Introduction

Noddy: A Day in Toyland is an extremely difficult game to beat, for different reasons than usual. Nope, it's not hard-to-reach jumps, no continues, overabundance of enemies, one-hit deaths, nope, come on, keep guessing. Well, it's difficult to beat because it's difficult to actually sit there and play it without getting extremely bored, and then extremely angry at the developers for making such a horribly boring game, slapping out the game cartridge and throwing it right into the fireplace to watch it burn!!! This is a game that's so bad, I can't even think of a worse game. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is so bad it's received a cult following, and even it's boring as hell, but at least it's funny to laugh at. But this... YUCK! No game can compare to the awful abomination that is Noddy: A Day in Toyland.

Goals

  • Core: mGBA
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Aims for fastest time
  • any% completion
  • Genre: Platformer

About the game

Other than that it's horrible, let me go over the basics. Did you see how many fucking companies had their labels at the beginning of this game? It's ridiculous. With that many people involved, they should have been able to make something of a lot better quality. Apparently, they were so ashamed of this game that they didn't even put a credits sequence anywhere in the game. That's right, not even a place in the Options menu where you can open the credits. Not a single real person's name is mentioned anywhere in the game. I'm pretty surprised it came out in the US and Europe, and Noddy and the Birthday Party didn't. You know, I actually saw a copy this game in a used books/games store not too long ago, and I wanted to smash it with a hammer right where it sat. How could that game even exist here? It's mind-blowing.
You also don't have to do this game in order, technically. There is a level select right at the start of the game. I'm not fucking kidding around here; go see for yourself. You can select any level you want at any time you want.
This of course doesn't mean that going through the levels chronologically doesn't come with some merit. The game has a storyline (though a crappy one) that is really meant to be followed level-by-level. I guess the developers wanted to give kids the option to go to their favorite level or whatever right off-hand after completing the game without adding a save or password feature. So, going through all the levels from "play game" rather than selecting the last level in level select is what any% completion means here.
Anyway, so the game is about as basic as it looks. It's a platformer, but most of the time you're actually just moving to the left or to the right for a whole fuckin' minute before actually doing anything. Other than the platformer stages, there are 4 autoscrollers. Yes, FOUR AUTOSCROLLER MINIGAMES, most of which last about 2 minutes long if I counted correctly. In the autoscrollers, you're "driving" in a car, just like it looks. Nothing special at all. You're driving on a dirt road...(WHO DOES THAT ANYMORE??!?!?!)...trying to avoid all the obstacles, such as rocks, logs, trees falling over, and these weird red-and-blue balls with eyes that roll right in your path. Also in some of the car levels, you encounter cows and chickens. It scares you first time playing cuz you think you're gonna hit them, but no, you can't hit them. They always run away right when you're about to touch them. You can also honk the horn to get them out of your way. And that's the only purpose of honking it at all. So, the car levels can't be sped up or slowed down at all. At all. I don't care what you do in those minigames, it's all about the camera. All you can do is move up and down, and make the car glitch out when you hit a slant. You can also get hurt in these minigames,
You might have noticed or known that a few months back I submitted a TAS of another Noddy game, Noddy and the Birthday Party. You think that game was bad? That game is GOLD compared to this one. I'd play that game over this one anyday. This game does have some slight similarities to Noddy and the Birthday Party, mostly in regards to the type of stuff you see in it, such as characters and types of levels. So, at least you can say that the developers of this game probably at least knew of that much better Game Boy Color game.
This game is not to be confused with the DS game Noddy in Toyland, which is just another one of those stupid minigame collection games that there are like a million of in the DS library. If that game even has a completion goal (I didn't play it for more than about 2 minutes), then it'd probably be rejected here at TASVideos for triviality. Anyway, that's a completely different game, despite having such a similar name.
The real problem with this game is that Noddy moves so slow. You can't speed him up either. There's no way to do that at all. This is up there with Postman Pat and the Greendale Rocket. In fact, it's even worse than that game.
In some levels there are items that you can throw to distract enemies and make them unable to hurt you. We never do this to save time in the run, though, because it doesn't save time at all. There's like a second-long waiting sequence every time you throw anything, unlike in Birthday Party where you can make it only make it happen for three frames. Some levels allow you to throw cupcakes, which works on all enemies. The other item you can be given is the bags of money; mostly in the later levels because that's when the gremlins start appearing.

General tricks

  • As mentioned below, there are a lot of platform glitches in the game. They're used in a few levels, but only for brief amounts of time.
  • Jumping doesn't waste any time.
  • There are very few parts of the game when we need to fall as fast as possible in the game, but to fall faster you have to jump off an edge at the soonest possible frame rather than falling off it.
  • Taking damage wastes a few frames, so only do it when you have to! Also, the game doesn't allow you to jump for a few frames after taking damage.
  • Every time you collect 50 coins, your health resets back to 5.
  • At least the jump heights in this game aren't fixed. They're quite adjustable from very small to very tall.
  • You can walk backwards in this game by pressing Left and Right at the same time, but only if you're going to the right. Also, every time you turn around, the camera moves, unless you're right up against a wall.

Stage-by-stage commentary

Text and menuing

The text skipping in the storyline is slow for a reason. You actually have to wait about 90-100 frames after the text is done scrolling to skip it. What a bunch of BS.
Oh, but at least all the company logo splash screens at the beginning can be skipped extremely quickly.

1: A New Morning in Toyland

I've got nothing to say about the first level.

2: Off to Toadstool Woods

I've got nothing to say about this shitty car autoscroller either.

3: Visiting A Friend

This is just going to Big Ears's house. At least there's some cool platforming stuff that can be done in this level by going up such tall trees and stuff, but really you could just complete the level by staying right on the ground.

4: Driving to Mr. Sparks

Another shitty autoscroller. This is the first time you see the cows and chickens though.

