Former player
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
Game was pointed out to the channel a few days ago. I've been fiddling with it since... The physics in this game are ridiculous. You basically play as a Machop armed with a pitchfork. Your primary enemies seem to be half-naked cavemen. Your Pokemon dude can't take a hit or he'll die and there's a fair amount of natural obstacles to cause you harm. Much like with Rockman, there's a fast way of getting around, but it's a pain in the ass to consistantly pull off. If you're running, you can hit A to do a long jump. But you HAVE to be moving. And it takes a few steps to build up the right amount of speed. In addition, you can bounce off enemy heads with your pitchfork a la Whomp 'Em. Which is good, because regular attacking brings you to a complete freaking halt. You can do this funky jumping attack, but I haven't found it useful, really. In addition, you can do this... corkscrew thing with the X button. Got to be in a complete stop for it, though. The game isn't really easy at 100% speed, but it's not very forgiving at lower speeds, either. You pretty much HAVE to move precisely. The only thing I can see slowing down any time attacks for it would be the high jumps. You have to hold A down to super jump sometimes to reach a higher ledge. But you can't be right against the side of the ledge. You have to be a few feet back. WHY, I have no clue. All I know is that I couldn't get Machop to jump for beans unless he knew he wasn't going to be jumping straight up. It's a J or an E game only. No U release, far as I've seen. But it IS a fun game. Anyone planning to crank out something for the game? It's worth a play, even if you aren't, but... Figured I'd throw a topic in amidst the RPG topics. o_o
Post subject: re: Whirlo!
XkyRauh
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Joined: 6/9/2005
Posts: 171
Location: Southern California
The biggest part of getting a Whirlo speedrun working is to do the down-stab while doing the A-button dash thing. Hold down, jump, and attack all at once after you do the dash, and you should be able to get some great speed... Just don't miss! Also, if you're looking to work up the speed required to do a high-jump without room, try skidding back and forth a few times. I finally beat this game for the first time recently with heavy savestate use, and I honestly don't think it's worth a speedrun. It's just too long and monotonous. :-( You can breeze through the first Village area with well-placed dash-stabs and Whirlowind attacks (the 'corkscrew thing' you mentioned) and the Enchanted Forest area which comes next you could practically do blindfolded... but after that, there are walls which require the Whirlowind attack to get past, and the entire game stops being quick and easy... I can't think of any way to really skip sections of the game, and some of them are so time-consuming and long (such as Whirlowinding a wall several times in a row to knock bugs off of a tree's roots, or skidding back and forth to get the momentum to high-jump to invisible platforms... it's really not fun). Kudos on the Whirlo love, though--he's an adorable little pissed off guy with a pitchfork. :-)
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 178
I find a lot of videos long and monotonous, but that's just me. Playing the game beforehand helps wonders, though.
<^>v AB X LR s
Post subject: Whirlo / Xandra no Daibōken
Jigwally
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Posts: 119
After years of admiring the TAS process I finally decided to try my own. This is a pretty unique platformer by Namco that was never released in the US. Right now I am running the European version. This is the only TAS thus far I've seen of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sEDfVX9fAw My run beats it by a small margin though. Since this is my first TAS let me know if I did anything terribly stupid. http://www.mediafire.com/?8iktgbteqt4g6jz
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Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
Ah, one of my favourite unsung snes games. I looked into TASing this myself once upon a time, but I felt the delay after horizontal attack broke the tempo too much and I got bored. However, after watching this it seems far more entertaining to watch than I expected as there is a nice mix of manoevres to keep the tempo up (jumps, bouncing off enemies, spin attacks etc). A good run of this game should be publishable and it seems like a good first project. Good luck! Also, the Japanese ROM should be used. PAL is a last resort, due to timing differences, and should only be used where there is no alternative.
XkyRauh
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Posts: 171
Location: Southern California
Awesome! I'm excited about this game getting a full TAS! :)
Jigwally
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OK, I took your advice and converted my run to the Japanese ROM. http://www.mediafire.com/?t9s23qk2flk5t9g This run also includes the rest of the first world (up to the first password screen.) The very last section (running from the giant snowball) looks unoptimized, but when I tried to complete this section as quickly as possible I somehow managed to "outrun" the snowball so that it did not follow me like it should have. Since I'm essentially on a timer for this section anyway, I just let it follow behind me to prevent this from happening. Also, at the end, instead of ducking under the snowball, I let it "bump" me up onto the platform. I don't know if this trick saves me any time overall but I liked the way it looked. The only non-cosmetic differences I have noticed thus far are 1. In the first section, there is an additional jelly enemy that was not present in the PAL version. It does not change my route at all but it makes me suspect that there are other subtle changes in enemy placement to follow. 2. In the PAL version, there are a few times where text pops up at the beginning of a level to remind you of some of your abilities. This text does not appear in this version, which shaves some time off.
