Post by Kyman

Posted: 1/14/2005 6:38 PM

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Cazlab

Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 551
Location: Karlstad, Sweden

hahaha, exactly :DD He looks funny, he should look tough!

Posted: 1/15/2005 7:37 AM

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Mr._Kelly_R._Flewin

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757

Boco wrote:

TwinGalaxies forum (the scoreboard is mostly out of date, I believe) and SDA are your best bets. Though you should be researching any game you plan to run online anyway.

The database is getting an extensive overhaul atm, but you are most accurate about the forums. The Nes field is heating up though and the database is completely up to date in that regard on my end of things. SDA is also a wonderful bet as well, as you mentioned. I'm hoping to submit some of my own records there as well, and soon I will be asking submitters if they want me to submit a copy of their records to SDA for publishing as well, until there's a more permanent solution. 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: 4/1/2010 8:53 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

I've been working on this some for the last few days, and I think the published run can be improved by quite a few seconds. I have a WIP of the first level, and so far I'm 958 frames (15.97 sec) ahead of the published run. However, in this WIP I take damage to save time, whereas the published run is a no-damage run. I'm wondering, do you think taking damage to save time is a good goal in this TAS? The damage taking makes up for perhaps 2-3 seconds of the improvement. Here's the WIP. Notice that I get all my magic refills by manipulating drops from the enemies on the boss fight. This was very tedious, but was well worth it. Any interest in and/or opinions on the WIP so far?

My own page on this site.

Posted: 4/1/2010 10:52 PM

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Kyman

Editor, Active player (430)

Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada

Finally someone is improving this :D I think taking damage is fine, as long as you plan it right. Also watching your WIP now... (OT: Title screen music is awesome...) EDIT: That was everything I expected it to be, keep on going. Awesome job Randil!

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Posted: 4/2/2010 4:20 AM

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scubed

Former player

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 155

> I think the published run can be improved by quite a few seconds. I strongly agree. My first movie was rather sloppy in retrospect. You should easily be able to do it much faster. Especially, if you take on all 4 elementals simultaneously and get multi-hits on them. Also, for the Earth elemental, I show off a bug where you can attack from 1 screen over. It's probably faster not to use the bug. Taking damage makes enough sense. You should do whatever is fastest. I eagerly await seeing the full run.

Posted: 4/5/2010 7:28 AM

Post subject: Encode of WIP

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Kyman

Editor, Active player (430)

Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada

For all the lazy ones out there... http://www.archive.org/download/wizwarriors2-tas-wip-randil/wizwarriors2-tas-wip-randil.mkv

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Posted: 4/5/2010 3:25 PM

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Sonikkustar

Skilled player (1309)

Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.

That was awesome Randil! And 15 seconds just from the first stage?! Are there any other stages with that serious of time you can save? Keep it up! :)

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Posted: 4/5/2010 8:22 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Sonikkustar wrote:

That was awesome Randil! And 15 seconds just from the first stage?! Are there any other stages with that serious of time you can save? Keep it up! :)

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. :) I've looked into level 2 some too, and although I don't think it can be improved by as much as level 1, at least a few seconds should come out of it. I've also been contacted by Aglar, and he made a WIP of the first level as well some time ago. It turned out that his WIP is (several seconds) faster than mine (his boss fight is crazy, and he used a slightly different route), and we decided to team up on this project. (go Swedes of Speed!) We'll keep you updated on how this goes. Aglar has some other projects going on, and I have my thesis going on at school, so there might be some time between the updates.

My own page on this site.

Posted: 4/5/2010 8:23 PM

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Kyman

Editor, Active player (430)

Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada

Well, more time saved is always good :) Whenever a WIP is posted, I'll be sure to encode it.

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Posted: 4/6/2010 2:52 AM

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mklip2001

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2226
Location: Georgia, USA

Wow, the WIP already kicked tons of ass, and now it'll be even faster with a team effort? I'm really excited for this run! The damage taking looks fine to me... especially when getting the Windbane, it would be really annoying to wait to avoid damage. Also, since Scubed mentioned it, it's probably cool to leave the one-screen glitch from the Earth fight out, even though it's really funny :-) I probably don't have anything to add to this run that you guys wouldn't already have (i.e. routes and such) except for excitement. Good luck!

Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

Posted: 4/6/2010 4:42 PM

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Brushy

Former player

Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587

Randil's WIP was awesome and if Aglar's WIP is even faster, that's ultra awesome! Keep up the great work you two.

