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Rambo's on the MSX, and he's in some weird RPG.

This TAS' objectives:

Comments

Motivated by Vampier's good ending run, I decided to make a bad ending run for fun. It turned out to be very difficult and not much fun at all.

Some tricks

Enemy manipulation

If Rambo doesn't kill an enemy correctly, the next screen could be swarming with enemies. If he kills it correctly, it could have none at all. This only works in a couple of rooms.

Getting enemies to move in a certain direction

When Rambo is moving to the right, enemies will try to get in his way. By turning the opposite direction for one frame, the enemy will be tricked into thinking Rambo is going that way, and will move out of Rambo's way.

Health

When Rambo collects food, he will be able to regain health. I manipulate the foods so they give me health when I most need it, (ex. after fighting the spider)

Special Thanks

Vampier for working on openMSX his run, Quibus for teaching me how to TAS with openMSX, and wouter_ for fixing my savestate problem. Good ending run coming soon.
The rerecord count may be borked, because I used Page Up to reverse more then I did savestates.

IMPORTANT!

Do not press any buttons while the run is playing back in the emulator! The run will desynch!

Other comments

I played this entirely frame by frame. It's not perfect, no TAS ever is. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions, so ask away.
sgrunt: Replaced the submission file with one which does not have the spurious extra embedded save state, and hence shouldn't trip the parser's warning flag about not starting at zero time. Went back to the original submission file in favour of fixing a parser bug.
GabCM: Replaced YouTube module.
Flygon: Shuffled the YouTube modules as according to precedent... but... I really do prefer the old duo-module system.
GabCM: Replaced HQx link by a more visible HQx button
adelikat: Replace submission file with one that contains a .omr file. The movie has not been changed in any way but now works with the new (and approved) openmsx that uses .omr as the movie file type.
DarkKobold: Since I'm taking the time to get openMSX set up, I'll claim this for judging.
DarkKobold: I was able to get it to playback. However, I'm having an issue with this movie goal - it doesn't feel like a 'bad ending' as much as a game over. For example, I consider this a game over in dragon warrior, and not a 'bad ending' -
Additionally, I don't feel that the game would need a separate 'good ending' branch. So, I'd like to know from the author and/or audience whether or not they agree, given the game.
That said, the ending isn't really different, after saving the VIP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKqT5iBL9Vg#t=7m02s
Give your ideas and opinions please.
DarkKobold Nitrogenesis has disappeared, so I am going to go ahead and accept this, with the caveat that a longer "Save the VIP" ending will obsolete it.
Flygon: Processing...

