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This submission is for Home Alone for the NES which is a psuedo-survival-tower defense-type-game. You must survive for 20 minutes against the wet bandits without being caught.
With the ban on triviality lifted I felt like it would be a good time to let these Home Alone games shine. Since we end time on final input in the TAS, we can optimize a bit, nail down the bare minimum of things we need to do to win the game, and let it run out. The NES version is infamous for basically being a free RTA WR tie but in the world of TAS, I aimed to see how quickly we can end input.
We make use of various glitches/bad AI pathing/etc through these runs to get our objective done very quickly. In this version we set traps in specific spots to break the AI's pathing causing them to climb up the pole to try and catch us, but due to a bug in how movement is handled in certain areas they end up just stopping in place, unable to interact with us at all as long as we don't move. The delayed movement in the beginning is intentional to manip the AI a bit, and it was faster than anything else I'd found.
While it may be boring to watch the game play itself out without anything really happening on the screen for dozens of minutes, I felt it was still worth making TASes for these to see just how quickly they could be "completed."
Who knows, maybe I missed something and we'll get a frame war going on some fresh new content that wouldn't have been allowed on TASvideos even a year ago.
Enjoy!
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Posted: 1/10/2023 7:15 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7954: ShesChardcore's NES Home Alone in 00:17.87
Posted: 1/10/2023 7:21 PM
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Darkman425
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Nice work! The only notable thing I found for this game was that the knockdown times seemed to vary a bit with RNG. That doesn't seem to matter for just getting the win condition as soon as possible but it would be relevant for a maximum score run where depleting every use of each trap would be the main goal.
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Posted: 1/10/2023 8:04 PM
(Edited: 1/10/2023 8:10 PM)
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LoganTheTASer
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how did you manipulate the first enemy to get to the trap faster? because i can only get him to activate it on frame 1053.
Posted: 1/10/2023 8:10 PM
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ShesChardcore
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LogansGamingRoom wrote:
how did you manipulate the first enemy to get to the trap faster? because i can only get him to activate it on frame 1053.
Starting the run 3 or so frames later than when you are able to gives more favorable results as do movements and delays in movement.
Posted: 1/11/2023 1:57 AM
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Denial140
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No but seriously, great work finding strategies for all three.
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Posted: 1/11/2023 9:05 AM
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MarbleousDave
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Keep the change, ya filthy animal!
Posted: 1/17/2023 6:06 PM
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EZGames69
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So judging from a quick look, it seems everything has been manipulated as optimally as one could get. Kevin has a strange ability to put himself into a position where the bad guys, try as they might, cannot get to Kevin. This gives him enough time for his family to return home so the bad guys can be unable to win. Since movement can screw with enemy AI, doing even the slightest change can make the whole run impossible. It doesn't really matter what weapons were used here (since the bad guys stay down longer depending on which traps were used), since the goal is just to get them in position long enough so Kevin can teleport them into invisible jail, although unfortunately Kevin is stuck there with the bad guys, eventually when the cops show up and take away the bad guys, Kevin will be safe to come down. Regardless of the unexplained powers Kevin has here, I think this is a great effort that may not be easily beaten.
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Posted: 2/24/2023 3:39 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5109] NES Home Alone by ShesChardcore in 00:17.87