Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
shimaknight wrote:
I saw you didn't use death as a shortcut back to town. I'm not sure if it would save time, but there are two places it could have a use.
shimaknight wrote:
However, I guess money seemed to be the problem (especially for tilte :/ ), so maybe it was necessary to go the long way back for those two times.
Im not sure about this either because if I should use death as a shortcut I stand before 2 problems. First I have to visit the guru I will want to return to after death. And also, when dying the money resets to 0. Ok, this is not the whole truth. Instead the money resets to the current rank you have. But since I don't talk to the gurus and completes the game as a "Novice" (or whatever the first rank is called) I can't use this. And im not sure that I want to die. Even if it were to save some small amount of time.
/Walker Boh
Joined: 11/1/2004
Posts: 12
No WalkerBoh, I didn't think you were being rude it all. It just seemed as though all of us (myself included) were pointing out alternate ways to do things and I saw an oppotunity to use a quote from the game, that's all. Looking forward to version 2.
Joined: 11/20/2004
Posts: 236
Location: United States
Ker-buuuu--revival!! Yeah, instead of posting a new topic, I figured it'd be easier to just revive this one. I'm highly interested in seeing a speed-run of Faxanadu. This happens to be one of my all-time favorite games, in fact. Thus, anything related to it -- unused enemies, items, ROM hacking, speed runs... -- excites me greatly! Is anyone still fiddling with this by chance? I'd be greatly disappointed if no one's still trying to make a speed-run of this great game...
I'm not that hard to find... if you know where to look. -=( http://jolikmc.tumblr.com )=-
Skilled player (1828)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Eeh, I may be way off here, but it sounds to me like you're not aware that Walker Boh has already made a TAS of this. Here's the link to it if anyone's interested: http://tasvideos.org/movies.cgi?id=269 As I said, I jus got the impression that you didn't know this, I apoligize if I missunderstood your post. But maybe Walker's run could be improved? Do you know anything that can be improved in your run, Walker Boh?
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Randil wrote:
As I said, I jus got the impression that you didn't know this, I apoligize if I missunderstood your post. But maybe Walker's run could be improved? Do you know anything that can be improved in your run, Walker Boh?
Not really. But I will play around with it more when I find the time for it.
/Walker Boh
Joined: 11/20/2004
Posts: 236
Location: United States
I wasn't aware, actually. Thanks for pointing that out. And nicely done, Walker. Deluge and Long Sword made a very deadly combo, apparently.
I'm not that hard to find... if you know where to look. -=( http://jolikmc.tumblr.com )=-
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Indeed ;) Thank you.
/Walker Boh
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
I'm convinced that there are ways to improve the run. For example, find a way to take advantage of the secret Mattock that appears in the first tower, and find a better way of collecting money (In the current movie, half the money gets eaten by the wall every time he kills the gargoyle... while he claims this is fast, it just seems like a terrible thing to do) I once considered playing around with this game myself, but I only know the first half of the game by heart. I'd rather let Joe and Walker work on it.
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
I will check this out in time, I just don't have infinite time anymore =/.
/Walker Boh
Lord_Tom
He/Him
Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
I am looking at doing an improvement to the current run. It looks like the money collection with the wyvern can be carried out significantly faster by pinning the wyvern to the left instead of the right...decreases walking distance and gives 720 instead of 400 gold per kill. There may also be room for improvement using some damage boosting/death abuse in the first town. It looks like damage boosting isn't generally a good strategy because of how your walking speed takes a few seconds to accelerate, and being damaged slows you down. Funny that you can pull a 180 without losing speed... Anyone have any hidden gems they've been sitting on for this one?
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
I would be up for helping with finding difficult memory addresses and finding out how stuff works. If someone wants to improve the old run, that is...
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
I believe that time could be saved by using one of the wing boots earlier. at frame ~58000 wing boots are used, but one screen earlier if they had been used there, it would have saved some unneeded ladder climbing. Also, I think its worth checking about the death shortcut taken in this run. I wonder if it actually saves any time.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Lord_Tom
He/Him
Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Twelvepack wrote:
I believe that time could be saved by using one of the wing boots earlier. at frame ~58000 wing boots are used, but one screen earlier if they had been used there, it would have saved some unneeded ladder climbing. Also, I think its worth checking about the death shortcut taken in this run. I wonder if it actually saves any time.
Will check that out. I think Walker's run may have generally underused wing boots; he may not have been aware of a few places where unlimited boots may be obtained for as little as 11s apiece. The death shortcut Walker uses appears to save a significant amount of time in my testing because after collecting the battle suit, the hero would need to walk all the way back to that same guru to get the ring (of dworf). Death has another major benefit which could make it worth it even in some cases where you lose a little time; it gives you some money according to your rank and refills magic and health. Refilling magic is nice b/c there is no monster that drops something to refill magic, and magic is the only way to attack from a distance. Other items I'm looking into are another death abuse (atop the Tower of Mist) and getting the 'secret' mattock near the entrance to Tower of Trunk (Walker goes all the way to the top, in part apparently to farm the wyvern for cash; he may not have known about the secret mattock though).
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
I didnt realize you had to return to that guru anyway. Guess I should read the movie descriptions more. The hidden mattoc should be interesting, you will still need to get gold somehow. Might be worth looking into how much time is lost not buyuing the weapon upgrade. The time it would save to not farm, and buy it might make it faster to skip it over. I kinda doubt it, but its worth looking into.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Lord_Tom
He/Him
Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Yeah, I'm looking into skipping the long sword, or at least buying it a little later in the sequence of things; it's difficult to judge the amount of time saved/cost. Walker's run gets a lot of gold by killing enemies along the way; some time could be saved by jumping over them, but I think it'll have to be judged screen by screen exactly how much. Any time saved thus, however, needs to be weighed against time lost on the enemies I do kill (with the dagger). My hunch is the weapon upgrade will turn out to be worth it. Another intriguing possibility is selling wing boots in Conflate (a later town; the shop buys wings for 2750 golds apiece) and buying the big blade for 8500. Probably not worth it though, since the town is late in the game, and buying/selling expensive items takes a lot of time because the animation to drain/refill gold is slow.
