This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3458: Dooty's SNES Sky Blazer in 24:27.02

Can somebody be so nice to do a temp encode?

Link to video

I haven't had a chance to watch this run yet, but from reading the submission comments, it seems that this run loses time overall except for the ending input! Because of this, I ask: how can we tell if the gameplay is actually better? Should this be treated like the Eggerland movie, where the slower time is due to better emulation / ROM choice?

mklip: The reason its slower is because of version differences. Bablo used a beta dump which is actually against the rules (but, whatever). Dooty's run uses the proper dump, which sadly has some glitches removed from the beta run. So some glitches couldnt be done in this run sadly. On the subject of the movie itself. That was an amazing improvement to the previous run. There seems to also be more stylistic moves, which I enjoy a lot. Yes Vote! What will you do next Dooty?

Enemies must explode, organic or not, in any real SNES platformer. It's a rule. This game doesn't break that rule. From the encode, it looks like there is some unnecessary slowing at parts. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Excellent work! The only thing that bothered me was that you used the same input for both bonus stages; it would have been nice if you'd changed things up for the second one. But that's hardly a dealbreaker. To my eyes this looked like an excellently-optimized run. The frequent use of Comet with minimal stops to recharge magic were quite nice, and there were noticeable route optimizations over the previous run. The only places where I couldn't say for sure if the run was as fast as possible were the horizontal sections with scrolling walls, but they looked pretty dang fast to me. Great job, Dooty! Easy yes vote.

Alright, I managed to watch this. It's a shame that many stages ended up slower, but things look pretty optimized, especially the powerup manipulation. The only collections that looked suspicious were the ones in Lair of Kharyon (especially just before the boss fight). It's also unfortunate that you don't have the really quick boss kill anymore in the Storm Fortress of Kh'lar. Yes vote.

Thank you all guys!

What will you do next Dooty?

I have a DKC2 project on hold for a very long time on the forum, I may resume or probably restart it soon.

The only collections that looked suspicious were the ones in Lair of Kharyon (especially just before the boss fight)

They shouldn't have changed the location of that last eel, the stream forced me to use another Comet Flash, but I also started this stage with less magic, so I have to collect more refills than Bablo.

The only places where I couldn't say for sure if the run was as fast as possible were the horizontal sections with scrolling walls

It's not possible to jump while crouched under those walls anymore, but it's still possible to reproduce Bablo's glitch in those stages with a little trick, so, those stages are indeed slower, but as fast as possible in this version.

It'd be nice if you, for each stage, not just mentioned the total amount of frames gained/lost but also gave the exact (or at least estimated) # of frames gainedlost/lost due the version differences and the # of frames gained/lost in the areas in both versions that are directly comparable. As it's presented now, to someone who hasn't followed your progress during the making of the run it's not obvious at all that it's a technical improvement to the previous run, even though I'm almost certain it is.

Okay, I'll try to do a comparison chart including the conversations and loading times, but almost all stages are different in a way or another, so I'm not sure how it will work. In the submission text I'm only comparing the stages, from the first possible input, to the ending of the stage.

Was having 4 lives and 20 gems (4:20) intentional on the autoscrolling cliff stage? :P

Thank you for paying that much attention to my run :) but no, it was not, I was trying to collect all items and kill all enemies, but when I couldn't reach one gem I decided to avoid everything after that.

Great job! I watched through it this afternoon, but I will take a look again soon to pick up on anything I missed. A couple things I remember off the top of my head: -In the beginning stage, I'm not sure if it's faster or slower to jump before that second hit or not. I'm not entirely sure, but I feel like the stun frames end as soon as you land so you can get back to ground-based quick zips sooner. I think there's still some momentum effects from doing a turn while running as well, but I'm not sure how it all plays out framewise. -I feel like there could be a slightly faster route using the middle path on the Sand River, but again I'm not certain in terms of frame-for-frame tradeoffs. -For both of the flying mini-games I think you can position yourself lower and still get hit at the same time by the mines. That should save a few frames, I think. I may steal some of those magic pickup points for use in my own regular runs ;)

Hi Omnigamer, I'll test the points you mentioned, thank you and welcome to TASvideos!

You've got my yes vote. Also I can confirm that indeed this movie is more optimized than mine.

Thanks Bablo, I also must thank you for all the tricks used on my run. I did the tests;

I'm not sure if it's faster or slower to jump before that second hit

That part is kinda tricky, one frame faster and I lose the chance to take damage on that last enemy, also, it's not possible to zip-jump at the left edge of ledges or on some platforms.

For both of the flying mini-games I think you can position yourself lower

Hey, you just found out why I'm ten/nine frames faster than the previous run; One pixel lower and I would take damage ten/nine frames later, weird!

the middle path on the Sand River (could be slightly faster)

There's no need to grab any walls on the middle path, but the luck manipulation there is a lot harder than it is on the upper path, so it will depend on how lucky you are.

Thanks for checking those out then. I tried the flying stuff a bit for myself after I said it (in real-time) but the hitboxes make more sense to me now. Either Sky himself has a conical hitbox or the hitbox on gems/mines grow as they get closer to the screen (more likely). In any case, good work, I wasn't able to find any other parts that looked curious :)

I am a bit concerned by the fact that the author openly admits there's possibly a lot of improvements due to only finding out about stuff at the end of the run. That alone makes a Yes vote falter hard. It looks great, but knowing there's serious potential left over makes it hard to just let that pass. I know how hard it is to make a TAS and how frustrating it is to find out at the end of something big, but in this case, it seems like serious potential through out and not like "We did an SM64 120 star run and 5 minutes before we found a 3 second improvement in the first 2 stars." where that'd be a hell of a lot more acceptable. I also understand the excitement to get this out when it's fresh and anticipated, but knowing there's a lot to go... it sets a dangerous precedent on such a short run. If it was over an hour that's a bit of a better tasting pill to swallow.. but still. I know this isn't the most popular thought considering how much positive there is on this run, and it was done very well and very entertaining.. but in this current moment.. that's not enough. [And this is also not like Super Metroid where there's countless new things being found out after the fact..] Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Nothing new was found during the run, just the way to monitor the character's speed. So only very minor tweaks can be made based on this.

Archive.org collection Archive.org download Archive.org 10-bit YUV444 download Here are some potential screenshots for your voting pleasure while I work on the encodes. As always, feel free to suggest your own. EDIT: Expired image link removed.

I like the second one, with Sky stuck on the floor.