Post by scrimpeh

Posted: 7/6/2010 10:16 PM

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Dwedit

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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago

How is a PC10 version or VS version a port? You're porting from the NES to the NES. For PC10, the only difference is how the chips are connected to the CPU. VS has a different palette, so the game needs some modifications there, then slight modifications to require coins to be inserted, but it's still not a port.

Posted: 8/22/2010 3:10 PM

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scrimpeh

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Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/439732139/scrimpehcvania.fm2 Quick and dirty no subweapons/no damage Castlevania TAS in 14:03.33. It is highly unoptimized with lots of tiny, but noticeable mistakes, so, maybe there could be a whole 30 seconds chopped off. If optimized, would such a run make a good canidate for submission? What do you guys think? (encode is on its way) Encode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnc4uUdBv8U

Posted: 8/23/2010 3:41 AM

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mklip2001

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Neat idea for a run, scrimpeh! Although there were some small mistakes in the run, it looked pretty clean and seems to be a good indication of what an optimized run would be like. I'm sort of torn about the run category, though. On the one hand, as someone who knows how hard this game is, you tore it to shreds. (The mummy boss and the Grim Reaper were especially incredible.) On the other hand, some of the boss fights drag pretty badly without subweapons (the bat and Dracula first form, for instance). Also, all the damage shortcuts, the major bonus points from subweapons, that's all forbidden in this run. That's a shame, since those antics are what make the current Castlevania published run so incredible. The damage transfer bug to hurt bosses also is a real shocker, and you can't do that with this run. In contrast, consider the Contra pacifist run which only uses the standard weapon. That run, by avoiding killing enemies, adds palpable extra challenge, much like this run does. However, no one part is made too much longer in the pacifist run. Also, there isn't that much entertainment that is sacrificed in the pacifist run (since the spread gun optmization, although technically impressive, doesn't have as much "wow" factor IMHO as comboing enemies with the cross subweapon in this game). All this considered, I probably couldn't give a strong "Yes" vote to an optimized run of this. I'm just one person though. Thanks for sharing your WIP though!

Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

Posted: 8/23/2010 5:26 AM

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Dwedit

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I'd give a no vote, because it's boring.

Posted: 8/25/2010 10:50 AM

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scrimpeh

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Oh, and another question: How is it possible to get past the spiked ceilings in Stage 6 in one go? /edit: never mind, I figured it out. Instead, have this updated WIP: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/440652465/scrimpehcvania2.fm2 I was concerned I should've picked up the long whip to make the medusa fight go by quicker, but I was close enough all the time. I still think I'll have to pick up the long whip somewhere. Other questions that come to mind: - Getting both mummies on one side: Possible and worth it? - Getting past the Axe Knights quicker

Posted: 10/29/2010 12:50 PM

Post subject: Castlevania 1 questions and LF finnish people

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carmen_electra

Joined: 10/29/2010
Posts: 2
Location: FI

Hiyo ! So, I have been playing around with frame advance stuff with few games and started to do first "real" TAS. Game I chose was Castlevania (U), cause I have played it alot. There are few questions I wanna ask. 1) Should I do the TAS level by level or play the game thorugh? I mean, when I finish one level, should I try to do it better or continue to next level (and then try to improve level in next run?) 2) About luck manipulation. I don't know for sure, but all the things that happen, will shown in hex editor? So, if I jump it will change the value in hex editor and other things can happen? I'd like to get as much score I can, so I was thinking how I can get most points from candles. 3) How do I one shot the first boss? /_\ 4) Is there topic / site which helps with this game? 5) Are there any finnish people who'd like to help me with this TAS thing? Not only just by this game. If there is, send me PM please. and sorry about my english :c

Posted: 10/29/2010 2:36 PM

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scrimpeh

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'Lo and welcome to tasvideos, enjoy your stay. To answer your questions: 1.) It depends. You can do a testrun of one level to see how the game works and see how you can optimize this one level, or you can do a testrun of the whole game. 2.A run usually contains only input, so if you do something to mess up the random rumber ~~god~~ generator, it might desync. Unless you mean RAM Watch, where the RNG change should be displayed. 3.It has something to do with hitting the boss at the exact same frame it hits you. Try to replicate the setup as closely as possible (the bat charging you, you standing on the stairs like this). It isn't that difficult to do. 4.Here is a good bit of info, you should also check out the authors' comments for the published Castlevania runs. Aside from that, search for something like "Castlevania Tricks" or "Castlevania TAS" on places like youtube, gamefaqs or so. We also have a topic on the game in the forums. 5.I'm sure there are, though I'm not one of them. Sorry, bro

Posted: 10/29/2010 3:12 PM

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carmen_electra

Joined: 10/29/2010
Posts: 2
Location: FI

Thanks for the tips ^^ Trying to optimize the first level. I watched few TAS videos and took some guides from there. Now I am stcuk in the point, where you have to hit the bat to advance on the upper level. It allways comes down like 1 or 2 pixels early ;__;

Posted: 10/29/2010 4:05 PM

Post subject: Re: Castlevania 1 questions and LF finnish people

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Ilari

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1141)

Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217

carmen_electra wrote:

1) Should I do the TAS level by level or play the game thorugh? I mean, when I finish one level, should I try to do it better or continue to next level (and then try to improve level in next run?)

