Welcome to the Newcomer Corner! This page was designed to collect the most important things the newbie would need to know about TASing. You bumped the question mark box. Now see what it spawned for you!
Published on 9/8/2016
Everyone who has at least once attempted to gather a soul from each of the 120 different enemies in Aria of Sorrow, especially during a speedrun, knows the frustration it incurs after a hundredth failed attempt to get the required drop. That just makes this all-souls TAS, played on hard mode, even more impressive.
This is an improvement of 1:38.85 over the previous movie, thanks to a more optimised route and newly used items. Please read the authors' comments for more details.
If you would like to see the game beaten even faster, don't miss the any% run by one of the authors, klmz.

Note: Starting from reset was necessary to use hard mode. However, doing so is normally not allowed — refer to the rules to see the reasons.

Published on 4/1/2017
The current Pokémon: Yellow Version speed record uses heavy glitches that allow the player to catalog every Pokémon in slightly over a minute. Is there any way to get more ridiculous than that? Yes! In this run, using nothing but the Game Boy buttons and tool-assisted precision, the game is made to run an arbitrary program which greatly expands the game and shows off cool stuff from elsewhere too. For details on how this was achieved, see the author's comments.
This movie improves upon the predecessor by using a payload which builds upon the environment in the game highlighting new areas, new Pokémon, and shows off a lot more that can be done with arbitrary code execution than displaying the digits of Pi and some minor animation. For more runs that involve arbitrary code execution, see our published list of movies which execute arbitrary code as well as discussion in our forum.
This video includes segments from some terrific games, including Pokémon Yellow, Gold, and Crystal, as well as from Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, Tetris, and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. Please check those games out.
This video includes music samples from The Orange Box soundtrack. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, you can purchase The Orange Box soundtrack from Amazon or Apple Music.
This video includes a clip from SpongeBob SquarePants (season two), which can be purchased in its entirety from Amazon or iTunes.

Published on 12/8/2017
007: Nightfire is a James Bond game. Does anything more need to be said? Guns, cars, planes, submarines, spaceships, girls, and megalomaniacs.
Authors FitterSpace, gamerfreak5665 and aleckermit show off James Bond's impressive skill set, including cocaine-induced firearm handling and driving so reckless, not even a cute animal would give him car insurance.
This run improves upon the previous publication by more than six minutes of total run time, but with increased load time accuracy, new out of bound glitches, and better optimization, the real time saved compared to the previous run is nearly ten minutes.

Published on 12/31/2013
Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. fighting game series is rather different from your typical fighting game. Instead of wearing your opponent's health down to 0, you must knock him or her out of the battlefield. Damage counts upwards, with knockback from attacks that hit you becoming more severe as your damage increases. Fighting controls are also simplified, making it very easy for even your non-gaming friends to pick up and play.
Super Smash Bros. Melee offers fighters from the wealth of Nintendo characters like Mario, Bowser, different Pokémon, Link, and Kirby. They can either fight through the single-player modes like Classic, Adventure, and Event Mode, or they battle it out against other characters in a four-player frenzy.
Additional characters and stages are unlocked as hidden objectives are met, and coins rewarded for playing in all modes can be spent on a capsule toy machine. The toys in the machine represent games from Nintendo's entire video game history, and each can be viewed in 3D with a brief description.
In this TAS, numerics plays through Adventure Mode with Samus, abusing glitches to move through the stages at a high rate of speed while making the battles as entertaining as possible.
Note: There are encodes of higher resolution in the discussion thread.

Published on 12/25/2019
This is it, Madeline. Just breathe. You can do this.
Celeste is a platform game released in 2018 and developed by independent game studio Extremely OK Games, who also developed TowerFall Ascension. It features Madeline, a young girl who sets on a journey to reach the summit of the titular mountain. Can she survive the many dangers that await her on her ascent?
This time, EuniverseCat, fishmcmuffins, keylie, dahlukeh and Lanvilla collect all 175 red strawberries, the moon berry, all 24 crystal hearts, all B-Side cassette tapes as well as completing every chapter (which also includes the B- and C-Sides as well as the recently released Farewell chapter) in a record in-game time of 1:16:51.335.

