Posted: 5/5/2009 9:51 PM
Post subject: Pac-Man Collection -> Pac-Man Arrangement
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
For my first TAS, I'm planning to make one from the game "Pac-Man Arrangement" as found in the "Pac-Man Collection" cartridge on the GBA. A game I loved so much, I finished it at least 5 times. By the way, I already started it. Now, I'm doing the 4th stage. Anyway, this game is more than just "Pac-Man". Here's the proof here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-WwmdU_wi4 In this video, you will see classic Pac-Man stages, of course, but there are stages with Dash arrows (which make Pac-Man dash like crazy and make him almost unable to control) and there are stages with Jump spots (where Pac-Man jumps from a spot to another). And you can also see there's 5 ghosts instead of 4. The 5th one is a special one, because you can eat it anytime, but that ghost can fuse with a classic ghost to power it up and unleash its special ability (for example, the red ghost can dash anytime if it get fused). Pac-Man can also collect special power-ups (such as speeding up, throw the ghosts in a big bag, and more) at some times. So, to summarize this, this game isn't just "Pac-Man". I'm playing this game at its highest difficulty level (Ultra Hard) and with 6 lives, so I may lose a life to take a shortcut, but I didn't die yet! And for the Dash arrows, I used frame-to-frame to have full control on Pac-Man when he got dashed. That's a really effective way to save time. So, what do you think?
Posted: 5/5/2009 10:28 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
This game seems to have some potential... will you post a WIP? At first I thought the youtube video was the TAS, and was going to admonish you to use more save states :) This will require some pretty intense route planning... good luck!
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 5/5/2009 10:46 PM
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GabCM
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Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Here's my first WIP video which shows everything up to round 6 : http://www.mediafire.com/?35mdjzjw2yo I'm very satisfied by the most part of the result, but because I'm not satisfied by what I did in round 3, I have to redo everything from that round. That's not a big thing because I know what to do at the other rounds and I know what to do to make a better play in round 3 (that will make the movie around 200 frames shorter!). I'm very proud of what I did in round 2 and 4! I'm sure you cannot do those stages like I did. And for now, there are 64 re-records. I had to redo some stages until I do the fastest possible.
Posted: 5/5/2009 11:13 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
First off, you can upload your vbm file to http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php if you'd like as well... that way critiquing the run will be easier as with avi's it's pretty much guesswork. Overall I think it looks good for a first attempt. The first level appears to be fairly trivial from a route-planning perspective as it requires no backtracking. You already mentioned level 3 so I won't bug you about that :) Level 2 seems like it could be improved by getting that top row of dots earlier on so you don't have to backtrack as much at the end. 4 & 5 looks good superficially to me, though I would bet there are improvements to be made... I don't know if you've seen the thread on the NES version which was for just the first level, but Randil managed to squeeze quite a few frames out of it after several revisions: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5431&highlight= One other thing: why give yourself the maximum number of lives? This seems to contradict your choosing the hardest difficulty...
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 5/5/2009 11:21 PM
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applepieman
Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
So are you going for 'fast as possible' or 'highest score'? I think Highest score would be far more entertaining.
Posted: 5/6/2009 8:31 PM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
alden wrote:
First off, you can upload your vbm file to http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php if you'd like as well... that way critiquing the run will be easier as with avi's it's pretty much guesswork.
Thanks for the link! That way, I wouldn't have to make and upload avi files each time I want to show a WIP.
alden wrote:
I don't know if you've seen the thread on the NES version which was for just the first level, but Randil managed to squeeze quite a few frames out of it after several revisions: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5431&highlight=
I didn't see that thread because I'm new in this forum. I saw the video, and I think I'm going to base on that movie to do round 3. The only things that could change everything are power-ups. In the Arrangement version, there are power-ups to make Pac-Man faster, to create a mirror clone of Pac-Man and more. That means I'm going to do luck manipulation to get the power-ups I want.
applepieman wrote:
So are you going for 'fast as possible' or 'highest score'? I think Highest score would be far more entertaining.
alden wrote:
One other thing: why give yourself the maximum number of lives? This seems to contradict your choosing the hardest difficulty...
[/quote] That means I'm going to make two movies. For both of them, I'll put the difficulty to "Ultra Hard", the hardest difficulty, and the minimum number of lives. The first movie will have as objective to finish the game the fastest possible without caring about the score, without dying. The second one will have as objective to finish the game the fastest possible with the highest score possible. By the way, thanks for your constructive reviews!
Posted: 5/6/2009 9:30 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Mister Epic wrote:
The first movie will have as objective to finish the game the fastest possible without caring about the score, without dying.
I'd say if dying does save time no reason not to... your call though. I look forward to a new WIP! Go Pac-Man!
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 5/6/2009 10:28 PM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Here's the new WIP, it covers round 1 and 2 (world 0) only : http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1854993700/Pac-Man%20Arrangement%20TAS.vbm I'm planning to do a world per day, and post an updated WIP each time I finish a world. That means round 3 to 6 are going to be here tomorrow. For the VMB file, I recorded it in the US version of Pac-Man Collection. You can see I changed the number of lives to the minimum : 2. There's nothing new in round 1, but in round 2, I could do it really faster than in the last WIP.
Posted: 5/8/2009 7:27 AM
Post subject: Re: Pac-Man Collection -> Pac-Man Arrangement
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Mr._Kelly_R._Flewin
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Mister Epic wrote:
For my first TAS, I'm planning to make one from the game "Pac-Man Arrangement" as found in the "Pac-Man Collection" cartridge on the GBA. A game I loved so much, I finished it at least 5 times.
o.O it has an ending on the Cart? Where abouts does this bad boy end? Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Posted: 9/4/2016 8:31 PM
Post subject: Pac-Man Collection
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kylelyk
Joined: 8/13/2010
Posts: 9
Hello everyone, I started a test run the the Pac-Attack in Puzzle Mode "subgame" in GBA Pac-Man Collection because I loved it as a kid and never beat all the levels. I've done the first 18 levels and besides some optimizations with piece placement, think its a pretty solid TAS. However, it might be that there is no way to beat level 19 without using a cheat code to skip it. Is there any movie guidelines on what to do in this situation? Edit: I found a video of a speedrun of the game and apparently there's some kind of RNG with the pieces. The speedrunner fails the level once, then gets a combination of pieces that is actually possible. Looks like I need to do more tests.