5: Helping With Repairs

Believe it or not, this level actually feels kind of like a fucking game. But there's still a lot of slow walking in singular directions, but hey, at least there's some PLATFORMING going on. Seriously this level is like a rock that you find beside a pile of dog puke, which is most of the rest of the game.
  • Around 16100 - I do a glitch here on the elevator.
  • 17683 - This is just a cute thing to do, that's all.
  • The fact that you're able to throw all 5 of your muffins/cupcakes before getting on the second elevator is just really sad.

6: Where is Bumpy Dog?

Yeah, literally. You have to go to the right through THE ENTIRE LEVEL!!! FOR LIKE 2-3 MINUTES!!! How could it get any more boring? The glitch at the end of this level is pretty cool though. It's another example of the glitch that happened on the elevator in the previous level.
I mean, was it really necessary to make the level involve THAT MUCH WALKING RIGHT? That whole level could have been summed up to about 30 seconds.

7: Out of Ice-Cream!

And the next level is even worse. Walking around an entire level. The entire long-ass song literally is done looping by the time it can be finished at its fastest. What were they thinking?!

8: The Missing Skittle Children

This level is actually another interesting level. It's interesting because it's an actual challenge. This level IS hard to beat. So, what I did before this level pretty much sums up what I did in this level. I adjusted the routing mainly for the car autoscroller stages before this level so that I had one coin left before getting to the 50th. Why did I do this?
Well, when you get 50 coins in this game, your health resets. The player pretty much HAS to take a lot of damage in this level. It's really difficult to avoid taking damage even when you're using tools. It only wastes a few frames to take damage rather than jumping over people, but you'd be surprised how few times jumping over the clowns and other enemies in this level doesn't work. You'd have to go through hell and high waters to wait until they're in a certain position otherwise, and that'd waste even more time.
Anyway, avoiding certain coins and getting certain coins didn't waste any time at all. It all added up to 49 by this level. This allowed me to take all the damage I needed, as in around the middle of the level I got a single coin and reset all 5 of my healths, whereas if this didn't happen I would have died. So at least there's some routing to be done for this game.
Also I know at one part in the level it looks like I might have accidentally pressed Right for a few frames. It only looks this way. I actually was doing the walking backwards glitch for a few frames right there for entertainment. I mean, hey, I was running out of options for this boring game.

9: Catch the Toyland Express!

Yet another autoscroller, but surprisingly this one isn't so bad. I'm only saying this of course because the road slants. This allows me to go against the slants in ways that make the car weirdly shake. This doesn't waste time, because the car's position just fixes itself back to the original afterwards, and the camera autoscrolls. The levels are done when the camera is done scrolling through them.

10: Special Delivery from Noddy

This is the crappiest excuse for a train level ever. I mean, there aren't even trains, they're train pieces. Anyway, so basically all those train things move automatically. Really, what's necessary is to get all 4 items as fast as possible. I tested several routes for this, and it turns out that the one used in the video is the fastest. It has to do with when the train thing for the flower pot and the kite are at the right positions. This route gets Noddy to go to these when they're at the right positions.
Anyway, there are some unique tricks for this level. If a train thing is moving towards you and you walk on it that slows you down, whereas if you walk on it while it's moving away from you it speeds you up. It's pretty obvious what you do in those kinds of situations. Anyway, when you walk towards a cart, instead of stopping like on a regular wall, you teleport to the top of it. Weird... Anyway, for the ones coming towards you, you can do this and take damage, teleporting you to a further part of the cart (somehow) than normal, but in all this actually wastes time since every time you take damage there's a certain amount of frames you have to wait before you can jump, so you'll just be going really slow because of escalation. It's faster to do a glitch where you jump right before this happens, thus appearing on the top and jumping off it at the quickest frame possible, eliminating all worry necessary about slowing you down because of escalation. There are a few times when for some reason this glitch/trick doesn't work, so we just have to jump on it normally then jump off. I have no explanation for why that is.

11: Special Delivery from Noddy (part 2, apparently not included in the level select)

This is another mostly right-moving level. Pretty boring. Nothing to really say, other than that when you give the last person their gift you have to wait a second before the level ends, which made me do the playaround of throwing a money bag.

12: Into the Dark Woods

Another autoscroller. Thankfully this is the last one in the game. Just like the autoscroller before this, this one has slants in the roads, so I once again abuse that.

13: The Hunt for Dinah Doll's Stall

Last level in the game. To be honest, it's not bad. A lot of it actually feels like you're playing a game. I really like the graphics. It gives you this sort of spooky woods feel. That's pretty much the only part of the game I can actually say is anywhere close to good. Like finding a second rock next to a pile of dog puke.
Anyway...
  • 61140 - The bouncy mushrooms here have a glitch where you can actually bounce on them from under them. That's really strange. This game really wasn't tested well...
  • 63367 for instance - I know it looks like it slows you down, but that's just the camera. The simple answer is it doesn't. It just stops you in midair for a second, so you don't move your Y position for a second, but X you keep moving. It's just that Noddy moves so damn slow it's hard to tell when he's moving and when he's not in midair if you slow the game down.
  • The input for the movie ends when Noddy touches the stall. The game scrolls through the ending text automatically (it actually can do this for other text in the game too, but pressing A sooner is faster). Like I said, there's no credits sequence. Not even a "The End" screen. It just takes you back to the title screen after that text is over.

A few useful RAM addresses

They're both in Combined WRAM, 1 byte, Little Endian, unsigned.
  • 04243A (1-byte) - Health
  • 04242A (2-byte) - Coin count
These are useful to look at sometimes. Especially the coin count one, since the game only tells you how many coins you have until a brief moment after you collect one.
I did have a bunch more at one point, but a flash drive with that on it broke. Oh well, these are really the only ones I found useful at all anyway.

Conclusion

A game like this should not take almost 18 minutes to complete at absolute fastest. 7 and a half minutes for Noddy and the Birthday Party was a perfectly fine amount of time to be seeing that game. But this... 18 minutes is just way, way, way too much. And they really could've taken out autoscrollers in a lot of the game. 4 autoscrollers that are almost exactly the same are just too many.

