(Link to video)
Strider (NES) is a platform game which normally takes around half an hour to complete. Here it is in 3 minutes.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.0
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Uses death to save time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Aims for fastest completion

Comments

This is my first completed TAS project and my second completed TAS of Strider. I did this run mainly for fun and to showcase the new set of tricks that I & the Strider community have discovered over the past year. Enjoy!

New Techniques

Midair walljump

Whenever Hiryu does a neutral jump he will 'store' a walljump. This jump can then later be used in midair for a brief moment after walking off a ledge. It jumps further and is slightly faster than a regular jump.

Wallclip with a normal jump

Hiryu can continuously go deeper into a wall until he finally clips into it by first being right up against it, press away+down or up and then press the direction of where the wall is. Repeat until Hiryu can start zipping.

Wallclip with a neutral jump

Hiryu can instantly clip into a wall in midair under the conditions that he does a neutral jump while having speed. This works when he preserves speed after running down a slope or by doing a midair walljump with no previous d-pad input in midair.

Slide up slopes

Hiryu can (depending on his position) extend his slide up slopes by not holding left or right.

Instant acceleration jump

Hiryu can make instant acceleration jumps when he is sliding up slopes by pressing back and then jumping at the correct time.

Pausefix the camera

If Hiryu's Y pos is correct (Y=23 for max camera bump) and you pause and unpause the game, the camera will shift upwards and enable you to get to places that you normally would be unable to with just a regular zip.

Stage by stage comments

Kazakh

I reduce the amount of "vividly flashing scenes" by taking a new route. 976 frames saved.

Australia

Sliding up slopes & wallclip with a neutral jump action. It's quite tricky to get the correct camera position to make the zip work after running down the slope. At the end I intentionally suicide which ends the level 58 frames faster compared to not dying. 207 frames saved.

Red Dragon

I gain control 43 frames earlier becaused I died in Australia. You can just barely avoid hitting the speech trigger of the guy who warns you about Yugderisal by doing a midair walljump and slide as soon as you land. I defeat the final boss in one less jump by dealing 40 damage to him (except for the first jump where I deal 30) on each jump instead of the usual 30. 416 frames saved.
Total = 1599 frames

Known Improvements

Strider is surprisingly difficult to optimise. I have most likely overlooked some things due to Strider being Strider. A lovely game.

Other comments

I'd like to thank the Strider community for being cool. Thank you Inzult for providing me with memory adresses, Blechy for introducing me to this game and Kyman for making the previous TAS.
I like frames 3415-3420

feos: Accepting to Moons to obsolete the existing run.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4490: biggyboy's NES Strider in 03:15.58
PCachu
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Wow. And to think I'd believed that the game made no damn sense before...
ars4326
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Even more glitchy than before. Love it!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Patashu
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What a great game.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Former player
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Still can't believe midair zips are a thing. Fun stuff.
Joined: 3/8/2014
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big improvement! congrats biggy on making this beautiful tas of this beautiful game
Glitcher
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Looks solid. I'd expect no less than swift efficiency from a ninja.
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verry goos yes for me
MESHUGGAH
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Holy mother of fuck, good job guys with that OoB founds/new zipping tricks. Keep up the good work. Obvious yes vote.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
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That was a real bitch! Glitchy TAS of 2014! Yes vote.
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.
Editor
Joined: 11/3/2013
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Saw this on the workbench yesterday, before an encode was put up, looked at the TODO author's comments, and saw an author's name I didn't recognise. I thought this was going to suck... Just shows not to judge a book by its cover. Well done on this.
Personman
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Well, that was gorgeous. Easy glitchy TAS of the year vote from me.
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Makes sense to me. Voting yes.
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Spikestuff
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Whaaaaá̶̵̷̬̙͚̫̲̺̪̗̲͇̯̺̲̜ͅa҉̸̢͇̲̤͠͡a̶̢̯͈̘̠͚͘͝͞aaaaaa̶̡̛͠͏̝͙̫͇̺͕̪̤̣̮̬̲̭̦̖̰̩͈ą̼̦͎̖̪̜͈͍̖̘̹͙̝̫͚͝á̜̖͙̭̬͓aaaaa̦̮̗̬͉̠̲͓̰̬͍̻͟͢à̢̢̧͍̺̦̺̰̜̜̹̣͙̼̝̝̲̖̠à̛͈̝͈͇̘͈̩̲̦̟͈͙̗̯ͅͅͅaaaaa͟҉̜͇͔̝̖͕̟̦͍̲͕̠͚͠ͅa̛͉̞̼̰̙̙͚͕̲̫͕͎̻͉̜̻̘̕͞a̷̸̜͉̹̫̱̪̞̙̬͜aaaaa͖͍̭̗̤͟͜a̴̢̼̗̥̫̼̤̲̯̥͔͇̕͝a̸̸̛̩̦̰͚̭͘͟ͅͅaaaaat? Yes. OH GOD YES!
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mklip2001
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I'd love to see some more details of how that new zipping in Kazakh works. It definitely seemed to be the biggest timesaver of this new route. You also managed to skip the last text from the scientist about Yugderisal, which was nice. We may be overdue for a run of this game which doesn't use any wallzips. It would be hard as hell to optimize, 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.
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Yes vote, amazing job coolkid.
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Very very entertaining movie. This movie is what tasing is about. Easy yes vote.
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
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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
MESHUGGAH
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Just saying that I'm trying to optimize this TAS (emphasize on trying)... My notes so far: * First jump/zip is optimal * Slashing in the air can save time. Requires more debugging to write the rules down. * Wallzipping can be done a bit faster (set of fucking conditions) * The game is not totally random, but just let's say I made 4k rerecords to finally sync up around frame ~3370 edit: Movie file uploaded here: User movie #18951804747011284 Image comparison (submitted TAS vs added optimizations): (Fails: 0 cam x speed, so far my best method (4k rerecords to sync) is avoiding 0 speed rather than lag frames or maximizing higher values while accepting 0 speeds. In the end, other methods always ruined by double 0 frames or unfortunate lag frame (decreased movement speed). CamX -26 (X -1), probably 6 to 12 frames saved so far. edit: how the fuck does the zipping+startmenu+startmenu works. the only way I can trigger it is with Y 23 pos (28, 26, 21 doesn't works?!).
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
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Hey MESHUGGAH, I'm glad that someone of your caliber has decided to pick up this game! I must admit that I sort of expected to get wrecked by actual experienced TASers. Also, do you mind sharing your onscreen scripts? I'd love to see you continue on with the game and possibly make a collab if you're interested. I've frankly no idea why it just works on Y 23 pos. That's the magic of Strider I suppose...
MESHUGGAH
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I tried Strider first on 2013 Januar 29, after 4 days I abandoned it because I couldn't improve a single frame (regarding "being wrecked"). My lua script bit updated "Fail" stat: if previous cam x and current cam x is equal (0 speed), increase counter (you need to reset the script to count from beginning). The "speedometer" is for the cam X. I have no idea why the X pos jumps randomly, when the game uses that specific address for displaying the character sprites.. I intend to continue/collab, but I would first need to know the answer for that 23 pos Y magic thing. All I know is leaving the start menu increases cam Y with 2 to 6 frames, depending on initial palyer Y position. edit: updated: http://pastebin.com/aaxjce0j (jump timer, in-game frame counter to see which lag frames are fake + some test values).
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I don't even know what to say about this game... yes vote.
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So are you guys improving it?
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.
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Is anybody here?
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.
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I'm here, Dreamhack was happening. I'm not working on a new run at the moment.
Patashu
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And I assume MESHUGGAH is hard at work on DTC5, so this can probably be published as is.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu