Posted: 5/4/2006 5:17 AM
(Edited: 5/4/2006 3:28 PM)
Post subject: Garfield: A Week of Garfield
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CtrlAltDestroy
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
I recently found this game on SomethingAwful, and I instantly fell in love with it. This game has got to be one of the top five worst NES games ever created. It looks almost like it was designed by the same geniuses behind Master Chu & the Drunkard Hu. I think this game would make a HILARIOUS tas! -Difficulty level is utterly impossible. You only have one life, and any moving object can kill you in one hit no matter how much life you have. Heck, you can even get hit by going through a door in the wrong place and getting hit by a psycho bird or a mouse. I think this game is unbeatable on the cart. Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me. -It’s REALLY glitchy. Collision detection is utter crap. -There are roller skate items everywhere which let you run faster for a limited amount of time (Just like the scrolls from Legacy of the Wizard) -The multi-projectile weapons can be used in creative ways. -It’s a relatively short game. I’d estimate that the final time would be about 8 minutes. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any guide for this game on GameFAQs. Weird. Try this game out, and say whether or not you think this would make a good TAS.
Posted: 5/4/2006 6:05 AM
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Tombad
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Okay, saying this game is difficult is a major understatement. It's totally impossible when played in real time. Like, WTF. Did they even test this game when producing it? How are you supposed to dodge those spiders? I had totally zero chance of passing the first spider in real time, and with slowdowns it boiled down to abusing collision detection and not just dodging the spider. And then my progress was stopped by the second spider. Also, what's up with the attack of doom aka The Kick. It's range is beyond pathetic, either I'm a really bad player or you can't hit anything with it in real time. Anyway, I'm definetly interested in seeing a run done, so I can see if the damn game is even possible to finish.
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Posted: 5/4/2006 3:30 PM
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CtrlAltDestroy
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
Actually, you can just throw a weapon at the spider to kill it, granted you picked one up before then. You can hit Select to switch weapons from your kick. I'll start on a movie and see how it turns out.
Posted: 5/4/2006 4:23 PM
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Swedishmartin
Joined: 11/26/2005
Posts: 285
If you're gonna TAS it, try to kick as much as possible. It looks better than using weapons. Oh, and someone make a cheat that makes Garfield fast all the time. That would improve the run significantly.
Posted: 5/4/2006 4:34 PM
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CtrlAltDestroy
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
I think that kicking all the enemies would actually look really boring after a while. It looks much cooler to throw a well-aimed egg on the ground and watch the four pieces fly up and kill all the enemies on the screen. A speed cheat isn't really needed, because it looks like there are enough roller skates to keep you running constantly.
Posted: 6/8/2012 4:59 PM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
6 Year Bump This game has been brought up a few times in the Famicom wishlist thread and I saw it in the NES wishlist as well so I thought I would give it a shot. Here is my WIP that is about a quarter of the way through. Up to this point it is 24 seconds faster than the realtime world record which means (if I maintain the same amount of improvement on each level) that the final running time would be roughly 9 minutes and 47 seconds. I am surprised this game has been suggested so much because it doesn't look that entertaining in my mind. Apparently it is difficult in realtime but I can't imagine that there is too large of a population of this site who has actually played this game but I could be wrong. I am going to finish it regardless because all of my other projects are getting stressful and this one is pretty light. I currently collect all known (at least to me) skates which cause you to move at twice normal speed but there is a slight chance there are others that I am missing. I am trying to find memory addresses that could either A) with lua or a cheat cause the items to always be visible or B) have the ram addresses of the x and y addresses of the skates. This way if there were any other skates that I didn't know about I wouldn't have to test every 5x5 pixel block of each level to confirm. If there are other skates that the WR holder were unaware of I think the run could maybe make it down to 9 minutes and 30 seconds but any further than that doesn't seem feasible. If you have any feedback or, even better, the ram addresses or cheats to find the items it would be greatly appreciated.
