Goal is to get the map in every level, then defeat the boss.
Chester has a possible velocity of 0 to 3, with 3 being his speed while running or jumping mid-run (unless he's underwater where jumping is slower than running).
He moves slower on slants so I try to jump over them at every opportunity.
After landing from jumps onto a flat surface Chester usually does a short bounce. I try to turn this to my advantage whenever possible.
Upon landing after bouncing on an enemy Chester has to start his running animation again, so I avoid jumping on enemies if I can.
High jump is always the same height & is necessary to break through blocks from below.
Chester can "swim" up to 3 times to gain extra height in mid air. This counter resets after bouncing on an enemy. I use this repeatedly in the run to help hit bosses on the first possible frame.
He can also grab onto the sides of platforms & pull himself up.
Pressing down causes Chester to fall a little bit faster.
It's possible in some cases to despawn enemies or even items like the map by approaching them in a certain direction.
Stage comments:
Not-So-Great Falls
As you can see at the end there's a quirk where you can be in the "middle" of a platform after jumping from below. Not used anywhere else in the run.
The plane boss is manipulated to keep appearing from the same side so that I can use air swims to repeatedly hit it.
For the very last hit, landing on the plane as soon as possible actually wastes time because you have to wait for the dead boss to slowly move off-screen before the fight actually ends. I instead wait to hit him on the most optimal frame.
Lostin
This is the only level I have to spend any time underwater.
I had to change my position slightly on the very last hit on the boss to avoid getting hit myself.
Un-Clearwater
This boss has three hitboxes: the two larger heads and the smaller head on top. Hitting the smaller head causes the boss to shoot projectiles that take too much time to avoid.
It takes 44(!) hits on the larger heads total to kill this boss. However if you accumulate 23 hits on the larger heads and then hit the top head for the 24th hit he will instantly die.
Little Shock
This boss is really boring! He looks like Karnov.
Omahog
Despawned a pitchfork hazard on the first cow platform.
Caused noticeable lag by spawning the maximum number of bombs on the boss.
Wallup
Had to stop my run just briefly to avoid the 2nd boulder.
This boss is really as easy as he looks.
Numb
Careful use of the jump bounce at the very end.
Had a hard time staying underneath the hitbox for the boss's spiked ball attack.
Quakersfield
Another careful use of the bounce to get the map.
Rally
I was able to end the movie early by orienting myself such that Chester continues bouncing automatically.
Possible improvements:
Test more on despawning certain enemies.
Probably possible to cut frames on some boss fights (especially in Un-Clearwater).
Also probably possible to end the movie on an earlier frame on Rally with more clever input.
It might be more entertaining to see this done on Easy to shorten the boss fights.
I honestly really liked this TAS. I don't think a switch to Easy difficulty is needed, most the bosses are fairly short even on Hard so they don't wear out their welcome to me. Only exception is that one cloud boss, which I feel you could have had some more opportunities for entertainment but ah well.
Did you record using OBS because you wanted to have input displayed? Otherwise, doing a proper temporary encode using the built in record avi/wav function isn't that difficult if you follow the steps here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16971 and with the folder linked here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=450534#450534
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
The game is indeed relatively simple but it's short and there's obvious techniques used to maintain speed and the like.
EDIT: To clarify if I had to vote on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it around a 6.5, but given my expectations going into the movie, I ended up liking it more than I expected.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
ThunderAxe31, please don't read the following as being spoken in a rude/disrespectful tone; it's not intended to be. I recognize that you have claimed this run for judgement.Why one particular individual likes or finds a run entertaining shouldn't matter in determining if the run is perceived as entertaining to the audience as a whole. Though I can see how the 'why' may make a difference between moon/star tier.
Everyone has their own tastes. If multiple people disagree on entertainment value, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with varying perspectives because opinions are opinions.
In this particular case, Memory was able to describe the 'why'; but sometimes people enjoy things for reasons they cannot appropriately articulate in words.
I am assuming (hopefully correctly) that you are simply looking for more information with which to determine your judgement of this run, but calling specific individual(s) out to elaborate their opinion(s) shouldn't be necessary. I'd encourage a general request for more discussion/elaboration of opinions instead, and then those who wish to elaborate can do so.
Another general thought regarding judges... I'm of the opinion that a judge who has claimed a run should withhold their own personal opinion from the forum until after judgement has been made so as not to potentially skew the forum conversation one way or the other. In an ideal world, it wouldn't. But we unfortunately don't live in an ideal world.
DISCLAIMER: I have not yet watched this run, but will be doing so as I am able.
EDIT: To clarify if I had to vote on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it around a 6.5, but given my expectations going into the movie, I ended up liking it more than I expected.
I see what you mean, I also happened sometimes to apprecciate a movie more because of my personal tastes rather than objective reasons.
By the way, 6.5 is still not enough to warrant Moons tier in my opinion, especially since the hard mode didn't add anything except more HP to the bosses, which only resulted in more repetitiveness.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Why one particular individual likes or finds a run entertaining shouldn't matter in determining if the run is perceived as entertaining to the audience as a whole. Though I can see how the 'why' may make a difference between moon/star tier.
I agree. The fact is that I felt like it was unecessary to ask for more feedback, but just ask for more explaination from the people that already displayed their opinion. In this case, there are currently only 4 Yes votes, and only one person made post.
I'm pretty confident that the submitted movie is Vault material, so pardon me if I was superficial in asking to only one person for further feedback.