Posted: 4/21/2010 7:23 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Well, me and Aglar have kept ourselves busy with this game these last few days. Aglar's WIP was, as mentioned above, faster than mine, but thanks to our colaborate effort, we found even more tricks and timesavers, as well as understanding more about how this game works. Jumping is quite complicated in this game, so I made a program in Matlab that mimics the game's physics engine and can test all possible jumps and pick the best one. Most of the input in the WIP is Aglar's, while I have focused on dissecting the game's physics and RNG, as well as writing the matlab program. Anyway, enough small talk, here's the WIP (first level done, just like my old WIP): .fcm-file Youtube'd Some info about the WIP: *It's 1282 frames (21.37 sec) faster than the published run. *It's 324 frames (5.4 sec) faster than my WIP. *We have 255 magic (i.e. maximum magic) after the boss, and have therefore pulled off the "infinite magic" trick - by getting 255 magic, our magic will never run out - each attack drains 4 MP, and once we hit 3 MP and attack, it will go back to 255. So we won't have to collect anymore MP in the run. There's a lot more that can be said in terms of tricks, but I think we'll leave it to the submission text when this is done. Enjoy!

My own page on this site.

Posted: 4/22/2010 3:27 AM

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mklip2001

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2226
Location: Georgia, USA

Very nice job guys! The magic management is NUTS, especially when fighting the Wind boss. Out of curiosity, does this 255-mp trick mean that you have to avoid picking up magic pellets later in the run? (This trick seems to be based around always having a magic total which is remainder 3 mod 4, so I don't know if later pellets throw that off.)

Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

Posted: 4/22/2010 6:42 AM

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Picking up magic pellets won't be a problem, since these give 16 magic, so the remainder will still be 3 mod 4.

My own page on this site.

Posted: 9/22/2011 4:45 AM

Post subject: Ironsword - Wizards & Warriors 2 for NES

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Orfeo

Joined: 3/1/2010
Posts: 3

Hi, everyone! I'm a LONG-time lurker who's decided to try my hand at TASing. I've started with Ironsword because I saw that the current run is super-old and the movie's not that long. I found some ram addresses (thanks to adelikat's AWESOME tutorial series.... that's the reason I'm working on TASing at all, actually). Here's what I've got: 0213 - X (level) 0200 - X subpixel 0285 - X speed (in px/frame) 0272 - X sub speed (subpx/frame) ----- 0012 - Y (level) 0239 - Y subpixel 004D - Y speed (px/frame) 0298 - Y sub speed (subpx/frame) There's something funky with the Y speed... when falling at maximum speed, it oscillates between -3.5px and -4.5px every frame, but the actual Y position is moving at a constant -3.5px/frame. I was wondering if I'd made a mistake or if this is something normal. I was also wondering if I'd made any mistakes with this in general. The main reason I'm posting though is that I've been able to make a few improvements to the published run through the first 1300 frames, but during the course of it I gained like 5 or 6 frames, only to lose almost all of them again. If I were to upload my movie, would anyone be interested in taking a look at it?

Posted: 9/22/2011 4:47 AM

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Orfeo

Joined: 3/1/2010
Posts: 3

Also, is this a game that you all would recommend I start with? I'm wondering if there's a reason it's not been improved upon for so long....

Posted: 9/22/2011 4:53 AM
(Edited: 9/22/2011 5:03 AM)

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Me and Aglar TASed this game some time ago, see this post. Although the game is fun to TAS it is also game is very complicated to TAS - there's a lot of things going on at the same time - enemy manipulation, subpixel optimization, in particular jumps where you can tap the A button anywhere during the jump to modify your speed, lag, magic management in particular, etc.. Aglar also found a trick where your speed somehow increases when taking damage, so you have to consider that too. Maybe Aglar can fill you in more on the details of TASing this game. We abandoned it mainly because I lost interest due to the heavy luck manipulation involved. I don't mean to scare you off entirely, but in all honesty I don't think this is an easy first game to TAS.

My own page on this site.

Posted: 9/22/2011 4:54 AM

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Ferret_Warlord

Skilled player (1405)

Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1977
Location: Making an escape

My first publication was the sequel, so why not? I didn't even have an input viewer, much less memory watching back then! What could be going on with the Y speed is a simple capping action. Something catches it at 4.5pix/s when its limit ought to be 3.5, so it chops it back down to 3.5 and does the math from there. I'm not 100% certain about this, but t makes sense to me.

A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.

Posted: 9/22/2011 5:33 AM

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Orfeo

Joined: 3/1/2010
Posts: 3

Sorry, I didn't see that thread before! I don't know why I didn't think to search for "Wizards & Warriors 2" instead of just "Ironsword." I thought it was weird that no one seemed to be talking about the game at all....

Posted: 4/5/2012 10:21 AM

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RachelB

She/Her

Player (128)

Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579

Well, i decided to take a stab at this game, since the published run was clearly improvable. I managed to finish the first level in 6130 frames, which seems to be a good bit slower than what aglar and randil had. Since it does not seem that either of you are still working on this game, would you object to me continuing from your wip?

