Submission Text Full Submission Page Publication Page
River City Ransom is a goofy game which deserves a goofy TAS.
  • Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.16
  • Does not aim for fastest time
  • Plays on Novice level
  • Uses time to save trashcan
We looked at previous submissions and demonstrations of this game and tried to include the most entertaining parts of what was available, and add in a few ideas of our own along the way. Hopefully you'll get a kick out of it.
Bonus: Watch this run with the option "Allow more than 8 sprites per scanline" checked to make it easier to see when there are many sprites on the screen at once. This option is located in the main menu under Config -> Video.
(Changing this option may require an emulator restart if the colors get messed up, but it will save this setting.)

Suggested Screenshot

Bisqwit: Nice screenshot!

Judging decision

Bisqwit: Here is the judging decision.
Those who say that "[this movie] doesn't belong on this site" can go read WhyAndHow again.
A movie is entertaining when it is:
* Interesting (not slow, boring, or repetitive)
* Surprising (does the unexpected)
* Skillful (handles awkward situations efficiently and creatively)
and
our main goal is to create movies that are beautiful to watch.
In my opinion, this site needs more movies like this. This is the ideal.
However, such movies pose a judging problem. Movies that compete for speed are easy to compare; just a scalar number against a scalar number. But play-around movies like this; if you receive a couple of them, what should you do? How can you judge them and decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard?
This is all politics, and that's where this submission is stuck at. Does it honestly deserve the place it's aiming at?
Even the voting feedback does not make the decision all that clear. We have to remember all the kind of bias that exists in the votes. (Indeed, judging is not a democratic process; the votes are there just to give an idea of audience reception.)
I am accepting this movie on the following grounds:
  • The votes have been positive for the most part.
  • The movie is consistent with the message of this site…
    • A message which has been underpresented lately.
  • It is not embarrassingly too long.

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Posted: 10/29/2007 10:36 PM
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adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee
TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
Chamale wrote:
adelikat wrote:
Also, just beating the dragon twins or the final boss with no power-ups is quite difficult in real-time play.
Only in one-player mode. Flame_gamer and I have beaten the last boss in less time unassisted. 2P mode adds no difficulty to bosses.
If you read carefully, I said without power-ups & whatnot. EDIT:
Soulrivers wrote:
I didn't like this movie. I am by no means an elitist that can never tolerate any entertainment tradeoffs, but this was a bit too much I think. That and the fact that not many of the stunts done actually amused me. Obviously this is a case of my humour not being the same as of the authors.
This is a very fair & valid criticism. We are quite blatant with some extreme "entertainment/speed" tradeoffs. And there is humour involved; and not everyone has the same sense of humor. This kind of movie can't be everyone's cup of tea. I just hope there were at least a few things in there that entertained you.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 10/29/2007 10:57 PM
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VANDAL
Experienced player (612)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 612
It seems quite a bit of people aren't entirely for this movie and I can understand why. Since adelikat and JXQ pretty much worked only amongst each other, there really wasn't any input (besides the RCR threads) from anyone of what may be best for the run (also the current and previous published runs). Most of the ideas in those threads/runs didn't quite have a 'many aspects' run in mind like yours does so you can see where I'm going with this. I'm not saying cancel this run and redo it but you may want to take that into consideration and really criticize your work and see what you can weed out of it and what you can add to it based on viewer response (that's what I did with MKII when I didn't get enough input on the forums until the run was on the workbench. I also didn't release WIPs for the second run but that's not the point.) Either way, this run was good but there were some things I would have liked to have seen after re reviewing it a few more times (mostly just combos I could see being possible).
Posted: 10/30/2007 4:41 AM
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Chamale
He/Him
Player (178)
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1352
Location: Canada
adelikat wrote:
Chamale wrote:
adelikat wrote:
Also, just beating the dragon twins or the final boss with no power-ups is quite difficult in real-time play.
Only in one-player mode. Flame_gamer and I have beaten the last boss in less time unassisted. 2P mode adds no difficulty to bosses.
