Topic by Toothache

Posted: 6/27/2011 9:46 PM
(Edited: 6/28/2011 6:26 PM)

Post subject: La-Mulana

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Figure I may as well get the discussion ball rolling. I've no plans to TAS this game currently, but I can always get some route planning done. First thing that is good for a TAS is that we can cut down on the number of weights needed to go out of the way for with drop manipulation. Coin drops are small so they'll probably add up to 2-3 less pots needed to pick up over an entire run, and the subweapon drops are probably also as negligible, but may save some time. Since a TAS will be single segment and not reloading from save, the amount of pots for coins and weapons are still rather tight. Speaking of subweapons, absolute best bosskiller is the Flares, so ideally any subweapon drops will want to go towards that once they are obtained. Current speedrun strategies have quick kills on Ellmac, Amphis, Viy, Shu and Bahamut all using Flares (and often some use of Athletic Land + Cabbage Patch Kids for the extra invincibility from damage). Since the bosses can be done in almost any order and they can be basically taken out at any time, it would be worthwhile collecting a bunch of items before even tackling one of them. There's quite a few glitches in the game too - out of bounds is possible, but usually requires some damage boost from a bat or something. There's also the Zombie Lemeza glitch, which makes the protagonist basically invincible but has its drawbacks (being unable to enter the menu until you save being a major one). http://www.youtube.com/v/CzuuNH4MSuQ http://www.youtube.com/v/NsYQtTTzc4U Zombie Lemeza glitch in action. http://www.youtube.com/v/8cSmp7_ERjQ Viy quick kill (thanks to Anonymous52555 and TheMaxican for these videos) Currently there are three realtime runs being worked on - 100% segmented, low% segmented, and any% single segment, all by different people, so there's never a better time to get a TAS started!

Posted: 6/27/2011 9:57 PM

Quote

scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1404)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

I'd be interested in working on the game if I'm able to get hourglass working properly. After all, there already is a speedrun on SDA that can be used as reference. The zombie lemeza glitch looks interesting, though I don't think it would make a very entertaining TAS, just running through everything.

Posted: 6/28/2011 4:48 AM

Quote

Kitsune

Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212

A 100% run might make a TAS too long. But then again, I love 100% runs no matter the length.

Posted: 6/28/2011 6:24 PM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

I don't think length should be a prohibitor of any TAS (with a few exceptions, I'm looking at you Desert Bus). But while the 100% may be much longer (especially with the multiple Hell Temple visits), it would certainly be a most impressive feat to watch.

Posted: 6/28/2011 6:25 PM

Quote

scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1404)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

I'd really love to see a perfect runthrough of Hell Temple, that's a given. Still, iirc you have to complete it three times, That may not only get long, but also boring.

Posted: 6/28/2011 8:29 PM

Quote

Tristal

Joined: 7/10/2007
Posts: 280

I would watch any TAS of La Mulana, no matter the length.

Posted: 6/28/2011 9:10 PM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AteK8xv2PQ More hilarious glitches. Quick kill method looks just as fast as flares, wonder if there's a way to stop the screen scrolling sooner after Ellmac dies.

Posted: 6/28/2011 10:00 PM

Quote

Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

For a TAS, I think 100% would be the most interesting in this game, simply for Hell Temple alone. That said, the route planning would be a nightmare. Whoever has the guts to do it, my hat's off to you.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 6/29/2011 12:07 AM

Quote

Patashu

He/Him

Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4014

Hamm wrote:

For a TAS, I think 100% would be the most interesting in this game, simply for Hell Temple alone. That said, the route planning would be a nightmare. Whoever has the guts to do it, my hat's off to you.

Over at SDA there are 100% and low% runs being planned and executed, and their routes have been posted to 'commandeer'. ;)

My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu

Posted: 6/29/2011 7:41 PM

Quote

Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

True. I more mean that once someone starts TASing this, they're probably going to find glitches and exploits that will screw up the current routes and present new, faster routes.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 1/10/2012 5:17 AM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

Has anyone gotten this to work in hourglass on 32-bit windows 7? It runs very, very slowly and I can't seem to get it to accept any input (such as space bar, to get past the intro), but that could be because I don't know what I'm doing. I unbound space bar from hourglass's hotkeys and changed the settings to the ones on this page. Also, if there's a better place to go for getting help with Hourglass let me know. edit: I think I fixed the speed issue by checking "allow fullscreen/display mode changes" and I found out ctrl works for exiting the intro, but not for anything else. So I guess it's just a keybinding issue now, since I can't get space to register. Oh, and there's usually no sound, but that's less of an issue edit 2: I can't seem to get the game to see space no matter what I do, even if I bind it to some other key in "game input." ctrl and up and down work fine. either there's a weird bug with space in particular or i don't know what i'm doing (more likely)

