Introduction

"For the time I had, and given the problem I had to solve, I think I did a pretty good job with it"
- Howard Scott Warshaw, programmer and designer, on E.T.
Now that we've started off with a lie, let's continue with some truths:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Plays a really shitty game
  • Abuses programming errors (as in, abuses the game)
  • Is awesome
  • TAS of the year
  • Is worth a minute of your time

The Game

E.T. - The Extra-Turdestrial (1982) is known as the most horrible game in video game history, and for all the good reasons. It really is that bad. The programmer and designer Howard Scott Warshaw was only given 5½ weeks to design, program, and debug the game for it to be ready for the Christmas season. During this time, the standard was some 5 or 6 months, so it's easy to see why E.T. might be considered rushed. Anyway the game was released, and soon, all hell broke loose. E.T. didn't sell, and resulted in a net loss of almost $100 million for Atari, and the video game industry was brought to its knees and was nearly destroyed. The collapse of the video game industry was a fact, all thanks to this piece of junk. Landfill was a fitting destiny. We had to TAS it to pay back for all the shit this game has caused for every gamer ever.

Game Mechanics & Objectives:

The main objective of E.T. is to collect 3 parts of E.T.'s phone, then pull off a tricky move known as "phone home", find his way to the Landing Zone, await the mother-turd and then just hope that the RNG doesn't fuck things up. Anyway for being a 5 week project, this game is bad. Very bad. And technical.
The addresses 004A, 004B and 004C determine where the three items spawn. There are 4 holes that might contain items per screen. If the RNG lands on 0 - 3, the items appear in the screen north of the starting position, 4 - 7 east, 8 - 11 south and 12 - 15 west. The holes themselves are numbered from the top left, all the way to the right, then going to the next line. For example, pit number 6 is the middle, right pit in the eastern section. However, the fun stuff doesn't end here. Another thing which is affected by the RNG is where you can call the Mother Spider (005B), and to make shit worse, the actual spot where you have to stand in the final Green Turd-land kind of cooperates with this RNG. Yeah. Really. And up until now, you thought this game was nothing but doo-do. Now you know it's a really, really advanced piece of doo-do. Like if you shat out a Nokia 3110.
There are a total of 16 different set-ups, and the set-ups depend on which frame you press the button (also known as B) on the title screen. Believe it or not, we actually TASed all 16 set-ups! No, not really. We didn't. But we did deep calculations, number crunching and called in a few favors to be able to utilize the Higgs Boson only to find out that the first set-up was the optimal. Boo! Major bummer. What that means is that holding the button during power-on gives you the optimal RNG. That's a fuckaton if I ever heard one.
So with all this in mind, we're ready to play the damn game. E.T. travels on a world map which is designed like a cube. E.T. starts off in the Green Turd Land, and to each of the four directions, we have an area with holes, and there's also an urban area which is located "behind" the start zone (pick up a die and see how it behaves and you'll get the basic idea). Once you've wrapped your head around that tractor, it's time to hit the pits. Every now and then, an arrow will appear on top of the screen. Stretching E.T.'s neck at this point will make him teleport to the screen in the direction the arrow is pointing, which is an awesome way to move around. As mentioned earlier, the objective is to drop into the pits. Once you've landed in said pit, all you can do is pick up any item if you're lucky enough to find one, and then float out of the pit, and this is the point where E.T. collapsed. When you are on the overworld, all that it takes for E.T. to drop into a pit is for a single pixel of his body to touch it. Yeah, even the head is enough. Sounds fair? No. Well it gets worse. When you leave a pit and try to leave it by just floating up, and leaving on the upper part makes you instantly fall back into the pit when leaving. No kidding. It's practically impossible to leave a pit by going up out of it. Awesome. Anyway after fixing the phone, E.T. has to find the Mother Spider-hex and order pizza. As soon as the pizza-counter appears on top of the screen, all that's left to do is race to the landing zone. And wait. And wait. And wait. As you haven't seen in this TAS, Dick Tracy is after E.T.'s phone. Every time he shows up, he steals a part of it! That monster! However, that isn't the greatest issue with him. If Dickard is on screen when the Mother Spider is supposed to pick up E.T., the ship won't appear! Dickard might appear as an evil man, but in all honesty, if you just observe his memory address (002B), you might cut him some slack. It's not his fault he's confused. There's also a scientist-man who brings E.T. to the lab, but then all E.T. has to do is walk out of there. Confusingly enough, we never see him in this TAS.
In the very end of the movie, we just stand still and wait for a long time (Until the pizza timer has reached zero twice). That's actually needed in order to complete the game! After teleporting back to the starting zone, no more buttons are being pressed during this run.
Anyway that's the game. Steal parts for a phone, order pizza, avoid the white men and jump into a pimped-out ride. And we did it in less than 30 seconds.

