Borderline is a mediocre game for the SG-1000. This is the sega console that pre-dates the Sega Master System. There's really not much to say here. The game is dull, and the TAS is dull. Fortunately it is short. It is just 4 levels, that repeat forever. I complete the 4 levels once and end the movie.
Level by Level comments
Level 1
The white thingies and even some of the walls and missile thingies are random here. Some of my missed shots are to manipulate these. Other missed shots your shots alternate coming out of the left or right side of the vehicle. This fact is a theme throughout all the levels, you will see me waste shots in order to set up the correct side for later.
Other than manipulating and shooting things optimally, you simply need to hold up to get to and maintain maximum speed. That's about it.
Level 2
You need to shoot all the white things to complete the stage, the pattern I do here is the fastest one I found.
Level 3
Shoot the white things again. You also have to manipulate luck for the 4th level to get a favorable pattern.
Level 4
The location of the holes in the purple wall are random. I manipulate the best possible pattern. From there I need to shoot through the blue barrier and shoot the white thing.
Conclusion
So yeah, this is pretty pointless. But I wanted to do an SG-1000 TAS.
adelikat: Replaced the movie file with an 18 frame faster version, that uses a different strategy in level 2 combined with some better RNG in level 4
ars4326: Hi again, adelikat. Indeed, this is a short and simple little shooter from the classic SG-1000. All in all, it's well-optimized and worthy of publication.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
I've never heard of this system before, but I actually found this game fairly amusing for a short run. It helped that things got more complicated after the first level.
Strategy question: in Level 2, can you save any time by shooting up at some of the white targets before heading left? It seems like you waste a little bit of time to face upwards to fire at them in your current route. At the start of the route, however, you're already facing upwards, so you wouldn't waste any frames to turn and shoot them.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 10/28/2013
Posts: 130
Location: United States
TASVideoAgent wrote:
I wanted to do an SG-1000 TAS.
Awesome! It gets my vote, both for SG-1000 and for brevity. Do Chack'n Pop next! -- maybe even a pacifist run, since you get massive bonus points for that?
mklip2001 wrote:
I've never heard of this system before
The hardware is almost identical to a ColecoVision, though the library has a somewhat different flavor. It's got a bunch of games I enjoy, and the Chack'n Pop port is the best on any home console. Ninja Princess is good too.
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mklip2001 wrote:
Strategy question: in Level 2, can you save any time by shooting up at some of the white targets before heading left? It seems like you waste a little bit of time to face upwards to fire at them in your current route. At the start of the route, however, you're already facing upwards, so you wouldn't waste any frames to turn and shoot them.
You can't shoot through the...green stuff. If you notice I do ...dig? though it and shoot the center white...thingie. IF it weren't for that stuff, yeah, I could go up, shoot, go left, go up, shoot, etc.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Right. I saw you couldn't shoot through the green layer. It looked as though you only went through one layer of green before you turned left and then went up through the second layer. Why not drive up through both layers right away?
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
mklip2001 wrote:
Right. I saw you couldn't shoot through the green layer. It looked as though you only went through one layer of green before you turned left and then went up through the second layer. Why not drive up through both layers right away?
Are we still talking about level 2? I drive straight though both layers before I turn left.
Are we still talking about level 2? I drive straight though both layers before I turn left.
Wouldn’t it save like 1 frame if you aligned to hit 2 of the center white things at the start of the level? Move a bit to the left, then go up and shoot 2 instead of just the center one. Edit: You also seem to move up unnecesarily after you’ve cleared the green stuff, wouldn’t it be faster to just turn and shoot for 1 frame then continue in a horizontal line rather than moving that much vertically? Edit2: In the third level, to destroy the 3 middle ones, you use 2 turns instead of a single turn aligned to destroy 2 at once. Does that not lose time? Also, your ending to level 3 is different compared to your level 2’s, but they’re the same thing, so are both strategies tied in speed?
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Wouldn’t it save like 1 frame if you aligned to hit 2 of the center white things at the start of the level? Move a bit to the left, then go up and shoot 2 instead of just the center one.
This didn't work because of the tank behavior. However, I decided to double check that since I wasn't certain. In the process, I found there is a frame I can turn left and shoot the left tank, but the right tank delays its shot. That delay is just enough to go left, shoot the leftmost white things, turn around and shoot the tank bullet before it hits me. This saved 9 frames, minus 4 frames for luck manipulation in the next level. However, I got better luck at the end of level 3 (when does that ever happen, amirite!), and I ended up saving 28 frames over all. I replaced the movie file.
Thanks :)
Edit: You also seem to move up unnecesarily after you’ve cleared the green stuff, wouldn’t it be faster to just turn and shoot for 1 frame then continue in a horizontal line rather than moving that much vertically?
You can't turn and shoot without going at least half a square in that direction (unless something obstructs your path). So I have to end up going all the way up at some point. It makes no difference in terms of time when I do this. So I go all the way up to deal with the tanks.
Edit2: In the third level, to destroy the 3 middle ones, you use 2 turns instead of a single turn aligned to destroy 2 at once. Does that not lose time? Also, your ending to level 3 is different compared to your level 2’s, but they’re the same thing, so are both strategies tied in speed?
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
I must have misremembered your previous strategy for level 2 (I didn't rewatch the movie). Glad to see that other posts have led to improvements though.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.
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[3047] SG1000 Borderline by adelikat in 01:06.99
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ALAKTORN wrote:
I can’t even tell how the level 4 RNG saved you time… can you explain it?
The location of the holes are completely random. You want to manipulate it so that they are at least on the same side, and you want the top hole to be at least below the square below the barrier.
Yeah I understood that, but it looked like you had the same RNG, just on the other side. Looking again though I can see that the new one has a slightly lower second hole.