Posted: 4/5/2012 10:47 AM

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Randil

Skilled player (1889)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

I won't mind, I look forward to see what you come up with. The game is quite complicated to TAS (there are many tricks you need to use here and there), but the end result is pretty awesome. The latest WIP I have (I found it in my PM box in a PM from Aglar) is this: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1538228354/wizardsandwarriors2-aglar-randil-wip-lvl1again.fcm Also, a WIP of level 2 that Aglar made (might be interesting): http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1170535205/wizardsandwarriors2-aglar-randil-wip-lvl2test.fcm I don't think I've posted my RAM addresses, so here they are:

213 X|pix
200 X|sub
226 X|big
61 Bird|drop
272 X|sub|speed
285 X|pix|speed
303 want|000
6A HP
6B MP
B8 Keys
301 Mana|ball
| |
24C Y|pix
239 Y|sub
258 En1|Y|pix
2ab Y|pix|speed
298 Y|sub|speed
7D Jump|changer
2be Super|jump|on|3
C8 Boss|HP
CB Boss|inv|time
2e4 Y|dir
412 Text|countdown
61 text|mod|8

RNG related addresses:

x005E RNG|1
x005F RNG|2
x0060 RNG|3
x61 |
x64 |
x0301 Drop|1
2c8 Can't|drop|on96
2c7 Can't|drop|on96
2c6 Can't|drop|on96
2c5 Can't|drop|on96
2c4 Can't|drop|on96
2c3 Can't|drop|on96
61 Enemy|app.|64
2ce Enemy|1
223 En|1|x|pos
25c En|1|y|pos
| |
2cf Enemy|2
224 En|2|x|pos
25d En|2|y|pos

It's been a long time since I TASed this game, so I'm afraid I don't remember all the different tricks and strategies. Health management is crucial though, so you need to plan in advance where to take damage. Taking damage from an enemy as soon as you've made a jump will give you a speed boost, so that's something to consider. Good luck with this! Maybe Aglar has something more to fill in with?

My own page on this site.

Posted: 4/7/2012 10:12 AM

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Aglar

Expert player (3586)

Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden

Wow, this takes me back! Like Randil says, this game is tough to TAS, at least at the level we aimed at. Looking through other runs that could be of help here are some runs that could be useful: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1797432258/Ironsword%20-%20Wizards%20%26%20Warriors%202%20%28U%29test.fcm - My first playthrough of the game, a complete testrun http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1938958735/Ironsword%20-%20Wizards%20%26%20Warriors%202%20%28U%29lvl3andforward.fcm - this one plays a little better than the run above from level 3 which the filename so gently tells. It doesn't complete the game though http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/4827902/Ironsword%20-%20Wizards%20%26%20Warriors%202%20%28U%29faster5part1.fcm - this one plays the first part of level 5 faster than the run directly above this If I remember correctly we had planned out when we had to get maximum mana, infinite mana that is, in order to not lose any time later on. I think it had to be gotten before the second boss. The eagle that takes you to the clouds in the first level has a frame rule of hm - many frames - for when it's able to take you there. In our latest run we intentionally played the first part of the level quite slow, since we calculated that we wouldn't be able to catch another frame rule, to pick up more mana and got to the eagle just before the next frame rule. But now I wonder whether it might be possible improving it by another frame rule after all - if you would add the damage boost trick throughout that area. Can't remember how many frames that was needed for the previous frame rule but if one took a look into it, it should be quite easy check whether it would be possible or not.

feos wrote:

Only Aglar can improve this now.

Posted: 4/7/2012 10:34 AM

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RachelB

She/Her

Player (128)

Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579

The eagle that takes you to the clouds in the first level has a frame rule of hm - many frames - for when it's able to take you there. In our latest run we intentionally played the first part of the level quite slow, since we calculated that we wouldn't be able to catch another frame rule, to pick up more mana and got to the eagle just before the next frame rule. But now I wonder whether it might be possible improving it by another frame rule after all - if you would add the damage boost trick throughout that area. Can't remember how many frames that was needed for the previous frame rule but if one took a look into it, it should be quite easy check whether it would be possible or not.

I was wondering about that.

If I remember correctly we had planned out when we had to get maximum mana, infinite mana that is, in order to not lose any time later on. I think it had to be gotten before the second boss.

I guess that means a lot of manipulation is going to be needed for the first boss. Should be fun. Thanks for the test runs and advice, that should help a lot.

Posted: 4/7/2012 10:54 AM

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Aglar

Expert player (3586)

Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden

rog wrote:

I guess that means a lot of manipulation is going to be needed for the first boss.

Yeah, the boss fight in the latest wip was supposed to redone to get as much mana as in the wip Randil posted 2 years ago.

feos wrote:

Only Aglar can improve this now.