Introduction

Since 1 year feos and me made a #3356: feos & MESHUGGAH's NES Battletoads in 11:04.72 run, 10 months later Dylax and DjTheZlomus made #3690: TheZlomuS & DyLaX's NES Battletoads "Glitched" in 01:02.68. That motivated me to come back to the tasing community and improve the game to it's glory.
Notice the date (2011/11/11 and 2012/11/11). Also my birthday is 11/12.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.6, syncs on 2.1.4a (thanks Ilari)
  • Aims for fastest possible time
  • Entertains without losing a frame
  • Uses warps
  • Manipulates luck
  • Manipulates cutscenes
  • Manipulates musics
  • Manipulates game

Detailed informations

This is the result of tasing the game for 41 times after realizing that Dylax and DjTheZlomus's last effort #3710: TheZlomuS & DyLaX's NES Battletoads "Glitched" in 00:58.07 is not perfect. Note that the actual rerecord count is more than 100.000, but I kept switching between my different versions.
The notable improvements are these:
  • minimizing the actions (jump length) to get better subpixel positions and do actions (pressing B) as fast as possible to recover from it's animation and go forward.
  • running faster as soon as possible rather than going to the right side (it's faster because the camera doesn't moves forward if it's blocked by the 2nd player)
The combination of these two lead to this movie. This way I could get a faster spawn of the rats which is spawned after every 16th frames. This means, you need to be there in 17 frames earlier, otherwise you won't improve anything just wait for the enemy spawn. This happens in the next rat too.
And I'm also reduced the manipulation part, this way it's impossible (to me) to make a "no game over" version.

The possible improvements

  • The only thing I tried without luck or even close to the resolution is manipulating the game end without pressing input at the manipulation part (after the lagframes around 3406). The problem is that the complexity of the manipulation. You have to reset pointers, get correct values for different objects. Most of the time when I thought it will works, it suddenly either stopped the manipulation.
  • And of course, you can try to reduce the manipulation part, but that's will results in a much longer wait until the end, if it would be possible, but the same happens as earlier mentioned. And this has something to do with the actual framecount (lower framecounts are harder to manipulate)

The impossible improvements

  • A 1P run would be much slower
  • Resetting at the 1st possible frame when the intro finished costs frames
  • Because of the timers, Level 1 (enemy spawn) and Level 3 (rat spawn timers) is impossible to improve

List of techniques and oddities appeared in chronological order

Manipulating cutscenes/texts
Using different input, it's possible to save 1-3 frames by loading those texts that gives fewer lag frames.
Manipulating music/background
Pausing very fast alternating on thetwo joystick mutes the music channel. The sideffect is flickering the background on level 3.
Synchronizing actions that costs lag frames
Kicking, dashing, brutal hit etc costs lag frames so hitting something with both toads in the same frame halves it.
Optimizing movement
Starting fast running earlier is always faster, but sometimes it needs different input (LR instead of UL, empty, UL).
Z-order mess up
Pressing left and right simultaneously brings up or down the player rapidly. Also used to get different subpositions.
Manipulating the game end
I have to depress you, but I don't know the technical side of this. I've done it with a "visual test" that sometimes changes depending on odd or even frame is the last frame before the respawn or different input before the manipulation begins. You should ask DjTheZlomus.

Miscellaneous

For entertainment...
  • look the input of the beginning and cutscene manipulated parts (TASeditor is adviced)
  • P2 joins later
  • Level 1 music changed to play 1 note
  • P1 falling blow
  • Level 3 music muted, soundeffects added (by unmuting) to jumps and spawns
  • Level 3 background flickers
  • random jumps
I hope you enjoyed my TAS, I think I will check maybe other platforms too. And would like to thanks the help to feos, Dylax, DjTheZlomus, Ilari, adelikat for giving me tasks instead of tasing this 0-24 a day and everyone from #tasvideos.
See you until my next tas =)

