• About the Project

This was my first real attempt at a TAS. With hindsight this was a good first project; the game was long enough for me to learn the value of motivation, and the gameplay itself was simplistic enough that I could get good results easily. I spent about three months working on this between mid to late 2006 and I enjoyed it. I'd played the game often during it's release so I was always familiar with it, but much of the game itself wasn't in my immeadiate memory so planning and testing became quite nostalgic, a quality I took with me into future projects. Looking back I was actually able to discover quite a few tricks and shortcuts (a couple that were pretty major too) which I thought was pretty decent for a first effort.

• Improvements / Would I TAS it again?

This movie, I believe, is very improvable. Although, somewhat surprisingly, I haven't found any new shortcuts or tricks in this game, however I think this could be improved by around a minute or two with better optimisation. I have since often considered starting up a new input file on this game, but have yet to do it and I doubt I ever will. If I were to make a new movie I'd expect it to look far too similar to my first with a few optimisations here and there. I think this game needs the treatment of a new TASer so hopefully someone else can come along and cast an eye over this game and give it a new lease of life.

• About the Project

My longest and most intense project to date. I spent about 10 months working on this; I began shortly after submitting Gex 64 in November 2006 and finished in September 2007. I'd wanted to see a Majora's Mask submission ever since I joined the site and watched Guanobowl's Ocarina of Time TAS. There was a huge amount of interest in seeing a run of this game, but due to certain issues with N64 emulation at the time no one seemed interested in making a serious attempt at TASing it. What finally clinched it for me was when I read Petrie911's route; as a fan of the game I found my jaw hitting the floor at just about every line and knew that the finished run would look seriously awesome. I made a run of the pre-Clock Town segment which beat AKA's attempt by two - three seconds and people seemed to enjoy it so I just ran with it and finished the run. It was a long and difficult run, but it was always interesting and I was fortunate in that I began with the same motivation I finished with and so I was always looking forward despite all the redos.

• Improvements / Would I TAS it again?

Originally, I was very interested in making a second version. The first version has a notable learning curve, both for me as a TASer and the community in general as to N64 TASes. This gives the movie an immeadiately sloppy and inconsistent feel which I dislike and so I was dissatisfied with the movie when I came to submit it. On the same route I suspect that this movie would be beaten by about 3 - 4 minutes due to various improvements. In the end Swordless Link started a run and I abandoned mine. I'm glad he did as he found many things I wouldn't have and he also had much more motivation than I did. Since then many new things have been found and so Swordless' eventual movie will beat mines by a hefty 15 - 20 minutes. The final movie will be very different from mine, which I think is great. Unfotunately, it will skip many of the challenges and other cool stuff in the game, but it will also be more optimal and will add cool stuff of its own. This presents a nice obsoletion setting where the two runs are so different that I can enjoy each run independent of the other.

• About the Project

My next finished movie was also my first (and so far only) co-authored run. AKA and I did this across January and February 2008. Co-authoring was new experience for me and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to share ideas, strategies and styles with another TASer. I also felt that it really raised my game as I knew that another persons name would go on the final product and therefore I wanted to make the run as best I could so as not to shame them with obvious mistakes. Both of us liked the game and were interested in TASing it, although admittedly AKA knew far more about it than I did and had many cool ideas to save time. This project was great fun as it wasn't all about frame whoring and as a result the movie has genuinely creative stuff in it.

• Improvements / Would I TAS it again?

This movie has speed/entertainment trade-offs, so naturally it is improvable, so on that alone this movie could be faster, but it would look much worse. I like this run as being more entertainment geared, which works well with the otherwise linear level progression. I've suspected that perhaps more could be made of the bosses, but this is pure speculation and I haven't tested anything. So far I have no intention to improve this as I like it as it is. If I ever did it would probably be nothing more than a few hex edits, but don't get your hopes up.

