Post by Bob_Whoops

Posted: 9/18/2004 8:10 PM

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blip

Joined: 4/11/2004
Posts: 155
Location: Fairfax, VA, USA

Wow, great job Phil! The "warp through walls" mini-glitch in level 9 was brilliant :) I've always wanted to write an AI capable of beating a game by itself. It's an extremely interesting problem. With the advent of emulators, it's even possible to do it now. So few hours in the day, though...

Posted: 9/18/2004 9:01 PM

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Bob_Whoops

Former player

Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA

Yeah, I would like to make one too. Alas, I have no idea how emulators work, so I can't do it. Making one for a zelda game would be very interesting, to program and to watch. Maybe when I stop being so lazy :/

Posted: 9/18/2004 9:05 PM

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Phil

Active player (410)

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

blip wrote:

Wow, great job Phil! The "warp through walls" mini-glitch in level 9 was brilliant :)

thx and cool

blip wrote:

I've always wanted to write an AI capable of beating a game by itself. It's an extremely interesting problem. With the advent of emulators, it's even possible to do it now. So few hours in the day, though...

cool

Posted: 9/20/2004 3:10 AM

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Megaman951

Joined: 6/11/2004
Posts: 35
Location: Quebec, Canada

I can't view the movie - it desyncs are the very beginning right after link grabs the wooden sword...

Posted: 9/20/2004 4:24 AM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Thats a point where Phil uses the restart command. Maybe you're using a version that has trouble with the start button?

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 9/20/2004 4:25 AM

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Phil

Active player (410)

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

Megaman951 wrote:

I can't view the movie - it desyncs are the very beginning right after link grabs the wooden sword...

Are you using the official FCEU version or blip's version? If it's blip's version, is it 0.98.10 or 0.98.12? Is the rom checksum fitting with what is written in the file info?

Posted: 9/20/2004 6:54 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

I have some comments on the new run, most of it are variations on the same theme: it doesn't seem like you use enemy boosting as much as you could. For example, in the first castle you have lost half a heart and pick up a heart at 1:00. You could have been hit twice and still had full life. When you pick up the floater in the same castle, you have one heart left, so you could have taken one more boost. Then again when you pick up the first triforce piece, you have full life. You will get a refill anyway, so why not use it? These kinds of things are everywhere. There's some bad random too where you have to wait a lot, for example at 15:57. All in all it's a big improvement though.

Posted: 9/20/2004 7:10 PM

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Bob_Whoops

Former player

Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA

It takes time to get your hearts filled when you get the triforce if you are not at full life...

Posted: 9/20/2004 7:11 PM

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Kyrsimys

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland

It doesn't take any extra time. At least when you have only 8 hearts or so.

Posted: 9/20/2004 8:20 PM

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Blechy

Former player

Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York

(Because continuing is based on the theme ending rather than the hearts filling)

Posted: 9/20/2004 10:39 PM

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Phil

Active player (410)

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

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Posted: 9/21/2004 1:48 AM

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Blechy

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Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York

My mistake, I think I heard someone say what I said at some point, never tested it.

Posted: 9/21/2004 4:31 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (277)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Bob Whoops wrote:

Of course, there is always the possibilty that by walking into a wall for one second, it just sets up the randomness just right for the rest of the game so that everything goes perfectly. In other words, we will never see a perfect run ot this game, ever.

At this point, you might as well try to decompile the code and figure out how the random number generator works.

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/21/2004 5:08 AM

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

So this generating movies with random data has me interested. I think it would work better on something like Tetris. Make a movie that starts at level 19, then stop it once the level starts. Then generate sequences that don't include select or start, and play them, and delete all the ones that die, etc. At level 19 it takes 6 frames for a piece to drop 1 tile. So that means the vast majority of the movies will end within 10 seconds. From there, you prune and continue. EDIT: Of course that's still 6^600. Which is ~7.77e466. Which, assuming everyone on the planet participates and watches these at 10x speed, it would take 4.1e447 centuries.