Posted: 6/8/2012 10:09 PM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
Hello I currently have the fastest real time run of this game but it's easily improvable, especially in Sunday part 1. I started working on a TAS of this a few months ago but I kind of lost interest because I'm not that into it, I guess. This lua script displays all of the hidden items in the game - http://deanyderkheiser.net/marky/garfield.lua (change 0xB9E0 to 0xB8E0 in Saturday 2 & Sunday 2, thanks to Acmlm for making the script) I didn't pick up all of them in Saturday and Sunday iirc but I'm fairly sure that I got all of em in Monday-Friday. I'll definitely get back to improving my run some time but not right now. I didn't put too much effort into optimising my run as you'll see by me picking up an excessive amount of health/ammo that I actually wasn't needed. Edit: Here's my old WIP of monday which has a few mistakes in it (like not grabbing pie and grabbing the second pair of speedboots from the front) but it showcases a few tricks; Damageboost without taking damage: Jump into an enemy from below right after Garfield has done his low style judo kick and you should get push forward a tiny bit without taking damage (done at frame 390) Health glitch: Pick up a rotten tuna when Garfield's HP is 1 and his HP will get to full which is 40. I'm not exactly sure if it's worth doing for a TAS but it might be worth it for later damageboosts. Fast fall: Jump after walking off a ledge and you start to fall faster. I think that you should try to crank up the entertainment value a bit more by killing more enemies if possible. It's also possible to glitch the game into displaying weird graphics and changing the music (demonstrated here) but I'm not entirely sure how it works. That too could also make for some amusing stuff...
Posted: 6/8/2012 11:34 PM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Thanks for the reply. I believe your WR is the run I am comparing mine against and where I got the 24 second improvement on. It has been helpful so far. Thanks for that lua. That is exactly what I wanted. I was just basing item location off of your run and one other video I found online so I really didn't have exact details. That should make for a lot faster working through this run. I had no idea there were that many items so I could probably use a bit more strategy now. Up to where I quit I was about 13% faster than your run. I missed a pair of shoes which could cut off a bit and if I use damage boosts that could go up (and definitely should later on when you miss more things) but as a whole your run was solid even with the flaws. Your WIP TAS is 4 frames ahead up to the first door which I imagine is due to the damage boosts. I think there are a few other places where it could be used so I will probably start over and see if I can't maximize this. Damage boosts this is by far the most helpful thing. I had suspected there was something like this but hadn't confirmed it yet. Will help speed this up. Health glitch: Yeah, may not be necessary but I will have to see how many damage boosts I do. Picking up an item costs 4 frames so as long as the extra damage boosts can save more than that we should be good. Fast fall: Also helpful. The jumping in this game is a bit difficult to control since you can't affect height so having another option will be helpful. I will most definitely add in more entertainment now. Not only can damage boosts help since there will be collisions all the time but now I know where the items are so I won't have to maintain the straight path that I was taking.
Posted: 6/8/2012 11:47 PM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
I believe we are tied up to the first door seeing as I didn't grab any pie in the first room (+4 frames). But if I recall correctly I wasted at least one frame to setup my HP correctly at the Spider but don't quote me on that. But yeah, I'm very much interested in seeing a well executed TAS of this. I believe it should make for an entertaining run with the damage boosts & onslaught of enemies. Boss deals 8dmg Spiders deals 5dmg Frogs, Birds & Mice deals 4dmg Baseballs deals 3dmg Boss knife projectile & Worms deals 2dmg Lice deals 1dmg Also an interesting thing is that you only suffer from a 1 pixel knockback if you get hit when Garfield is in the position he is after a damage boost which could prove to be useful for something.
Posted: 6/9/2012 1:53 AM
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NitroGenesis
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Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
I've tried TASing this game before. I have a Test WIP that goes up to Saturday 2. It sucks, but it gets a time of 48 in level 2, which is better then Dylan's 49. I also have a better WIP that is still not optimal and gets a time of 49 in the second level. Yuck. Also, I think this game could make a good TAS, mostly because it sucks. I'd be interested in making a full run.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 6/16/2012 7:25 PM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Officially stating that I am going to finish this run. I adjusted the lua so that it displays the true X-velocity and the exact HP. This makes it really easy to keep track of all needed information and now that I know how non-damage damage boosts work I am able to do much better than last time. Here is my new WIP finishing the first two levels and 00:03.18 seconds ahead of my previous attempt up to this point. This also improves the in-game clock on both levels with a time of 43 seconds on the first level and 47 seconds on the second level which is the smaller than any WIP so far. I am most likely going to make this a "Takes no damage" run unless there is serious opposition. I also tried to add some entertainment by attacking as many enemies as possible. My new goal is sub 9:30 but that is not in stone at this point as I am only about 20% in. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions. UPDATE Here is a 3rd WIP which finishes the first 6 levels, which means I am starting Saturday. I was going to wait to post until I finished all of the levels because I am going relatively quickly through this but I really wanted feedback on Thursday-Friday. These levels are awfully boring because: there are less shoes, the items are located in locations where you have to come to full stops, the enemies really full up the screen so you can't do as creative of jumps. I am still on pace to finish in 9 minutes and 20 seconds based on time ahead of the WR run but there looks like there may be a little bit of extra time savers up ahead as there were some errors made in these last couple levels. Again let me know if you have any opinions. I am probably going to retry the boss fights to see if I can't make them faster. My tests indicate that the bouncing weapon yields the most damage but I am not 100% sure because it seems to yield different damage each time. For example one time I landed on a boss while shooting a ball at him and the combined effect resulted in like 50 hp of damage where most attacks have a maximum of like 15 or 20. In short this game's controls are as clunky as everyone said and it is quite frustrating. I am definitely getting good times and taking advantage of the non-damage boosts whenever possible but it is just becoming irritating.