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Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
I had intended on watching this, but apparantely I don't have whatever version of snes9x you're using. Care to share? I'd suggest using microstorage rather than mediafire for supported formats, as it allows you to provide a bit more information and details what was used to make it.
Jigwally
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Atma wrote:
I had intended on watching this, but apparantely I don't have whatever version of snes9x you're using. Care to share? I'd suggest using microstorage rather than mediafire for supported formats, as it allows you to provide a bit more information and details what was used to make it.
I used Snes9x 1.5.2.0 I had intended to use Microstorage, but it was telling me that my file was invalid. In retrospect that might have been because I was still using the PAL ROM. I'll try it again with my next WIP.
Joined: 2/26/2011
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Is this yours? The user name is different and you said that you would use the Japanese version of the game, so I guess that submission is from a different person.
Jigwally
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la mammal wrote:
Is this yours? The user name is different and you said that you would use the Japanese version of the game, so I guess that submission is from a different person.
OH COME ONNNNNNNNN
Joined: 3/5/2012
Posts: 14
Jigwally wrote:
la mammal wrote:
Is this yours? The user name is different and you said that you would use the Japanese version of the game, so I guess that submission is from a different person.
OH COME ONNNNNNNNN
I'm sorry, I didn't know you were also working on this. Hopefully we can learn some tricks from each other.
Jigwally
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It's okay, this is just a freaky coincidence. You have obviously been working on this longer than I have. Just got finished watching your run. Nice job!
Joined: 3/5/2012
Posts: 14
So, I looked into the game's randomization a bit more, and it seems that the seed is determined by how long one waits on the title screen before starting a new game. This means that there should be an optimal number of frames to wait so that the outcomes in the Catacomb logic puzzle, the "vase" pirate ship level, and the "karma" Tower level are all the most convenient possibilities. Specifically, check out memory location 7E005E (apparently 1 byte). When booting up the game, it increases by 1 per frame until one selects "New Game." Right at the start of the Catacomb logic puzzle, it gets permuted a few times and becomes some other pseudorandom number. It gets messed with a bit during the Anconda fight but stays the same until the vase level, where each broken vase increments the counter by 1. I'm looking into this more as I type and should have some better results soon.
Joined: 3/5/2012
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After some (pretty exhausting, tedious) investigation, it seems that waiting on the title screen until address 7E005E is 26 (decimal) grants good outcomes for many of the "randomized" levels:
  1. Catacomb logic puzzle: The random variable is changed to 205. The guy who knows Nick is in the far right cave, meaning that a quick sweep from left to right is all that is necessary, forgoing the annoying upper-left room entirely. Value goes from 205 to 207 upon getting a "true" response from the correct guy.
  2. Anconda fight: I didn't realize this fight was randomized until just recently, but it is. Thankfully, both attacks are drops from the left, which is very time-efficient. Value goes from 207 to 209 for the first attack, then 209 to 211 for the second attack.
  3. Pirate ship "vase" room: Key is in the first jar. This saves lots of time, especially compared to the case where the key appears in the fifth vase, like that in the movie I canceled. Value increases from 211 to 212 upon breaking this vase.
  4. "Karma" level: Women are found in odd-numbered boxes relative to the order you open them; i.e., the first box opened is a woman, the second is a monster, the third is a woman. It may be possible to manipulate this so that the first two boxes opened have women inside, but this would be an extremely tedious process considering the amount of randomization used earlier in the game that affects this outcome... I don't even want to think about it. Anyway, value increases by 1 for each box hit, and increases by 1 again to 216 at the end of the level.
  5. The Tower 3: I didn't know this level was randomized until just now. It's another pretty significant detail in the game that goes overlooked. Anyway, each mini-stage seems relatively flat, which is good for Whirlo's dash. I haven't actually TASed this level yet because I'm saving it for when I convert everything from the European to the Japanese version of the game.
