Introduction

Since 1 year feos and me made a #3356: feos & MESHUGGAH's NES Battletoads in 11:04.72 run, 10 months later Dylax and DjTheZlomus made #3690: TheZlomuS & DyLaX's NES Battletoads "Glitched" in 01:02.68. That motivated me to come back to the tasing community and improve the game to it's glory.
Notice the date (2011/11/11 and 2012/11/11). Also my birthday is 11/12.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.6, syncs on 2.1.4a (thanks Ilari)
  • Aims for fastest possible time
  • Entertains without losing a frame
  • Uses warps
  • Manipulates luck
  • Manipulates cutscenes
  • Manipulates musics
  • Manipulates game

Detailed informations

This is the result of tasing the game for 41 times after realizing that Dylax and DjTheZlomus's last effort #3710: TheZlomuS & DyLaX's NES Battletoads "Glitched" in 00:58.07 is not perfect. Note that the actual rerecord count is more than 100.000, but I kept switching between my different versions.
The notable improvements are these:
  • minimizing the actions (jump length) to get better subpixel positions and do actions (pressing B) as fast as possible to recover from it's animation and go forward.
  • running faster as soon as possible rather than going to the right side (it's faster because the camera doesn't moves forward if it's blocked by the 2nd player)
The combination of these two lead to this movie. This way I could get a faster spawn of the rats which is spawned after every 16th frames. This means, you need to be there in 17 frames earlier, otherwise you won't improve anything just wait for the enemy spawn. This happens in the next rat too.
And I'm also reduced the manipulation part, this way it's impossible (to me) to make a "no game over" version.

The possible improvements

  • The only thing I tried without luck or even close to the resolution is manipulating the game end without pressing input at the manipulation part (after the lagframes around 3406). The problem is that the complexity of the manipulation. You have to reset pointers, get correct values for different objects. Most of the time when I thought it will works, it suddenly either stopped the manipulation.
  • And of course, you can try to reduce the manipulation part, but that's will results in a much longer wait until the end, if it would be possible, but the same happens as earlier mentioned. And this has something to do with the actual framecount (lower framecounts are harder to manipulate)

The impossible improvements

  • A 1P run would be much slower
  • Resetting at the 1st possible frame when the intro finished costs frames
  • Because of the timers, Level 1 (enemy spawn) and Level 3 (rat spawn timers) is impossible to improve

List of techniques and oddities appeared in chronological order

Manipulating cutscenes/texts
Using different input, it's possible to save 1-3 frames by loading those texts that gives fewer lag frames.
Manipulating music/background
Pausing very fast alternating on thetwo joystick mutes the music channel. The sideffect is flickering the background on level 3.
Synchronizing actions that costs lag frames
Kicking, dashing, brutal hit etc costs lag frames so hitting something with both toads in the same frame halves it.
Optimizing movement
Starting fast running earlier is always faster, but sometimes it needs different input (LR instead of UL, empty, UL).
Z-order mess up
Pressing left and right simultaneously brings up or down the player rapidly. Also used to get different subpositions.
Manipulating the game end
I have to depress you, but I don't know the technical side of this. I've done it with a "visual test" that sometimes changes depending on odd or even frame is the last frame before the respawn or different input before the manipulation begins. You should ask DjTheZlomus.

Miscellaneous

For entertainment...
  • look the input of the beginning and cutscene manipulated parts (TASeditor is adviced)
  • P2 joins later
  • Level 1 music changed to play 1 note
  • P1 falling blow
  • Level 3 music muted, soundeffects added (by unmuting) to jumps and spawns
  • Level 3 background flickers
  • random jumps
I hope you enjoyed my TAS, I think I will check maybe other platforms too. And would like to thanks the help to feos, Dylax, DjTheZlomus, Ilari, adelikat for giving me tasks instead of tasing this 0-24 a day and everyone from #tasvideos.
See you until my next tas =)

Nach: I let this stew for a week to see if anyone has any more improvements. Since no one mentioned working on anything significant, I deem this ready for judging, and obsoletions can always be submitted later like with everything else.
I found the improvement quite impressive, and good audience feedback throughout the frame war. Accepting.
feos: Precessing.

Noxxa
They/Them
Moderator, Expert player (4141)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
I also agree with nitrogenesis and Guga. This screenshot is just bad. This situation reminds me of Pokémon Ruby and its "I'm going to give you a little tas" screenshot. That one was also recommended against, as it doesn't give the idea of something TASlike happening. Screenshots should impress the potential viewers; show off unexpected things.
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.
Editor, Experienced player (608)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
I agree with NitroGenesis, Guga, and Mothrayas. The screenshot should be from a frame in the run itself that makes people want to watch the movie (see the Mario 64 publication pages for some good examples).
feos wrote:
Also, it says ALL about the movie :P
If the run was "painful to watch", it wouldn't have been published as a Moon.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Not that voting is really relevant here, but I do agree that the screenshot should try to show the viewer why they want to watch the movie, not recommend against watching it. It'd be like having the description say "This is a terrible movie; you shouldn't watch it." Even if you're joking, it's a bad idea.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 12/16/2005
Posts: 69
Well, as a person who has never played Battletoads (but who admittedly did watch an LP of it once) the screenshot made me wonder just wtf was going on in this TAS. Since it was only two minutes I checked it out, and the TAS did not disappoint. Each to their own, I guess.
AnS
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (723)
Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Derakon wrote:
"This is a terrible movie; you shouldn't watch it." Even if you're joking, it's a bad idea.
The word "terrible" suits the movie quite well. In a way. I think it's very obvious that the screenshot is joking, so it makes people curious. Indeed, other screenshots at TASVideos try to say the movie is worth watching. That just makes this case more individual. I'm voting for the diversity of approaches.
Mothrayas wrote:
Screenshots should impress the potential viewers; show off unexpected things.
In this case the time of the run is enough to impress (Battletoads beaten in less than a minute).
Guga wrote:
The screenshot should be taken from the input file.
I don't see a reason for such restriction. The only interesting part of the movie happens after the input ends, and if viewers stop watching the movie after the input ends, they won't find anything special.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11274
Location: RU
Yeah, I think Guga would be happy if I snapped the first level. But even HIS publication of that branch had a post-movie snap (I changed it to another one, also post-movie). Guga? Also I don't understand people deadly stuck to some rules which seem to suppress creativity. Being different, as in new, the unexpected, is a part of it. If you allow SOME freedom in creative things (TASing is an art, not just a sport), it inspires innovative solutions from the unexpected place, which spurs overall development.
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.
AnS
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (723)
Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Well, don't forget that in many cases limitations indeed boost creativity. It's just that they should not be absolute, as in, should be reasonable. Is there some written rule why screenshots must be done before Input ends? Because I wonder what's the purpose behind such limitation.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11274
Location: RU
The screenshot looks stretched vertically. Why at all?
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.
Joined: 4/8/2013
Posts: 6
A really cool run, and from digging around it seems a lot of work went into this... but man, the submission text is pretty lacking here... would be nice to know exactly what's going on in ROM/RAM without having to click through a bunch of old submissions and discussions to find a random YouTube that explains it. Just my worthless opinion of course :)
Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11274
Location: RU
LarmaRatPatter: if you don't do it and ask someone to add all this info, then someone else would have to do it :D It is all spread through the threads of this frame war. However, you'll become way more experienced if you look them through yourself.
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.