Posted: 6/18/2012 1:43 AM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
Yeah, I'd imagine that the boss fights are tricky to perfect as they seem a bit random to me when running the game in real time. It is unfortunate that Thursday and Friday lack shoes for the most part but the boss battles are entertaining enough for me. The music glitch at the end of Friday cracked me up. Both Saturday and Sunday should blazingly fast with the amount of shoes there are in those levels. It would have been interesting to see if taking damage and doing the health glitch would have saved time but I'm fine with this being a no damage run. Good luck on the rest of the run.
Posted: 6/18/2012 4:13 AM
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Minion
Joined: 4/15/2012
Posts: 3
I can't wait for this.
Posted: 6/19/2012 3:16 AM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Here is (potentially) my final WIP which finishes the game in 08:11.25. This is a 3 minute 45 second improvement over the fastest realtime record and over a minute faster than my original prediction. I am a little disappointed I couldn't make it to sub 8 minutes but as it was already much faster than my prediction I guess it is ok. As a whole I think it looks good and potentially publishable (assuming the game isn't the dreaded bad game choice from uninteresting gameplay rule) but I am not happy with the look of the bosses. I am at least slightly faster than the realtime boss fights but they look hectic and not as smooth as I want. This is due to the huge damage boosts that occur and can 100% change if there is a different input for a single frame. I have tried each boss fight between 2 and 5 times but that will be what my future changes would be. Let me know what your final opinions or suggestions are so that I can know if there is anything I need to change prior to submission.
Posted: 6/19/2012 4:59 AM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
I watched your movie and it was entertaining to me, good job! But I'm wondering if getting pushed back by the worm in Saturday part 1 (at frame 17443) is worth it. Is it possible to jump earlier and take out the spider with a pie (I saw you ended the run with 3 pies) or perhaps pick up 0359 (shotgun ammo) to snipe off the worm? Same with the worm at frame 18083. The boss fights look funny to me but I'm afraid I can't comment much on them. It seems like you could grab the key earlier in Saturday but the bosses are really random as you said so that might not be possible. Im also wondering if you have considered manipulating enemies (birds) so that you can damage boost off them. You can for example manipulate the bird at frame 6868 in Wednesday to appear higher if Garfield's position is higher up which makes you able to do a non-damage boost off it which might save time.
Posted: 6/19/2012 5:27 AM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
biggyboy wrote:
I watched your movie and it was entertaining to me, good job! But I'm wondering if getting pushed back by the worm in Saturday part 1 (at frame 17443) is worth it. Is it possible to jump earlier and take out the spider with a pie (I saw you ended the run with 3 pies) or perhaps pick up 0359 (shotgun ammo) to snipe off the worm? Same with the worm at frame 18083. The boss fights look funny to me but I'm afraid I can't comment much on them. It seems like you could grab the key earlier in Saturday but the bosses are really random as you said so that might not be possible.
Thanks for the advice. This is why you always post WIP's. The worm in Saturday 17443 is hit to pick up the skates, but like you said I could jump earlier and get it and not be knocked back. I will need to change that. It should save like 10 or frames. Same thing with 18083. That one will also be quicker. This will also give us a chance to see how hex friendly this game really is. I agree the bosses look weird. I have tried grabbing keys early but it puts me in poor locations for luck. Since I have to improve those segments I will try to improve the bosses again. WIP 5 should be posted within a day or two. Lets hope it is faster. I can't imagine I will save an extra 11 seconds but that would be my ultimate goal. Edit OK. So I have been messing around some more and you were correct about the worms. I fixed both of them and actually didn't have to use any more bombs so it worked out really well. I am actually considering restarting the run adding in damage boosts. The boss fight can can be faster by a bit if I allow for damage. That would of course mean that I need to figure out exactly how damage boosts work and where they could be optimized. I am not sure if that would work better or if it would be worth it. I need to think on it. Double Edit Ignore previous remark. I am improving the boss fight even further without taking damage so I will not be doing a damage run unless something drastic changes. Yay 2 AM TAS'ing.
