New WIP. IceCap 1 is down to 1:19::34 (improvement of 68 frames) and Doomsday is down to 1:34::56 (improvement of 16 frames). Flying Battery 2 desynched, leading to a 1-frame increase in timer to correct.
I will see about submitting it next weekend, unless someone can see somewhere I could improve the run; everything else I tried failed (of decreased one act's time at the expense of a bigger increase of the next act's time).
Sounds great. Any plans for doing a Glitch-run through with Hyper Sonic? Make it a NewGame+ and use this save file, then you won't need to dash about collecting Emeralds. I'd love to see just how much you could rip this game apart with Hyper Sonic.
I disagree with the second goal on the grounds that it leaves a little too much room for skipping "most" of an act without skipping the whole thing. Flying Battery 2 and Sky Sanctuary come to mind.
I disagree with the second goal on the grounds that it leaves a little too much room for skipping "most" of an act without skipping the whole thing. Flying Battery 2 and Sky Sanctuary come to mind.
This restriction is the one that best fits the "glitch categories" without being too arbitrary: it is essentially "everything is OK but teleporting from start to end of level". This is what makes these two levels you mention so annoying, actually... they are borderline cases (being "mostly" skipped), and I expect them to draw most of the fire in this regard. The Lava Reef 2 boss can be added to the list of borderline cases -- but since the last one is essentially 2 minutes of dull, repetitive gameplay, I don't expect anyone to actually complain about it...
Now, what exactly could be done to "fix" those borderline cases?
Well, Sky Sanctuary can only be "fixed" by an arbitrary choice -- no abuse of vertical screen wrapping. Such a restriction would force the revision of Marble Garden 1 and IceCap 1. That or the even more arbitrary choice of disallowing it only for Sky Sanctuary.
Likewise, Flying Battery 2 can be "fixed" in one of two arbitrary ways: no wall zipping or disallowing the "anti-gravity" glitch. The latter is an arbitrary choice whose sole effect is to double the length of Flying Battery 2. It is arbitrary because, without Tails around, it is the *only* level where it is possible -- so I might as well be more honest about the effect of this restriction and simply express it as "do not skip most of Flying Battery 2".
As for disallowing wall zipping in full: I might as well throw the run away and start over -- there are zips in 13 out of the 24 acts where zipping is possible (although since zips would not be helpful in Hiddden Palace or Sky Sanctuary, so you might want to see it as 13 out of 22 acts). And if I were to start over, I would eliminate the restriction on overflowing the x position instead of disallowing wall zipping. So yeah, not going to happen.
In the end, the restriction on overflowing of the x position leaves some possibilities of abuse open, but it keeps some worse abuses at bay. And it is far less arbitrary than other restrictions that could be used to "fix" Sky Sanctuary and Flying Battery 2.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Well, I enjoyed the run so much that if you decide to submit it, I'll encode it without verdict from a judge. If you decide not to submit it, let me know what your final version is and I'll encode that. :)
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Here is an updated version of the Sonic + Tails Any% run. It improves Marble Garden 1 (to 0:30::29, a 0:6::52 improvement), Carnival Night 2 (to 0:42::11, a 0:26::42 improvement) and Launch Base 1 (to 0:37::41, a 0:18::38 improvement). Some lag and luck differences reduce the frame by a further few frames, while a good ~6 seconds are lost in real time due to the Carnival Night 2 score tally; the net result is an improvement of 2784 frames in the movie (0:46::24).
Edit: Forgot to mention: The shortcut in Marble Garden 1 is due to "Mr Sweed", while the shortcut in Launch Base 1 is due to Orkal.
Yes, if Upthorn and Nitsuja are OK with it. The thing is, I think that posting it for some consideration before submitting is better form than submitting it outright.
I have seen the Tails version of that video some time ago; however, I didn't know that it was possible with Knuckles. All my attempts of replicating with Sonic + Tails failed (I manage to get Sonic up in the wall, but I failed every time to zip past the left edge of the wall). But I will try some more, maybe it will work.
Edit: Same thing: I can get Sonic and Tails both onto the wall and I can zip Tails past the left edge of the screen, but Sonic always loses all speed just after he gets out past the left edge of the wall.
Nice job... Those extra shortcuts seem so obvious now.
I'd like for the whole thing to be redone at some point, for the same reason that most other TASes don't keep so much input throughout revisions, and at the very least it would be nice to get rid of the ugly-sounding manipulation pauses that have accumulated in-between levels. But this seems like a very valid improvement in the meantime.
marzojr wrote:
I can get Sonic and Tails both onto the wall and I can zip Tails past the left edge of the screen, but Sonic always loses all speed just after he gets out past the left edge of the wall.
I don't know if this will help (maybe you've already considered this), but I think it depends almost entirely on the exact X coordinate that Sonic has when he's first in the wall. If you can get him in there a little more to the side somehow, that might be enough to prevent him from intersecting with the wall edge on the way out. Also, mixing regular zipping with spindashing and/or turning around can sometimes change the coordinates enough.
I actually gave that a fair amount of trying with Sonic back when the Tails version was first discovered. I could not get it to work no matter where I initially landed. At first I attributed this to the fact that Sonic's hitbox is taller, but if Knuckles can do it, then the reason must actually be that Sonic's hitbox is slightly wider.
Alternately, Knuckles' gliding hitbox allows him to land in a place that Sonic can't reach.
But maybe it is worth a few more tries.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Oh yeah, I remember this place now. It doesn't look like it's possible with Sonic. And it's too bad Tails can't start flying while exiting the wall either, or he might be able to impart all of that zipping velocity to Sonic by catching him.
oh is sonics hitbox wider then knuckles? that might make sense that, I thought you might have to do a backward spindash exactly how its done in the youtube video to do it with sonic (and also have him land in the same spot)
After enough tries, I had come to the same conclusion as to the cause of the problem -- the wider hitbox.
By "enough tries" I mean I actually tried varying the X pixel and subpixel position before and after entering the wall (the former by changing Tail's speed/jumping here and there, the latter by jumping inside the wall), scanning the whole range of possible combinations -- and even going once with a spindash, once without, for each pixel/subpixel combination.
I really think can't Sonic can do it :-)
Could be an option for the New Game+ marzojr expresed intrest in doing one day?
It would stop the non emerald gathering stages from the 100% being identical to it at least.
Don't know yet. Having Tails around will make it harder to justify going Hyper Sonic in some levels (with the notable exception of IceCap, where I could turn Hyper instead of being hit as in the any% run, without affecting my ability to skip both levels like that run).
