Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Salutations to the community of Tool Assisted Speedruns! I have come (with peace on my side) to post my progress on a new TAS: Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle. I remember playing this as a kid on the Game Boy version with my uncle. We've beaten it quite a few times. But enough with my childhood, that's not what you guys want. Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle is a Puzzle game which most of you know by watching the Angry Video Game Nerd. I, for one, do not fall in that category. There are 60 levels in this game, which I intend to do 1 for each day. The reactions?
<Nach> Mysterypea: if you do a good job at it and submit in 2 months, I promise that I'll think twice before rejecting it outright with substandard reasoning <_4matsy> yeah, go for it :D
Well, let's ignore that. Right now, it's day one (of course). I will update this post when I finish each level. When that is done, I'll play the entire game on one segment (unless someone suggests me something better to do). My progress will also be marked on my youtube channel. STAGES: 1- Complete / Improved thanks to Randil - Link Input File 2- Complete Link Input File 3- Complete Link Input File 4- Complete Link Input File 5- Complete Link Input File 6- Complete Link Input File 7- Complete Link Input File 8- Complete Link Input File 9- Complete Link Input File 10- Complete / Will be improved on the official run Link Input file 11- Complete Link Input File 12- Complete Link Input File 13- Complete Link Input File 14- Complete Link Input File 15- Complete Link Input File 16- Complete Link Input File 17- Complete Link Input File 18- Complete Input File 19- Complete (I'm proud of this one) Input File 20- Complete (I'm proud of this one, too) Input File 21- Complete Input File 22- Complete Input File 23- Complete Input File 24- Complete Input File 25- Complete Input File 26- Complete Input File 27- Complete Input File 28- Complete Input File 29- Complete Input File 30- Complete Input File 31- Complete Input File 32- Complete Input File 33- Complete Input File 34- No progress made 35- No progress made 36- No progress made 37- No progress made 38- No progress made 39- No progress made 40- No progress made 41- No progress made 42- No progress made 43- No progress made 44- No progress made 45- No progress made 46- No progress made 47- No progress made 48- No progress made 49- No progress made 50- No progress made 51- No progress made 52- No progress made 53- No progress made 54- No progress made 55- No progress made 56- No progress made 57- No progress made 58- No progress made 59- No progress made 60- No progress made Progress: 1/60 = x/100 = 1.666...% per completed level 54.9%
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Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I TASed the first four levels of this some time ago, just for fun. I have no intention of continuing it. We used the the exact same strategy on the first level, but my version is 33 frames faster. I also started the first level 1 frame faster, but that's a small detail. Here's the movie file. Perhaps you can shave off even more frames from it! And also, welcome to the forum! :)
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Randil wrote:
I TASed the first four levels of this some time ago, just for fun. I have no intention of continuing it. We used the the exact same strategy on the first level, but my version is 33 frames faster. I also started the first level 1 frame faster, but that's a small detail. Here's the movie file. Perhaps you can shave off even more frames from it! And also, welcome to the forum! :)
This will help me a lot, thanks! EDIT: I have improved my run by 30 frames thanks to you, and I know that there are some really minor improvements to make on that run (First and second time when going up the stairs, I seem to stop for a frame or two). Link
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Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Hi Mysterypea! I have recorded some levels for Crazy Castle IV, so I'm looking forward to your run. The Lua script I used might be easily convertible for this game too.
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
I'm not really a script wiz, but I still took the time to read what the lua file contains. I'll try it out for now to see if it works, although this lua file is intended for a GBC game. EDIT: This is really a bummer, I don't have lua installed, so I can't really do anything. Either I download lua or you provide me a lua file if it isn't too much to ask.
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
The beautiful thing about lua script is that you don't need to install anything, they automatically work if the emulator supports lua, which FCEUX does. Today I made a lua script for this game that checks if you lose a frame anywhere. Basically, what the script does is compare your X and Y position between two frames, and if they're the same, the program will tell you that you lost a frame there. This works well for this game, because you should be constantly moving in a TAS. I have tested the script, and it works very well. Here's the script, uploaded to mediafire. The only thing you need to do to get it to work is to go to File->Lua->New lua script window. In the new window that pops up, select browse and choose this script, then click on "Run" to start the script. Unpause the emulator if it is paused. The top left corner of the emulator should now say "Lost frames: " and then a number. Now, play one of your movie files with this script running. Whenever "Lost frames" increases, the script alerts that you have probably lost a frame here, so you should investigate it further. Pretty handy, right? No more checking for lost frames manually!