The future

Don't touch this game. Ever.
Anyway, if you do, just note that there is no 100% category. I've played this game for too long now, and so I know that it doesn't have one. There are no unlockables in the game. The coins are not set values, since they reset every time you collect 51. The junk in the scrapbook isn't unlockables btw, it's always there.

Suggested screenshots

I don't have a particular screenshot preference, but I would recommend doing it in a place in the middle of the game, where one of the glitches happens. It happens on the first elevator in Helping with Repairs, and again in the next level, Where is Bumpy Dog?.

And with that

Thanks for torturing yourself to watch this all the way through if you did, I guess. There's many more TASes of crappy games to come, so don't worry. xy2_ was right. It is possible not to be entertained by a TAS you made yourself. Though I am at least satisfied with it somewhat, especially that it's finally done. You don't even know the willpower it took to sit through this shit.
All the games I ever TAS were probably from at least someone's childhood. If this was your childhood, you probably barely remember this game, since you got bored of it even then. But whatever, at least I didn't have this game. I've never owned a copy. I did watch a Noddy cartoon when I was young though.

ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: There is really little to optimize with this game, it's just a matter of adjusting few jumps through the entire game. Rejecting for trivial gameplay.
ThunderAxe31: Since I consider this submission as a borderline case, and my judgment was questioned by multiple users, I decided to reset the submission status to "new".
Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: I've taken a close look at this movie, and whatever optimizable aspects are in it throughout. Especially early on, the movie starts slow with autoscrollers on a completely fixed timer, as well as "platforming" stages that literally only consist of walking forward without any slowdown factors. However, the game does actually get better at this as the later stages go on, with some genuine platforming technique and optimization present (if still slow and boring). Additionally, the movie did use some clever routing and planning for a few parts. In the end, the small handful of stages where some actual thought and work had to be put into optimization - most notably levels 8, 10, and especially the last level - push this movie over the line in regards to be considered a speedrunnable game.
So, while this movie is quite close to the minimum bar on triviality, it is acceptable, and as such I'm accepting this movie for the Vault.
feos: Pub.