There is also an alternate YouTube stream featuring audio commentary by EuniverseCat, fishmcmuffins and Chaikitty, a speedrunner of the game.

Published on 7/21/2021
At first there were 70 stars, because Bowser demanded it. Then there were 16 stars, because MIPS the Rabbit demanded it. Then there was 1 star, because Bowser's Sub demanded it. Then there were no stars, but 2 keys, because the door leading to the castle basement demanded it. Now there is 1 key because the viewers are impatient and demanded the game be quicker.
As with many other runs on this site, the goal of pure speed has resulted in the complete breaking of the game. Very little of the game's normal play remains. If you'd like to see more of what Super Mario 64 has to offer, see the "70 Stars, no BLJ" run or the "120 Stars" run.
This appears to be an improvement by 00:02.32 seconds, however if we account for emulation differences between Mupen and BizHawk, the improvement is closer to 00:04.90 seconds. Please read the submission notes for more information on the improvements.
Super Mario 64 has a history of publications on this site. If you wish to see how it unfolded since the beginning, see the page SM64TASHistory.
If you're looking for a TAS on the Nintendo DS remake, you can watch it here.

Since this movie was made using Mupen, with the m64 file converted to the bk2 format, you can download the original m64 file under the publication page. Timing for the m64 file is around 04:16.4.
You can watch this movie played back on a real console.
Game:
Super Mario 64

Genres:
Platformer
Emulator Replay:
mupen64 1.0.8/BizHawk 2.6.2
Additional Downloads:
(Mupen movie file)

Published on 6/12/2010
A short Japanese game about a small green toy who can summon stars to help him defeat monsters and to use them as platforms to reach high places and travel fast.
In this movie, the authors collect all of the items to enter the secret 7th level after the boss at the end of the 6th level, and do so 2 minutes and 15 seconds faster than the previous movie.
The game cartridge of Gimmick! contains a special microchip, FME7, which extends the number of sound channels in the game from 5 to 8, creating a more melodic soundtrack than in most other NES games.
This movie has an Atlas Map encode of Level 6, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.
If you like this, be sure to check out the other run of this game, which skips the secret items.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

Published on 3/16/2019
Ever since Morimoto published his legendary movie in mid-2003, the players at TASVideos have repeatedly made it faster and faster and even faster! Of course, there doesn't ever seem to be a stop for when it is fastest.
This movie is 00:00.60 seconds faster than the previous movie. Most of the improvement comes from Bowser's Castle, where the authors didn't have to lose time in order to get a favourable Bowser pattern. For more details, see the run's comments.
The encodes feature commentary as soft subtitles.


Published on 1/26/2009
Family Feud (1993) follows the premise of the American TV show of the same name. Two families are pitted against each other in a contest aimed at guessing the results of a public survey. In the first two rounds, the first family member to press a button and give a concise answer that happens to be on the survey earns points. After that, this family can continue guessing answers on the survey, with control switching to the other family on incorrect guesses. After two rounds, the family with fewer points is disqualified, and the last round allows two members of the remaining family to list several of the existing survey answers in a very short time period.
Heisanevilgenius's family, The As, ignores all that and goes with elaborate and utter nonsense instead… only to find the host accepting their answers as correct. The other family, The Halls, doesn't even get the chance to insert a word, proving the racial prejudice of the host. Watch the game and see for yourself.
If you liked how this movie abuses a text recognition system, also see the trouble that TAS tools bring to a drawing recognition system.
Note: Some answers contain coarse language.

This run was resynced to BizHawk 2.8 by DrD2k9 in order to fix the poor sound emulation from the original run, as well as to remove a piece of outdated language.
Game:
Family Feud

Genres:
Gameshow
Game Version:
Family Feud
Tags:
Playaround
Video Downloads:
Compatibility MP4
Emulator Replay:
BizHawk 2.8

Published on 1/5/2010
When watching sports, you're usually prepared for the unexpected. But what happens when it verges into the outright impossible?
In this superplay, watch in awe as a team is forced to score on its own goal ("OH NO! OWN GOAL!?"), the scoreboard mysteriously records extra goals that were never scored (and even rolls backwards at one point), and the very laws of physics themselves seem to get completely broken.