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Randil wrote:
The beautiful thing about lua script is that you don't need to install anything, they automatically work if the emulator supports lua, which FCEUX does. Today I made a lua script for this game that checks if you lose a frame anywhere. Basically, what the script does is compare your X and Y position between two frames, and if they're the same, the program will tell you that you lost a frame there. This works well for this game, because you should be constantly moving in a TAS. I have tested the script, and it works very well. Here's the script, uploaded to mediafire. The only thing you need to do to get it to work is to go to File->Lua->New lua script window. In the new window that pops up, select browse and choose this script, then click on "Run" to start the script. Unpause the emulator if it is paused. The top left corner of the emulator should now say "Lost frames: " and then a number. Now, play one of your movie files with this script running. Whenever "Lost frames" increases, the script alerts that you have probably lost a frame here, so you should investigate it further. Pretty handy, right? No more checking for lost frames manually!
This is going to help for sure. What's left is something that removes those useless frames, but I doubt that would ever work. EDIT: I'm not sure if this route for stage 2 is faster than randil's route. Also, I don't care at all if i messed up the password part, it won't be part of the official run.
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
That strategy on stage 2 is faster, a whole 66 frames faster! Nice!
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Oh and by the way, if someone finds any good routes for the game OR finds a glitch that will help complete the game faster, share it with me, I'll put you on the special thanks list. I've also finished stage 5, 55 more to go.
Joined: 4/26/2010
Posts: 46
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Wow, I played this a lot back in the days. I'd love to see a TAS of this game.
Games to TAS: 1. Rampart (NES) 2. Pokemon Yellow (GB) 3. Aladdin (SNES) 4. Shadowrun (SNES) ----- <sonicsonic3> and please tell me...WHAT IS THE BACK LONG JUMP CODE!? [on SM64's BLJ]
Patashu
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Have you tried left+right / up+down / all four in combination with everything you can think of?
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
MarbleousDave
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Pressing Up, Down, Left, Right all at the same time is not possible with the arrow keys (due to limitation), but by turning num lock off you can press 2, 4, 6, 8 on the keypad all at the same time, it's possible. For game controllers, set up to up on the d-pad and the left analog stick, down to... you get the idea. FCEUX can assign more than one key/button to the same command.
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I've tried left+right and up+down in this game, and right+left seems to have the same effect as just pressing right, and up+down as just pressing up, so I don't think this can be abused.
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Just to say that the edit button broke. I can't update the first post. Here are the Input files Stages 7-10.
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Woohoo! Half-way through this TAS! I just noticed that Special stages exist in this game, I won't do them since I've experienced S1 (A real maze of pipes).
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Possible glitch here? Ignore the file name Actually, ignore the glitch thing. I guess it's just the dev's fault for forgetting this glitch. It's easy to do.
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
This project is on hold for now.
Post subject: Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle
Brandon
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Joined: 11/21/2010
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So, I wanted to do a TAS of Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle 3, but I realized that this would be very annoying to watch because you need to enter so many unnecessary doors. Furthermore, after TASing the first 3 levels, I realized that this wouldn't be very fun. A such, I think I'll give the NES version a shot. Screw what the AVGN says; if Birthday Blowout made for a good TAS, then this should too. It might also give me the opportunity to try some luck manipulation on the movements of the enemies. What do you think?
All the best, Brandon Evans
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
There is already thread for this game here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9604 Mysterypea made some good progress, and has finished up to level 33, though he says he has put it on hold for now. Maybe you want to get in touch with him. I messed around with this game a bit too some time ago, so I would be interested in seeing this game TASed.