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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5772: SnowySideofTown's GBA Noddy: A Day in Toyland in 17:52.19
EZGames69
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beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep. wont be able to get that out of my head as for the run itself, very slow but very optimized. meh vote.
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the shitgame TASer strikes again! EDIT:it just ocurred to me you could feel insulted by the words, but i really mean it as a compliment,you're my heroine for tasing the most boring stuff that exists and making the site more complete. happy new years guys
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While I think bad games have their place on this site... The fact it's a game for small children (very easy) with large autoscroller sections... This is really meh. There's a few times the camera jerks, which I assume had something to do with turning around because you're walking backwards (around 4:21). Or did it hit a wall? In either case, it at least seems like the fastest submission for this game the site will ever see. Giving a "meh".
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Meerkov wrote:
While I think bad games have their place on this site... The fact it's a game for small children (very easy) with large autoscroller sections... This is really meh. There's a few times the camera jerks, which I assume had something to do with turning around because you're walking backwards (around 4:21). Or did it hit a wall? In either case, it at least seems like the fastest submission for this game the site will ever see. Giving a "meh".
Yes, the camera jerks every time I walk backwards. I do this quickly for a small shock to the audience, and because there's really not much else to do in this game for entertainment, especially since there's such a huge gap of time when you're doing basically nothing. I end up doing this trick a lot in the level Where Is Bumpy Dog?. Note that this does not waste time. There is a shit ton of time in this game where all you're doing is walking left or walking right, so it's really hard to come up with shit to do during that large gap of time. I think it would probably be accepted to Vault though, because there are a considerable amount of small moments when frame perfection does matter, especially when going up some platforms, and there's some routing in the run, such as with the 50 coins trick, and glitching for fun, such as with the elevator glitch.
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om, nom, nom... juicy!
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Is this game really ineligible even for vault? The tier rules says the run must be distinguishable of a real time gameplay. Although most of this run is indeed trivial, there are a few sections with frame perfect inputs and even glitch abuse, which sets it apart of a RTA.
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BrunoVisnadi wrote:
Is this game really ineligible even for vault? The tier rules says the run must be distinguishable of a real time gameplay.
Indeed, if we exclude the playarounds with the hopping and the camera, it gets really impossible to distinguish it from an unassisted play.
BrunoVisnadi wrote:
Although most of this run is indeed trivial, there are a few sections with frame perfect inputs and even glitch abuse, which sets it apart of a RTA.
You said that right, there are few sections that require actual optimization, across the whole 17:52.19. And also note that the frame precision is just eating away a ridicously tiny amount of frames. The game is trivial, and the run is as well. I hope this reply will suffice. If not, then I could start a research for all the precedents of rejection for game triviality. With that said, I must add that I really apprecciate TASes made with game titles that are less known and less apprecciated by the mass, but only if it turn out in a run that shows off superhuman play.
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How come this submission isn't listed under http://tasvideos.org/RejectedSubmissions.html Also some of the recent rejected runs all have reasons listed as "NA". Is that a site bug, or intended?
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jlun2 wrote:
How come this submission isn't listed under http://tasvideos.org/RejectedSubmissions.html
I see it on the bottom of the list. It's also in the Subs-Rej.html.
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Indeed, if we exclude the playarounds with the hopping and the camera, it gets really impossible to distinguish it from an unassisted play.
I disagree; this run looks very different from an unassisted play video. I'd agree that this game is pretty boring to watch and clearly made for children. But that makes it prime Vault material, as the main reason behind the Vault was to get rid of "poor game choice" as a rejection criterion. "Easy" is not the same as "trivial".
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Radiant wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Indeed, if we exclude the playarounds with the hopping and the camera, it gets really impossible to distinguish it from an unassisted play.
I disagree; this run looks very different from an unassisted play video.
When I said "unassisted play" I was referring to an actual attempt to beat the game as fast as possible, not to a casual play that wastes time on purpose.
Radiant wrote:
I'd agree that this game is pretty boring to watch and clearly made for children. But that makes it prime Vault material, as the main reason behind the Vault was to get rid of "poor game choice" as a rejection criterion.
Still, this doesn't mean that anything can be accepted for Vault.
Radiant wrote:
"Easy" is not the same as "trivial".
This game is both easy and trivial.
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
You said that right, there are few sections that require actual optimization, across the whole 17:52.19. And also note that the frame precision is just eating away a ridiculously tiny amount of frames. The game is trivial, and the run is as well.
I apologize if I sound pushy, but I don't think there is any rule about what proportion of the run must be nontrivial or how many frames the nontrivial sections must save. There are precedents such as Desert Bus, which can't be distinguished of a real time run at all. This run can, though, and as I said earlier it even abuses of a few platform glitches. Of course it's an extremely boring game to watch, but extremely boring games can be and are accepted. http://tasvideos.org/3120M.html
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Just a note: Desert Bus wasn't accepted.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
Just a note: Desert Bus wasn't accepted.
That's what I meant, sorry if my post wasn't clear. My point is that games that aren't eligible for vault are those like Desert Bus, in which it is literally impossible to distinguish it of a normal gameplay. It is not the situation here, as Radiant also pointed out, this run is different of a real time playthrough.
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Desert Bus is obviously an extreme case, so it's silly to use it as an example. It is not the minimum bar that rules like this are held to. The point of the triviality/must distinguish from unassisted play rule is that TASVideos, including the Vault, still is a site for tool-assisted speedruns. We're not here to publish movies that can be replicated by hand (or at least without some extreme dedicated effort). To that point, if a movie is replicable within a small enough margin of error in real time (depending on the run, but a general idea for a run of this length would be no more than a few seconds), it's considered too trivial to TAS, and there's no interest in hosting movies/game records that might as well not be TASes. I haven't seen enough of this movie myself to judge yet, but can anybody show me where they see optimization that's sufficiently non-trivial or TASlike that a realtime speedrun playthrough wouldn't be able to achieve with some practice?
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I think it's possible by humans with some pactrice and some mistakes of course.