Lord_Tom
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Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Dromiceius wrote:
I would be up for helping with finding difficult memory addresses and finding out how stuff works. If someone wants to improve the old run, that is...
Thanks for the offer. I've read some other posts about using memory addresses to decode various aspects of games, though I confess I don't quite understand how it works for things more complicated than "boss's hp is x". Can you, for example, somehow locate values used in a boss' AI to use as surrogates to predict their behavior? I am working on this run, though I'm taking my time in studying the game and the existing runs first.
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Can you, for example, somehow locate values used in a boss' AI to use as surrogates to predict their behavior?
Yep. That would probably require some disassembly, since AI isn't as opaque as HP values and such. Gunty actually did something like what you're describing to improve boss fights in Lufia 2. IIRC, he translated the random number generator and combat code into Java, and made a bot that tested all possible combat options to see which is the fastest.
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
If you need to farm for cash but want to get the mattock, why not do it at the wyvern in the Joker room? I think that could be pulled off somehow.
Lord_Tom
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Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Okay, I've been working on this game pretty steadily and thought I'd post. Figuring out how to use FCEU's memory watch tool was greatly helpful in deciphering which screens have secret items and how to manipulate when they appear. At present it looks like 4-5 minutes can come off the previous run. I've done up to the world of Branch about 4 minutes ahead, but am reworking my route to make use of the item locations and some new tricks. Indeed, I do mean tricks and not glitches...this game is pretty solid! I have to say...optimizing money gathering and item collection is *complicated*. After testing umpteen options, my current strategy is to revisit the king for the $1500, get the secret mattock, buy the wing boots (only) on getting to Forepaw, then buy the long sword just before getting the ring of ruby. Selling wing boots in Forepaw looks like it may be superior to killing Wyverns to get the $6k needed for the mist town purchases.
Lord_Tom
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Expert player (3145)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Yeah, so this run is taking forever because I keep finding new game-changing techniques and having to redo huge segments. The big two: 1. The battle helmet can be skipped (saving one K key=1500 golds, a boss fight, and several screens); the side effect is you can't wield the dragon slayer when you get it, but game can still be beaten with (in my case) the dagger 2. Strangely, I deduced this bug just an hour ago while walking with my newborn son, so I guess I have him to thank. It is now confirmed: by pausing/unpausing the game every 64 frames it is possible to never have the wing boots or hourglass (and presumbly the gloves and invincibility potion) expire. In case this is not screamingly evident, this means that if, at the beginning of a life, one uses wings and invincibility potion one can fly completely unencumbered by enemies until it is convenient to take damage and die (e.g. for death abuse). Prior to discovering the bug with the timed items, I'd done to just about the end of mist about 5 minutes ahead of the previous run, with at least 60-90 more seconds coming off. Now, it looks like as much as 8-10 minutes could be saved from the previous run. Off the top of my head, it decreases the number of wings needed for my route from eight all the way down to four. The downside is that if it turns out to be fastest to fly invincibly for long stretches of the game, it could be quite boring compared to slashing my way through with the dagger. Dunno...
Joined: 7/10/2007
Posts: 280
I'd still be way entertained by a sub-20 run of Faxanadu. Can you do the pause trick in two frames (one to pause, one to unpause) or is there a delay on it? If for every 64 frames you had to be paused for 10 of them, I'm not sure the tradeoff would be worth it.
Lord_Tom
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Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
The trick requires only 2 frames be lost; the counter at address 1a cycles from 0 to 255. To skip the decrement at 64, say, hit pause at 62, unpause at 64. Further, time does not decrement if the key frame occurs at a screen transition, etc, so many skips are granted for free. I'll spend some time figuring out what the shortest, most abusive route would be with this new info and see what people think before really starting in earnest. Sub-20 minutes is *very* speculative at this point, but doesn't seem wildly out of line. I have identified the counter addresses for all time related items (wings, glove, potion, hourglass) and confirmed the same trick works for all of them.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
I am really, really interested in seeing this. Even if you do have to re-do to run, I would like to see what you had that was 4 minutes ahead. This is turning out to be an incredible improvement.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Lord_Tom
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Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
http://tom.seufert.googlepages.com/lordtomfaxanadu27.fcm Here is a link to what I had done before discovering the 2 new big changes. I don't have time now to write extensive run comments, but will answer any questions anyone has. The above file is optimized through the mist world and up until just past the battle suit, at which point it goes on a little further, unoptimized, just for planning things out. The big route differences to watch for: 1. secret mattock & different farming location in 1st part 2. no long sword (yes, it's faster to skip) 3. better wing boots aquisition & thus more extensive use 4. the expensive K key is bought 2 & 2 in different towns, instead of all 4 at once to avoid the need to farm at the cost of a somewhat longer branch route. Of the above, only 3 and 4 are affected by new discoveries. Fewer wings will be obtained, of course, and death abuse used fewer times, as wings/invincibility now unlimited by time. With the ability to skip the battle helmet, only 3 K keys are needed, and with invincibility it will be quite easy to maul wyverns for the necessary 4500 golds.[/url]
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
Wing boots galore. I'm impressed. You even used the refill/ring shortcut at the very beginning. Can't wait to see the final version.