Posted: 1/10/2012 9:33 AM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

On windows 7 the fastest combination of options I've found for this game is:

switch the game to windowed mode (by starting the game outside of Hourglass and hitting alt-enter if it's in fullscreen mode, then alt-F4 to close it)
enable "Graphics > Surface Memory > System Memory" in Hourglass (note that this option is not saved, if you restart Hourglass)

With this, I can get pretty normal speeds and about 3000 FPS in fast-forward mode (at the expense of missing transparency effects). I don't know why it's so slow otherwise. As for the space key, I was not able to reproduce that problem on windows 7. It works for skipping the 2nd and 3rd screens of the intro (and nothing else, as far as I can tell). Maybe you could post your hourglass.cfg file somewhere so I could try it with your settings. I am noticing a bug where ctrl, alt, and shift all act like the pause/unpause hotkey, however.

Posted: 1/10/2012 10:18 AM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

not sure what state i left this in, but here it is: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8705131/hourglass.cfg tomorrow when I have time I will reboot in windows and try those settings. iirc the space bar should work to pick new or continue from the menu as well (and of course use your weapon in-game, but i couldn't get that far in hourglass). if i'm misremembering and you have to use enter on the title screen, then it wasn't letting enter through either

Posted: 1/11/2012 5:53 AM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

As far as I know, you have to press X to select new/continue. Also, I tried your config file and you have space set to OEM8 (this is not the default, and it effectively disables the space key unless you know which key is OEM8 and want to use that instead), and you have the Frame Advance 2 hotkey set to space (which is the default, but you said you unbound space from the hotkeys, and it's not unbound in this config).

Posted: 1/11/2012 4:08 PM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

ok, there are a few interesting things happening. 1. OEM8 is what it says when I push the backtick/tilde key. weird 2. either i changed the default controls in the english patched version I have, or the patch itself did. probably the former. for some reason, I've always used space as the 'main' key. I'm running a separate unpatched version through hourglass. unfortunately, 3. I still can't get past the title screen through hourglass. if I run the game directly, I can proceed fine with the Z key (whoops). for whatever reason, it doesn't work through hourglass. (even when I thought the right key was space, I definitely drummed all over the place when it didn't work.) up and down work but Z doesn't do anything. this is especially weird because I was able to play with cave story through hourglass just fine with the Z key. I will fiddle with it more when I have the chance (hopefully later today). if someone can get it to work, maybe record a movie that starts a new game and i'll see if I can even play it? EDIT: still no luck! here's a weird thing though: if I delete lamulana.ini, SPACE is the confirm+weapon key again. now I don't know what to believe! To review: when running la-mulana through hourglass, I've only gotten three keys to have an effect. ctrl skips the intro and gets me to the title screen. up and down move the cursor between new game and continue. that's all. haven't gotten past the title screen. given that, I've done some experiments. I tried binding space and Z to the up and down keys. still can't start a new game. I tried binding up and down to the space and Z keys. now I can use my space and Z keys to move up and down in the menu. so there's not a problem with getting those physical keys to do something. but for some reason, la-mulana is not responding to Space or Z inputs. of course, if I run it outside of hourglass, space (currently it's space) works fine, and I can play. again, if anyone can get past the title screen, let me know! and maybe post a .wtf that does it, and/or your hourglass settings!

Posted: 1/15/2012 8:24 PM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1SrsZp0jYE Looks like the Endless Corridor skip can be used elsewhere, and probably a whole lot of places. Warning to protect your ears before watching

Posted: 3/17/2012 12:27 PM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ls32L1mr6E Ok, looks like weight drops happen at pretty rigid intervals. Should make manipulation of these, and weapon drops somewhat easier.

Posted: 7/10/2012 12:42 AM

Quote

scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1404)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

So, now I actually wanted to try La-MuLANA with hourglass, and it turns out I can't run the game at all. If I hit "Run and Record New Movie", hourglass processes for a while, but after that, nothing actually happens. Task Manager shows the process lamulana.exe to be running, but I'm not getting an actual game window. Neither does the frame counter advance. I'm using hourglass-r81 and Windows 7 64-bit. I tried everything suggested in this thread and hourglass' compability list to no avail. This is the hourglasslog.txt file after trying to run the game once. Please help, as I'd really love to TAS this game. If more troubleshooting info is required, I'll provide it to the best of my knowledge. Thanks.