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Yes, I also questioned the rejection before. I first want to note that in the last level of the game, there's a lot more optimization than previous levels. Particularly the moment where I fall through the branches is a trick that's pretty hard to do real-time. Jumping up several platforms at a time in such a frame-perfect way is also not very easy. The jump heights in this game are not fixed, and literally depend on frame-perfect action to be done just right (and only because this is such a crappy game). And the platform glitches are certainly not easy to replicate in real time; they have to be quite frame perfect to be done successfully, even though they don't save any time. Those aren't easy. The level "The Missing Skittle Children" is done based on routing beforehand. A real time runner would have to do a lot of work to memorize all those autoscrollers perfectly to get just the right amount of coins and not to get hit once by any of the objects on the ground. I routed it so that I'd get 50 coins in that level and be able to regenerate my health, allowing me to take more damage later. That's really hard to do with that amount of routing preciseness. The level itself is actually pretty difficult. You say this game is easy. Yeah, most of it is, but not this level. Normally, doing this level would rely on you having to do crazy maneuvering and shit to jump over at least some of the enemies rather than just skipping through them with damage. So yeah, this does differ from real time quite a lot, even though it doesn't look like it from afar. Just try doing all four of the autoscrollers without getting hit once real-time. The autoscrollers are really long too, and the hit detection in the autoscrollers is terrible. Also, what about Special Delivery from Noddy part 1 (the train level)? That level definitely has a considerable enough amount of action in it to be considered Vault-worthy. That level actually took hell to route. The amount of rerecords in this movie actually doesn't reflect all the rerecords it took to make this. The routing for the train level; I had to try 5 different routes. That's right. Doing the whole level 5 times through, TAS speed. This was one of the fastest routes, as in another one got me the exact same amount of time but whatever I just stuck with this one. Plus on that level, you have the train tricks which have to be extremely frame precise to work properly. I really highly recommend that this be rejudged. There's a lot that doesn't seem to have been taken into consideration here. Yes, there are relatively few parts that need to be optimized, but the parts that need to be optimized are solid and hard to distinguish from actual real-time attempts. The train level, the kid collecting level, and the final level in the game where you get the stall are all examples of levels in the game that are technically impressive enough to pass for Vault standards IMO. Even though the platform glitches don't save time, they're also nearly impossible to do perfectly real-time like was done in the TAS. Please, please reconsider this decision. Not anything against the judge, but it didn't seem like very much time was spent judging this. I know the judge was frustrated by me using an earlier version, and TAStudio kept crashing, so it's at least understandable. But in process, the entire run and the entire game should be taken into exceedingly careful consideration no matter what before the final judgment is made. Please do not be offended by what I am saying, as I'm not trying to attack your position as a judge. I am only trying to be constructive and criticize in a positive manner. Thank you all for bringing this up, and reading what I have to say. When responding or rejudging, please take all the points mentioned into careful consideration. Please know that this run did take quite an amount of effort to complete. It certainly took more effort than my Victorious: Taking the Lead submission, which definitely is a trivial game. But this game is quite different than that in many respects.
Experienced player (674)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1772
Location: Brasil
i also second this motion to rejudge,looks like new judges bring new judgements to the site and i don't want to see it go back to "vaultless" times,where you had to pick a game people liked to get it published,this is even worse than the garou playaround rejection because it actually goes against our rules and past judgements tl;dr:this game has a place in our vault
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Well, I can see where the judge is coming from, as the runner's explanatory text is very negative about the game itself. It's pretty obvious that this is not a good game. However, the Vault contains numerous runs for bad games, including but not limited to Cheetahmen and E.T. The judgment suggests that playing the game is trivial (which basically means "poor game choice"). But it shouldn't matter how easy it is to finish the game. The question is if completing the game as fast as possible is trivial. I can think of numerous games where getting to the end isn't all that hard; for instance Clock Tower is pretty easy if you know where to go, and indeed the TAS is only a few seconds faster than the RTA. But it is faster, and many games that are easy to complete can still surprise you by being TAS'ed much faster than expected. As the runner wrote a lengthy explanation of what he did, and followed it up with a second post explaining where optimization matters in this game, there is clearly much more to this run than, as the judgment suggests, "just a matter of adjusting few jumps". Simply put, having numerous instances of frame-perfect timing makes a run impossible to duplicate without TAS'ing tools, which means the run is not trivial. And hence, assuming no optimization flaws turn up, it should have a place in the Vault.
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1352)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Ready Steady Yeti wrote:
I really highly recommend that this be rejudged. There's a lot that doesn't seem to have been taken into consideration here. Yes, there are relatively few parts that need to be optimized, but the parts that need to be optimized are solid and hard to distinguish from actual real-time attempts. The train level, the kid collecting level, and the final level in the game where you get the stall are all examples of levels in the game that are technically impressive enough to pass for Vault standards IMO. Even though the platform glitches don't save time, they're also nearly impossible to do perfectly real-time like was done in the TAS. Please, please reconsider this decision. Not anything against the judge, but it didn't seem like very much time was spent judging this. I know the judge was frustrated by me using an earlier version, and TAStudio kept crashing, so it's at least understandable. But in process, the entire run and the entire game should be taken into exceedingly careful consideration no matter what before the final judgment is made. Please do not be offended by what I am saying, as I'm not trying to attack your position as a judge. I am only trying to be constructive and criticize in a positive manner.
The fact that I took less time for judging this submission compared to the previous ones doesn't mean that I neglected any determinant factor, nor did I let my personal game preferences or the unability to use TAStudio affect my decision. The documentation you provided in your last post is supposed to demonstrate that the run is not trivial, at least in some sections; however, run triviality is not the only reason for my decision of rejection. The other problem is that it's the game itself being trivial, due to the optimizable sections being immensely small in comparison to the overall gameplay.
Ready Steady Yeti wrote:
Thank you all for bringing this up, and reading what I have to say. When responding or rejudging, please take all the points mentioned into careful consideration. Please know that this run did take quite an amount of effort to complete. It certainly took more effort than my Victorious: Taking the Lead submission, which definitely is a trivial game. But this game is quite different than that in many respects.
I see this really is a borderline case, and many people are questioning my judgement, especially the author. For these reasons, I'm currently considering if resetting the submission to "new" state and letting a different judge work on it. In the meantime, I would appreciate to see some new, and different arguments.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Editor, Experienced player (847)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
xy2_ was right. It is possible not to be entertained by a TAS you made yourself.
In that case, I don't think there's much point in making these types of runs. Let's take a quotation from True:
True wrote:
The art of TAS has surpassed merely playing a game. TASing is the game itself, and sometimes even that is eclipsed by making things play that game for you too. Metagaming of sorts. The best players of this game know how to break all the rules, and this necessitates understanding the architecture and peculiarities of the target, and of the tools used to work said target.