Well, I personally continue to next level and when I have finished all levels, redo the whole run from beginning, constantly comparing to last run and trying to squeeze more frames (usually that proves to be successful). The reason why I tend to do it whole game at a time and not level at a time is that doing it whole game at a time tends to gain more knowledge about tricks and mechanics of the game, as well as giving more time to think about new tricks before actually needing them.

Posted: 9/22/2011 7:16 PM

Post subject: Hello, new here! Questions about Castlevania

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CrimsonV

Joined: 9/22/2011
Posts: 2

Hello people, I'm new around here and got interested in TASing after finding one of the introduction videos by adelikat on YouTube. I grew up with my beloved NES, so needless to say that it has caught my attention. I've watched all the four videos and now I think I understand the basics. I wanted to start doing some practice with one of my favourites: Castlevania. There are some things I just can't figure out by myself, though. 1- While watching the world record, I noticed its author managed to kill the first boss with a single hit. I've tried watching it slowed down but I can't seem to understand the logic behind this glitch. I've tried to look for it on the website's game resources but it's not there (that, or I have serious sight problems). It would be neat if someone knowledgeable could explain it to me. 2- Sometimes something odd happens to my movies. When I click on "watch movie from the beginning", after a while it sends me back to the menu, but I can see the movie is still playing and still having the correct amount of frames. Is that a glitch or just me not being very confident with hotkeys and occasionally messing it up? 3- I can't find the RAM address for subpixels (I saw them explained in great detail in the above mentioned video), is it because the character does not have acceleration, so they don't need to be there in the first place? Thanks in advance for your time, and special thanks to adelikat for getting me into all this. It's fun! PS: English is not my native language, so if I made some mistakes show me mercy :)

Posted: 9/22/2011 7:23 PM

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scrimpeh

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Joined: 3/31/2010
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Morning, Crimson, and welcome to tasvideos. There's a dedicated Castlevania topic in the NES forum, but I'll answer your questions here. 1.It has something to do with hitting the boss on the exact same frame he hits you. I do not quite understand the glitch myself, but by replicating the exact same scenario and trying out every frame, you should be able to do it. 2.It sends you back to the Menu? May be that FCEUX somehow snuck a reset into your movie, I've had that happen. You should be able to manually edit it out using Notepad++. 3.Since simon doesn't have any acceleration and moves at a constant 1px/frame, I don't think the game keeps track of subpixels, except for the stairs maybe. Since the stairs are so restricted anyway, I doubt it'd be of much use either way. Glad to see new blood tackling Castlevania, if you find a way to improve the published run, you're the man.

Posted: 9/22/2011 7:33 PM

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Ilari

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Joined: 5/1/2010
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scrimpeh wrote:

2.It sends you back to the Menu? May be that FCEUX somehow snuck a reset into your movie, I've had that happen. You should be able to manually edit it out using Notepad++.

Yeah, spontaneous resets appearing in movie file is well-known FCEUX bug (especially if you use play from beginning). And as for removing a reset using text editor, find a line starting with |1| (soft reset) or |2| (hard reset) and change that part to |0| (no reset).

Posted: 9/22/2011 7:49 PM

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CrimsonV

Joined: 9/22/2011
Posts: 2

Thanks for the quick replies, and I apologize if there was already a Castlevania topic in the NES forums, but as a newcomer with newbie questions I just thought I'd post here :p About the boss glitch, that does seem the one that I found in the resource section of the site, but I would have never thought that was the one as it doesn't even mention bosses. I will try it as soon as possible!

Glad to see new blood tackling Castlevania, if you find a way to improve the published run, you're the man.

I think that run does leave some space for optimization, but it's extremely little and I first have to train my skills enough to at least reproduce what he has done in the first place, then I might consider trying something... Who knows. Also, thank you Ilari for the reset fix. :)

Posted: 10/8/2011 3:44 PM

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mklip2001

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Yeah, I'd be curious to see that. If the heart management works out, that's a good timesaver.

Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

Posted: 10/26/2011 9:39 AM

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Dark_Noob

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Joined: 8/24/2011
Posts: 318
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I am trying to do the TAS this game with a faster time but using the same chances that I will be bugs in this desenvolvmento.