Nach: I let this stew for a week to see if anyone has any more improvements. Since no one mentioned working on anything significant, I deem this ready for judging, and obsoletions can always be submitted later like with everything else.
I found the improvement quite impressive, and good audience feedback throughout the frame war. Accepting.
feos: Precessing.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3750: MESHUGGAH's NES Battletoads "Glitched" in 00:56.94
Spikestuff
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Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2655)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6446
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Firstly YES VOTE as I saw the wip. secondly Made a temp. encode Link to video
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
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Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
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Posts: 4038
Thanks for the encode, Spikestuff. This run has very high technical value and is entertaining (that's a Yes vote).
feos wrote:
I second this for publication screenshot.
Editor
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What the what?! That's all.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
Player (127)
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Thats a huge improvement for battletoads. And look at that rerecords for 56 sec.. YES VOTE.
Jungon wrote:
if I was to have a Tool-Assisted real life ... I'd.. I could abuse death, just to see if it saves time ..
AnS
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (728)
Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Button mnemonics say B_T_TAS, huh. And later it even counts as a valid Input to start the game. I like it when TASes make some people think that there was cheating involved (e.g. that this is not original Battletoads, because of the music), while there actually wasn't any cheating. Now let's see if Zlomus finds some other improvements!
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Joined: 12/19/2010
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Possible frame war?
Everytime I get home My neighbour's cockroach is in my bed
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Lollorcaust wrote:
Possible frame war?
See the previous submission thread (first in the gruefood forum).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
MESHUGGAH
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Lollorcaust wrote:
Possible frame war?
And also read to list of "possible" and impossible improvements in the submission text I've added later.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
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If the Continue timer expired, how did two 'Toads get brought up at the end (and I'm not counting Pimple with Angelica)?
PJ
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feos wrote:
Hahahahaha. This needs to be the screenshot. And yea, awesome run as always. :P
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
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Poor, poor game... What did it do to you to deserve this?! It got punished multiple times in a row on this site and ended up lying down, hopeless, on the workbench for everyone to see it. I like it.
WST
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PHEW ! THAT WAS PAINFUL TO WATCH! In other words, I voted „yes”.
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Wtf vote! Nice improvement ans happy birthday
Dwedit
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What's up with the sound?
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Spikestuff wrote:
Firstly YES VOTE as I saw the wip. secondly Made a temp. encode Link to video
The sound cuts out quite a bit. Is this a problem with the encode or does the run somehow glitch the emulator's sound horribly?
Spikestuff
They/Them
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Joined: 10/12/2011
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Okay cause I know about the complaints in the audio there is no audio problems let me show you in what MESHUGGAH wrote.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
Manipulates musics
That's the actual game manipulation to add more technicality to the tas.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
MESHUGGAH
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Nicos wrote:
Wtf vote! Nice improvement ans happy birthday
Thank you =) About the audio, let me copy from the submission text: Manipulating music/background: Pausing very fast alternating on thetwo joystick mutes the music channel. pause on P1, next frame pause on P2 makes a very fast pause (without wasting a frame) Level 3 music muted, soundeffects added (by unmuting) to jumps and spawns: that's why you hear those Atari bits when I jump. About the video, the sideffect (of alternating pause) is flickering the background on level 3 which can not be seen in the enode because it's 30fps and the game is 60fps. The effect is vastly different. and thanks for the encode Spikestuff
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
GoddessMaria
She/Her
Reviewer, Experienced player (868)
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Posts: 518
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Very nice work, MESHUGGAH! I actually enjoyed the thorough destruction of the game. Take that, Battletoads! Also Happy Birthday to you! ^^ Clear yes vote!
Current projects: failing at life
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Nice work indeed. Have a happy birthday yes vote!
My user name is rather long, feel free to call me by htwt or tape.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2157] NES Battletoads "game end glitch" by MESHUGGAH in 00:56.94
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
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Posts: 1873
That is the worst screenshot ever. Not only does it show nothing about the game, but it comes after the end of the input. Voting no.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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2 VS 1 Also, it says ALL about the movie :P EDIT: [22:21] <mathgrant> Oh my God, the Battletoads screenshot. . . I haven't laughed so hard in a long time!
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Guga
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Posts: 838
Location: Chile
2 VS 2 I agree with NitroGenesis. The screenshot should be taken from the input file.