Submission #1166: FractalFusion's NES Monopoly in 00:27.08

(Link to video)
Nintendo Entertainment System
baseline
FCEU 0.98.12
1625
60
655
Unknown
Monopoly (U).nes
Submitted by FractalFusion on 8/24/2006 2:44:35 AM
Submission Comments
  • Aims for fastest time (by input)
  • Manipulates luck
Recorded with FCEU 0.98.16, but will work in any version.
I spent a week continuing Acmlm's disassembly and found out how the cards work. After another week, I found the optimal delays for this strategy and manipulated time at the naming screen better to minimize delays.
This movie is about 3 seconds faster than the published version and 1 second faster than hero of the day's trading strategy. Similar to hero's strategy, I use trading, but in a way that is completely unexpected.
I won't give the strategy for suspense. If you really want to see what it is before watching, a near-identical strategy is somewhere on a message I posted at this forum.
What I will say is the following:
  • I found out that using Player 2 was better in terms of minimizing delays.
  • I spend a couple seconds on the naming screen. Why? Using the card searcher program (monopoly.cc) I created, I found out that the desired combination occurs after some 2500 executions of the random function RndFunc1. I also found out that although RndFunc1 usually executes once per frame, the naming screen executes RndFunc1 multiple times, depending on RndCount1, and that pressing A will reset RndCount1.
  • The name I enter isn't just for show. Because pressing A will reset RndCount1, I press A at optimal times, which results in pressing A four times, plus "OK".
  • The delays in the game were minimized with a separate delay searcher program (monopolysolve.cc). It took me a whole week to search the timing of every action in this strategy. I extensively used the (monrngtriv.cc) program to find the "distance" between two random seeds.
  • Interestingly enough, the current source for (monopolysolve.cc) was a result of a lot of tweaking to get the desired result. The delay searcher program accommodates a few different strategies, to increase the chance of a solution turning up. There is a part where I must manipulate three CPU rolls at once, so it would be stupid to try and find it manually. After tweaking to correct a timing error, I found a solution, then tweaked the source a few more times before I was satisfied with the result.
Delays:
cards: 1+136+0 (strategy-dependent here) first turn: 0+3+0 cpu turn: 2 second turn: 15+0 cpu 3 turns: 3+7 (I think)
Source to programs (not very neat): http://rapidshare.de/files/30535975/monopoly_source.zip.html---
See HomePages/FractalFusion/Source/Monopoly for source.
Thanks to Acmlm for his part of the disassembly.
Enjoy the movie!

adelikat: Accepting for publication. Publishers should note that most people (including me) voted for this run to be published along side of the existing run.

FractalFusion: After a long time of trying to decide, I have decided to cancel this submission for a few reasons:
  • For Monopoly, there isn't much point to fastest input anymore.
    • This submission can be beaten by a less entertaining run by 8 frames.
  • Trading is not a good strategy. Lack of "controlling the CPU" is one factor. Arbitrarily setting the price is another.
  • Most other facets of this run are encompassed or extended by submission #1199.
  • The only thing that really remains is bizarreness. Publishing bizarre sub-1-minute runs is not indicative of what the site's goals should be.
  • Having two Monopoly runs published is also not indicative of what the site's goals should be.
Last Edited by adelikat on 9/10/2023 12:15 AM
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