Posted: 7/16/2012 10:49 PM

Quote

MCXD

Joined: 1/7/2011
Posts: 8

Sorry for not having anything to contribute for the run itself but. Just pitching in as a spectator and saying that, if possible (which is to say, unless hourglass says otherwise) I'd love to see a TAS of the original game before any TAS of the new remake that came out recently. Any% or 100% (either is fine).

Posted: 8/15/2012 5:33 AM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

I screwed around with this some more. If I run la-mulana outside hourglass and go into its key config and set the weapon key to ctrl, then I can actually get that input through when I'm running it through hourglass, so I can get past the title screen. but none of the F keys get through to the game, so it's still unplayable. I suspected that maybe for some reason all of hourglass's hotkeys were not getting through to the game, even though it was set to only use them when hourglass has focus, so I went into its config and removed the functions from space and the F keys. no dice. it seems like it's just not letting any inputs through except the arrow keys and ctrl. maybe some other keys that I haven't found. This only seems to be a problem with la-mulana; last I checked, I can play cave story through hourglass just fine. does anyone else have this problem? or does anyone else NOT have this problem? I haven't seen a confirmation either way.

Posted: 8/15/2012 5:04 PM

Quote

heldtogetherwithtape

Joined: 2/18/2010
Posts: 156
Location: home

Have you tried remapping the keys themselves in hourglass? Recently when I was playing around with Psycho Waluigi I found that you can configure the keyboard keys in a similar way to how you can configure the controller buttons in other emulators. Perhaps you could configure hourglass to use other keys that aren't used by La-Mulana as the F keys.

My user name is rather long, feel free to call me by htwt or tape.

Posted: 8/15/2012 7:19 PM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

I tried that earlier (see the posts above from months ago). I couldn’t get the game to recognize Space as an input even if I mapped it to the arrow keys, which it had previously responded to, and when I mapped an arrow key to the space bar, I was able to press space and move in the menu. It seems to be not letting through non-arrow, non-ctrl inputs to the game, regardless of what physical keys they came from.

Posted: 8/19/2012 9:05 PM

Quote

zem

Joined: 10/3/2009
Posts: 32

I still would like someone else to try running La-Mulana through hourglass and find out if they have the same input problems that I do. I still have no idea whether this is unique to my setup. Also, just to check my sanity — in the original version, a 100% run would pretty much have to save and reload, right? Watching the segmented run so far in the SDA thread, it looks like the amount of money you need for the optional purchases will take way more than all the coin pots in the game give you, and no amount of manipulated coin drops from enemies will make up for just being able to respawn all the 10-coin pots whenever you want.

Posted: 8/19/2012 9:16 PM

Quote

Toothache

Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

zem wrote:

I still would like someone else to try running La-Mulana through hourglass and find out if they have the same input problems that I do. I still have no idea whether this is unique to my setup. Also, just to check my sanity — in the original version, a 100% run would pretty much have to save and reload, right? Watching the segmented run so far in the SDA thread, it looks like the amount of money you need for the optional purchases will take way more than all the coin pots in the game give you, and no amount of manipulated coin drops from enemies will make up for just being able to respawn all the 10-coin pots whenever you want.

No you are right, it will take more gold than the game normally contains for 100%, so some save-loading will inevitably be required. The question will be whether it's more optimal to do only a few save-loads on easy to reach pots near the Grail points, which also resets other pots in areas you need to revisit later, or do many of these and only collect the nearby ones for coin farming only (ie, dedicated save-loads for cash grinding).

Posted: 8/21/2012 1:40 PM

Quote

scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1404)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

Toothache wrote:

zem wrote:
I still would like someone else to try running La-Mulana through hourglass and find out if they have the same input problems that I do. I still have no idea whether this is unique to my setup. Also, just to check my sanity — in the original version, a 100% run would pretty much have to save and reload, right? Watching the segmented run so far in the SDA thread, it looks like the amount of money you need for the optional purchases will take way more than all the coin pots in the game give you, and no amount of manipulated coin drops from enemies will make up for just being able to respawn all the 10-coin pots whenever you want.
No you are right, it will take more gold than the game normally contains for 100%, so some save-loading will inevitably be required. The question will be whether it's more optimal to do only a few save-loads on easy to reach pots near the Grail points, which also resets other pots in areas you need to revisit later, or do many of these and only collect the nearby ones for coin farming only (ie, dedicated save-loads for cash grinding).

I'd definitely prefer seeing the former, though I imagine the planning required will be insane.