Submission #9181: darkshoxx's DOS Loom in 00:43.76

TAS of Loom EGA on ScummVM on 1000FPS and really REALLY fast mode enabled. Hopefully submission part 1 of 3

This is (possibly) one of three TAS' for Loom EGA I wish to make, with three different speed settings. These settings arise from arbitrary default limitations on ScummVM and LibTAS which are either active or passive in those three runs. This run has both set to fastest.

I made a sneak preview here: https://youtu.be/3z9Lf3r01gU which discusses the possibilities and limitations, inquiring feedback which was positive.

I then made a proof of concept here: https://youtu.be/Lm1cQ_mQTYg

The two speedsettings are:

Limited framerate + Vsync (60 FPS + On vs. 1000 FPS + Off) and really REALLY fast mode (Ctrl + G in game, see https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Loom#Default_controls )

neither of which are permissible for the current categories on speedrun.com, but can be played at the very same speed manually if desired.

The setting 1000 FPS was an estimate about an order of magnitude higher than 60 FPS. See here https://youtu.be/VNhlWpIJJb4 for why this is an underestimation.

To run this movie, make sure Loom is the only game added to scummvm, and the Command-line argument is "--random-seed=0" (so no game, scummvm launcher will boot) this is required to turn off Vsync. If all goes well, the game begins with Boppin racing to the main tent to get his distaff

We follow the route of the WR submission by Non-Slim Jim

Note that there is a difference in RNG behviour between the VGA and the EGA verison. In VGA, one of 4 draft lists is randomly selected. In EGA, each draft is sampled for one of three possible patterns (except open and transcendence, which are always fixed)

Pretty much identical to Any% other than the speed of course. Any% is limited to 60 FPS and we run at 1000 FPS. This leads to a desynch of video and audio when spells are cast, as the animations are measured in frames, and the sounds are measured in seconds. Also, certian sounds cannot be skipped, in particular the "learning a new note" sound. First observed at the 5 second mark. These cause a pause of about 3 seconds, and constitute almost half of the entire run.

Directly begins with learing G and waiting another 3 seconds. Then the route follows the regular Any%, so Shepards, Scrying sphere, Shepards, Lamb, Herd, Dragon

Both turning the gold to straw and learning "A" cause another long wait in the dragon's cave. Upon entering the maze, the light draft is cast, costing another good 2 seconds. At about 27 seconds into the run we see the first actual difference between the TAS route and the Any%. In Any%, we let two drops fall from the stalactites into the water to infer the correct spell for "reflection". This is not required for the TAS, so all we do is immediately skip the stalactite drops and we see a total of 3 frames of falling drops. This is because of the set seed (but would work without as well), we already know the pattern through the magic of rewinding.

Other than some hardly necessary pixel perfect positioning when listening to the Bishop, this is identical to Any%. Swap clothes, go in, get scolded, hex a sword, get kidnapped.

Identical to Any%

Here, three more drafts need to be learned or guessed. Or in our case, rewound.

- If it were to happen, viewers might enjoy the other 2 versions I have planned, which are slower but easier on the eyes.

- mikeSpeedyAdventures mentioned snap scroll (alt + i) which might save a couple of frames in the maze.

- I'll do screenshots soon

- Thanks to mikeSpeedyAdventures for the tech suggestions - Thanks to Non-Slim Jim whose run I followed.

eien86: Claiming for judging.

eien86: Unclaiming since I've been informed this game is under consideration for potential policy changes.

feos: Yeah sorry I forgot that I'd rather claim it to potentially set a precedent.

feos: Sorry again, this is taking a while, setting to Delayed to indicate it.

feos: Fixed platform. ScummVM lists this game as DOS. It wasn't released in this form for Linux or even Windows.

feos: Put file hashes into annotations because the site currently can't have them in version info.