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Well, this seems like a lot of fun... I think I'll try to solve this tomorrow if I get the time... Oh and here's 37:
37 = (4+4)? + (4/4)
I don't know how to write the square-root symbol, so I'll write sqrt instead. here's the solution to 31:
(sqrt4+sqrt4+sqrt4)? + 4?
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If you want to watch this movie but can't find the ROM Deja Vu I & II (U) [C][!].gbc, try with Deja Vu I & II (U) [!].gbc. The [C] in the ROM-name just states that this is a gameboy color game, therefor it shouldn't be any difference between these two ROM:s.
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Allright, I'd like to the time to sum things up about the Paperboy run, what one should think about when doing a TAS of this game. If I get the time I'll probably give this a try, but I'm pretty busy ATM so if anyone would like to give this a shot, you're more than welcome. A little competition never hurts. Okay, here's what I've come up with so far:
Goal #1: Completing the game as fast as possible
This goal is actually very easy to achieve, you only have to think about three things:
1. Start the game (that is clicking on 1 PLAYER) as fast as possible.
2. Hold directional button up during the entire course.
3. Crash the bike as soon as you get to the training area.
Goal #2: Make a "Perfect delivery" every day
You get a perfect delivery if you deliver a newspaper to every subscriber. The game can still be beaten without having to get perfect delivery every day, but it would be a lot more entertaining to watch the movie if it does.
Goal #3: Achieve an as high score as possible
You get 700 points for hitting a mailbox with a newspaper and 300 points for hitting an object. Find out how many papers you need to deliver one paper to each house, then use up all the other papers you have on objects. Try hitting different kinds of obstacles, don't hit, for example, windows with all of your papers.
Manoeuvring the bike
Try to move around in an interesting way, but avoid to much wobbling. Don't ride the bike straight forward, this will be somewhat boring for a watcher.
Take crazy chances
Remember that you have savestates. Try to do daredevil stuff with your bike, such as being really close to crashing it.
I hope this information was to some help, if now, I hope it was fun to read :)
Let me know if you have any comments on this
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The extra paper placements are decided when you spawn. To manipulate them you need to adjust the frame that you start. That or die a few times.
Since dying would waste a lot of time I guess adjusting the starting-frame seems like the best choise. I'll see if I get the time to check this matter out. I'm have a lot of homework to do ATM.
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My main goal with this movie is to complete the game as fast as possible, and this means I will skip the training course to save time. And as you said, adelikat, I will try to achieve a high score in the meantime.
I also agree that the training course was the best part of the run, but this wastes a lot of time, so I'll skip this in the furure. Perhaps someone could make a "Paperboy play-around" where you just the things impressively.
Baxter wrote:
You also should avoid wasting a paper on the dog (not 100% sure, but I think this is possible).
I tried to avoid throwing a paper at the dog but couldn't seem to find out how. If you ride the bike to the left of him he will run into you and crash your bike, and this can't be avoided. If you ride the bike to the right of him he will block your paper. Tell me if you find out how to avoid wasting this paper.
I'll put this run on hold for the moment, until we have come to a conclusion about luck manipulation. Since I can get a much higher score by manipulating luck it's not worth making a run now that doesn't manipulate luck, if someone finds out after the run is done how to manipulate luck. That means i'd have to do the run all over again.
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I'm glad you liked what I've done so far! Of course, this was more of a test run, so there are several flaws in it.
Let me comment your comments:
-luck can be manipulated to get more paper refills
Actually, I had no idea you could do that! :) That will help out a lot, thanks!
EDIT: I tried out manipulating luck to get more paper refills(I tried this on monday), but with no luck. The paper refills always seemed to be at the same places, and there was always 3 of them. I tried manipulating luck by throwing different amounts of papers, turning around more (and less) and hitting different objects along the way, but as I said, no more paper refills appeared. Do you know how to manipulate luck in Paperboy, adelikat?
-you can knock down trees and break the oval-looking thing on the cement walls (I don't know how to describe it better than that)
Yes, I know you can do that, but that gives the same amount of points as every other obstacle. But it will be more entertaining to hit different kinds of objects on the course, so I'll try to hit more trees and "oval-looking things on the cement walls" :)
I think the training course should be omitted. You did a great job getting every target but still, It was only mildly entertaining. Certainly not enough to warrant almost doubling the length of thismovie.
I agree, I didn't put that much of an effort to make the training course entertaining, I focused more on hitting all of the targets. I'll crash the bike as soon as I get to the training course from here on, to get to the next day faster.
Let me know if you find out anything else that could help.
By the way, are you still working on a run, Icecap M. Veiwin? If so, how is it going? It would be nice if you'd post your progress here.
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Thanks for the link, Bag of Magic Food.
Bag of magic Food wrote:
The original FCEU seems to ignore opposite directions coming from the keyboard (or whatever controller you use) but accepts such inputs from movie files, so a movie file made in one FCEU SHOULD work in the other.
Does this mean mean that the modified FCEU ultra (0.98.12) accepts left+right or do you need the left+right version of FCEU for that function to work?[/quote]
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I have some questions about pressing left+right on FCEU-ultra.
