Mmbossman

This is the personal page of mmbossman, known as Nick Mong in the real world. Due to formatting rules, the first letter of my name is capital, however I prefer that all letters be lowercase (since that's the way I've had it since I started going by the screen name mmbossman about 10 years ago). Oh well. A little about me- I'm a doctoral student in a Physical Therapy program in Pennsylvania, but grew up on the west coast, and plan on moving back there after I graduate in February of 2009. Because of school, I don't always have the most time to TAS, but it's one of my favorite hobbies, and I enjoy being active with all aspects of the site. I also enjoy poker (both online and home games), umpiring baseball, alt/rock music, all things Apple, and watching my two guinea pigs run around.

I joined TASvideos.org in November of 2006. Since then I have had 12 runs published (1 obsolete), and am an active player, editor, and judge.

Useful Information

I was made a judge of submissions at TASvideos.org on August 3rd, 2008.

First and foremost, I would like to try to clear up a misconception that many people have regarding the voting system. It is a common belief that voting 'yes' for a run will guarantee acceptance if X number of yes votes are registered. This is not the case. The voting system is in place to provide an opportunity for the audience to express their opinions of a run, in order to help the judges in making their decision. No number of ‘yes’ votes equates to instant publication, nor does it protect a submission from rejection.

A much better and more productive course of action that a viewer can take is to post a meaningful explanation as to why they were entertained, or why they think a run should be accepted. If a run is borderline for me, I am more likely to give it a longer look if there is supportive discussion regarding it, as opposed to 6 or 7 ‘yes’ votes and 2 or 3 "Looks good" type comments.

When judging a run, I take several things into consideration:

Does it follow the Rules?

  • The rules of the site will be upheld, and any run that breaks them is likely to be rejected somewhat swiftly, with an explanation of which rules were broken.
  • There are exceptions to rules, but they are few and far between.
  • A run should also have well defined and easy to understand objectives. Some examples of poorly constructed, abstract goals:
    • "Allows glitch A and B, but doesn't allow glitch Y or Z"
    • "Completes most side quests"
    • "Takes the normal route intended by the programmers"
Some thoughts on hacked games: I enjoy hacks, because they are very similar to TASes. They require creativity, time, dedication, and knowledge to create. I also tend to be as critical of hacks as I am with TASes. A good hacked game should have a decent amount of variety in its levels and design, show a large amount of polish, be a complete work (i.e. not a work in progress), and be unique from other hacks that may already exist. Unfortunately it seems that there are very few hacks that fit all these criteria.
Is it entertaining?

Entertainment is a very subjective subject. However, there are some key themes that most of the entertaining runs on the site follow.

  • They are not overly repetitive. A game that has little variety in level design or gameplay can quickly become boring.
  • They have style! The author spent extra effort to ensure that the viewer has something to watch when there normally isn’t anything happening on the screen. Spelling out words, dancing to music, performing acrobatics, toying with death and taunting opponents are just a few examples. A run is your chance to be creative, so use it!
  • They would be difficult to produce in real time. This is one of the main foundations of a tool-assisted video, although it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. It’s entertaining to us to see a game played like no human ever could. Whether this comes from frame precise movements, noticeable luck manipulation, or skillful handling of complex gameplay, the wow factor can sometimes make or break a submission.

Does it live up to the level of technical precision that the site is known for?

An accepted run should present a certain level of precision in:

  • Movement. The run should look clean, with no glaring errors. Running into walls, missing jumps, and missing shots should not show up in a publish-worthy submission.
  • Route planning. This is usually harder to spot if the viewer (or judge) is not familiar with the game, so it is caught less often. But a submission that doesn't include a route change that saves a significant amount of time will usually not be accepted in favor of a revised version.
  • Resource management. If a run will be damage taking, health management should be taken into consideration to maximize the benefits. If ammo takes a long time to collect, plan to pick up as little as possible. Don't overload on items if they won't be used and if they cost time to get.
  • Lag. Lag is unavoidable. Almost all games have it. It usually doesn't become a factor in most TASes until a second or third revision, but that doesn't mean that it should be ignored completely on a first attempt. Often times, lag can cause a game to feel slow to the viewer, which can lower entertainment. However, sometimes it may be more appropriate to do something entertaining at the expense of lag, as an entertainment/speed trade-off. Due to the nature of this aspect of TASing, it's best to deal with on a case by case basis.

If my run isn’t perfect, will it be accepted?

It depends. I will tend to err on the side of leniency for runs that do not have a published movie yet (or several failed attempts in gruefood). As long as it follows the 3 main rules above, it will likely to be accepted with the understanding that not everyone has the time or desire to make several different test runs, test all possible routes, and try to squeeze every last frame from a run. An attempt to obsolete a run have slightly higher standards to live up to. The published run provides a framework to base a new submission on, and thus the new run can spend more time testing routes and exploring other ideas. However, just because a new run is faster than an old run does not guarantee acceptance. If there is a significant drop in entertainment or a poor level of precision shown, an attempt to obsolete a published run may be rejected.

This is the second version of this run, and my first submitted version. It was also my first run published. I've come a long way in my TASing abilities since I completed this, but due to the nature of the game, there isn't very much I can improve. There's a set number of frames between shots, and reload times, so any improvements would come from lag reduction and shaving frames here and there. I doubt any improvements would increase the entertainment value, so I don't think I'll be trying to better this any time soon.

I completed my first version of this game in a month, and Neofix managed to better it within a week by almost a minute. However, I managed to improve his movie by another second and a half with an improved final boss fight, so we decided to be listed as coauthors since we both contributed so much to the improvement.

Vectorman was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I was amazed it didn't have a run when I joined. I submitted my first run, thought it was great, and then nitsuja put me in my place by beating my level 1 time by some ludicrous time (like 30 seconds for a 2 minute level). But due to this, I made a much better second version which ended up being published, and also got a taste of RAM watching, which has helped me out incredibly since. So thank you, nitsuja, wherever you are! I have some ideas for improvements for this, and I may pick it up again sometime in the next year when I tire of trying new games and want to play around with something familiar again.

Mike89's (or m-eighty, as his published name states) initial run gave me something I could use for good comparison, and ended up saving time through optimization of most levels, with a couple minor route changes here and there. A much improved final boss fight doubled what I had saved through the rest of the movie.

Randil and I started individual runs of this game, without knowing the other was working on it. When Randil submitted his first version, I noticed several things that could be improved. We decided to collaborate, and thanks to better precision, new tactics, a new route, and improvements in just about every area of gameplay, we were able to obsolete the old movie by almost 4 minutes.

My first version was simply an attempt to get a movie from 2004 off the site, so I didn't pay as much attention to optimization as I should have. Flip came along and found a way to skip all the emeralds in the first level, not to mention a route change in the last level and better precision overall. I noticed several things in his submission that could be further improved, and thanks to some more optimization and a few other tweaks, I was able to break the 8 minute mark. This will probably be the last time I work on this game, unless another game breaking glitch is found.

I tried to spice up Nightcom's prior movie by adding a second player, producing lots of explosions, using creative cursor movement during downtimes, and writing hidden messages. It also manages to save nearly 6 minutes from the previous movie, which I had no idea was possible when I started the project.

This is my second serious attempt at TASing. I started it in November of 2006, and after 3 months of work, I grew tired of fighting with the strafe-running that required perfect angles without being able to see where I was going. After an 8 month break, I did a little work on level 2, but then let it gather dust some more before I finished off the last 5 levels in the 3 months leading up to submitting. Overall I think it looks very polished, and provides a good amount of entertainment as long as the viewer isn't put off by looking sideways the whole time. However, this run left me with absolutely no desire to ever try to TAS a FPS again.

I originally thought that this would make an interesting April Fools submission, but after working with it for a while, I thought it might have a shot at getting published. I was very surprised at the amount of people who found this entertaining, and I truly hope that someone with more programming skills than I have will tear apart the game's engine to make the ultimately fast Solitaire TAS. Until then, I hold the record for the most card game TASes to be published ;)

Part 1 of 3 of my Spidey triple submission. I decided to do this run for several reasons: To test out the new (at the time) FCEUX emulator and all it's fun features, to improve a somewhat old run that had obvious improvements, and because it's Spider-Man. There is probably another 5 to 10 seconds to be saved throughout this game, most of which would come from an improved Vulture fight, but the mechanics are goofy. Some day I'll take a week and update it again, since it's such a short game.

Part 2 of 3 of my Spidey triple submission. This game is a blast to watch, and it was almost as fun to make. Spider-Man is finally given a movement set that can actually be used to make superhero like movements, and the result is a very fast paced run, with a lot of acrobatics and some well done fight sequences. This is by far the most entertaining run I've created.

Part 3 of 3 of my Spidey triple submission. What a horrible game. I came across it by accident, when I was searching for another Genesis Spider-Man game, and its horrible controls and severely crippled plot line and gameplay immediately hooked me. I found a youtube video to help me with route planning, and figured I'd aim for a 10 minute end time. I was pleasantly surprised with the resulting time to completion, but I'm pretty sure that there's probably another 30 seconds to be saved due to further optimization. However, this isn't high on my list because the controls are horrible enough to make the TASing process uncomfortable and unsatisfying.

Have a Published Movie for All Platforms (sometime)

  • Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Gameboy
  • Sega Genesis
  • Sega Master System/Game Gear
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • 32X
  • Sega CD
  • Super Gameboy
  • Gameboy Color
  • Nintendo 64
  • Game Boy Advance

Future Runs

I have adopted the philosophy of not publicly announcing any of my future runs. This allows me to work at my own pace, drop projects at any time, interrupt current projects with new and exciting runs, etc. However, I'm more than willing to discuss these things with anyone who is interested.

Encoding

I hope to learn how to properly encode runs in the upcoming months. I'll probably start off with one platform and move on gradually, since I'm pretty clueless about most things audio/visual.

Editing

I would like to improve some of the descriptions of movies, specifically those with one line of text, and those that have the tag "We recommend reading the author's comments".

Seeding

After I move back to Oregon and get settled, I would like to purchase (or find) a cheap PC to help seed published AVIs. This one may take a while.

2004 Movies

  • Don't try to make a brand new run. Without a reference run, it is difficult to achieve the level of precision and entertainment expected when you are first starting out. Instead, look to movies published in 2004 or 2005 for ideas. By having a run to refer to, you can build your skills in a more quick and efficient manner.

  • Learn to use the emulator before you seriously start to work on a run. Learn how savestates work, and how to use them. Your first movie will likely still involve some aspect of "playing" the game, likely at a speed of 20% or less (hopefully less). However, as you gain more experience, TASing will feel less like "playing", and more like "creating". For the best results, frame advance is a must.

  • Don't try to make more than one run at once. Spreading your attention between several different runs at once can lower productivity, motivation, and precision, especially when first starting out. Concentrate on one thing, and do it well. After you've learned the ropes, you can expand out.

  • Ask for help, even if you don't think you need it. Many of the more experienced TASers are more than willing to watch a short WIP, or give advice for improvement. Also, don't hesitate to seek out knowledge of the game you are working on in as many different places as you can.

Microstorage
Full Recent Changes
Movie Statistics
Mood Avatars

Workbench (Go Vote!)

Spider-man vs. The Kingpin

Questions or comments?

PM me on the forums or on IRC.

Get Firefox!Mmbossman last edited by mmbossman on 2008-09-24 07:30:41
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