DrD2k9 wrote:
DISCLAIMER: I have not yet watched this run, but will be doing so as I am able.
Since we're there, I'll wait for your feedback as well.
DrD2k9, I once had a talk with natt about how console runs by real people can be faked, and about ways to disprove some fakes. In a few cases, fakes can't be disproved if you're doing a very good job faking. And he expressed this thought:
Healthy skepticism isn't about being paranoid about everything.
The important idea that comes from that is that while you can develop an idiot-proof system, you can't develop a moron-proof system while keeping the general freedom and happiness on the same level. Once malintent is there, it can only be fought post factum, after it's obvious that it was there. You can not insure against it beforehand.
What I'm saying is, you don't need to be so suspicious when there's no reason to assume malicious intent on behalf of others (between the lines). If you understand that it's not there, then imagining what happened if it was there doesn't help.
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.
EDIT: To clarify if I had to vote on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it around a 6.5, but given my expectations going into the movie, I ended up liking it more than I expected.
I see what you mean, I also happened sometimes to apprecciate a movie more because of my personal tastes rather than objective reasons.
By the way, 6.5 is still not enough to warrant Moons tier in my opinion, especially since the hard mode didn't add anything except more HP to the bosses, which only resulted in more repetitiveness.
Actually I thought of more reasons I liked the movie. I was sort of rushed at the time of my first post but... the game features multiple movement options with the bounce and the airswim and the TAS takes advantage of all of them to good effect. The TAS never feels slow, and actually has rather slick movement. The game also has variation in the water stage where you want to avoid jumping and in later stages you need to use the airswim to make certain platforms. I guess I'd give it actually much closer to a 7, if not a 7.
The bosses weren't long enough to feel particularly repetitive to me to begin with aside from the one cloud boss.
EDIT: Also forgot that while enemies typically didn't seem like much of obstacles, the terrain definitely seemed it could be and the TAS handled that well.
EDIT 2:
I'm pretty confident that the submitted movie is Vault material...
Don't think I agree on this.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
feos, I understand.
I didn't mean to suggest any malintent on anyone's part. I humbly apologize if it came across as skepticism/paranoia toward ThunderAxe31.
I was simply trying to share my opinion regarding a couple general concepts that this thread made me ponder. If that was unnecessary or inappropriate, I apologize.
Regarding this run: It's a better game than some other food/movie licensed games, but I didn't find it very entertaining. Meh vote.
I think the blurred animation of Chester's sprinting legs makes it look like he should be moving at much higher speeds than he actually does. To me, this slows the perception of the run's real speed.
Actually I thought of more reasons I liked the movie. I was sort of rushed at the time of my first post but... the game features multiple movement options with the bounce and the airswim and the TAS takes advantage of all of them to good effect. The TAS never feels slow, and actually has rather slick movement. The game also has variation in the water stage where you want to avoid jumping and in later stages you need to use the airswim to make certain platforms. I guess I'd give it actually much closer to a 7, if not a 7.
The bosses weren't long enough to feel particularly repetitive to me to begin with aside from the one cloud boss.
EDIT: Also forgot that while enemies typically didn't seem like much of obstacles, the terrain definitely seemed it could be and the TAS handled that well.
EDIT 2:
I'm pretty confident that the submitted movie is Vault material...
Don't think I agree on this.
Ok, I see your opinion, but I'm still not convinced. But since you insist, I'll wait for more feedback by other people, hopefully commented with posts.
In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to mention the guideline for selecting the difficulty, since in my opinion is the major flaw for the entertaining of the movie:
Guidelines wrote:
When a game has multiple difficulty levels, it is preferred to play on the difficulty that would make the most interesting and entertaining run. Usually, this is the hardest difficulty, and as such it is the most preferred choice for a TAS. However, there are cases where harder difficulties do nothing but add repetition to runs, such as only giving enemies and bosses more HP, where the extra work required to kill them is uninteresting. In these cases, it is preferred to use an easier difficulty in the interest of reducing repetitive actions which do little to entertain upon frequent use.
So I played around a bit and found some improvements.
1. I was able to save 4 frames on the first level by jumping differently. by landing on a downward slope, I was able to minimize Chester's bounce to only last about 2 frames, then lowering my bounce time on the last crab. jumping on it is required to get that map. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/46833070186894443
2. second level you can release the run button mid-air to prevent Chester from skidding before he jumps. saved about 3 frames.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/46833079500019581
3. in unclear water, you can do a short bounce on the last gator, then one on the snake, and finish the level faster since you dont have to halt when you land. even though Chester's victory animation doesnt play until he hits the ground, the level will still end as if it did end. 14 frames saved. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/46833085397366458
every one of these movies desyncs after the level is completed by the way.
that was as far as I was willing to look through. I really do like what you've done so far and I hope these improvements can help.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Oh, btw, I found this insanely boring. The character animation looks like he's gonna break the sound barrier with his running speed, but he manages to crawl at that animation, destroying the feeling of a pace. Other than a few places where you need to jump up, it's running right for justice. No vote.
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.
Maybe I've just watched a lot of really questionable moons lately so my standards are a bit weird.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Support percentage for this submission dropped to 59%. I guess there is no further need to wait for more feedback. However, before I proceed with the verdict, I want to make sure the author is aware of the imprevements found by EZGames69 and of my suggestion to redo the run in easy mode.