Posted: 6/19/2012 12:34 PM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
You seem to get 'stuck' for 1 frame at 21391 and 21694, would this be possible to avoid? 21694 in WIP4 would make for a very cool screenshot though. Perhaps it would be faster to land on the ladder then do fastfall at frame 11603 in Thursday or did you try that already? Also enemy manipulation (see edit in my previous post)
Posted: 6/19/2012 4:29 PM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
biggyboy wrote:
You seem to get 'stuck' for 1 frame at 21391 and 21694, would this be possible to avoid? 21694 in WIP4 would make for a very cool screenshot though. Perhaps it would be faster to land on the ladder then do fastfall at frame 11603 in Thursday or did you try that already? Also enemy manipulation (see edit in my previous post)
I do get 'stuck' at those two frames due to being in a location that you technically are not supposed to stand at. You are correct that 21391 can be avoided if I change the location that I jump to collect the skates. It results in Garfield reaching the same X-Position later in the level 2 frames earlier. 21694 could also be fixed through different attacks on the previous enemies. It would be a nice screenshot though so I will need to think about that one since it will only save 1 frame and I am not sure if that 1 frame will be worth getting rid of the image. The fastfall approach is again faster. You really do know this game. The new strategy saves 5 frames and means I get to start redoing the run back to Thursday. Again, looking into it I could create more situations where there could be non-damage boosts if I jump at different points to create more ideal placement of birds. In short I am going to "restart" the run, which means I am going to just go through my whole run getting it to resync but manipulating all of the birds to be in more ideal positions for non-damage boosts. Once this run is done I will probably not be playing A Week of Garfield again for quite some time because it is frustrating.
Posted: 6/21/2012 12:05 AM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Double post. So I went back through from the beginning now that I am slightly better at optimizing movement and items and as such here is my newest WIP up to the third "room" of Thursday. As this is only through room 2 of Thursday it is not yet to improving the bosses or fixing any of the mistakes you have listed so far but I have managed to save 40 frames and have 3 more bombs remaining. Unless you have a specific idea to improve the previous parts I believe I am officially done with everything up to this point and will not attempt any more improvements there. I still believe there is less than a 1% chance of being sub 8 minutes but it should be good overall. 40 frames is not a ton but I haven't even got to the known errors so with any luck at least 2 or 3 more seconds could be saved maybe a few more if I fix the bosses. Plus now that I have an extra 3 bombs, and the fact that I have 3 extra at the end of the run, I can already skip collecting one of them. Again feedback is welcome and encouraged. This is going to my last WIP before I submit.
Posted: 6/21/2012 12:29 AM
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NitroGenesis
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It looks really great. I can't wait for the submission.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Posted: 6/21/2012 5:09 AM
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biggyboy
Player (51)
Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70
The item pickups definitely look a lot smoother now, nice job. The way you dealt with the baseball in the second room of Thursday was really cool. I kind of doubt you could push this under 8 minutes unfortunately unless a new trick is discovery or if you could defeat bosses way quicker than what we can now.
Posted: 7/4/2012 7:43 PM
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yoshipro101
Joined: 7/4/2012
Posts: 4
Location: Canada
Looks very well made! I tried to do a TAS on this but found this game to be redundantly slow for my liking, but you have made it very entertaining to watch. Best of luck for when you submit it!
Herp-a-Derp I play games Herp-a-Derp
Posted: 7/4/2012 7:47 PM
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Warepire
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Joined: 3/2/2010
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yoshipro101 wrote:
Looks very well made! I tried to do a TAS on this but found this game to be redundantly slow for my liking, but you have made it very entertaining to watch. Best of luck for when you submit it!
It's already submitted and published.
Posted: 7/4/2012 8:07 PM
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yoshipro101
Joined: 7/4/2012
Posts: 4
Location: Canada
Warepire wrote:
yoshipro101 wrote:
Looks very well made! I tried to do a TAS on this but found this game to be redundantly slow for my liking, but you have made it very entertaining to watch. Best of luck for when you submit it!
It's already submitted and published.
Oops, my bad! Sorry :P
Herp-a-Derp I play games Herp-a-Derp