Someone who still enjoy playing fighting games ;)

Posted: 4/21/2012 11:57 AM

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scrimpeh

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Joined: 3/31/2010
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This happened while casually playing the game. Not sure what caused it, dying fixed it. (U PRG0, for the record) //edit: Going in the screen above and dying also fixed it. Making the game lag very much seems what caused it, you've got multiple enemies and candles there, allowing that fairly easily. I wonder whether any other objects in the game can be manipulated like that. Lastly, this does not work in the PRG1 version.

Posted: 6/3/2012 10:24 AM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

It's something that some tasers never try, but making the game to lag a lot causes strange things to happen sometimes. I did some testings with the lag in this game as I've noticed some things like this. Can something useful can be done, I don't know. The boost at level 13 is interesting. It gives me some ideas that I need to test right now. :P Because I don't remember if I have tested your idea and the ideas I have in my mind right now, I think I will test them.

Posted: 6/3/2012 1:39 PM

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AngerFist

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Phil wrote:

It's something that some tasers never try, but making the game to lag a lot causes strange things to happen sometimes. I did some testings with the lag in this game as I've noticed some things like this. Can something useful can be done, I don't know. The boost at level 13 is interesting. It gives me some ideas that I need to test right now. :P Because I don't remember if I have tested your idea and the ideas I have in my mind right now, I think I will test them.

You are fucking back! Go get them Phil :D

Nitrogenesis wrote:

Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!

Arc wrote:

I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.

natt wrote:

I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it

Cooljay wrote:

Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P

Posted: 6/17/2012 2:11 PM

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scrimpeh

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Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

Phil wrote:

It's something that some tasers never try, but making the game to lag a lot causes strange things to happen sometimes. I did some testings with the lag in this game as I've noticed some things like this. Can something useful can be done, I don't know.

The game is quite suspectible to lag in some places with the crushing pillars screwing out pretty bad.

It is also possible to make the game freeze when too much is going on:

Posted: 6/18/2012 10:36 AM

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MESHUGGAH

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Phil wrote:

It's something that some tasers never try, but making the game to lag a lot causes strange things to happen sometimes. I did some testings with the lag in this game as I've noticed some things like this. Can something useful can be done, I don't know. The boost at level 13 is interesting. It gives me some ideas that I need to test right now. :P Because I don't remember if I have tested your idea and the ideas I have in my mind right now, I think I will test them.

what the f... the master of tases came back???

PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...

Posted: 8/22/2012 4:17 AM

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Grincevent

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Joined: 8/21/2012
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Hi to all Castlevania fans! I've just started adding some info in this game resources page on the wiki: http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/Castlevania.html I'm not done yet, I still have to talk about enemy behavior and manipulation, add some ram adresses, and maybe other small things. I'm here to see if someone wants to help with it. You can point out typos or tell me how to rephrase some things in a better way, you can also share tricks and basically all the info that you think needs to be in the wiki. And you can tell me if some info is simply wrong, too ^^ For example, since I'm doing a TAS (my first TAS, just to learn and have fun) where I don't use subweapons, I can't help with them.

Posted: 8/22/2012 5:53 PM

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Grincevent

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Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France

I've added what I knew about bats and medusa heads, the hunchback is next on my list. After that, it will be harder because all the info I have about the other enemies is quite vague. Example: "the skeledragons seem to move randomly, but I managed to alter this randomness by "losing" some frames on my way to one of them", not really precise... I have the same kind of stuff for the mummies, the skeletons, the birds... but nothing really good. So if anybody can share some knowledge about any type of enemy, it will be welcome :)

Posted: 9/1/2012 5:00 PM

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Grincevent

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Joined: 8/21/2012
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I'm done with my test run for my very first TAS (yay!). To make it interesting for me, I used these rules: -never attack enemies, except in boss battles ^^ -no mindless destroying of innocent candles or walls. In fact it is "no furniture destroying at all". -interdiction to pick up items (since they can still spawn when I jump on bats or when some boss's projectiles are destroyed) So I'm stuck with the leather whip and no subweapons. I have no intention of submitting an optimized run of it; I couldn't even find a fitting category name and I doubt it would have a chance of being accepted. Long story short: it was just for entertainment and learning how to TAS :) I'm now uploading it to youtube, but since I'm a newbie about encoding, I can't guarantee a good result. But if anyone wants to see it anyway, the .fm2 file is available here. Please be indulgent, there are huuuuge mistakes in the beginning. I was learning along the way so it gets better later. There is still a lot of room for improvement. Some parts are quite boring, too, where I could have injected a little dose of entertainment. Edit: I used the USA PRG1 version.

Posted: 9/2/2012 2:51 AM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I would call that category "minimalist pacifist", personally. Though the fact that bats die (?) when you jump into them is a bit problematic for the "pacifist" angle, though. Congrats on finishing your first TAS! I'm not set up to watch it, alas, so I can't provide feedback.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.