If you read carefully, I said without power-ups & whatnot.
I meant without powerups. Though our speedruns use Dragon Feet, because it's just so much better.
Posted: 10/30/2007 4:56 AM
Quote
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee
TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
Chamale wrote:
Though our speedruns use Dragon Feet, because it's just so much better.
Apparently our definition of power-ups differ.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:30 AM
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Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
How about publishing this as a concept demo, since it's not a true "TAS"? As for what I thought of the run, I enjoyed it. It was different and somewhat funny. All I didn't like was all the major sprite glitches.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:35 AM
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JSmith
Joined: 8/1/2006
Posts: 428
Sir VG wrote:
How about publishing this as a concept demo, since it's not a true "TAS"?
Seconded.
Trying 127.0.0.1... telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused telnet: Unable to connect to remote host
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:50 AM
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Kles
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 339
But... it is a TAS. Tool-Assisted: Yes, obviously. Superplay: Yes, this is a superplay. It shows off a lot of things that are probably impossible or incredibly difficult in real time, hence making it "superplay." When are we going to get over the fact that "superplay" != "speedrun?"
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:56 AM
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DK64_MASTER
Joined: 10/24/2005
Posts: 1080
Location: San Jose
Not being very familiar with the game, I found parts of the movie entertaining, however it got repetitive. The baseball game was funny, the redeeming part of the run. Player/Item stacking is fun, is it possible to do: player - trashcan - player - trashcan - boss - trashcan? The whole idea of creating a movie that is entertaining, with almost a complete disregard of speed (yes, you beat the game faster than I would have been able to, but that's beside the point), is a nice idea. I can't re-iterate enough how much I liked the MKII/Killer Instinct play arounds. I hope to see more movies like this in the future. That being said, I gotta take the middle road and vote meh. Sorry guys.
<agill> banana banana banana terracotta pie! <Shinryuu> ho-la terracotta barba-ra anal-o~
Posted: 10/30/2007 8:54 AM
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Kyrsimys
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland
Okay, I have one question: why the HELL did you guys include the glitching? Is there anyone who thought it was entertaining? You completely ruined the last fight. Due to the glitching alone I find this movie unpublishable. Although, even without the glitching I would have given this a solid no for obsoleting the previous run. Chamale's run is a lot more entertaining in its effectiveness. Kicking major ass is entertaining for me in this game; watching the main characters beat each other up is not. I also agree with the point that this movie doesn't look very superhuman. It might be superhuman as adelikat points out but it doesn't look like it, which is what counts.
Posted: 10/30/2007 9:40 AM
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upthorn
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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 1802
Sega TAS of 2011 Sega TAS of 2010 Sega TAS of 2008 Sega TASer of 2007
Kyrsimys wrote:
I also agree with the point that this movie doesn't look very superhuman.
Uh... crossing a pit by jumping from a trashcan that the other player threw doesn't look superhuman to you? Your other points I agree with, (except that I never watched chamale's run so I can't say which entertains me better)
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Posted: 10/30/2007 10:12 AM
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Dromiceius
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
FWIW, I was amazed at how glitched up the game got without crashing. It gets to a point where the whole thing just locks up.
DK64_MASTER wrote:
player - trashcan - player - trashcan - boss - trashcan?
That would be something to see. I think you could do that with Rocco or Moose, since they spawn with trashcan-like weapons in the area. Getting the boss to stand on a totem poll like that for more than half a second would be funny.
Posted: 10/30/2007 3:56 PM
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primorial_soup
Player (87)
Joined: 1/15/2006
Posts: 333
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Many entertaining parts. I wonder if some of the new techniques used (such as the trash can throw to cross the pit, dying at the same moment the boss does to avoid having to leave the building, etc.) couldn't be used to improve the existing run. As my previous statement indicates, I do not find this movie to be an improvement to the existing run. DarkKobold summed up my thoughts rather concisely:
DarkKobold wrote:
Voted very much no. This belongs in the thread for "do something funny" not a published run on this site. Even though some parts were enjoyable, I don't see how following a girl around is "superplay" nor is randomly punching the other player, and other such ridiculous parts. It will be entirely upsetting if this movie obsoletes the current one.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:18 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee
TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
Kyrsimys wrote:
Okay, I have one question: why the HELL did you guys include the glitching? Is there anyone who thought it was entertaining?
