Pepsiman's nemesis: Coca-Cola Kid. A Game Gear game that could actually make a great and super fast TAS.
The fastest way to move as far as my knowledge goes, is a speedboost by pressing down+1. You can maintain your boosting speed by kicking/jumping on the first possible frame and you can maintain it further by bouncing on boxes and stuff like that. The bad thing is that it could lag a bit when doing it, but it's still fast.
Me would like to see a pro doing this, I could do that, but that would be really friggin hard for some noob like me.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
Wait, this thread's been here since January? Apparently I have Coke blindness or something.
Link to video
Here's a proof-of-concept WIP that I made a few months back and just got around to encoding. It's improvable in a few areas, namely menuing and possibly some of the routing. An improvement is in the works and might take a bit, but for now this is a good indicator of how the run's going to look for the most part.
If something looks odd or out-of-place, chances are that's just how the game works and there's nothing I could really do about it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Ha, I remember playing this game a while back and thinking it was a good candidate for a TAS. I never did any testing or anything but your run seems to be a good idea of what it should be. I have 2 questions though, but they are probably answered by the mechanics of the game.
First of all, is landing on the skateboard necessary? I don't see anything that warrants it, or do you have to be on it to advance the stage?
Second, I'm assuming the slopes that looks like stairs can't be dashed up, because you walk up them. But the slopes that arent stairs can be? Seems like a silly game design.
All in all it looks pretty decent, though I think the game gets pretty repetitive after a while.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
Oh yeah, this is a collaborative TAS. I knew I was too tired to post.
Kurabupengin wrote:
LEL i thought we were going to keep this secret
I only planned on that since I hadn't seen this thread for some reason... also I was only planning on keeping it secret before April Fools' Day <_< I figured I'd be more motivated if it was out in the public eye anyway. We did kinda start the improvement a couple weeks ago and I haven't been checking in...
Exonym wrote:
First of all, is landing on the skateboard necessary? I don't see anything that warrants it, or do you have to be on it to advance the stage?
It ends up faster from what I tested due to how that stage ends, but it's been a couple months since I did that stage so it's worth taking another stab at.
EDIT: Aha, I took note of it back when I was working on the run. From what was going to be my submission text: "Using the skateboard allows me to use two less spin-dashes (which means two less stops) and also allows me to skip walking up the staircase, simply by bouncing off a crate, a dude-who-can-only-exist-in-the-90's, and jumping off the skateboard at the peak of my ascent so I can bounce off of the second crate at the top of the stairs, getting me a little more distance."
I'll take a look at it on the improved file, since I was thinking that the skateboard looked a little too slow compared to an alternate route.
Second, I'm assuming the slopes that looks like stairs can't be dashed up, because you walk up them. But the slopes that arent stairs can be? Seems like a silly game design.
That's exactly what I meant when I said if something looks out of place, then that's how the game works. You can't even crouch on stairs, which means you can't dash. Being anywhere near them locks you at normal walking speed, even if you fly at them at 7 pixels-per-frame you'll just immediately drop all your speed once you get within a certain distance. You can dash up the slopes in the first area without losing speed, but you lose speed dashing up the slopes in the second area (noticeable in Area 2-2). Sometimes you can land on slopes and stop immediately, sometimes you can't, sometimes it's based on positioning and sometimes it just doesn't work no matter what. The mechanics are just... strange, overall.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
Samsara wrote:
Exonym wrote:
First of all, is landing on the skateboard necessary? I don't see anything that warrants it, or do you have to be on it to advance the stage?
It ends up faster from what I tested due to how that stage ends, but it's been a couple months since I did that stage so it's worth taking another stab at.
Well, no WIP yet, but I've confirmed that I'm an idiot... Okay, I confirmed that well over a decade ago, but seriously I confirmed that skipping the skateboard is about a second and a half faster. I have no idea how badly I did the first time around that made the skateboard strategy initially faster, but this time around it's much better.
Redone WIP is currently 3 seconds faster than my original WIP, and it'll be up once we finish Area 2 and we're happy with it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
Link to video
*The triple bounce at the end of 3-1 saves 8 frames over a strategy that would allow me to land at the very edge of the screen.
*Kicking during a damage boost allows you to partially retain your momentum, allowing for the path seen in 3-2. Comparable strategies without that damage boost are around 2-3 seconds slower.
*"Luck" manipulation was done on the boss in order to cause him to cycle back and forth only once after every hit. He'll perform one more cycle every frame, up to a max of 4, then jumps back to 1, so we never need to wait more than 3 frames to get the best pattern.
We're flyin' through the game as a team, so we should have the submission up by the end of the month.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
grassini wrote:
feels like sanic
If it felt like anything else that'd be weird, considering this was made by the company who produced most of the Sonic games on Game Gear. They reused the engine for this game as well.
We're in the home stretch now! Barring some major run-changing discovery at the very last minute, which would simultaneously excite me and destroy me, we should have the submission up on the Workbench within a few hours.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
You can grab ledges like this apparently, I don't know if this have any use, but maybe for a tiny shortcut, I dunno.