Brandon
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No matter what I do, I can never find the threads for these games. Oh well. Can a mod merge these topics? Also, if Mysterypea would allow, I'd happily continue his progress, submit it, and get bottom billing. Why reinvent the wheel? I'm going to watch it now and see if I see any potential improvements. Edit: I'm discussing with Mysterypea the fate of this. I'm probably going to work on my own version first and see if I can find any improvements. I finished Level 1 with ease with the same path. Also, Randil, can you provide that script you made? The link is broken in the old topic.
All the best, Brandon Evans
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Joined: 4/20/2005
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Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Brandon wrote:
Also, Randil, can you provide that script you made? The link is broken in the old topic.
Of course! Here you are:
Language: lua

xnew=0 ynew=0 lost=0 while true do mover=memory.readbyte(0x512) xpos1=memory.readbyte(0x501)+256*memory.readbyte(0x502) ypos1=memory.readbyte(0x503) if xpos1==xnew and ypos1==ynew and mover==0 then lost=lost+1 end xnew=xpos1 ynew=ypos1 gui.text(10,10,"Lost frames: " .. lost) FCEU.frameadvance() end
(I don't know why I didn't post the script like this in the first place) The script simply checks if you are constantly on the move. If you for any frame stand still (both in terms of X and Y position), the "lost frames" counter will increase. Good luck!
Brandon
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Thanks, Randil! So, I discussed with Mysterypea, and he agreed that I should only add him as a coauthor if he gives significant contributions to the new version. Otherwise, I will just credit him in the submission. My strategy right now is to run each level using his path (If the AI don't conflict because of a desync), then try to beat that time. I tried doing this for level 1 and failed because the path is perfect. However, I made a massive improvement of 71 frames to Level 2! See my progress here. Only 58 more levels to go... EDIT: Level 3. For some reason, Mysterypea unnecessarily stalled in several places. Why is this? Was it a simple mistake, or do the AIs run on a variable that carries over from level to level? Would adding empty frames in between levels cause a desync? This could be a big deal, as it'd mean that I can't go back and edit levels easily. Will test around soon. Any feedback would be helpful.
All the best, Brandon Evans
Joined: 6/6/2010
Posts: 84
Location: Laurentides, Quebec
Brandon wrote:
EDIT: Level 3. For some reason, Mysterypea unnecessarily stalled in several places. Why is this?
Guess I didn't notice that. Then again all of the input files were the paths I was supposed to take.
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Brandon wrote:
Level 3. For some reason, Mysterypea unnecessarily stalled in several places. Why is this?
I think the more appropriate question is, Why is the rerecord count 666?
Brandon
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Sonikkustar wrote:
Brandon wrote:
Level 3. For some reason, Mysterypea unnecessarily stalled in several places. Why is this?
I think the more appropriate question is, Why is the rerecord count 666?
I am an absolute perfectionist; When I collect a carrot, I will find the exact frame to turn around in order to potentially save time. I have a feeling, at this point, though, that this doesn't make a difference with these game physics. If someone confirms this, I'll probably speed through this more and use less rerecords. The 666 is just mere chance. Edit: I just tried to insert some frames in between levels, and it doesn't change anything. I think that I just somehow manipulated the AI differently than Mysterypea, often not intentionally. One factor to consider is what direction you are pressing when you are going up the stairs. I once went up the stairs pressing right and pressing left, and they resulted in the Sylvester moving in a different direction. This has two conclusions: I can edit fixes into particular levels, and I should always try to manipulate the AI before prematurely halting movement. Will continue on shortly. Edit 2: Up to Level 7. I am positive now that the enemies move based on input, not on result. Does anyone think they can somehow look into their physics? Don't get me wrong, I think this will make a great blueprint for this game as it stands, but levels 2, 5, and 7 use paths that would not be optimal if you removed the enemies from the screen. If I can truly manipulate the movement of these enemies, it'd stand to reason that all three of those levels, and presumably many levels in the future, can be improved. Let me know if you have any ideas. Edit 3: OK, now this is getting ridiculous: I can influence AI after dying. That's just silly. I'm going to go back to Level 2 and try to make it so that I never once stall. I'll repeat this for 5 and 7, and hopefully, I'll get a result. It'd be best to understand the AI, but it seems like brute forcing might be the only option.
All the best, Brandon Evans