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 9/21/2004 5:20 AM

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Bob_Whoops

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Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA

The AI still needs to be smarter. You are underestimating the amount of combinations possible in a short amount of time. Even 1 second of play has 2.3*10^102 combinations (ignoring start and select) which is ridiculusly larger. Obviously doing some things is just stupid, like moving left one frame, then right the next, or pressing A or B every single frame, so you can quickly prune many bad routes. I haven't played this game in a while, but don't you only need 4 buttons to play it? Move left, move right, spin, and go down faster? Well, 5 if you count spinning both ways. Regardless, this is many fewer calculations. The bad thing about doing all this is that you have to do some stuff with the rom or emu (I have no idea what) so that you actually know what's happening in the game. You can obviously tell when you lose, but its harder to show the computer. Once you are at this level though, its probably easier like Bag of Magic Food said to look at the rom and figure out the randomness. Edit: Oops, starting typing before your edit. Guess you do know what a big number that is :)

Posted: 9/21/2004 5:40 AM

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

You can also ignore the up button (no use) and the down button (makes the piece move the same speed as level 19's). So you only need 4 buttons - left, right, clockwise, and anticlockwise (and FUCK YES YOU NEED BOTH ROTATIONS FOR ANY SPEED ABOVE like 8). So that's 4^600 combinations, which produces (by the same maths as above) a much more manageable 9.1e341 centuries. Less than the first guesstimate by a factor of a googol! (edit: and you can drop down to 2.2e161 centuries by restricting input to every other frame as well, which should improve play quality)

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 9/21/2004 5:53 AM

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Bob_Whoops

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Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA

Well, obviously lots of computer power is being wasted since almost all computers can do more than 10x speed. If we fully utelise all computers, we can easily make it a couple thousand times faster, so I say 2.2e157 wouldn't be unreasonable. And thats not including future advancements in computers. Now we just need to figure out a way to store all the data. If you are just storing all the movies that pass level 19, there will be a LOT of data being stored (more than the entire universe could hold). You are trying to genereate all the movies that pass level 19 right?

Posted: 9/21/2004 5:58 AM
(Edited: 9/21/2004 6:16 AM)

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

At this point I'm talking about movies that manage to survive for 10 seconds in level 19, after using the trick to start at level 19. 10 seconds is about how long you can expect to survive if you put down the controller.

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 9/21/2004 6:17 AM

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Boco

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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination

SO FAR OFF TOPIC... EDIT from last post: Though I guess it's equivalent in time but much more efficiently pruned if you only accept beyond this point the videos that managed to make a Tetris within the first 10 seconds (which is about as quick as it can be done). RETRACTION: Except, I guess it's quicker in the long run to pile junk and then build Tetrises on top of that, because then it takes less time to fall from the top. So pruning those who don't make an immediate Tetris may get rid of the best performances prematurely.

someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.

Posted: 9/21/2004 6:40 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

>It is not a bad random since it's predeterminated. Again you can check it by yourself. Didn't you affect randomization before? Like enemy placement and bomb refills? I think your submission said something like that. Why is it impossible in this particular screen?

Posted: 9/21/2004 7:41 AM

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Blitzwing256

Joined: 6/13/2004
Posts: 37

a small overlooked point. rotating the peices affects what pieces will drop later (see my post in the tetris thread) so that adds like a billion other variables since every spin changes the chances of whatever piece will drop in the future

Posted: 9/21/2004 9:09 AM

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Phil

Active player (410)

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

Truncated wrote:

>It is not a bad random since it's predeterminated. Again you can check it by yourself. Didn't you affect randomization before? Like enemy placement and bomb refills? I think your submission said something like that. Why is it impossible in this particular screen?

Those helicopter enemy cannot be controlled.

Posted: 9/21/2004 10:05 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Aha, I understand. Those and only those? How about the extra enemy boosts which you could have gotten with better enemy placement, for example in the first castle you visit, level 3?

Posted: 4/16/2005 7:13 AM

Post subject: Zelda 1 Improvement

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Ramzi

Joined: 3/25/2004
Posts: 459

God, I never thought I'd start this thread again. It hit me... Inspired by rocket jumping, how come we don't use the candle to propel Link forwards? I tested it a little bit, and it seems to be beneficial. Link blinks after being harmed and cannot be harmed until he stops blinking. That blinking takes too long to have multiple hits. So a blue candle will suffice. I haven't tested it, but I think Link can be hit more than once with the candle, but I doubt the detour in Level 7 for the red candle would be worth it. It's 3 in the morning guys. Also, there is the aspect of losing the sword beam. And there's the time it takes to pause and switch to the candle. But for periods of extended walking, particularly on the overworld, I can see this cutting off some real time. But then again it's 3 in the morning. Ideas? Suggestions? Donations?