Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
So I bet there's an old topic for this game but I'm not really into necro-bumping 3 - 4 year old topics.
I made a test-TAS of this awesomess. http://youtu.be/xKHBafHKtxQ . Also the encode is absolute crap.
For the real TAS, I intend to turn off friendly fire since that'd allow Mitch to do all the killing from the back rows. Unfortunately, there seem to be no place for Max to kick an enemy in the balls so hard his head explodes.
This test-run is made (almost) without RAM watch so there's probably some sub-pixel or frame rule bull hanging about which I am yet to find out.
Anyway, there seem to be a few shortcuts via hidden rooms, so I'd be grateful if everyone who knows anything about this game wouldn't mind sharing their knowledge. Cheers!
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
I'm getting a '404 Not Found' error when I click on the encode link...
edit: I corrected the url, but now YouTube is stating the page isn't available.
Anyways, I've never heard of this one. I'm interested in seeing your progress!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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.
Joined: 10/28/2013
Posts: 130
Location: United States
Looking great so far!
I beat this game on all difficulties a year and a half ago, and the only major undocumented secret I turned up was a hidden level accessible either via password (MYSTICUS) or by a ledge at the very end of the second Nero level. But the end of the hidden level just dumps you back at the start of Nero 2, so it just adds time and wouldn't be relevant.
Otherwise it's all about finding those hidden areas for shortcuts, and you seem to be hitting the ones I remember.
BTW I can't stand this game. :D It's basically everything that was wrong with mid-1990s American developers. Those forced-movement passages in the ice stage are so flaky and maladaptive.
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
I sure am back. I have, no kidding, 131 games to go through and see if they are TAS-worthy (This and another of my real projects not included).
I suppose my best bet is to go through each level to try to find secret areas turning into shortcuts then :)
Anyway, I intend to play the game on hardest difficulty, two players at the same time, friendly fire off. Any objections on the friendly fire?
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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.
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
So I redid level 1, without friendly fire. Turns out this bastard of a game is a rabbit season-game. Each time you land after a jump, you stop for one frame, unless you jump again, hence rabbit season.
Also for the river, to the best of my knowledge, the soldiers can't be shot unless they aren't shooting themselves, and jumping too high causes them to attack again. Might be something more to this. Also turning off friendly fire has helped a lot.
Also the WIP. Might have been using bizhawk 1.91 for this one.
I intend to add level encodes in this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuhcTHvUXxRVrXkKHcRxz1uEgGO5Hh5vs
Questions, comments and/or suggestions?
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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.
Anyway, there seem to be a few shortcuts via hidden rooms, so I'd be grateful if everyone who knows anything about this game wouldn't mind sharing their knowledge. Cheers!
It's one of my favorite games. I was planning to do tas of it, but I didn't complete previous yet. My apologies :(
I was looking into game mechanics few years ago, when I was making my hack.
You hit all secret rooms, that might be useful.
There is only three secret rooms, and one secret level.
All three rooms on mercury, two of them you visit already. One that you left behind, is not useful, because you'll return back where you enter.
I think you should test some of wierd routes, and most of time-gain you can achieve by RNG manipulating ofc :D
Most pain in ass is boss on mercury. I think you should be able to kill him from first "sequence". It goes in following way: you shoot that flying thing, and while it's stay still, he's hitting it because he's dumb asshole :D, and when it starts to fly, it finishing him off. Maybe that's not possible because of cooldowns (inv times).
I know two wierd moves. One in Mercury 2, and one in Nero 2, may be there is more of those. Ofc it would be nice to find out collision data to view it closer. As far as I know it's using same engine as Earthworm Jim 2. There is editor available somewhere nearby.
About moves, I need to make recording, because it's hard to describe by words :).
BTW my fun video:
Link to videoHere is two tricks:Link to video
going to start doing this game myself, I tried out the first few levels to get a feel for this.
Link to video
some things I tried doing was to make the player ahead of me not jump as much, sometimes landing will cause the char to lose a frame of movement, where sometimes that isnt the case. that will have to be somthing I need to investigate at some point.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/58244819498560093
this is 107 frames faster than the last submission of this game.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
thanks for the lua r57shell, here's what the wip looks like with the lua enabled:
Link to video
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Script updated. Now it shows a bit of info about Mercury Boss.
Here some gifs, about 10 MB in total size
https://imgur.com/a/87KHA3Y
Mercury boss AI is following. There are three timers:
1) Attack timer. When it hits zero: pick attack. Delay is 250 frames.
2) Move timer. When it hits zero: pick new target position. Delay is 150 frames.
3) Aim timer. When it hits zero: pick player. Delay is 10 frames.
Only random thing here is "new target position".
RNG is placed at FF0312, it's single byte = index in 256 value list.
RNG array is at ROM:0541A2, RNG routine at ROM:05418E
There are three attacks:
1) Drone - thing hit boss
2) Staff
3) Fire
Drone AI has two phases:
1) It moves in circles - this trajectory is fixed, except perhaps some corner cases like lags / screen restrictions. It is just chasing corners of expanding box. This phase has two timers.
a) When first hits zero, box is expanded.
b) Second timer is size of box. When it reach maximum, drone goes back to the boss.
2) When drone got hit, it's similarily chasing but single point. Frequently changing it position. This phase has also two timers.
a) When first timer hits zero: go back to boss. Delay is 350 frames.
b) When second timer hits zero: change target position. Delay is 50 frames.
Random target of boss = position of target player + vector(RNG, RNG)/2 sign extended from bytes with some range clipping.
Random target of drone = position of top left corner of screen + vector(RNG, RNG) unsigned. Thus, it may not roll in range [256,319] positions of screen.
Script updated, one gif added.
It's also about mercury boss.
Now it also shows trajectories to the point of decision of next target point.
Also it shows current player target by red rectangle around it.
One note about mercury boss AI.
Normaly his attacks is Fire, Fire, Drone, Staff in cycle.
But when it make choice to do Staff, if target player y position is above his y position, it moves target y position to move 60 pixels above to move upper, but suddenly change his next cycle to Drone instead, and attack timer to 20. So, in this way you may manipulate him to always pick Drone, if you have enough luck to make him lower than you at certain points of time.
Thus, my script also shows next attack according to this strategy.
If target player is lower than boss and next is Staff, it will show small letter d instead, meaning that he will go for Drone after 20 frames.
Link to video
this new wip involves the entirety of stage 2 now.
thanks for the lua scripts r57shell!
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
That’s pretty strange. I wonder if the boss might have died off screen or something.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
It doesn't look like he died. I have no idea what happened. The only suspicious is that it is russian translation of the game. So they could have also add some bug during translation process. It doesn't neglect possibility that it's case of true bug.