• About the Project

I started a run of this very nice game immeadiately after finishing Majora's Mask. I'd hoped to use it for a little respite after that particularly heavy piece of work, but this turned out more difficult than I'd expected. I began this movie in September 2007 and submitted it in April 2008. Aqfaq had posted a few WIPs of this game, but confirmed to me that he was no longer working on it when I contacted him. He kindly agreed to watch WIPs, give advice and share with me the many tricks he'd found. Some of them involved some quite esoteric pixel positioning that I wouldn't have found so the forty seconds of improvement in my movie is greatly indebted to him. It was by this stage that I had become really obsessive over frame shaving, which is why this project took quite a bit of effort. As a result the levels between the Elephant Graveyard (level 3) and Hakuna Matatta (level 6) were in a constant state of redo for months which was quite demotivating. I eventually got it done and am very happy with the finished product.

• Improvements / Would I TAS it again?

Since submitting I've found a 36 frame improvement to the Elephant Graveyard, a roughly 20 frame improvement to Be Prepared and I also suspect that a few ledges can be grabbed a frame or two earlier with better pixel and subpixel positioning. At the moment I don't think I could shave the three seconds required to get this under fourteen minutes. However, there are many potential shortcuts in this game that are just impossible. I my time with this game I've seen the rhinos throw Simba in strange ways, enemies used to skip large parts of levels, I've been half inside walls and have even seen evidence of zipping, but none of these has yeildd any improvements. If I could prove a few of the larger ones I'd be interested in giving this another go, but that may be quite a big if. Stylistically, I would like to do more with the Be Prepared boss and, due to all the hex-editing, the dancing in The Stampede is quite badly out of sync, which I would like to fix. Ironically, an improvement to this run may either be very large or non-existent.

• About this Project

I wanted to see a run of this game ever since I'd TASed Gex 64, however I feared that it'd be less entertaining due to the increased number of collect-em-up levels. After submitting the Lion King I made a test run and decided that a TAS would be passable at least. This project began in April 2008 and I finished it in November 2008. It wasn't really a continuous effort; I did the first two levels in April and then never touched it again until August. This project was quite different from things I'd done before as I wasn't active on the forums during this time. I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to TAS, but I often picked this game up and played some whenever I had the time. It was nice not to have the pressure of posting WIPs, updates or having to think too much on an eventual submission. As a result this was probably the most fun I've had making a TAS and I think it turned out pretty well too.

• Improvements / Will I TAS it again?

On a recent review I noticed that I loaded the wrong savestate on my first entrance to Slappy Valley resulting in me losing about thirty frames. I also suspect that rotating the camera in certain ways sometimes allows certain input to be entered a frame or so earlier, but I think this would make the run less entertaining overall and I'm still skeptical as to what the potential gains actually are. In short, I enjoyed this TASing experience, but I think that it was more to do with my state of mind at the time and so I doubt that I would enjoy it as much if I TASed it again.

• About this Project

This was an improvement to my first (cancelled) submission to TASvideos. Gathering motivation for this was difficult as there was so many damage possibilities and I'd made so many attempts at it in the past. I started planning and testing after my first submission was canceled but quickly moved on to other things returning only rarely to test. I eventually had enough to go on by December 2008 and so I decided to finally get this project done. It was a fairly intensive few weeks but the results were good.

• Improvements / Will I TAS it again?

I know of a single frame of improvement at the end of level one (!), but I'm sure there's more and I'm not particularly interested in tracking them down at present. This one was good to get done and TASing it became quite cumbersome by the end and so I very much doubt that I'll TAS it again. I still enjoy watching runs of this game and would be very interested in what a new TASer could bring to the table.

• About this Project

I stumbled across this game a while back and instantly saw the potential for TASing. I eventually got around to TASing it in late May / early June 2009, but realised after submission that I'd missed something rather obvious and canceled in order to redo. I finished the second version in early July 2009 and submitted it. This was a worthwhile project due to the game's diverse gameplay styles and surprising variety for an early GB title. It was difficult to keep on top of all the possible solutions due to the many transformations and TASing with each power-up was fun.

• Improvements / Will I TAS it again?

I'm not aware of any improvements yet, but due to the complexity of certain forms (mainly the ball) I wouldn't rule out that a handsome improvement could be found by a determined TASer. Also, I wish that this game could have abusable glitches as in other Sunsoft publications, and I definitely wouldn't rule out that some cool ones could be found.