For people that engage in reverse-engineering, the last part is familiar. TASing is comparable to it in a few ways: you have a target (a fixed program/game which you cannot modify) and exploit/find bugs/glitches in the target. Doing so requires understanding of the target, whether it be just surface analysis (casual 'glitch-hunting' to understand the mechanics of the game) to full-fledged disassembly (requiring an extreme amount of time and mastery). The difference is that the TAS, instead of just stopping at finding exploits, uses this new knowledge in order to make the TAS. However, the main difference between these two is the nature of the target. For a TAS, the game is of critical importance: even the most optimised TAS will pale in entertainment behind even a less skillful TAS of a high-profile game. Thankfully, the TASer has the choice of the target. Where am I leading here? In my opinion, TASing games like this is completely missing the point of what I said above: TASing a bad game doesn't make it easier for the TASer; it actually makes it way harder! It is a surface approach to TASing, which amounts to the same thing as just playing the game casually, in my opinion. If the game is bad, but has elements that, in TAS, can make it a good game, then it's worth it. But this game has none of that. Is this game good? No. Noddy moves so slowly that you would probably be capable of holding the right button a good 20 seconds without nothing happening. The car levels are slow and boring. There is no way to speed anything up. (In contrast, real games don't just consist of walking left and right.) So, the only thing left to optimize is turning around and jumping. As it turns out, these are basic platformer mechanics; and a frame perfect turning around and jumping.. it's kind of the point of a TAS to be frame perfect, because you can control every single input on every single frame. Maybe this game has some value for record keeping? Well, nobody speedruns, plays, or even cares about this game at all. In fact, it's hard to find a person that cares about it at all, considering even its maker - the one that probably, out of all the people here, knows the most about this game, considers it crappy. So, there's not much point in making these types of runs, because the medium is just bad. In my opinion, TASing is a very unique activity, which is hard to master but can create very good runs - but there's no point to bog it down with bad games which make even the TASer look bad. If you don't even enjoy the game or like the run you're doing, then there's no point to make the run. Taking TASing as an independent activity in of itself, and not as something which is very tied to a game, leads to these kinds of runs, in my opinion - the runner doesn't TAS a real game, or something which they enjoy, but rather something bad (on purpose?) for close to no reason. Maybe it is something that you can do in isolation, and if that makes you learn new concepts, then go for it - on the other hand, if they are just boring runs on bad games done for the sake of them, that you don't like, it's not really good for publication even in Vault.
Editor, Player (123)
Joined: 8/3/2014
Posts: 204
Location: USA
xy2_ wrote:
xy2_ was right. It is possible not to be entertained by a TAS you made yourself.
In that case, I don't think there's much point in making these types of runs. Let's take a quotation from True:
True wrote:
The art of TAS has surpassed merely playing a game. TASing is the game itself, and sometimes even that is eclipsed by making things play that game for you too. Metagaming of sorts. The best players of this game know how to break all the rules, and this necessitates understanding the architecture and peculiarities of the target, and of the tools used to work said target.
For people that engage in reverse-engineering, the last part is familiar. TASing is comparable to it in a few ways: you have a target (a fixed program/game which you cannot modify) and exploit/find bugs/glitches in the target. Doing so requires understanding of the target, whether it be just surface analysis (casual 'glitch-hunting' to understand the mechanics of the game) to full-fledged disassembly (requiring an extreme amount of time and mastery). The difference is that the TAS, instead of just stopping at finding exploits, uses this new knowledge in order to make the TAS. However, the main difference between these two is the nature of the target. For a TAS, the game is of critical importance: even the most optimised TAS will pale in entertainment behind even a less skillful TAS of a high-profile game. Thankfully, the TASer has the choice of the target. Where am I leading here? In my opinion, TASing games like this is completely missing the point of what I said above: TASing a bad game doesn't make it easier for the TASer; it actually makes it way harder! It is a surface approach to TASing, which amounts to the same thing as just playing the game casually, in my opinion. If the game is bad, but has elements that, in TAS, can make it a good game, then it's worth it. But this game has none of that. Is this game good? No. Noddy moves so slowly that you would probably be capable of holding the right button a good 20 seconds without nothing happening. The car levels are slow and boring. There is no way to speed anything up. (In contrast, real games don't just consist of walking left and right.) So, the only thing left to optimize is turning around and jumping. As it turns out, these are basic platformer mechanics; and a frame perfect turning around and jumping.. it's kind of the point of a TAS to be frame perfect, because you can control every single input on every single frame. Maybe this game has some value for record keeping? Well, nobody speedruns, plays, or even cares about this game at all. In fact, it's hard to find a person that cares about it at all, considering even its maker - the one that probably, out of all the people here, knows the most about this game, considers it crappy. So, there's not much point in making these types of runs, because the medium is just bad. In my opinion, TASing is a very unique activity, which is hard to master but can create very good runs - but there's no point to bog it down with bad games which make even the TASer look bad. If you don't even enjoy the game or like the run you're doing, then there's no point to make the run. Taking TASing as an independent activity in of itself, and not as something which is very tied to a game, leads to these kinds of runs, in my opinion - the runner doesn't TAS a real game, or something which they enjoy, but rather something bad (on purpose?) for close to no reason. Maybe it is something that you can do in isolation, and if that makes you learn new concepts, then go for it - on the other hand, if they are just boring runs on bad games done for the sake of them, that you don't like, it's not really good for publication even in Vault.
I see your point. However, as said above, the quality of the game is not really taken into account here. The reason this is a borderline case is because there are some parts of the game that still have to be optimized, and which still differ from non-TAS play. No matter who cares about the game, or who likes it and who doesn't, that isn't a direct decision-making factor for Vault publication. As for the game, yes it is boring, and yes most parts of gameplay is just walking right/left or autoscrolling, there are some factors in the game that are quite unique to TASes. These include not being hit once on the autoscrollers that have crappy hit detection, knowing every single coin you have to get in order to end up with 49 coins by the Skittle level (which is actually a big reason I continued TASing it in the first place), showing off frame perfect glitches. Forgive me, let me elaborate more on frame-perfect glitches, as I didn't include one in my last post. The platform glitches, though they don't save time, still pretty major. And I mean you have to literally be frame perfect to get these to work. Trying to replicate these non TAS, it takes 20-30 tries to get correctly on the flat platform and OVER FIFTY TRIES on the elevator (which is a really long time of the elevator going up and down), let alone one single time while just walking like in the TAS. Also, in the last level there are a series of mushrooms you have to bounce up to get up the platforms. I do a glitch here to uppercut on the mushrooms. Doing the mushroom bounces this perfectly I think is nearly impossible to do without TAS tools. LITERALLLY impossible. Finally, the train teleport+jump glitches have to literally be frame perfect or else you take damage (in the train level). This is mentioned in the submission text. So, the game looks basic, but there are superhuman elements to it that clearly distinguish it from non-TAS play. I would still consider it a game by our standards, though just barely. I and many others think this should be able to make it to Vault. Also, remember Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Editor, Experienced player (847)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
