Hey kids. It's time for TAZ Mania in 6.36!
In today's episode of TAZ-Mania, TAZ manages to get a seagull egg by breaking the laws of physics, teleporting across entire levels, and using several other new tricks making it 8170 frames (
02:16.17) faster than the previous episode.
- As fast as possible
- Hardest difficulty (swimming = instadeath!)
- Takes damage
- Definitely uses bugs to warp past a half/whole level now and then
- Dies, too
Aqfaq found a way to use the bug that Truncated accidentally triggered twice in his
original TAZ Mania run. He enlisted the help of Sonikkustar and said Truncated to record this movie.
Obsoletion
Since the previous movie also uses the warp glitch (although sparingly), this movie should replace that one. A new warp-less movie can be made if there is any interest (probably not...)
New tricks
Warp
The finding of this trick is the reason that Aqfaq started making this movie. By having no input on the first input frame of a new level, and a straigh-up jump on the second input frame, Taz is teleported to the coordinates he had when the previous level ended. Taz also has to be on the ground when the previous level ends. In the previous movie, there were warps in Temple 1 and Temple 3. In those cases the warp was activated by taking damage on the second input frame.
Depending on the layout of the previous level none, some or all of the next level can be skipped. If you teleport to coordinates which are outside the level boundaries, bad things (death) or not so bad things (walk into level from the right side) happen. If the ground hasn't been set as lethal you can drop through the bottom and wrap around to the top, but that takes a lot of time (65000 pixels to fall through).
Higher max speed
The usual max speed is ~9 pixels/frame. If you turn around while still spinning, the max speed rises to ~12 pixels/frame. For this reason you will see us double back pretty often. If you exit the spin, or lose contact with the ground, the max speed will go back to ~9 pixels/frame.
Go through corners
This is only used in Caves 2. You don't need to bring the level-operated elevators all the way down. If you build up some speed by revving you can go through corners that are impassable if walking or spinning at start-up speed.
Level notes
| Stage | Gained | Ahead |
|---|
| Intro | 5 | 5 |
| Desert 1 | -35 | -30 |
| Desert 2 | 1218 | 1188 |
| Desert Boss | 26 | 1214 |
| Factory 1 | 907 | 2121 |
| Factory 2 | 1019 | 3140 |
| Ice | 542 | 3682 |
| Jungle 1 | 867 | 4549 |
| Jungle 2 | 858 | 5407 |
| River 1 | 1062 | 6469 |
| Caves 1 | 13 | 6482 |
| Caves 2 | 428 | 6910 |
| River 2 | 183 | 7093 |
| Plant boss | 8 | 7101 |
| Temple 1 | 224 | 7325 |
| Temple 2 | 139 | 7464 |
| Temple 3 | 285 | 7749 |
| Final boss | 419 | 8168 |
Desert 1
Bam, the warp glitch is used at once. How can this be, when there is no previous level? Actually there is a previous level. The intro where Taz zooms in and eats the S of SEGA uses the same coordinates for Taz as the gameplay.
The level is the same as before except for the turn-around trick and the ending. Touching the goal is delayed so that we can stand on the geysers, giving us a good position for the next level.
Desert 2
Warp glitch to the end next plz.
Desert Boss
The fastest way to kill the boss is with the bomb. The closest starting position found was a bit above the bomb.
Factory 1
This level is warped past except for three platforms at the end.
Factory 2
Half of this level is skipped. As in the previous movie, we take damage to pass the assembly line quickly.
Ice
Half of this level is skipped. Unfortunately we start over icy waters.
Jungle 1
All of this level is skipped. Sadly we don't eat a bomb. :(
Jungle 2 / The tree / Jungle boss
We start at the boss instead of at the bottom of the tree. The boss can be played with except for the last few hits, which is needed to set up the boss for a jump out of the boss area. The object is to get as far right as possible before the level fades.
River 1
Start at the goal post!
Caves 1
It is possible to start way ahead in this level, but the level does not appear to end unless you are in the cart.
Caves 2
Due to the cart-riding this level cannot be warped through and has to be played in full. If you are interested in improving this movie, here is where you should start: write a bot which tries the gazillions of combinations of jumping patterns for the second rubber elevator. Downward acceleration is 200 subpixels/frame^2 when not holding jump, and 76 subpixels/frame^2 when holding jump. For one jump of 40 frames, that's 2^40=1,099,511,627,776 possible jumping patterns... not including the spin, which sets your upward speed to 1.5 pixels if it is greater than that. Have fun!
River 2
Dieing here was the fastest way. The end of the previous level is too low to survive. It is still faster than playing the whole level regularly.
Oversized carnivourous plant boss
Since the previous level is so long, warping here would start us way outside of the level to the right. It is better to start in the regular position. The no-weed bags do 2 damage to the boss, spinning and jumping does 1.
Temple 1
This level was warped in the previous version too, from pretty much the same location.
Temple 2
We start outside the stage, to the right. When you touch the right wall, you are zipped to the left. Because of this you can jump before you touch the right wall and end up one floor higher. This level was redone twice to include small improvements of 2-4 frames.
Temple 3 (Clone Boss)
This level was warped in the previous version too. In this version we get a better starting position, in the boss room, on top of the boss. :)
The object at the start of the boss fight is to take damage as soon as possible, because Taz is locked in the "holding sign" pose for a good while when he lands. The fastest way to take damage was the bat. The boss does not give damage before he starts spinning, and the flame on the right has a very long damage animation.
Final Boss
Again we start outside the level to the right. The object is to make the boss use the shortest attack animation (claws instead of wings) as often as possible. Sonikkustar found a good pattern for this.
Aqfaq
TBA
Sonikkustar
Well this certaintly was interesting to do. It started out as a request from Aqfaq, but I didnt really have time in my life to TAS at the time. I was also still a pretty new TASer at the time so I didnt understand all the concepts of TASing that much as I do now. As a result, I didnt really do that much work on the movie. Due to several other complications, we lost interest in mid 2010 and stopped all work.
TODO: More Comments
Truncated
This took its sweet time, as usual when I'm TASing. The oldest movie I have of this (a proof-of-concept wip by Aqfaq) is from May 2009. It has been on hold several times, the longest one being for the elevators in Caves 2.
I probably tased the least of this movie of the three of us. The portions I can remember doing are the tree boss, the second half of Caves 2 (after the bat stomps), the end of River 2, the plant boss, and Temple 2 (together with Sonikkustar). I wrote most of the script for tracking movement (position, speed, acceleration) and identifying "real" lag frames.
I'd like to give a big thank you to my partners; Aqfaq for figuring out this glitch and letting us join his project and Sonikku for recording a very good movie, letting no frame get away.