• About this Project

Originally, I had hoped to make a 100% run of Crash Bandicoot, but due to the excessive load/save times in achieving such a goal I decided to reduce it to an any%. I had set aside an extra few months in my TASing schedule in order to achieve the 100% completion. What was I to do with that time now? Spend it TASing one of the major projects that have been hanging over me for years? Of course not. I picked up something new and decided to TAS Crash 2. I first started messing around with this in August 2009, but it was late September / early October 2009 before I began putting pen to paper on a regular basis. I submitted on Christmas Day 2009. I was able to find more quirks and tricks in this game than I originally expected and so the run was more entertaining than I thought it would be. The ice glitch seemed to be something of a crowd-pleaser, unfortunately I didn't discover it until the second warp room meaning that I had to redo everything from level 2. I considered dropping it after that, but I persevered and I'm glad that I did.

• Improvements / Will I TAS it again?

This run attracted a considerable amount of criticism as to its level of optimisation. While I don't believe that much of this criticism was justified I do think a nice improvement should be possible. Perhaps it may be possible to take the ice glitch all the way to the end of level 2 with better control. I also think that I definitely should have done more testing with sliding v slide/jumping on different slope gradients as I think that there may be many frames there. The I was able to bypass some of the sewer flamethrowers by sliding past them at certain angles, it makes me wonder if all of them can be skipped in this way. As of yet I'm unaware of specific improvements, but I'm sure that there is much potential in a game like this. I became very bored of this game towards the end of the run and so I won't be the one who makes an improvement to this or a 100% run.

• About this Project

Back in 2008, shortly after my Lion King publication I disappeared from the site for many months. I had completely lost my motivation to TAS or be involved in site activities. I occasionally TASed Gex 3 when I was really bored and occasionally dropped in on the forums to see what was going on. I think I went over three months without logging in at all, which is the longest time since I registered here. Towards the end of this period mz released his first pcsx-rr and being a fan of the console and having always wanted to see TASes of many great PSX games I was quietly curious. I started picking at Crash Bandicoot and decided to start posting once again to gauge interest in the project. Response was good, unfortunately the emulator was not stable. With every release I tested this game, but experienced desyncs and sound issues. It was August 2009 before I started this up properly with no desyncs (but still bad sound). I submitted this on Christmas Day 2009. For the most part I enjoyed this project, and the majority of the many grievances I had were emulator, rather than game, related. Having said that I am immensely grateful to mz for the work that he has done on this emulator allowing these runs to be possible. Some parts of this game are incredibly tedious, such as the boulders levels, spin delay optimisation and box planning. Other parts were very enjoyable such as Native Fortress and Sunset Vista, normally levels I hate, because TASing allowed for some creative platforming solutions.

• Improvements / Will I TAS it again?

I am presently unaware of noteworthy individual improvements, however I imagine that there are many optimisations to be found. If someone could figure out what causes spin delay and how to avoid it this would be a major source of saved frames. Towards the end of this project I became rather sick of this game and so I can't imagine myself TASing it again. I would love to see someone try their hand at improving this, I wouldn't be surprised if there were several seconds in there. I also won't do a 100% run, but I would love to see one.

• Golden Axe

One of my favorite games of all time. One of my favorite TASes of all time. I watched trazz's run almost immediately after joining the site and was blown away by it. I've always had an interest in breaking my favorite runs down to frame level and studying them in depth and so naturally I've always been interested in TASing this. For a long while I lacked the experience and skill to match trazz but I've recently decided to give it a go. This is a short game, but TASing it is challenging. Each screen serves as something if a puzzle that must be solved and there are so many ways of clearing each screen. There is also some difficult luck manipulation in the bonus levels to consider. TASing this is interesting as much of it doesn't involve TASing at all. I've found it effective to observe the problem and then spend a few days mulling it over in my head as I go about my business and then testing and balancing various solutions. This works better than TASing it head-on as many of the best solutions are not obvious. I've spent most of the last few months on the first few levels and redoing various screens as I get new ideas. Trazz's run has also recently been starred, which makes me quite nervous as my movie needs to be self-justifying to stand up against such a well respected run and has resulted in me going back and testing more things over. Progress is going well as I haven't found a frame in a few months and so I hope to get the bulk of this done over summer. In the end it should pay off as I will hopefully be left with my most optimal run yet.

