Haunted Mansion (Compute's Gazette)

An evil witch has captured some friendly neighborhood cats and taken them to her haunted mansion, where she will later turn them into "witch cats". She is out flying on her broom in search of more...so now is your chance to enter the mansion and rescue the cats. The witch's mansion is a maze of corridors, and she has placed the cats in various locations throughout the maze. Your goal is to rescue the cats while avoiding ghosts, bats, and evil spirits.
The article for this game can be found on page 62 of Compute's Gazette Issue 8 (Feburary 1984)
I don't get it...why does the game get advertised in the Magazine as "Haunted Mansion", but come up in the game as "Haunted House". Go figure.

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 54th TAS from this series.
This was an exciting time for me, as I clearly remember typing this in and playing it on my Vic-20. I remember a friend, during the time that I finished it, calling his parents and saying that he wanted a Vic-20 also! So this game was a surprise to me, and I'm happy to finally see it played, as a TAS.
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):
1Astro-Panic!2Royal Rescue
3Miami Ice4Chopper 1
5Spike6Heat Seeker
7Omicron8Alien Armada
9Star Dragon10White Water
11Space Gallery12Bagdad
13Race Ace14Quolerus
15Trap16Maze-Mania
17Balloon Blitz18Bowling Champ
19Circuits20Going Up?
21Space Dock22Saloon Shootout
23Sno-Cat24Queens' Quarrel
25Stronghold26Lincoln Green
27Disc Blitz28SuperSprite
29Dunk30Basketball Sam & Ed
31Bee Zone32Q-Bird
33Space Worms34Powerball
35Castle Dungeon36Pool
37Snake Pit38RADs
39Spy Defense40The Forbidden Crypt
41Cosmic Combat42Canyon Cruiser
43Cell Runner44Sky Diver
45Snake Escape46The Viper
47Root Race48Cypher
49Revenge of Cyon50Maze Master
51Bagger52Chopper Pilot
53Digger

Game Difficulty and Ending

This game's difficulty is chosen at the beginning of the game...where I choose the hardest level of "6". This game repeats over and over, without any new content or increased difficulty.

Effort In TASing

My effort was to manipulate RNG, using the RND command to affect the "seed" value. I did this to give me the fastest route for collecting the cats. This took days to find a pattern that I was happy with. Most of the re-record count was from testing out the layout; however,it's not terribly high. The reason that it was so low, was that took almost a minute to test every RNG seeded value that I programmed before the game was ran. Once I found what I was looking for, the the game was pretty much wrapped up.

Human Comparison

This is the Vic-20 version, as I can't find one for the C64 that makes sense. There are C64 versions that have been modified that doesn't represent the game well.

feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Accepting.

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8797: nymx's C64 Haunted Mansion in 02:32.39
GJTASer2018
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That maze-drawing routine reminds me somewhat of how the A2600 game Tunnel Runner drew their tunnels, only somewhat slower and without the ear-grating sound effects that game had...
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
nymx
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
That maze-drawing routine reminds me somewhat of how the A2600 game Tunnel Runner drew their tunnels, only somewhat slower and without the ear-grating sound effects that game had...
Yeah, the algorithm for that is pretty heavy. I just wish that it was written in Machine Language...it would have been much faster. This game was the reason i was able to come up with a BOTing algorithm for a future submission that I hope will be soon. It will be the grand finale of the Compute's Gazette games.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
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Please explain this text you enter and its legitimacy.
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.
DrD2k9
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feos wrote:
Please explain this text you enter and its legitimacy.
The RND command allows for manually adjusting an RNG seed on C64 without altering any game code. In practice, it’s similar to adjusting/setting a real-time clock in order to pre-seed RNG. EDIT:
R/
is a shorthand for
RND
nymx
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feos wrote:
Please explain this text you enter and its legitimacy.
Yes...what DrD2k9 said. This was the technique that I came up with earlier this year and discussed with the staff on its use. I've done this a number of times on games that are written in BASIC.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Post subject: Movie published
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. ---- [5752] C64 Haunted Mansion by nymx in 02:32.39