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RT-55J wrote:
I'm a junior in high school and have never had a job. If anybody asks me what I want to be when I get old I usual say "computer programmer" despite the fact that my experience is limited to some sloppy ZZT-OOP and my school doesn't offer any programming classes afaict (despite having the largest student population in the state). That's half of the reason I've signed up for the Running Start program at the local community college (the other half being the hope that I can get a decent Japanese teacher).
So your location says WA state, the largest student population has to be somewhere in the Seattle/Tacoma/Redmond area (I grew up in Kennewick, southeast corner of the state), and as all good technogeeks know, Microsoft calls Redmond home. And you're saying your school doesn't have any programming classes? Someone majorly dropped the ball on that one.
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Saturn wrote:
I think the past few months showed that clearly.
The only thing I've seen in the past few months is you making claims, and then Taco proving you wrong. And it hasn't just been once, it's been many times. As many before me have suggested, I will suggest again: Stop making claims altogether, because you look downright foolish when they all get proven wrong, time and again.
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Xkeeper wrote:
DarkKobold wrote:
So as far as I can tell, there are 2 RNGs that determine deck order. The first one appears to load a preset deck order from the rom. The other actually sort of shuffles the deck when the cards are being dealt.
Trying to parse out 2 RNGs is far, far, far too much work for 45 seconds of gameplay.
An arguably simpler way would be to just feed the cards and deck into a Solitare solver, and try a few different (early) combonations to see what would be fastest.
Shrug.
This may help in getting a good starting idea of which deck orders are faster, but there are several factors that influence total time, not just deck order. The extremely long animation of moving large sets of cards from one stack to another is one example.
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I know it's not really common practice, but have you considered submitting your test run, inichi? I think it could solve the problems that have been popping up:
1) It seems to have a proper amount of optimization for being worthy of publication here, despite being a test run.
2) It would allow for a justified encoding of the run, and not just a link to the .smv in the future movie's text.
3) In case something happens to your motivation, and you don't ever finish the glitch run, this would provide a very good replacement for hero's run anyway. And since you seem to be the only one interested in working with this game, if you leave, we'll have another game in a similar position as OoT.
4) You said that a glitch run would take a lot more testing, and that you may start by the end of the year. If the test run were submitted and published, it would still be another year at least before you were done with the improvement, and the general public could have the joy in watching two new (and large) improvements, instead of one, without getting bored with them.
Just some ideas and thoughts, but I personally think that the test run would probably be well received if it were submitted.
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Very nice run, I never watched Soulrivers' attempt, but I can see how this would be an incredibly complex game to try to get optimal. It reminded me a lot of Lode Runner: The Legend Returns. When I was watching, I kinda imagined the scared little goombas as piles of gold even. Anyway, it was enjoyable to watch, and I give a definite yes for a very noticeable improvement. Also, I think a great screenshot would be something from the castle level (frames 46k-48K). Oh, and that final level looked like it would have been super painful to try and actually play.
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I actually agree with Saturn on this. A totally destroyed run would provide a lot of entertainment value for the amount of new things present. I'm sure that once it were published, your test run could be linked to in the movie text for people to view who don't want to see the boss skip utilized.
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The checksum for the movie that you have matches the file "Magic of Scheherazade, The (U) [!].nes", so you have the correct (if mislabeled) ROM. Still don't think it's a very interesting game, but if you can glitch it up, I may be wrong.
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Comicalflop wrote:
Also, isn't this thread a little, obsolete, given that in forum user's profile pages there's a space for profession?
The word you're looking for is redundant. But given the fact that half the people don't fill that part out, and I was interested in more than one word answers, no.
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You know, that stuff you do every day that pays the bills. I'm sure that there are a lot of people here who have jobs related to computers, coding, programming, etc, but I'm curious to see what other spread we have here. If you're in college (or to a lesser extent, high school), what is your major or your plan for a profession after you graduate?
As for me, I graduated with a B.S. in Exercise and Sport Science, and I'm currently in a Doctoral Physical Therapy program, so in 10 short months I'll get to call myself Dr. Nick (Hey everybody! Hi Dr. Nick!). I'll probably end up working for a while in an outpatient office for a while, but hopefully sometime in the future I'll fall into a job with a professional sports team, since I'm also an athletic trainer.
So what do you guys all do?
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I agree with alden on most points. I only watched 85,000 frames, and the only part that held my interest was the battle with the eyeballs, even though you used the same technique a multitude of times. So strike one is poor game choice.
Another problem I saw was the amount of random battles that you escaped from. If they are time based battles, then there's nothing you can do about it, but from the amount of rerecords you have I can tell that you didn't put much work into avoiding those battles through luck manipulation. Another luck manipulation opportunity was to manipulate 3 straight pigs in the gambling segment (as I'm assuming it has a higher payout since there's only a 1/8 or 1/9 [I forget which] chance of getting it). So general lack of luck manipulation in an RPG is strike 2 (if you watch the other RPGs on the site, luck manip a major factor).
Although the play overall looked fairly clean, I did notice the turbo-ing through text, along with some other minor movements that seemed unoptimized. So that is kinda a strike two and a half, since unoptimized movements shouldn't be present at all in a game this simple. Rerecords are there for a reason, so I'd suggest using a lot more. 2 years ago, a game this long with this few rerecords wouldn't get a second look, but these days it just raises eyebrows about the level of perfection.
I also won't vote since I didn't finish watching it, but overall I think the main killer is just poor game choice. It's slow, very repetitive, and doesn't have a lot to show off. Also, the fact that you only beat the SDA record by 6 minutes is either a testament to how simple this game is, or how sloppily it's played. Since I don't know the mechanics, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt (other than what I've already mentioned), and say that it's a very simple game that doesn't have much to offer for a TAS.
As a PS, I would recommend for the future you don't base your goals on trying to beat a world record time. We use tools to play as God would, we don't compete with SDA and their times because they're two totally different categories.
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I haven't watched this, but from reading through the thread and the submission text, it seems that there are quite a bit of improvements possible. While I'm not a judge, I know from experience that runs with either one big improvement possible, or lots of little improvements possible, usually get rejected, with the suggestion of some fine tuning. Since you've said you'll remake this if it does get rejected, why not start up right now with an improved version? Obviously this is just my suggestion, but with all the different things that people have pointed out, it seems like a second version may be needed to get this run up to publication quality. Just an idea.
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I watched this a while ago and voted, but forgot to comment.
For me, this is a very easy no vote. The 3 autoscrollers in this came are incredibly dull, and most of the time the character just stands still. I don't think a lot of spastic movement would have helped out the entertainment factor at all, I think those levels are just boring by nature.
Level 2 looked sloppily done. Even though it was short, it was very slow and looked like it could have been done just as well at full speed.
The buster level helps out some, and if the game had been more levels like that, I may have been more entertained (especially since you were able to get moving pretty fast at points), but in the end, it couldn't even get me up to a weak meh.
Overall, it just looks like poor game choice. Sorry.
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I agree with upthorn. There are about only two people who are qualified to make a S3&K run right now. However, that isn't to say someone couldn't learn how to make one. As with starting all TASes, you have to learn something about the game before you can begin, and it just happens that S3&K has a massively steep learning curve. I fully believe that if I wanted to study the game and it's mechanics and flaws to the fullest extent possible, I could make a kickass run. As could many people here if they wanted to. But as it sits right now, upthorn is right, and will continue to be right until someone pours themselves into the game.
However if he meant that no one would ever be able to learn how to TAS the game properly, then you're wrong, upthorn. But I doubt that's what you meant.
Unca Scrooge approves.