm lucky, I can get my laptop up and working withing two weeks or so. I can still borrow a computer now and then to check the forum, and even watch a TAS or two.
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CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
Looks good so far. Too bad you had to pause for a second to manipulate Minnie's weapon.
Yeah... I had to stop for exactly 4 frames I think... Now that I have green light from you, I'll continue working then. :) Perhaps I can have a new WIP up withing 2 days.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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You could try redoing just the first level, and then paste in the other levels using the TAS movie editor. If you're unsure on how to do it, I could do it for you. Just post a WIP playing the first level again, and I'll see what I can do.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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An old topic revived: As most of you know, I submitted a run of this game a few days ago. CtrlAltDestroy found some possible improvements in it, so I'm redoing my submitted run. I will post my progress here, so please give feedback on it if you have any. Download the current WIP here. So far, it's 98 frames (1.65 seconds) faster than my submitted run. This is entirely due to tricks found by CtrlAltDestroy, so my biggest thanks to him. I'll continue to post my WIPs here, because I want this run to be as good as it can get. I'll look into the game's physics some more, trying to find optimal ways to climb up a ladder and stuff like that. Enjoy the WIP! :) EDIT: Replaced the movie with a new one, about 30 seconds longer.
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Thanks for the movies, CtrlAltDestroy. You were 46 frames faster than me after just the first room. :) Since it's now obvious that my run can be greatly improved, I've decided to cancel this run and make a new one. Suspect an update in the Mickey Mousecapade thread in the NES section shortly. I'll see if I can improve the first three rooms some more. I might as well ask this now: If anyone here knows the memory address that determines where enemies spaws and/or the address for what items you get when destroying a lamp/window, please let me know. That would ease things up a lot for me.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
Fun. I was running this game once, but quit at one point. - Did you try using the reset button or pressing start on the title screen a few frames later to get the snakes in the first room into a better position? It's really not necessary to wait that long in the first room. - Did you try manipulating fairies at all? I know that you can manipulate one to help you kill the final boss faster. What about crystals that make all the enemies in the room vanish to reduce lag? Good improvement, but still far from perfect. Yes vote.
Allright, I tried getting them into better positions by waiting a few frames, and I managed to do the first room 17 frames faster. That's one possible improvement. I also did the third room 11 frames faster... That'a two reasons to improve this run. About using a fairy (also known as Guardian Angel) on the last boss, I didn't think of that. I should look into it. About using diamonds to kill enemies faster, I sometimes tried to get those, but it was really hard to manipulate luck to get one, and i often lost time manipulating luck. If I make a new version, and post WIPs along the way, will you give feedback on it then? Maybe you have a .fcm of your old run, can I use it as comparison? If so, I should probably cancel this and redo this run.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player (1890)
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The name of this torrent should probably be changed - right now it says "paperboy-playaround-paperboy", it should be "paperboy-playaround-randil" or somthing like that. Just a detail.