Post by CyruS

Posted: 11/6/2007 1:58 AM

Post subject: Speedruns with speed up

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Ramzi

Joined: 3/25/2004
Posts: 459

I had this idea for a while. Imagine a human speedrun competition, where the humans can only use speed up. No slow down or save states. This would allow for faster walking or text scrolling. Of course, you can't play too fast, or you'll die. I just tried this sort of run on Zelda 1. I usually walked at 200%, a quick 800% for text or triforce ceremonies, and battle at 150%. I "slowed down" back to 100% for the blue darknut rooms, and I found them to be a lot easier. It seemed as if playing at a faster speed improved my skill.

Posted: 11/14/2007 5:08 AM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Skilled player (1941)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247

Almost all games are hard enough even at 100% speed. Although I don't really speedrun games, I do play Pokemon games at 200% speed. There's also a game that has a really stupid DDR-like minigame; I play it on 200% speed because it's fun that way, and I can't wait to get past it.

Posted: 11/14/2007 5:10 AM

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sgrunt

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Former player

Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind

FractalFusion wrote:

There's also a game that has a really stupid DDR-like minigame[...]

I'm sure there are quite a few games that have those. I also think they're useless.

Posted: 11/14/2007 3:57 PM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

FractalFusion wrote:

Almost all games are hard enough even at 100% speed.

In my opinion, playing on a console is easier than playing in full speed on an emulator. For example, on Mega Man X & X3, I can at least reach Sigma's stage on the console, but I can't on the emulator.

Posted: 11/14/2007 4:52 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

JRL_ wrote:

In my opinion, playing on a console is easier than playing in full speed on an emulator. For example, on Mega Man X & X3, I can at least reach Sigma's stage on the console, but I can't on the emulator.

Might be a controller issue. In fact, playing at a higher speed does improve your reflexes, at least temporarily — until your brain has re-accomodated to the normal (slower) speed, you will have a benefit of having your reflex basically overclocked for a few hours. However, it also may throw off your timing if you are relying on it more than on pure reflex in your runs (which may be especially obstructive in memorization-heavy games). Playing game at a slower speed almost always hurts your ability, though.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 11/14/2007 5:13 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

As an example, Devil May Cry 3 (PS2 game) has an edition with a "Turbo" mode that ups the game speed by 20%. Playing on turbo throws you off for moves that require careful timing - things like jump-cancelling attacks multiple times in succession - until you get used to it. But you get very good at dodging attacks, and eventually you get the timing down for all of your tricks again. Drop it down to normal, and suddenly your re-learned timings are all wrong, but the monsters seem to move in molasses. Hmm...I should try a Super Metroid run at enhanced speeds. Should be interesting, but I'd have to take an alternative route with more energy tanks, since I'm pretty certain to take more damage.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 11/17/2007 10:57 AM

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xenos

Player (119)

Joined: 1/30/2007
Posts: 82

Coincidently I was recently playing Super Mario Land at higher speeds to improve my skill. I did level 1-1 at 200%, the others are too hard at this speed. Here is a video of that first level.

Posted: 11/17/2007 5:29 PM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

moozooh wrote:

JRL_ wrote:
In my opinion, playing on a console is easier than playing in full speed on an emulator. For example, on Mega Man X & X3, I can at least reach Sigma's stage on the console, but I can't on the emulator.
Might be a controller issue. In fact, playing at a higher speed does improve your reflexes, at least temporarily — until your brain has re-accomodated to the normal (slower) speed, you will have a benefit of having your reflex basically overclocked for a few hours. However, it also may throw off your timing if you are relying on it more than on pure reflex in your runs (which may be especially obstructive in memorization-heavy games). Playing game at a slower speed almost always hurts your ability, though.

I actually meant 100% speed on the emulator(normal speed)

Posted: 11/18/2007 12:38 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

I know. Only my first line was addressing your issue, the rest was unrelated.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 11/20/2007 5:53 AM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I took a shot at this on Super Metroid...bad idea. The game's quite complex and requires precise motion; trivial by now for me at normal speed, but at 200% it's much more difficult. Formerly trivial platforming became much harder, even if there weren't any monsters in the area. Plus, that little invincibility window after getting hit is barely enough to register that I'm not where I meant to be. I spent a lot of time standing on spikes. :( I did use savestates; Kraid and Phantoon both took multiple tries (Kraid particularly loved to toss me off of the high platforms repeatedly). I am in fact still stuck at Ridley, with 9 E-tanks, 2 reserve tanks, and just not enough skill to beat him. Draygon oddly enough was cake, and Botwoon merely very hard to hit (went in with 105 missiles, came out with 6). I did the early supermissiles, early Spazer, Kraid without hi-jump, and skipped Grapple Beam; that's about it for sequence breaks. Oddly enough, I got the mockball on my third try. I don't know of any way to get less of a speedup than 200%; the only setting I have that appears to modify emulation speed is the turbo multiplier, which has only integer values. I'd like to try this at 150%; that seems like it'd be much more doable. Also, I would make a .smv, except that every movie I've ever downloaded desyncs, so I suspect that any movie I'd upload would also desync. Is there a guide somewhere to playing .smv files on SNES9x 1.4.3 for the Mac? Or alternatively, I downloaded 1.5.1, but it appears to do nothing when I select the .smv file after choosing "Play Movie...".

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 11/20/2007 7:28 AM

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sgrunt

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Former player

Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind

Derakon wrote:

Also, I would make a .smv, except that every movie I've ever downloaded desyncs, so I suspect that any movie I'd upload would also desync.

Most .smvs here appear to use the timing of 1.43-WIP1, so if you can find a Mac version of that floating around you might try using that.

Posted: 11/20/2007 9:38 AM

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Enhasa

Joined: 1/14/2005
Posts: 216

This topic came up on SDA before. stanski did a (informal) run for SMB1 at 200% that I uploaded here.

"I think happiness is just being able to loaf without stress." http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Posted: 11/21/2007 4:22 AM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

moozooh wrote:

I know. Only my first line was addressing your issue, the rest was unrelated.

Oh I see what you mean.