Authors' comments:

adelikat: Oh god, what have I done
Cardboard: I still haven't recovered. Back during the creation of this TAS some months ago, I came to the realization that I was so deep into the shit that I probably was the one person in the world who knew the most about this game. What's even sadder is that back then, I was taking a class on mathematical statistics, and I've forgotten most of that, but I can recall almost everything regarding this TAS and the technology of the game. It's just not sad. It's fucking pathetic. Little wonder why I never get any. I must add that this game was much tougher to TAS than one might think. And it wasn't even remotely fun.

turska: Judging.

turska: The run isn't the most entertaining, but it does have TAS-like qualities and it's short enough to keep the viewer watching for its sub-minute runtime.
E.T. is very infamous and a TAS of it attracts lots of attention, as demonstrated by this suboptimal TAS, the high vote count for this submission, and numerous comments in the submission thread.
Additionally, we have accepted short TASes of famous bad games such as Baby Moses and The Cheetahmen in the past.
As such, I am accepting this run for publication.

turska: Processing...


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Spikestuff wrote:
NitroGenesis wrote:
Spikestuff's rating: 10/10 Seems legit
Yep 100% legit :P
Okay.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Spikestuff wrote:
NitroGenesis wrote:
Spikestuff's rating: 10/10 Seems legit
Yep 100% legit :P
10/10 in a movie like this seems way off. Just my two cents.
Noxxa
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0 for tech for this movie also seems off IMO. Just my two cents.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Allowing arbitrary ratings seems off.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
NitroGenesis
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Mothrayas wrote:
0 for tech for this movie also seems off IMO. Just my two cents.
Then tell that to feos, he's the only one.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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As one of the authors of this movie, I'd like to know what looks so suboptimal that it warrants a tech rating less than 8.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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Cardboard wrote:
As one of the authors of this movie, I'd like to know what looks so suboptimal that it warrants a tech rating less than 8.
Do you still take given ratings seriously? Actually this is the first time I give untrue rating at all. And it's untrue only for Technical value. Zero entertainment is perfectly reasonable: after I watched an atari game I felt disgusting (I played atari at the age of 8 and nothing had changed). Then I wished to see how people rate it. "10/10". Okay. Fuck seriousness after that. People seem to rate for fun (I never did). EDIT: Originally I put 1 for tech quality for being an undistinguishable mess, not a run of a game. Even reversed and optimized, some "games" still provide just NO room for a serious TAS, just for messing around. Also, entertaimnent here is that bad it affects tech value hard.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
NitroGenesis
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Cardboard wrote:
As one of the authors of this movie, I'd like to know what looks so suboptimal that it warrants a tech rating less than 8.
Techincal quality =/= level of optimiziation
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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So technical rating stands for what, encode ratio? And yeah. I want to create well performed TASes. I do want to know what I should have done better in terms of optimization.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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Tech rating stands for how many different TAS skills are involved in making the run, how deeply they are applied and how well the run showcases them.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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That would force the rater to have played, and even better, TASed the game to be able to have an opinion in the matter, no? Or are we trying to make educated guesses, which is a really, really bad idea as history will tell?
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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I am all for making the rating system more sensible. But that's what you get with the current one. And why aren't you surprised or objecting towards giving this game both tens? It's still perfecly legit by default, right?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Cardboard wrote:
That would force the rater to have played, and even better, TASed the game to be able to have an opinion in the matter, no? Or are we trying to make educated guesses, which is a really, really bad idea as history will tell?
Ratings should not be taken seriously, since anyone could go around giving 10/10's to their favourite TAS's.
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feos wrote:
I am all for making the rating system more sensible. But that's what you get with the current one. And why aren't you surprised or objecting towards giving this game both tens? It's still perfecly legit, right?
No. Entertainment is objective, I am all for allowing every single digit there, and to the best of my knowledge, this run is a technical monster. That being said, I wouldn't rate it 10 on entertainment because I don't feel it deserves a 10, but that's me. I wouldn't give it a 0 either, because I don't feel it deserves a 0.
jlun2 wrote:
Ratings should not be taken seriously, since anyone could go around giving 10/10's to their favourite TAS's.
But for those of us who want to create a great, technically superb TAS, you have to rely on something to determine if the TAS you are trying to improve was well made or not. Entertainment I don't give a flying ice cube about, but I'm all for making optimized TASes and therefore have to take help from something.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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Cardboard wrote:
Entertainment I don't give a flying ice cube about
You do, haha.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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*looks over the Entertainment Value votes of the movie* ... *facepalms* It wasn't that bad, guys. Gosh.
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Do you think someone who's never owned this game or an A2600 can really appreciate this? I don't think this deserves a moon.
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The moon (as currently used by the site) represents a notable publication. Do not confuse this with stars. A moon in this case is simply for being the first Atari 2600 submission. That's "notable"
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Link to video Do you know some brave guys went to New Mexico and excavated tons of E.T. copy?
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Odongdong wrote:
Do you know some brave guys went to New Mexico and excavated tons of E.T. copy?
Most probably staged.
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On today's episode of twitch.tv/thesundaysequencebreak, the submitter of this run for this game claims his route is faster than the TAS. Is this true or due to a timing difference? Link to video
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Patashu wrote:
On today's episode of twitch.tv/thesundaysequencebreak, the submitter of this run for this game claims his route is faster than the TAS. Is this true or due to a timing difference? video
TAS (ingame movement + Final input): 20seconds ~ Speedrun (ingame movement + Final input): 54/3seconds ~ uh no. The sda timer stops when ship is about to enter screen. If that way then it's TAS: 54/3secs~ Speedrun: 54/3secs~ Edit: Hmm.... okay Link to video
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
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