[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
I have watched the WIPs before (as well as game end glitch), but forgot to comment:
Nice work with this game. Also 2 players runs are great to watch. Keep it up!
My homepage
--Currently not much motived for TASing as before...--
But I'm still working.
[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
I am sorry for the lack of updates on this, this game is difficult to find motivation for.
However, what does give us motivation is a pandemic, so yay.
This is likely the last iteration of stage 1 we will be doing (though the boss pattern is subject to change). we will hopefully be moving on to stage 2 after stalling for nearly a year on this.
Link to video
[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
"The bomb-hoarding hero is back, and now he has a partner on a suicide watch."
Just to confirm, you aren't using the level skip glitch here, right? And the reason to constantly kill off P2 is lag reduction or something?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
That is correct, killing the 2nd player here removes a majority of the lag. The death warps are not as easy to pull off in 2 players due to the precise timing it needs (if not impossible to do).
The way the death warp works is the game uses the same fade out effect when a stage ends or when you die. Once the screen fully fades, it checks to see if you have any lives left, if you don't have any lives remaining then the game brings you to the game over screen. however if you have lives remaining, it brings you to the next stage. If you get enough points for a 1up as you die (the easiest way to do this is to die as you activate a bomb), then you can trick the game into warping you to the next stage.
But that isnt used in this movie, instead the 2nd player is just going to die for the purpose of lag reduction. He is still usable for every boss fight, but causes a lot of the game to lag.
[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
The only places where it saves the most amount of time is in stages 1 and 3. we dont expect to use them anywhere else.
[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
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
So awesome. It's noticeably less laggy than my published run. Do you know how many seconds you are ahead at this point? I realize the emulators are different, so it may be impossible to track.
If we were to straight up compare frame counts, your movie would still be faster due to less lag emulation. The real improvements dont happen until stage 2. I’ll do some math tomorrow to let you know what the gameplay time save is, will just have to subtract the amount of lag frames to know for sure.
[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
The only places where it saves the most amount of time is in stages 1 and 3. we dont expect to use them anywhere else.
Honestly, I wish you didn't use them at all, especially since it's not that much of a timesaver. I'm very predisposed against using continues because they are an unlimited resource box intended to enable the less-capable players to buy their way past the skill checks, not unlike e.g. level passwords or overly powerful option menus. (Extra lives are somewhat similar in principle, but unlike continues and passwords, etc., they exist within the design space of the game; that is, games are designed with a certain life stock in mind and put score- or item-based ways to increase that stock to manage difficulty.) If this were an arcade game, it'd be an automatic no from me. So in my opinion, if you decide to tap into such a powerful resource, it better be worth more than a couple percent of the total run time lest it become an entertainment liability.
Anyway, what's done is done I suppose. I won't insist you start over, just rantingexpressing my stylistic preference, kek.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
So I'll try and address each of the points:
Time Save
The current published run uses snes 9x 1.43 and with such poor lag emulation there was no problem keeping both players alive all the time. You cannot use the same strats on console/bsnes without losing major amounts of time. In the autoscroller in stage 3 alone it's over 15 seconds slower keeping both players alive. Keeping two players alive all the time is great but watching the game lag horribly for over a minute in that autoscroller as well as other places can be absolutely painful to watch. The real time speedrun of two players for this game also kills off player 2 to save time.
Skill
In Contra games, the screen stops scrolling forward if one player gets too far behind. Being able to eliminate player 2 in stage 1 without slowing the screen down was actually extremely challenging and took a ton of planning. It's much easier to just go forward and shoot. From an entertainment perspective, making player 2 a poor unfortunate sidekick is actually kind of fun, but that's subjective.
Continues/Resources
The game doesn't consider it a 'game over' until both players lose all of their lives. If a player has two weapons, the player still gets to keep one of them after losing all lives. A continue is a limited resource that isn't used until both players lose all of their lives. Stealing the other player's lives without using up continues is an intended mechanic and it's used in most Contra games. Speaking of Contra games, this isn't the only TAS to use the live stealing mechanic. The two player Contra and Super C TAS also use live stealing.
The game doesn't consider it a 'game over' until both players lose all of their lives. If a player has two weapons, the player still gets to keep one of them after losing all lives. A continue is a limited resource that isn't used until both players lose all of their lives. Stealing the other player's lives without using up continues is an intended mechanic and it's used in most Contra games. Speaking of Contra games, this isn't the only TAS to use the live stealing mechanic. The two player Contra and Super C TAS also use live stealing.
Life stealing I am completely okay with. I was talking specifically about continues. Now I don't know if EZGames and I misunderstood each other, since I was under the impression that it would end up using continues to afford the constant game overs for the second player, but if only life stealing is used, I have no problems with it whatsoever.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
[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
Link to video
Stage 2, I havent gotten around to adding playaround after the boss yet but I will work on that today.
[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
Oh btw HOTD, I forgot to give you the numbers of our improvements compared to your publication. Keep in mind this is with emulation differences factored out (basically I subtracted the number of lag frames from the frame count)
Stage 1 we saved 16 gameplay frames
Stage 2 we saved 227 gameplay frames
none of these improvements include lag frames saved. and I am not bothering to compare those for obvious reasons.
[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
[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
Back once again with another WIP of this game:
Link to video
[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
Link to video
A new glitch was discovered in Stage 3, which resulted in a route change in that stage.
See if you can spot the change.
[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
[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
