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Art Style: Rotohex is a remake of the GBA game Art Style: Dialhex, and is a tile-matching puzzle game where the objective is to keep the board from filling completely by rotating triangles of matching colors into a hexagon.
This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite puzzle games of all time, and this is my second and hopefully much better TAS of the game. I decided to cancel my first attempt after realizing it was pretty rushed and that it wasn't nearly as enthralling as it could be.
The goal of the TAS is to beat Rotohex's Solo Mode in as little time as possible while keeping the least number of tiles possible on the board at all times. Solo Mode is completed in 14 minutes and 14 seconds, from the moment I selected Solo Mode to my final hexagon match of the game. Casual run-throughs of Solo Mode are usually 30+ minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRGD2zkAeSw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131MSBmd6g0), while vanilla speedruns on YouTube do not try to match as many hexagons as possible (https://youtu.be/2lXKLMZIMaY?t=289).
Here are all the strategies I employed in this movie:
  • By holding down both the 1 and 2 buttons of a Wiimote (A and B if you are using motion controls), the tiles will fall at the fastest speed possible in the game.
  • If you continuously move the cursor in a different direction per frame, you can keep it hidden for as long as you want. This gives the illusion of the cursor shifting to different parts of the board instantly and gives the feeling of unpredictability.
  • Even though cursor has some cooldown after matching a hexagon, you can still move it around and position it to wherever you want.
  • The white color-changing powerup is pretty useless here. Use the black tile-clearing powerup whenever it shows up.
  • You can grab and move a tile through mid-air by rotating the cursor on top of it.
  • In some situations, falling triangles will make a match on their own. Other times, I would grab it and drop it into a hexagon.
  • Organizing triangles into almost-hexagons when 5 of the same color were on the board.
  • Allowing or baiting some triangles to slide down a hill of tiles into place.
I hope you enjoy!! Thank you to everyone who gave me constructive criticism, as well!

feos: Hello Musicombo and welcome to TASVideos!
Our site is focused on movies that are as optimal as humanly impossible (which is why we use emulator tools like rerecording) and also entertaining to watch for a general audience. Movies that are sub-optimal get rejected, and movies that are optimal have a few options. If the optimal movie is entertaining, it gets published to the Alternative tier. If it's not entertaining, it has to stick to strictly limited goal choices to be published: it should be either Fastestcompletion or full completion kinda movie. If additional goals or restrictions are imposed, and the movie is not entertaining, it gets rejected.
Your movie has an esoteric goal, and the game itself doesn't look all that entertaining in general. As a result, the audience wasn't impressed by your play. But to give proper evaluation to this game and its speedrunning potential, I reviewed your previous movie as well. This game can be published at TASVideos if the movie aims for pure speed, is played optimally, and has no artificial limitations regarding its goals. Even then, your play must stand out from unassisted play to be published here. And honestly, I didn't see much difference between your previous submission and this human play. Since it's a puzzle game, you have to invest more strategy planning to look clearly superhuman and be actually way faster than a human. Here's a full list of Guidelines that can help you if you feel like making another movie of this game.
Otherwise, rejecting for arbitrary goal.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6405: Musicombo's Wii Art Style: Rotohex "playaround" in 14:31.08
EZGames69
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Art Style: Rotohex is a remake of the GBA game Art Style: Dialhex
If this game is a remake of a GBA game, then why not just do the GBA game? Are they two different games or the same one?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Musicombo
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EZGames69 wrote:
Art Style: Rotohex is a remake of the GBA game Art Style: Dialhex
If this game is a remake of a GBA game, then why not just do the GBA game? Are they two different games or the same one?
They're two different games. The gameplay is mostly similar, it's mostly the graphics and audio that are revamped.
Spikestuff
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6403S wrote:
This TAS features Solo Mode completed in 7 minutes and 37 seconds, from the moment I selected Solo Mode to my final hexagon match of the game.
6405S wrote:
This TAS features Solo Mode completed in 14 minutes and 14 seconds, from the moment I selected Solo Mode to my final hexagon match of the game.
Question. What?