Published on 11/23/2011
Rockman & Forte (ロックマン&フォルテ), known as Mega Man & Bass in the Western world, used to be the last game in the original Rockman/Mega Man series, until Rockman & Forte Mirai kara no Chōsensha (ロックマン&フォルテ 未来からの挑戦者) was released for the WonderSwan.
This time around, Dr. Wily has his own creation turned against him, allowing the player to use Mega Man or a bad guy!
However, in this run, the players only use Mega Man and collect each and every CD in the game, which shouldn't be possible using only one character. Then again, many things happen in this movie that weren't intended to be possible.
This run is a collaboration between sparky, the current author of the other branches for this game, parrot14green, the author of the previous "100 CDs" run, and woabcfl, the author of the Rockman no Constancy runs. It improves the previous movie by 01:40.97. You can read the authors' comments for more details.
There are two more Rockman & Forte runs to watch on this site; featuring completion of the game with Rockman and Forte as fast as possible, without worrying about CD collection.

Published on 2/19/2013
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a vibrant, colorful and fun game that stars the popular Yoshi. From a technical standpoint, the game is very exceptional on the SNES due to its use of the SuperFX² coprocessor. The chip allows for many cool special effects that are otherwise impossible on the SNES.
This is a 100% completion of the game. It plays through all the levels and collects every item that contributes to end-of-level score: 5 flowers, 20 red coins, and 30 stars. By getting 100% completion in each stage, six extra stages are also unlocked. These are played at the end of the run, again with 100% scores.
The authors of the run have spent over three years working on this run, showing off plenty of egg juggling, precise shots, and other incredible antics. This run does not use certain glitches present in the other runs of the game (an any% run and a warp glitch run), but there should still be plenty to surprise you. Reading the authors' lengthy comments is recommended.

Note: The many graphical issues are a result of inaccurate emulation.

Published on 3/20/2018
Super Metroid is a platform game and a follow-up to Metroid II. Like the previous games in the series, it is not divided into separate levels; the planet Zebes is an open world which Samus traverses back and forth. This world is divided into rooms separated with doors which must be shot to be opened. Shooting is also used to open up secret passages, some of which contain nifty bonuses, but finding most of them is required to proceed in the game.
This run not only beats the previous any% but also obsoletes the previous reverse boss order TAS due to similar routes. This is an improvement of 1:40.95 over the predecessor movie. As well as an improvement over the reverse boss order TAS by 10:40.51.
Sniq makes short work of Mother Brain and her space pirates, largely due to a major route change. Please read the author's submission notes for more information.

Every second encode link leads to a version where all graphics have been fixed.

Published on 11/12/2011
Cave Story (2004) is a famous freeware indie game notable for being made entirely by one person, Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya.
Watch as nitsuja completely destroys this difficult game with amazingly precise movement. This playthrough saves Curly and finishes with the best ending after beating Ballos.
The program used to make this run, Hourglass, was also developed by nitsuja—with the creation of this run in mind. As such, it is our first published run of a Windows game.

Downloadable encodes and the YouTube encodes include commentary as soft subtitles.
Game:
Cave Story

Genres:
Platformer
Shooter
Video Downloads:
Compatibility MP4
Emulator Replay:
Hourglass r77