Then, let's clarify my position. The question: is this game eligible for vault? Even a simple glance could tell you that it is not entertaining enough to be in Moons. In fact, if this game was interesting enough, we wouldn't even be speaking at all! To answer this, it's interesting to look at why Vault was made. Before Vault, TASes were made to show mastery over a target (as I developed earlier), but there were also TASes which, when made, simply ended less interesting than others. Unfortunately, these TASes were rejected because they were not entertaining enough, by the standard of the judges. There are flaws with this (mostly that games which a small body can judge non-entertaining can be entertaining to some), which, among other things, led to creation of the Vault. However, the important thing is that the Vault, as stated, is "for record-keeping purposes." Even the Vault - which, by its design, is a "dumping" tier for less entertaining games; scary black icon, separate portion for vault and moon/stars - still needs the criteria of the game actually being a game. There's no acceptance of bad games that don't even qualify as games in the vault. So, our criteria here is a game which qualify as a real game. What's a real game? It's defined a little in the Vault rules, under Game choices. I'll cover some other criteria as well, but the main idea is justifying if this game is a real game or not. Why do we need this distinction? Because otherwise, there is no limit to what kinds of "games" you can submit; whether they be even games or just simple program with no goals, educational games, visual novels (which are not games), choose-your-own-adventure. Or, more closely to this case, games which masquerade as one but are not (Barney's Hide and Seek, for example.) And, since Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was brought up, I'll try to evaluate it as well along with this game. Let's evaluate the two main points needed for this game to get in Vault: Game is definable as a game Both of these are definable as games; they have a start, an ending, with gameplay throughout. Non-trivial Here, I'll cover the two other points: * the game must be non-trivial. That would mean, a game that consists only of going right would be rejected (trivial.) * the game needs to stand out from unassisted play. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is non-trivial. Can the same be said from this game? Well, the game is certainly easy, it's certainly slow, but it's also non-trivial. There is no "trivial strategy" that can be used here; it's a platformer with goals, you can die, there are parts with difficulty. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stands out from unassisted play. The majority of the run is very different from even the best speedrun. Is this game the same? We are answered: it stands out from unassisted play, because there are hard things, and you can fail at doing these hard things. We are also answered: there are tricks you can do TAS-only, therefore it is different from unassisted play. For hard things that you can fail at: this is a rather weak argument. If I spent some time training at this game unassisted, then speedrun it, I would not fail at those glitch segments, even if they are frame perfect. Because the rest of the game is very easy anyways, with only those parts to train, it would be easy to match a TAS. So, let's give the author the benefit of the doubt, and say that, the second argument, there are tricks you can do TAS-only (and not without a real human getting enough practice) is true. Does that make the game different enough from unassisted play? My answer is no. Maybe the judge's answer will be different, who knows? The vast majority of the game is either autoscrollers or very easy movement. The only thing that would distinguish a TAS and a non-TAS run would be these small TAS-only segments. But otherwhise, the runs would be the same! Here there is no difference between TAS and non-TAS. The game/program simply doens't allow enough variance that speedy runs differ in any way. Conclusion So, I can say: this game is trivial. And this brings us to the very first point I made in my first post. There is no point in TASing these games. Even TAS does not separate from unassisted play, the games are just too bad to be able to give TASing material, let alone entertainement material. I think it would be better to focus on TASing real games, for improving as a TASer and for the audience. Don't TAS for the sake of TASing, TAS a game instead. These rules were made for a reason, to avoid exactly these kinds of bad games while allowing the original intent of the Vault. And the reason why; read my first post again. And, if it's not clear enough what I am really arguing against here: I'm arguing against TASing bad games in general. It goes against the spirit of TASing, and has no real point. The rules we have (notability notably) are a nice cutoff point now, because if we accept games that just have some things different enough in TAS, that have some cool tricks, as in, we follow RSY's definition, then what stops me from making a game that just walks right on a platform with some holes in the ground, and then say "but this TAS is different from a would-be unassisted play, because my jumps were optimal"? What stops me from taking a hundred garbageware games with a same engine and different branding, one or two glitches that make them "stand out" according to RSY's definition, and them submit them in droves? It's actually worse than useless, because people might expect something useful and waste 30 seconds of their lifes. People looking at submissions may not even see good runs because of all the bad games. And if they get accepted because of some dumb "following the rules" because, well, technically, these are games for RSY, then we just end up with a bunch of wasted time encoding and 100 new TASes that nobody has interest about, not even the maker. This is hyperbole, but it illustrates my point a little.
Editor, Player (123)
Joined: 8/3/2014
Posts: 204
Location: USA
xy2_ wrote:
Then, let's clarify my position. The question: is this game eligible for vault? Even a simple glance could tell you that it is not entertaining enough to be in Moons. To answer this, it's interesting to look at why Vault was made. Before Vault, TASes were made to show mastery over a target (as I developed earlier), but there were also TASes which, when made, simply ended less interesting than others. Unfortunately, these TASes were rejected because they were not entertaining enough, by the standard of the judges. There are flaws with this (mostly that games which a small body can judge non-entertaining can be entertaining to some), which, among other things, led to creation of the Vault. However, the important thing is that the Vault, as stated, is "for record-keeping purposes." Even the Vault - which, by its design, is a "dumping" tier for less entertaining games; scary black icon, separate portion for vault and moon/stars - still needs the criteria of the game actually being a game. There's no acceptance of bad games that don't even qualify as games in the vault. So, our criteria here is a game which qualify as a real game. What's a real game? It's defined a little in the Vault rules, under Game choices. I'll cover some other criteria as well, but the main idea is justifying if this game is a real game or not. Why do we need this distinction? Because otherwise, there is no limit to what kinds of "games" you can submit; whether they be even games or just simple program with no goals, educational games, visual novels (which are not games), choose-your-own-adventure. Or, more closely to this case, games which masquerade as one but are not (Barney's Hide and Seek, for example.) And, since Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was brought up, I'll try to evaluate it as well along with this game. Let's evaluate the two main points needed for this game to get in Vault: Game is definable as a game Both of these are definable as games; they have a start, an ending, with gameplay throughout. Non-trivial Here, I'll cover the two other points: * the game must be non-trivial. That would mean, a game that consists only of going right would be rejected (trivial.) * the game needs to stand out from unassisted play. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is non-trivial. Can the same be said from this game? Well, the game is certainly easy, it's certainly slow, but it's also non-trivial. There is no "trivial strategy" that can be used here; it's a platformer with goals, you can die, there are parts with difficulty. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stands out from unassisted play. The majority of the run is very different from even the best speedrun. Is this game the same? We are answered: it stands out from unassisted play, because there are hard things, and you can fail at doing these hard things. We are also answered: there are tricks you can do TAS-only, therefore it is different from unassisted play. For hard things that you can fail at: this is a rather weak argument. If I spent some time training at this game unassisted, then speedrun it, I would not fail at those glitch segments, even if they are frame perfect. Because the rest of the game is very easy anyways, with only those parts to train, it would be easy to match a TAS. So, let's give the author the benefit of the doubt, and say that, the second argument, there are tricks you can do TAS-only (and not without a real human getting enough practice) is true. Does that make the game different enough from unassisted play? My answer is no. Maybe the judge's answer will be different, who knows? The vast majority of the game is either autoscrollers or very easy movement. The only thing that would distinguish a TAS and a non-TAS run would be these small TAS-only segments. But otherwhise, the runs would be the same! Here there is no difference between TAS and non-TAS. Conclusion So, I can say: this game is trivial. And this brings us to the very first point I made in my first post. There is no point in TASing these games. Even TAS does not separate from unassisted play, the games are just too bad to be able to give TASing material, let alone entertainement material. I think it would be better to focus on TASing real games, for improving as a TASer and for the audience. Don't TAS for the sake of TASing, TAS a game instead.
Everything that you said on the first 3 quarters of your post supports this game being entered into the Vault. Let's look at your post. First, at the top, you say that "Both of these are definable as games; they have a start, an ending, with gameplay throughout." After that, you negate this statement by saying "I think it would be better to focus on TASing real games, for improving as a TASer and for the audience. Don't TAS for the sake of TASing, TAS a game instead." So make up your mind; don't say two things that contradict each other, especially not in the same post, or else your point becomes less clear. I would rather say that our definition of what is and isn't a game and what is and isn't trivial actually go hand-in-hand. I would call Noddy: A Day in Toyland a game, for sure. Let's compare it to some other games that I've TASed in the past; one that already has been rejected, and one that was never submitted but definitely would be rejected. http://tasvideos.org/5332S.html This is DS Victorious: Taking the Lead. It's a game that consists purely of time-based rhythm minigames. Basically the same thing as autoscrollers, except worse. The only parts, literally, that look superhuman are the text and menuing. That's not considered part of the actual game itself; you might as well just click on links on the web at superhuman speeds. Also consider the amount of effort that cannot be taken into this game. I mean we're talking about an almost 45 minute movie with only 2.5k rerecords, and I was seriously doing my best work and effort I could with this game. The only thing that I could have done to put more effort in was pressing the rerecord button over and over for no reason other than just to do it. Noddy: A Day in Toyland took an exponentially larger amount of effort and rerecording than Victorious did. Another example is the game https://youtu.be/HdYoU_8qr74 DS The Story of Noah's Ark. Ironic how I keep mentioning DS games? Well, this game technically is a game (minigame collection) but the run itself does not even exhibit any of the game's actual gameplay. The only completion goal in this game that you can really do is to flip through the storybook and get to the end. By the way, I also happened to test it out, and you can stop reading the storybook in the middle, but when you bring it back up later you have to start again on the page you left off, so no, there is no real ending skip. This run would get rejected really fast if ever submitted. In fact, I've actually thought about submitting this as an April Fools submission. Maybe this year... These are both examples of games that are rejected for trivial gameplay or only being non-trivial in skipping menuing and text. Technically the very beginning of the Noah's Ark run exhibits superhuman gameplay that cannot be replicated by an actual person. Pressing the DS stylus twice in only 3 frames to skip to the book is not able to be done by a human being. But again, that's just menuing. Another thing I want to really point out is the effort it took to make this. As I said above, the final Noddy: A Day in Toyland submission, with 5k rerecords, doesn't even reflect the entirety of the actual rerecord count, as there were parts where I had to route the train level by doing it over and over again 5 times on separate movie files (I always back up my movies anyway to stay safe, and every version of them). But 5k rerecords in itself is more than enough for an 18 minute movie of a mostly easy game. As for these: "* the game must be non-trivial. That would mean, a game that consists only of going right would be rejected (trivial.) * the game needs to stand out from unassisted play." Just think about it like this. Hypothetical situation: assume that most of the rest of the parts of this game that are trivial are literally taken out, and the entire run consisted only of the non-trivial parts of the game. Would it still be accepted then? The answer is yes, it would be accepted. So, now add in all the extensive non-trivial sections. It's still the same thing. So yes, the run would be accepted. Is the game trivial? No, it's not. I mentioned several examples earlier of glitches and tricks that are almost impossible to replicate perfectly in one single sitting like is done in the TAS. I want to especially stress bouncing up those mushrooms perfectly in the last level. To be fair with you here, when I TAS games, it's often that I'll sort of mess around with the tricks and stuff without using slowdowns or savestates just to sort of get a feel for what I'm about to do in the TAS. So yeah, I know both the TAS capabilities and non-TAS capabilities of every game I TAS quite well; a TASer is supposed to really know their game really well. So, in that particular part of the TAS, I actually kept trying to go up those mushrooms with even a close amount of perfection to the TAS, and not once was I able to bounce on them from below, as is done in the TAS. Not a single time. Sure, you can go up them normally without missing a mushroom, that's easy, but of course it wastes time and it doesn't look nearly as perfect as the TAS does. I only brought up Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because you were suggesting that extremely boring games are not worth TASing. I guess DJMH may be viewed as an exceptional case to that theory if you think about it, though, because the game has received a cult following in recent years for being so bad now because of AVGN stressing it so much in his videos. But there are plenty more examples of boring games that arguably are not "worth TASing", such as Postman Pat and the Greendale Rocket, as mentioned in the submission text, but it still got accepted. I don't agree with your philosophy about which games are worth TASing and which ones aren't. Don't get me wrong, I see where you're coming from; lots of TASers here have given similar arguments to me in other situations. But the fact of the matter is that when I TAS, I'm being impartial. I'm not at all focusing on the quality of the game; only the technical aspects that need to be considered in order to make the most optimized TAS possible. In other words, I'm not even a human being. ...that was a joke. But seriously, complain about the game all you want, and trust me, I know the game is bad, but that doesn't mean it doesn't belong. It also doesn't mean that there is any reason why it shouldn't be TASed. Arguably, to make a more complete TASVideos site, as many games as possible that would even closely pass for Vault, or by a chance get even better than that, should be submitted. Another good thing about this whole thing is that sometimes judges and staff need to be challenged in these sort of borderline situations. This helps improve the accuracy of the judging system and the experience of the judges. It may also challenge certain prerequisites or rules, or perhaps it may cause the rules to be written differently or more clearly; some people have even suggested changing the way they are worded because of this particular situation. So, every TAS, especially ones that can be published here, has its benefits. Also, every TAS helps TASers learn new things and helps them to increase their own experience. This is why a TASer recently submitted a run of an extremely easy game; that Barney game. Even though I think it'd be rejected, it still was a milestone in his own personal achievements one way or another. But whatever your philosophy is about what is or isn't "worth TASing", that's not really directly connected with Vault rules. The process is different from the result; any runs that are rejected simply cannot be published on this site, but they still can have value elsewhere, such as YouTube.