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Musicombo
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Spikestuff wrote:
6403S wrote:
This TAS features Solo Mode completed in 7 minutes and 37 seconds, from the moment I selected Solo Mode to my final hexagon match of the game.
6405S wrote:
This TAS features Solo Mode completed in 14 minutes and 14 seconds, from the moment I selected Solo Mode to my final hexagon match of the game.
Question. What?
I changed my strategy in a huge way. Instead of letting the board fill up and using the color-changing powerup to instantly clear the level, I tried keeping the tile count as small as possible at all times.
Spikestuff
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Musicombo wrote:
I changed my strategy in a huge way. Instead of letting the board fill up and using the color-changing powerup to instantly clear the level, I tried keeping the tile count as small as possible at all times.
In doing so, you created a TAS that's almost 2 times slower than your other submission. And slower than the only available speedrun that exists for this game (when looking at RTA timing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXKLMZIMaY So, can you explain why it's 7 minutes slower?
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Musicombo
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Spikestuff wrote:
Musicombo wrote:
I changed my strategy in a huge way. Instead of letting the board fill up and using the color-changing powerup to instantly clear the level, I tried keeping the tile count as small as possible at all times.
In doing so, you created a TAS that is 2 times slower than your other submission. And slower than the only available speedrun that exists for this game (when looking at RTA timing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXKLMZIMaY So, can you explain why it's 7 minutes slower?
Certainly, I treated this not as necessarily the fastest run of solo mode, and instead more of a demonstration of superhuman skills. In this run, I made many more superfluous matches than in the 7-minute run, and I did not instantaneously clear each level using my previous strategy with the color-matching powerup. There was also more time spent showing off tricks, and I was more dependent on luck in terms of getting the currently selected color in order to progress to the next level. Even though this run is around 14 minutes, I personally believe it is more entertaining to watch because there's less downtime watching for tiles to fall.
EchoedMelodies
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Hiya~! So, from your previous post, I assume this is a playaround? Also, why is this slower than the other one? Playarounds can still aim for speed, but it doesn't seem like that's used here.
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Musicombo, if your movie doesn't aim for fastest completion, then you should explain exactly which limitations did you self-impose for the goal of this submission. Quoting from the Movie Rules: "The goal choices should be clear, so it's understood what needs to be accomplished in order to obsolete it." However, if you didn't follow any specific rule, you need to label this submission as "playaround" in the Branch name field.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
EZGames69
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Even if this movie is meant to be a playaround, if it’s anything like the previous submission then it doesn’t exactly offer any kind of entertaining movement. Since I cant play back the movie on emulator and there isn’t an encode to watch I’m abstaining from voting, but I really doubt a playaround for this game would be acceptable.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Musicombo
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Musicombo, if your movie doesn't aim for fastest completion, then you should explain exactly which limitations did you self-impose for the goal of this submission. Quoting from the Movie Rules: "The goal choices should be clear, so it's understood what needs to be accomplished in order to obsolete it." However, if you didn't follow any specific rule, you need to label this submission as "playaround" in the Branch name field.
Alright, I understand. I think my wording has been confusing. How about this: "The goal of the TAS is to beat Rotohex's Solo Mode in as little time as possible *while keeping the least number of tiles possible on the board at all times*". Casual runthroughs of Solo Mode are usually 30+ minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRGD2zkAeSw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131MSBmd6g0), while speedruns on YouTube do not try to match as many hexagons as possible (https://youtu.be/2lXKLMZIMaY?t=289).
Spikestuff
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I'm just going to simplify it further by throwing the actual branch on it.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Musicombo
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Here is a recording of my TAS. Note that this isn't a dump. https://youtu.be/P-S6Tp8WLW8
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I find this unbearably boring. It doesn't look any superior to the previous movie. While the TAS does look more accurate and precise than the RTA, I don't see where entertainment can come from with this game, unless one is really into it already. The restriction set in this movie makes no sense to me, and to have a chance to be published, as TAS of this game will have to be played as fast as possible (without cheating or prior saved games of course). Also a question. Is it random which color the falling tiles will have? If it is, then it can be manipulated to provide more optimal patterns.
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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om, nom, nom... minty!