With these changes, the movie goes considerably faster. Even though I still have plenty of work to do, I'm expecting the Japanese version of the run to take about 37:05--well below the 37:22 run posted on Nicovideo which apparently does not manipulate luck. I'll get back to work.
Jigwally wrote:
Just got finished watching your run. Nice job!
I never thanked you for this. Thanks!
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Presumably there's an RNG somewhere in the ROM that changes the random variable. Assuming you can read the assembler, you should be able to figure out the different possible progressions of that variable without having to rerun the entire game. That would make testing the possible memory values much more straightforward. You could determine which values for the random variable give the best results in each case, then try to find a wait time that maximizes your results. It's still a tricky optimization problem though.
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Also, consider smashing more vases than strictly necessary. If what you said is true (that it increases the address by 1) it might give better outcomes for later random events.
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Joined: 7/7/2006
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Replying to this with some new information. I was helping baldjared look into this a bit for his real time runs. I'm not planning on TASing this. The optimal pattern for the TAS should have the real guy in the middle door. You must logically solve the truth table, so asking 3 questions, middle, left, middle, solves the table fastest. It might skip like one quick text box to have the guy on the left talk about a specific thing, not sure. When Anconda comes down the left or the right he increments 2 RNGs. When he comes down above you he increments 1. You can wait a round in the Anconda fight to set up a better key, but that's likely suboptimal for the TAS. Breaking an additional pot for the key or to increment the RNG costs upwards of 4 seconds, so setting up the RNG better at the beginning will always be better. There's 256 possibilities in the RNG. They get permuted at Nick, and then added to for the rest of the calls. Optimal Nick ~25%, Optimal Anconda ~25%, Optimal Key ~33%, Optimal Boxes ~25%? = 0.005, which times 256 gives about 1 RNG possibility. It might be worth skipping a box to get a better final room though. My guess is the final randomized tower room matters for a few seconds of gain. In real time play, since the RNG increments once per frame on the starting screen, and you can start the game with any of 4 face buttons or start, I recommend mashing the 4 face buttons, which can usually net the first frame or two. Not the best table I ever created. R = Real B = Beard Lie T = Tomato Lie D = Drums Lie # = Frame number you start the game on: TOP LEFT MID RIGHT 1 R B T D 2 D R B T 3 B T R D 4 B R D T
Post subject: Whirlo / Sandra no Daibouken E/JAP 50/60hz
Recca
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Joined: 3/18/2007
Posts: 20
Location: Sweden
Hi everyone! I was planning on making a run with the game Whirlo or Sandra no Daibouken in japanese. The game came out in Japan 60fps and Europe 50fps. Most of the text is never seen except the endning screens. I've heard a long time ago that japanese versions rarily gets accepted if there is a english version to it. But this is a platformer and 50fps is slower. Would want to know what you guys say before I start to much serious recordings. Thanks!
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Samsara
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I don't think we have rules about picking the English version of a game anymore. (J) is definitely preferred over (E) due to being 60fps.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 5/1/2007
Posts: 294
Location: MD
Yes, to me what matters more is which version runs at 60FPS, if that's available, than the language. A similar case with another game such as Super Fantasy Zone, which was also released only in Japan and Europe.
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In case you weren't already aware, a TAS of this can be found on NicoVideo: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm20274050
Joined: 3/5/2012
Posts: 14
I finished an attempt at the European version a while back, but I canceled the submission because the community wanted to see the 60-Hz original version. This made sense because most of the text in the game is skipped immediately, removing the benefit of using English. The techniques I used still apply to the Japanese version, of course. In fact, I converted my video to the Japanese version, but was discouraged that my run was slower overall relative to a run published on Nicovideo. I was exhausted from creating my video and wasn't able to contact the creator of the faster TAS for more information, so I sort of just sat on my speedrun and gave up. It's worth noting, though, that while the Nicovideo run is faster than mine overall, it's quite a bit slower in certain sections of the game. This gives me hope that elements of my speedrun might actually be accepted on this site... given somebody who's sufficiently dedicated to finding the remaining optimizations. It's been a while since I dusted off my TAS folder. I'll dig into it, find the latest version of my TAS on the Japanese game, and share it here within a week. It's my hope that having an existing run will be a huge help to those working on the game. Also, here is an older topic on the same game. There may be some helpful resources in there. Good luck!
Joined: 3/5/2012
Posts: 14
As promised, here is the input file I used to finish the game in 135,036 frames. A YouTube video is uploading as I type. Link to video