"True pleasure cannot be attained unless one is out of the ordinary."
"Supreme bliss! Your brain has now been fried by that sort of pleasure. Your life from this point on will consist only of you pursuing that sort of pleasure"
TAS (tool-assisted superplay) - is the craft of creating superhuman gameplay movies. We aim to play games in the most incredible way they will allow, which means we investigate games as hard as we can, and try to showcase every tiny feature they have inside. Deep investigation and endless experimenting discover things many people could not imagine about the games we TAS. We then use these features to present how the games afford to be played, in all the ways we can invent. The most popular ways are to use the game resources to push the games to their speed limits (beating them as fast as their engines allow) and to play around in the funniest manner.
Now, we are not going to lie to you, the casual visitor, we have to use specific tools for what we do. We keep 10 savestate slots for all kinds of route testings, we roll back just every outcome we are not satisfied with. We play frame by frame, exploring all types of behaviour the game provides. We hold a game on an endless pause, observing its internal memory addresses, mulling over the options to act, calculating the potential profit of different variants, applying them to the gameplay, inventing the new and unexpected decisions by insight... It's quite a new form of amusement. Especially if you TAS the game you played in your childhood, you supposed you knew every aspect of it, have snooped every corner of its levels, and now you have an ability to dive into it completely, and not just play it, but play with it. That anxious feeling, which is pretty undescribable.
You still think TASing is easy? You think we bot those games? You think we have the tools that beat games instead of us, so that we just control the result? Huh! No tool can create art by itself, it only helps us to "draw" our ideas within the playgrounds, that we consider those games to be. And we also love to work hard! Only the hard work produces the supreme bliss! Enjoy the list of the most delicious mockery we handle every day:
  • Games with physics models that require a ludicrous amount of manipulation for optimal speed. Press right for one frame, A for the next frame, nothing for two frames, right for eight more frames (unless you touch the ground on frame six, in which case you'll need to backflip into a circle while abusing your keyboard) etc. etc.
  • When there are like 10+ ways to do something, and you have to test every one up to its perfection, to come up with the fastest.
  • "Hurray, half of the run is done, which has been in progress for 7 months, a new trick was found... Time to restart!"
  • "Oh God, I just got a coin 5 frames faster!!!" Picking a hex editor and pasting the rest of the already done run after the improved section. The rest of the run kindly desyncs... "TAS all over again, yay!"
  • Finishing a large portion of gameplay only to find that you lost a few frames near the beginning.
  • Reproducing a glitch that you accidentally stumbled on, aren't really sure how it works, and rerecorded it over.
  • Having to backflip all the way, because the hero normally moves like a lazy turtle.
  • Looking at the decompiled source for the first time, seeking for very specific things, when you have zero idea how the game works in the first place. Assembly is the least friendly language ever.
  • Trying to manipulate luck from a point 10,000 frames back, which messes up everything in between.
  • Keeping motivation for an entire project and trying to ignore the lures of a shiny new TAS to work on.
  • Working for several hours trying to save 3-4 frames and succeeding, but later you lose them because of a frames rule.
  • You submit a movie that gets quickly obsoleted by someone, then you improve over him, he submits an ever faster version, until one of you gives up. Frame wars.
  • See more in that thread.
But we don't mind actually. It is worth it. We just wanted you to know that superhuman outcome goes only after superhuman effort. Once you succeed, you can't stop. Did you think we would not show the goodies to you? Catch!
Fun aspects of the process (TASing):
  • Controlling the freak paradise (time rewinding, memory monitoring, ...)
  • Meaningful investigation (consuming new unique information)
  • Objectively unique task (the gameplay suggests puzzles no one actually created)
  • Nostalgia factor (childhood games)
  • Flow (mental state)
  • Luck (impossible + hard work -> possible)
  • Collaborative enjoyment (still rare here)
Rewarding aspects of the result (TAS movie):
  • Competitive enjoyment (frequent here)
  • Positive feedback (impossible + hard work -> possible)
  • Personal feeling of achievement (final product)
  • Community status/ranks/comments/etc (the more the better)
  • Personal feeling of self-perfection (improving your soul, mind, abilities)
Now, since you're introduced, you may want to read some actual explanations of how TAS works, or see more impressive movies (the 10-movie list is just 0.1% of what we actually got). See the About page if so, it is full of helpful links, and Movies page tabs, suggesting different options of navigation. Have fun here!

NewcomerCorner last edited by ais523 on 4/18/2022 12:45 AM
Page History Latest diff List referrers View Source