Yes, I found it entertaining as well as JXQ. I think a few others in the thread expressed appreciation for it. Those who do are obviously in the minority but that doesn't mean no one did. The main point is that we loved the decisions in this movie as therefore why they are inlcuded. We made the movie because we enjoyed it, had a lot of fun, and thought the end prodcut was very good. We are sharing it here in hopes some others will like it too.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:20 PM
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Kles
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 339
adelikat wrote:
Kyrsimys wrote:
Okay, I have one question: why the HELL did you guys include the glitching? Is there anyone who thought it was entertaining?
Yes, I found it entertaining as well as JXQ. I think a few others in the thread expressed appreciation for it. Those who do are obviously in the minority but that doesn't mean no one did. The main point is that we loved the decisions in this movie as therefore why they are inlcuded. We made the movie because we enjoyed it, had a lot of fun, and thought the end prodcut was very good. We are sharing it here in hopes some others will like it too.
The glitching was entertaining, for the first 10-15 seconds, I think most people would agree. However, the fact that you kept it going for as long as you did made it quickly go from entertaining to highly annoying.
Posted: 10/30/2007 6:53 PM
(Edited: 10/30/2007 8:51 PM)
Quote
JXQ
Experienced player (750)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
NES TAS of 2008 Speedy TAS of 2008 SNES TASer of 2007 TAS of 2007 SNES TAS of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
When a movie is judged on something so subjective, such as "entertainment value", then it's not surprising to me that most people will not like 100% of the choices made in the movie. What does surprise me is the posts which seem to say that we were "wrong" for not making the choices that he/she would have preferred. This game's variety is very deep, and many different runs could be done, showing off different aspects of the game. We can't please everybody with one run, and we know that. One individual viewer won't always be pleased with each run, and hopefully they know that, although some posts imply otherwise. Since everyone can't be pleased, the best thing to do is for the authors to go on their own sense of entertainment. The run will turn out best this way - if we tried to do what everyone else felt was entertaining, the run would be in a deadlock, and we wouldn't be personally as pleased with it, which would probably make us less enthused about what we're working on, and ultimately affect the final product. Criticism is welcome and for the most part has been fair. The run will be accepted/rejected based on the overall response of the community. But there is no correct choice to make when trying to be entertaining, so everyone with a shitty attitude similar to Kyrsimys's would be best to produce their own run which would follow the blueprint they think would be best for everyone. Also, I don't think this should obsolete the current run, as I believe that all runs of RCR so far have aimed for speed, even Sleepz's (despite popular consensus on this subject), and ours did not. Thanks to the majority of you for watching our project :)
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Posted: 10/30/2007 7:19 PM
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Kyrsimys
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland
So why exactly is my attitude shitty? I didn't think I even had an "attitude" in my post. It was simple criticism towards your movie. Perhaps I should have included a disclaimer to my post so that you would understand that I was merely expressing my opinion or maybe I should have started every sentence with "I think" or "in my opinion". I'll just quickly repeat my points so that you'll all understand what I was trying to say: I THINK that the glitching in the end was a very weird move. There was only one person in this thread (in addition to JXQ and adelikat) who expressed that it was a positive thing. Something like 10-13 (estimation) people gave a negative comment about it. IN MY OPINION your entire movie was pretty much ruined because of that weird move i.e. I THOUGHT that it was a bad/dumb move. IN MY OPINION this RCR movie was not entertaining, because I VIEW IT AS slow-paced fooling around without clear goals and I have a hard time figuring out (from just watching the movie) whether the movie achieves what it tries to do. I LIKE the style of Chamale's movie more. TO ME the things done in the movie did not look superhuman. Yes, the jumps over the big chasms were very cool and they indeed did look like they would be very hard to do, even superhuman, but they didn't make up for the rest of the movie. Chamale's run, on the other hand, does look like there's a robot behind the pad going through the game as fast as possible. Hope that clears things up.
