This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2489: axelito's NES Circus Charlie in 03:25.50

Another 'perfect' game improved? Well I never! Edit: This post was made before looking at the publication.

My guess is that the improvements come at least partially from having been played in Hard difficulty, which the publication notes on the previous run notes is actually the easier setting for a TAS.

After having just watched Randil's publication, I can't vote anything but No on this with a clear conscience. Randil's movie shows planning, research, and precision, and his submission text reflects the depth of his understanding of the game. This one, on the other hand, doesn't show off at all, and the submission text refers only to in-game time--in fact, the word "frame" doesn't even appear in the submission. I'm not convinced it was TASed at all.

this is one second slower than the previous run, which is 3:24.

Unless there's a very good reason why we should accept this slower submission over the current run, I'm voting no.

The H.264 codec is terrible for this game, even the 'lossless' encode in H.264 had massive colour issues. Oh well. Archive.org DailyMotion Encoded at a bitrate of 80 with the heaviest script I could use. Audio at -1. There is no hope in improving this games video quality in terms of the muddiness in the colours unless we use a completely different codec.

"game B" is harder than the first one... TAS should be alway played at hardest difficulty and I played this game on a 999game in 1 cartridge. You got my vote.

This run seems sloppy compared to the old run. Still I suppose games should be played on the highest difficulty unless there is a compelling reasons (make boss fights less tedious). Voting Meh.

which the publication notes on the previous run notes is actually the easier setting for a TAS.

Yes, but since when has the difficulty in TASing the game played a role in whether or not it gets published? A game shouldn't get published just because it is harder to TAS, has more re-records, etc... The general rule is to play at the hardest level (I had to restart my Super R-type TAS because I was playing HARD instead of PRO). However, in a game so short and simple, it may just come down to which run is more entertaining. Since we are comparing to different versions (mode A and B) the one second shouldn't make a difference. //actually, now that I say that, this run isn't super entertaining. // meh vote.

Just because there's a video on easy difficulty it does NOT meant that any video played on hardest difficulty must be accepted.

The "game A vs game B" choise has been discussed for this game before, and the conclusion we made back then was to go with game A. Either way, on a game that's been optimized as much as Circus Charlie, I personally believe that if you lost a frame somewhere to the published run, that you should carefully explain why you lost a frame there and why it can't be avoided. Otherwise I kinda feel that this run is only faster on stage 5 because it does game B and not game A, and that the published run is actually of overall higher quality. (EDIT: I have to compare this carefully to my own submitted run of game B to see if you might have found a new timesaver on stage 5). I'll need to watch this when I have more time so I can give detailed feedback, but I would also like you to adress exactly why you lost frames to the published run. EDIT: Oh, I had forgotten, I made a run of this game on game B back in 2005, and it's faster than this submission. See here. Note that that sumission can probably be improved by now, especially with the stage 1 trick used in the published run. EDIT2: I have now compared this run more carefully to my submitted "game B" run. Here are the results: *You start stage 1 12 frames faster. *Your stage 1 is 17 frames slower. *Your stage 2 is 2 frames slower. *Your stage 3 is equally fast as mine. *Your stage 4 is 47 frames slower. *Your stage 5 is 8 frames slower. It's nice to see someone else is interested in Circus Charlie, but I'm afraid this isn't publishable material, so I'm sorry, but I vote no. I hope you make a new attempt and beat my times! :)

Randil apparently missed his own 1 in-game frame improvement to the run here. In any case, this run doesn't beat all existing records without adequate explanation and should not be published. No vote. EDIT: Need I mention that this run has been beaten?

om, nom, nom... want more!