1. Can FCEU ultra 0.98.12-blip detect the input of left+right at the same time, or do I need the left+right version of FCEU ultra to get the left+right function to work? I mean with SNES9X you needed a certain version for the left+right function to work properly.
2. I can't seem to download the left+right version of FCEU ultra on this site ATM, perhaps it's just down temporary. Anybody knows something about this?
3. I downloaded FCEU ultra on this site some time ago, but I wasn't able to unzip it. I tried using both WinZip and WinRAR to unzip the left+right zip file, but both programs said that the file was corrupt. Should I perhaps try another program?
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I have been playing around with this game some and I have come up to the following things:
adelikat, you are somewhat right about delivering several papers to the same house. You can deliver 2 papers to the same house and get points for both. However, you only get points for these if one of them hits the housewall (300 points) and one of them hits the mailbox (750 points).
And as for the bonus levels, it would be a lot faster to just get into the training course and crash the bike. This way you will get to the next day much faster than if you'd play the training course. Though it would be a lot more entertaining to watch a run that includes the training course.
And generally about riding the bike: as long as you hold the directional button up you will move upwards as fast as possible, no matter how much you turn or throw papers. This means that you will always complete the course as fast as possible as long as you hold down "up".
I have also done a testrun of monday, you can get it here.
ROM name: Paperboy (U).nes
I know it includes the training course even if it takes up a lot of time, but the thing is that I found out about "skipping the training course trick" after I did this movie, and the training course went so well that I decided to keep it. If I do a run of this game, I will of course skip the training course. Let me know what you think about this movie.
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Voted YES.
I think that the movie was entertaining, fast, and very well executed. It looked like there was a lot of planning behind this movie too. Excellent job.
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Thanks a lot Highness!
Right now I'm planning on doing a Deja Vu 2 (for GBC) run, unfortunately, I'm moving to a new city right now, so I don't have an Internet connection ATM. But I'll probably start working on Deja Vu 2 around the 14 of August.
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I managed to improve this movie by another 18 seconds, which makes it 32 seconds faster than the published version!
I submitted the new movie too, see this thread:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2651
This is why I'm cancelling this submission, for further discussion, check the new thread.
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jxq2000 wrote:
Three days, huh? Hmm...
Princess Tomato In The Salad Kingdom.
I'm just gonna throw that out there.
Umm... oookaaaay. I have no idea what you mean by that.
Anyhow, I do even believe that I can finish this tomorrow, I mean, I have done about 75% as of right now, and most of that I did today. So it's quite possible to finish it tomorrow.
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Hmm I just discovered a major flaw in my movie - I forgot to pick up the HORN! And I who was almost done... Well, what are you gonna do... I still expect to be done within 3 days, so don't worry.
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Yes, I agree with you yarbles... I thought for some time to redo part of the movie and get the broom, because that was the answer to the first question the Sphinx asked me. But after doing some short calculations, it would all end up being at most 10 frames faster, if it would be faster at all. I can't be sure that he asks the same questions at the same frames when I get to him that time!
And I believe that the horseshoe is the "riddle-item" that is least out of the way, so I think I'll stick with that item, unless it turns out that there is another riddle item that is faster to use.
So I think I'll leave things as they are right now. And after all, I use these 27 frames to move the cursor around a bit, so I don't waste these frames by standing still and get a 0,5 boring second in the movie. I mean, you can't stand still for half a second in TAS, now can you? :)
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I checked out if it would be faster to open the stalldoor on a spot where you can click on the mirror directly when you exit, and this is exactly as fast as to move the cursor into position after you exit the stall. Either way, I have to move the cursor the same route and the same distance.
Oh, and I do have some information on how to manipulate luck (more exactly, how to control the random factors in your speed guide) on Deja Vu, and you can very well do this on a console too i believe:
You can avoid meeting all these persons on the street (the mugger, the homeless bum and that lady) this way: First choose MOVE, then go down to the minimap (below MOVE) and click on A somewhere next to the dot (the one you should click on to go to the area where one of these persons could show up), and after this, click on the dot. To make absolutely sure you don't run into them, it could be a good idea to click up to 5 times next to the dot before clicking in the dot. Sometimes it is necessary to click this many times in order to avoid these. I can probably come back to exactly how many times you have to click later on. It's pretty easy to check these things out when you're using savestates and can see into the future :)
By the way, I've started my new run of Deja Vu, and right now, I'm about 10 seconds ahead of the time for this movie. I'll probably be able to break the 11-minute barrier with the new version!
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It'd be really great if I got my hands on that tool that Genisto wrote! :)
Oh, and about 15s not being much, I too think that a 15s improvment is a lot, it's just that I compare this movie with my Uninvited movie (since the games are so alike), which was 53s faster. But as you said, 15s is a lot too.
Here's the new WIP
So far, I'm around 10s ahead of Walker's version.
This will probably be the last WIP before the final version, so if you have anything that you would like to comment on, now would be a good time to do so.