Posted: 1/14/2014 11:15 PM
Post subject: Armadillo
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Hornlitz
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Joined: 1/14/2014
Posts: 12
Location: Canada
You're a bouncy armadillo, and you're travelling through 8 places around the world, beating levels, killing bosses and collecting the scissors(?) they drop. Or something like that. I'm really not sure. I can't read Japanese, so to me there is no real plot to this game. It's fun though. Except for the lag. The lag is pretty bad. I was looking on the NES Wishlist a little while back and someone mentioned they'd like to see a TAS of this game. So, I decided I'd try it out, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. (although I'm not sure if this is a good pick for my first full TAS ever...) I've already TASed the first world of the game, so anybody interested can check it out: The .fm2: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/10823550/ArmadilloTAS.fm2 (Note: I was using FCEUX version 2.10.50 for this, which I think is a bit older, but hopefully it still runs properly on the newer versions) Or on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlcQk-h94RQ I'd estimate the entire game would take roughly 20-25 minutes with the glitch(es?) I've found. If people are interested, I can explain what I've found about this game, and I can finish the TAS and submit it if people think it could be interesting enough.
Posted: 1/15/2014 12:55 AM
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jeffsledge
Joined: 3/21/2013
Posts: 12
There has already been a TAS made of this http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13937753
Posted: 1/15/2014 1:19 AM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4042
FTFY Link to video
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 1/15/2014 6:35 AM
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Hornlitz
She/Her
Joined: 1/14/2014
Posts: 12
Location: Canada
Is there a reason that this movie wasn't sent in/published? Was it just not entertaining enough? Also, I still think I'll give this game a try for a couple reasons, mainly that there were a few levels where I thought I might be able to improve using different strategies, and because I discovered a glitch that allows you to skip getting the level bonus at the end of each level, which would save at least 2-5 seconds per stage, depending on the stage, so I think this run could end up being around a minute faster. Thanks for pointing out this TAS though. I looked for a TAS of this game before I started myself, but I guess I may have just not looked hard enough.
Posted: 1/15/2014 7:27 AM
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CoolKirby
Editor, Experienced player (569)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4035
Exotic platforms TASer of 2014 NES TAS of 2013
It was actually never submitted, and after searching the site, it appears that no work on this game has been done here (WIPs, submissions, threads, anything), so he/she might not have even known about our site. And I don't think you could have been expected to search the title of the game in Japanese. Interestingly though, the site that video is hosted on, Nicovideo, has a large Japanese TAS-watching community and runs of popular games (including some of ours) usually gain hundreds of thousands of views after only a few hours or days of being uploaded there. So it's actually pretty likely that someone makes a TAS on that site for other people to enjoy, but again, you can't be blamed for not knowing.
Posted: 1/15/2014 9:09 AM
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Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4042
Hornlitz wrote:
Is there a reason that this movie wasn't sent in/published? Was it just not entertaining enough?
Nicovideo has a huge TAS making/watching community. Most of them do not go to or submit to tasvideos as it is a predominantly English website/community.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 1/15/2014 11:24 AM
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thatguy
Editor
Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506
Hornlitz wrote:
Is there a reason that this movie wasn't sent in/published? Was it just not entertaining enough?
The rules of the site do not prohibit runs from being published just because they are boring, it's just that boring runs are locked away in a category known as the Vault, where they are unlikely to be found unless you are looking for them. You don't have to worry about how entertaining your run is other people to watch - indeed, for some games an entertaining run is impossible. Just focus on saving frames, and above all make sure you are enjoying TASing :) EDIT: one rule for acceptance is that your TAS is indeed a record, so it would have to beat the nicovideo movie.
Posted: 1/15/2014 8:17 PM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4042
thatguy wrote:
EDIT: one rule for acceptance is that your TAS is indeed a record, so it would have to beat the nicovideo movie.
In particular, it has to beat it on every stage (unless there's some reason like RNG changes or powerups carrying over that means you save more time elsewhere)
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 4/9/2014 6:11 PM
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TASeditor
Editor, Skilled player (1535)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
Glitchy TAS of 2015 NES TASer of 2014 Speedy TAS of 2014 NES TAS of 2013
Are you still working on this? I picked it up and did world 1. About 8 seconds are saved over the nicovideo run, due to extreme lag reduction, better acceleration and some other small improvements. User movie #13895238175395664 ________________________________________________________________ Edit: Here's World 2, saved 35 seconds. Link to video
Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch
Posted: 4/16/2014 10:23 PM
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Hornlitz
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Joined: 1/14/2014
Posts: 12
Location: Canada
Recently I've been really busy with IRL stuff, so I haven't really had time to work on this. But I took a look at what you have compared to what I have, and yours is easily way better. I didn't really experiment with lag reduction at all either (mostly cause I don't know how). One thing I noticed though that I thought was slower was in some levels in world 2, you used wall jumps to get up certain ledges, but I found it was faster to just jump up them and reverse direction in mid-air. Now, this could be my lack of experience, and so I missed something, or maybe it's faster cause of lag reduction, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
Posted: 4/16/2014 10:48 PM
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TASeditor
Editor, Skilled player (1535)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
Glitchy TAS of 2015 NES TASer of 2014 Speedy TAS of 2014 NES TAS of 2013
Thanks for mentioning this. Do you reverse direction by hitting the wall with stored speed? I know one way to change the direction of movement by rolling into ball form one frame before you hit an enemy or a sloped ground. There's also a little trick which sets the speed pattern at a higher value than intended, by rolling into a ball while in midair at a specific frame you get a speed pattern of 4 instead of 3. But you have to change the form from time to time to maintain this speed, this creates some lag frames, but is still faster. The ball form usually creates less lag. It is also possible to prevent enemies form spawning.
Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch
Posted: 4/17/2014 8:30 PM
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Hornlitz
She/Her
Joined: 1/14/2014
Posts: 12
Location: Canada
I just held the other direction to change directions in mid air. I found that you can change directions in mid-air even faster if you turn into a ball while jumping. I didn't use that technique though (since I didn't know anout it then), so I probably lost a bunch of frames for each wall jump I avoided. It might also be worthwile to note that it is possible to wall jump up one wall as normal armadillo using the same technique. It only gains around 5 pixels of height each time, but maybe it could be useful somewhere. And have you figured out how to despawn enemies? I knew it was possible, since it happened once in the first level of World 1 for me, but I couldn't figure out how to replicate it, and it could be pretty useful in a bunch of places.
Posted: 4/18/2014 2:20 PM
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TASeditor
Editor, Skilled player (1535)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
Glitchy TAS of 2015 NES TASer of 2014 Speedy TAS of 2014 NES TAS of 2013
I figured out two ways to prevent enemy spawns. First if there are to many enemies loaded on screen. Each enemy has a slot where they're loaded into. Four is the maximum, however sometimes it's less. The white rabbits in the second room of the first level only have three at screen. Unless I am missing something. Second if in the 4th slot is a enemy other enemies don't spawn, even all other slots are empty. This helped me to remove 3 enemies in the first room of level 1.
Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch