Posted: 5/5/2015 4:00 PM
Post subject: Grinding in a pure platformer? (Super Monkey Ball)
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xy2_
Editor, Experienced player (847)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
Arcade TASer of 2016
Hello! I, along with Silverbawxer, are working on a Super Monkey Ball: Touch and Roll TAS. Here is the thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12789 We are both very new on the forums but have a lot of experience on the game: which leads to this problem: we plan on playing all 12 worlds. However, unlocking the 12th world requires beating the 11th world, then collecting 2006 bananas (consumables scattered on the level) to unlock the final world. The fastest way to do it would be to grind five levels over and over, but that would put basically 20 minutes of grinding in the TAS, which will end up probably about half the duration. Because of that, we have decided instead we would be replaying through every world and going for every banana then going to the goal as fast as possible: basically, replaying the game, but playing for score, to make it more entertaining. After that, there are 106 bananas left to grind, which can be done very fast by about 2 minutes of grinding. My question is: would this work in a TAS? It is a goal we've been wanting to put in but I do not know if it is allowed here, since it sacrifices a LOT of time for entertainement.
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Posted: 5/5/2015 4:16 PM
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Grincevent
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Hum, it can lead to a questionable movie (if there are credits at the end of world 11, for example), but also a very boring one because of the grinding, or repeating all the levels. Can it be done as a "new game +" kind of run? I'm not only asking you, I'm asking the potential judge for such a movie.
Posted: 5/5/2015 4:20 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Yeah, this is a tricky problem. My inclination would be to have two separate runs: one which does the 11 normal worlds, then one which does just the 12th world, but includes a verification movie that does the necessary grinding. Nobody would actually watch the verification movie (because it'd be boring as hell); it's just there to prove that access to the 12th world wasn't cheated. On the other hand, if you think your plan can be made entertaining (a.k.a. Moon tier), then go for it; as long as you entertain the audience it doesn't much matter what you do otherwise. Either way, good luck with the TAS!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/5/2015 4:48 PM
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xy2_
Editor, Experienced player (847)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
Arcade TASer of 2016
The other option we had is just starting from a NG+ and playing all 12 worlds from there, so it is possible. I have a big inclination to redo all worlds for score, however, as it provides different and interesting routes.
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Posted: 5/5/2015 5:50 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Sure, you could provide a verification movie that unlocks the 12th world and then do a single run with all 12. That's also a perfectly valid approach, and frankly better than the two-run approach I suggested; d'oh!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/5/2015 6:32 PM
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Silverbawxer
Player (148)
Joined: 4/18/2015
Posts: 17
I just thought I would mention that almost all of the levels being played twice would look completely different the second time around. Collecting bananas fast means a much different route for each level compared to going for time. The reason we are asking is because doing this instead of new game+ essentially doubles the length of the movie and the amount of work we will put in. I remember many people asking for SMB1 TAS that goes for bananas and score, so I figured people might want to see it here too. So the real question is would you want to see every stage played twice, even if the gameplay were quite different the second time? Thanks for any input.
Posted: 5/5/2015 7:06 PM
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ALAKTORN
He/Him
Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
DS TAS of 2012
I think going through the whole game twice might work. A NG+ would feel kinda cheap because it doesn’t start from a clean game… while grinding for 20 minutes is definitely too much. It might be slower but going through all levels again might be the best choice.