At TASVideos we typically aim for fastest time. But today, I decided we should mix it up a bit. So I have submitted a movie that aims for longest time.
Since one could simply make a TAS of a non-timed game where the character stands there, I decided that the Longest Time goal needed some basic ground rules:
Game must have a timer
Do not die
Do not complete the game more than once
Always make "progress" in the game
And with these goals in mind I present to you, an infinitely long TAS. On a side note, this TAS beats the previous record of longest submission of 41 days by infinity days.
Since it is difficult to encode an infintely long tas, I have decided to Live stream this movie for the duration of its submission life!
How
To achieve a never ending TAS, BizHawk 1.4.1 is required. I coded in a movie parameter called loopoffset. When this is present, BizHawk will loop back to this frame after reaching the end of the movie. In this case, I put LoopOffset 1275 into the movie file. It will play the first 1275 frames, then loop 1276 to the end of the movie endlessly. Now the challenge is simply to find a segment of input such that the game will continue to play!
Verification
I have confirmed sync up to 50 million frames. (It would have kept going but an ill-timed Windows update thwarted my plans!) 50 million was enough for it to completely wrap the lives and score addresses at least once.
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Noxxa: Initially, I figured to just follow my first judge instincts, which is to automatically reject. However, I figure that if I actually watch it, it's probably good enough to accept.
So, I'll just go and watch the run now. When I'm done, I will accept it. Until then, I'll keep it at rejected.
This is a really clever idea for an April submission. The livestream is hilarious, haha. Awesome job adelikat. \o/
BTW, If someone made a small looping .gif of like the first 5 or so cycles starting from the first lives screen, I'd love you forever.
I've watched this for an obscenely longer time than I should have.
Suggested screenshot:
Frame #6,243,863
That's really one of the only variable parts in the run. Adds a little excitement to wonder whether or not he'll kill the hammer bro in the current iteration.
Frame #24,523,043,322,450,949,203 was a pretty good one too, though.
Also, if accepted, how could this be improved? Infinity +1? Infinity and beyond?
♪♫ This is the run that doesn't end, yes it goes on and on my friends, some people starting watching it not knowing what it was, and they continued watching it forever because this is the run that doesn't end... ♫♪
Funny how when I watched it, it started just when the song started too :O
There's actually a bit more randomness than that, because the pirana plant timing is very very slighty different. I had to adjust my jumps to avoid this problem as well.
Do you have the RNG value's memory address so I can monitor it?
Could it be possible to create a screen saver out of the run?!
If you want the exact run, then it might be more complicated, but just a loop of a few runs exported as a video, and feeding that to a video player screensaver, is easy enough. Did the same with some Tekken 3 ending video 15 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpzQb94-bGQ
Edit: if you can feed bizhawk a movie and a rom file, and autoplay the movie as parameter, should be easy enough.
Hurray, this year's April 1st actually brought something novel. Neat idea, adelikat!
This should be published somehow, but a simple encode won't do the justice.
Could you describe your TASing process while making this movie? Since you need to sync with many iterations of the infinite loop, I presume you had to work out some special workflow (although the difference between iterations isn't big in this game, but still, simply recording Input by only looking at the events of a single iteration, this is almost like playing blindly).
I actually had similar task in 2007, when making this movie. In this game you have to play one level two times, in order to collect all puzzle pieces. And naturally, RNG and enemies movement/spawning is different, so I decided to make myself an extra challenge and complete the level both times with the same input (by hexediting). That wasn't too difficult, because I only needed to sync my Input with 2 instances of the level, not the entire multitude of all possible instances. My workflow was similar to how DualTASing is done - by opening 2 emulators and recording two movies, starting from different point in the game.
diggidoyo wrote:
Also, if accepted, how could this be improved?
The same way as other speedruns are improved - by reducing the length of Input Log. I'm sure there are a few frames to shave, while still producing the infinite cycle.
Or it can be improved the same way as playarounds - by increasing the entertainment (or versatility) of the multitude of iterations.
Hopper262 wrote:
Is there a version of Tetris where the highest speed remains playable, and the RNG can be wrapped in a reasonable timeframe? Seems like that would be the purest example of continuous progress. It wouldn't be as entertaining as this loop, though.
Nah, that would be entirely different type of movie, because every iteration would be exactly the same, so TASer wouldn't need to take into consideration the whole multitude of iterations, he would only need to record this single iteration (quite long though) and that's it.
In other words, searching for the least common denominator is boring (it's pure mathematics), while searching for the greatest common divisor is actually interesting and challenging.
I would love for this run to be left running and posted somewhere online. Because, well, sometimes you just want to see SMB2j run endlessly.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Won't this TAS get game over once it collects enough coins to get 128 lives?
Edit: No it won't, you need to die before having over 128 lives kills you.
No, it won't. The only time that lives check routine gets called is when the player loses a life. So, you can keep collecting lives and cycle around to 1 again if you don't die. (Try it on 1-1 with the Koopa Troopa, and watch your lives counter in memory.)
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
I'm disappointed that this got rejected. I understand that it doesn't fit the Vault tier criteria, but given the votes here we could make a good case for Moon tier. It's surely unique and entertaining to have an infinite run on the site.
(edit) no, wait, what I mean is the Gruefood Delight category. Who decides if something is delightful or not?
I thkink it should be kept forever on the workbench
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Well, I guess the stream has run its course. I stopped it (and have my computer back, yay!). Sorry guys.
P.S. I will have that song stuck in my head for the rest of my life.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
AzureLazuline wrote:
I bet the person who rejected it didn't even watch the whole run
Mothrayas wrote:
Initially, I figured to just follow my first judge instincts, which is to automatically reject. However, I figure that if I actually watch it, it's probably good enough to accept.
So, I'll just go and watch the run now. When I'm done, I will accept it. Until then, I'll keep it at rejected.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
That's really one of the only variable parts in the run. Adds a little excitement to wonder whether or not he'll kill the hammer bro in the current iteration.
Frame #24,523,043,322,450,949,203 was a pretty good one too, though.
Also, if accepted, how could this be improved? Infinity +1? Infinity and beyond?