Update (03/07/09): I found a way to save four more frames against the first enemies in level 1 so everything is getting redone from there at present. This game can be hex-friendly in places, but I'm using the time to give certain parts of this game yet another look for more frames. So far I haven't found any more and so I hope to be done with this by the end of the month...

Update (03/09/09): I discovered an 8 frame improvement to my level 2 which I have since redone. I am now redoing level 3 to see if I can break the next luck manip frame barrier. I hope to get back up to level 5 soon as I have a busy few months ahead of me and would love to get this done by the end of the year (making it a year long project...whew!).

Update (10/02/10): Now that I have some fairly substantial work out of the way I can finally reapply myself to this for the last time. In essence I have two (difficult) levels left to TAS and then a final once-over to fix some stylistic choices that I don't particularly like and then it's off to submit. Work should pick up since I am so close to finishing this and so I'd set March as a tentative finishing date.

• "Gotta Catch 'Em All" Pokemon Blue

This could be very interesting because technically this shouldn't even be possible. Primo began a WIP of this idea years ago but, to my knowledge, never progressed very far. I've always wanted to see the finished product so I decided to start route planning with a view to TASing it. The route is nearing completion and I've done some TASing. This should be fun as I've never TASed an RPG before and so it will test a variety of different skills. The new VBA also supports lua scripting which will ease much of the stress of this manipulation heavy run. A max-crit luabot would be awesome and I would also like to use it to include on-screen notes and comments. Unfortunately, my current progress desyncs on the new emulator so it's back to Oak's lab for me!

Update (03/07/09): The route is coming along nicely. Once Golden Axe is finished I'll be fully committed to this. I'll first hope to finish the route and then write a lua script to help with the manipulation. It would essentially just be a bot that just needs to press the A button and find the max crits in the shortest time. This is very time consuming in real life, but if I could get my hands on such a script I may even get this project done this year.

Update (10/02/10): There have been certain developments here. I would now consider this project to be fully active. There is, however, a massive but. I will be releasing a pretty substantial WIP (about 30 - 40% completion) late this year.

• James Bond 007

A game that I absolutely love. It is a Legend of Zelda style James Bond adventure. Originally, I was skeptical as to how entertaining this game would be, but after TASing the first three levels I think that this should just make the grade. I need to redo the end of level 2 and some parts of level 3 before continuing and this project isn't of a particularly high priority at the moment.

• Umihara Kawase Shun

I finished a test run of this about a year ago. A TAS of this game will be, like its SNES predecessor, very short, but this game is brutal to optimise. I tried TASing the first field a few months back, but I was greatly dissatisfied with the results. On second thought I don't think that it is possible to get the as high speeds as in the SNES version, but I still think that my work here can be better. At the moment I'm greatly enjoying TASing this game whenever I get the time and I will be moving this up into the main projects section once Golden Axe is finished.

• AAHHH!!! Real Monsters

Another Genesis game that I really like. I'm currently recording my test run and I am about 30% done with it. I'm looking forward to getting a full run completed, but I have a pretty full plate at the moment as it is.

• Rockin Katz
• 'Glitchless' Rockman
• Final Fantasy 2
• Final Fantasy 3

• DoReMi Fantasy
• Ghost Sweeper Mikami
• Spider Man Deadly Foes

• Master of Darkness
• Shinobi
• Zillion

• Golden Axe 2
• Golden Axe 3
• Monster World 4
• Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
• Ninja Gaiden

• Pokemon Silver

• Umihara Kawase Shun
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
• Resident Evil
• Oddworld Abe’s Oddysee
• Spyro the Dragon
• Tomb Raider 4
• Final Fantasy 7
• Final Fantasy 8