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Posted: 10/30/2010 2:14 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2895: NitroGenesis's MSX Rambo "bad ending" in 01:39.64
Posted: 10/30/2010 3:30 PM
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scrimpeh
Editor, Skilled player (1438)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2107
TAS of 2017 First edition TAS of 2017 PSX TAS of 2017
Quite interesting, the run. So, a yes vote, why not?
Posted: 10/30/2010 5:12 PM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
looks good, yes vote
Posted: 10/30/2010 5:19 PM
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NitroGenesis
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Thanks for the votes guys! About the "Run does not start at time zero," it does indeed, according to wouter_ (an openMSX developer). The problem is is that there was a random embedded savestate in the movie file that made the parser think wrong.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 5:27 PM
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Quibus
Editor, Emulator Coder, Active player (264)
Joined: 10/17/2010
Posts: 124
A clarification from openMSX developers side: There's just a bug in the parser apparently :) The time of the first snapshot is relevant, on line 9 of the XML file: 
          <currentTime>
            <time>0</time>
          </currentTime>
The format of the latest openMSX SVN version does contain multiple savestates, but the first one is the initial one and will determine the starting time. So, if Grunt uses that for the parser, it will be clear.
Posted: 10/30/2010 6:07 PM
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Dooty
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Sega TASer of 2013 SNES TASer of 2012 SNES TASer of 2010
This game is wierd, it look like Zelda with a musclebound Link, but short and well played enough to warrant a Yes vote.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Posted: 10/30/2010 6:32 PM
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Randil
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Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I watched this just now. The run looked good, and it was definitely short enough to keep my attention the whole way. Here's another yes vote!
My own page on this site.
Posted: 10/30/2010 6:33 PM
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NitroGenesis
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Yay. This is doing way better then I expected! Grunt is going to replace the submission file with one that doesn't bother the parser so much. That's good!
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 6:43 PM
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NitroGenesis
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Yay! The warning's gone!
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 8:09 PM
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Critical_five
Joined: 4/14/2010
Posts: 146
Location: France
This was short and sweet. Yes vote! The character's movements are so weird :) Anyway, congrats for submitting the first (serious) MSX run.
Bon appétit, fellow gruefood gourmands!
Posted: 10/30/2010 9:14 PM
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GabCM
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Thanks to Quibus and NitroGenesis! Now I can encode MSX movies. Expect an SD and HQx encode to come soon!
Posted: 10/30/2010 9:24 PM
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DarkKobold
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Arcade TASer of 2010 PCE TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 Lucky TAS of 2009 Lucky TAS of 2007
voted yes on Hydlide Rambo!
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Posted: 10/30/2010 9:25 PM
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NitroGenesis
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DarkKobold wrote:
voted yes on Hydlide Rambo!
Wow, somebody else noticed the similiarities. It really is like Hydlide, except the music is not as annoying.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 10:24 PM
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GabCM
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SD Archive collection Video file (MP4, 1.4 MB) HD YouTube Watch it in the submission text.
Posted: 10/30/2010 10:38 PM
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NitroGenesis
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Mister Epic: Wow, that looks nice! Thanks alot!
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 10:49 PM
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mklip2001
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Wow, this is what Hydlide should have been. Better music, shorter game, and sillier action (yay for pixelated grenades and machineguns). The movement seems unnecessarily jerky, but I figure that's mostly the game's fault. In any case, this was short and sweet. Yes vote, and I would also be interested in a good ending run.
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: 10/30/2010 10:52 PM
Post subject: Some answers
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NitroGenesis
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mklip2001 wrote:
The movement seems unnessecarily jerky
That's because when Rambo is walking his speed graudually increases over time (from 2 to 3 to 4). When he turns direction, the speed goes down by 1 and eventually goes back up. Some movements were jerky either because a) I had to manipulate the food to get health or b) to get an enemy to move out of my way. Thanks for yes voting, every vote counts ;)
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/30/2010 11:22 PM
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Vampier
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You could have made the movie even shorter by killing the hostage ;)
MSX Game specialist / openMSX team member
Posted: 10/30/2010 11:29 PM
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NitroGenesis
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Vampier wrote:
You could have made the movie even shorter by killing the hostage ;)
that just gives a game over. It isn't beating the game.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 10/31/2010 12:18 AM
Post subject: Re: #2895: nitrogenesis's MSX Sylvester Stallone in Rambo "bad ending" in 01:39.64
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
TASVideoAgent wrote:
* Collects food
You misspelled "FOODS". </helpful> It'd be nice to have a description of the overall gameplay and your goals, e.g. why you got the bow, why you destroyed various random buildings.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 10/31/2010 3:45 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Link to video Here, have a point based HD encode.
Posted: 10/31/2010 5:09 AM
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DarkKobold
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Even the fighting mechanics are identical.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Posted: 10/31/2010 10:36 AM
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NitroGenesis
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To Derakon: I pick up the bow because if I don't the next screen would have loads of enemies instead of one, and the time gained from ignoring the bow would be negating by having to kill all 3 of them with my knife. I destroyed random building's because of either a.) They are blocking Rambo's way b.) They could be cannons that fire a huge orange laser that's instant death for Rambo or c.) I destroyed the grey tanks because if you ignore them, they shoot you down when you go on the plane.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 11/1/2010 8:35 PM
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NitroGenesis
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http://www.msx.org/Rambo-TAS.newspost5557.html Nothing special, except:
Submitted by NitroGenesis, the game Rambo is finished with in no less than 1 minute and 39 seconds. There is a little catch though, as in this case Rambo fails to rescue the VIP and only saves his own ass.
Lol. If this gets accepted, that should at least be incorporated into the description.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 11/5/2010 2:32 PM
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Baxter
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Nitrogenesis wrote:
I played this entirely frame by frame. It's not perfect, no TAS ever is. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions, so ask away.
How nice :). I noticed the submission says 56 rerecords were used. Is this number accurate? If not, how many rerecords would you estimate have been used for making this TAS? If so, do you think using more rerecords could have improved this TAS? (And I'm not referring to "It's not perfect, no TAS ever is.", I'm talking about if like 1000 rerecords were used instead)
http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html
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