Posted: 10/30/2007 9:34 PM
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Fabian
Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Yeah Kyrsimys that's a pretty reasonable reaction.
Zoey Ridin' High <Fabian_> I prett much never drunk
Posted: 10/30/2007 11:47 PM
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Aqfaq
Editor, Expert player (2460)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
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This movie made me smile a couple of times, so I'm voting "yes". :)
Posted: 10/30/2007 11:48 PM
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DarkKobold
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Arcade TASer of 2010 PCE TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 Lucky TAS of 2009 Lucky TAS of 2007
upthorn wrote:
DarkKobold wrote:
I thought we were trying to avoid using 'subjective' things like entertainment to judge a movie.
Actually, if you notice the poll question is "did you enjoy watching this movie?" That is a pretty subjective standard. And if you read through the FAQ (I think that's where it was anyway), Bisqwit says that he would use entertainment as the obsoletion criterion if he felt he could judge it fairly.
I went back and read the FAQ. Wow, it seems to go against the entire site, and entire reason most movies are obsoleted. Also, to others, I didn't say this didn't contain superplay parts, I just said some parts were not that super-ish.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:29 AM
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BoltR
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
I totally baffled why you are trying to publish this run on the site adelikat. Something like this belongs somewhere like youtube. There are already PLENTY of similar videos on youtube. How many versions of each game do you want on the site? How many versions of 'play around' runs per game do you want? How are you going to even deal with all of those? What is stopping me of making a TAS with 5 savestates of me 'having fun' and goofing around in SMB3 and submitting it? Ok, if I did, and it make some people laugh because of my 'body language' with Mario? It gets published? What if someone else then does the very similar thing? Are you just going to publish theirs along side? Are we just going turn the site into a TAS machinima site?
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:36 AM
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moozooh
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away
Yeah, all movies by JXQ and adelikat so far has been clearly all goof-arounds and machinima, how long will this nonsense continue?! Come on, guys! What are you doing! Stop this bullshit and start working on actual speedruns, not this unentertaining shit!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:42 AM
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Kles
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 339
BoltR wrote:
I totally baffled why you are trying to publish this run on the site adelikat. Something like this belongs somewhere like youtube. There are already PLENTY of similar videos on youtube. How many versions of each game do you want on the site? How many versions of 'play around' runs per game do you want? How are you going to even deal with all of those? What is stopping me of making a TAS with 5 savestates of me 'having fun' and goofing around in SMB3 and submitting it? Ok, if I did, and it make some people laugh because of my 'body language' with Mario? It gets published? What if someone else then does the very similar thing? Are you just going to publish theirs along side? Are we just going turn the site into a TAS machinima site?
I think there's a decent line of what's interesting and goofy and what's just stupid. Playing around in SMB3 is just stupid. This is interesting and goofy and is a good showoff for what the game is about (being interesting and goofy). Not all games have the capacity for this playaround. You can do very few "neat" things in SMB3, or most games for that matter.
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:44 AM
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BoltR
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
You say that now, but you haven't seen me super amazing (and entertaining) SMB3 run yet! You sir, will be so shocked and amazed that you will eat your hat!
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:46 AM
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Kles
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 339
BoltR wrote:
You say that now, but you haven't seen me super amazing (and entertaining) SMB3 run yet! You sir, will be so shocked and amazed that you will eat your hat!
I await it super-eagerly!
Posted: 10/31/2007 12:48 AM
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primorial_soup
Player (87)
Joined: 1/15/2006
Posts: 333
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
moozooh wrote:
Stop this bullshit and start working on actual speedruns, not this unentertaining shit!
I think you misunderstand. The point is not that the run was unentertaining or in and of itself without merit. Simply that without clearly defined objectives, it would be quite impossible to produce a 'better' run which would obsolete this one, should it be published. To quote once again:
DarkKobold wrote:
This belongs in the thread for "do something funny" not a published run on this site.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
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