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Posted: 10/10/2005 10:27 AM
Post subject: [GBC] SMB. DX. Challenge Mode
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A_Runnelid
Joined: 4/23/2004
Posts: 150
The Challenge Mode that was featured on the SMB. Deluxe release for GBC presents the objective of collecting as many points for a stage, starting from scratch, with a few tweaks unique to the mode. A few other things are also to be done, but achieving the highest score possible would be the one field of interest as far as a tool-assisted run is concerned. It introduces a few scoring changes: 5 extra red coins (200 pts. each) A Yoshi Egg (2000 pts.) in each of the 32 levels. A 2000 pts. award for 1UPs, A 10.000 point bonus for a PERFECT coin heaven result. At the end of the 100, 200, 400.. string is 10.000 pts. instead of a 1UP. In terms of scoring, the rest works like we're used to. One interesting thing I should mention is a scoring glitch that is included, in an attempt to keep people from racking up points with the "Stairs trick". After scoring 8000 pts., the enemy dies, should you attempt the stair trick after that. However, if you stop the stair trick at 8000, and let the enemy recover, every suceedent kick of the shell (beetle or turtle) is worth 5000 pts. as opposed to 500! It should be noted that David Wonn brought this glith/quirk to my attention, and also that he has over 4,000,000 pts. (The scores are on his site.) Other than that, there should be some if not plenty experimentation to be done, so as to map out the most beneficial route. (Time also affects the score, as we all know, and 6 fireworks would be good.) I'm not eqiupped with the recording knowledge/time to do this myself, but given how well people know Mario games around here, I thought this might be refreshing. There is a difference in the expectancy scores for each level between the Japanese US/European versions. The U.S./European was actually released first, and some expectancy scores are lower in the Japanese version. Pasted from The Mushroom Kingdom: Challenge mode In the Japanese version, for some reason the "scores to beat" for Worlds 1-1 through 4-4 were lowered, except for W2-3 and 3-4, whose scores stayed the same. Shaving off a few thousand points here and there leads to a lower requirement of 869,000 points needed to completely fill the "total score bar," as opposed to the 942,000 points required in the English version. For example, here in World 1-1 the "score to beat" drops to 26,000. Remember that Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2 was deemed "too hard" for American players? Well, then, why do Japanese players have an easier Challenge mode in SMBDX? Interesting. Here is a chart of all the score changes: World English Japanese 1-1 32000 26000 1-2 38000 30000 1-3 24000 19000 1-4 13000 12000 2-1 40000 28000 2-2 25000 23000 2-4 14000 13000 3-1 45000 40000 3-2 85000 70000 3-3 23000 21000 4-1 32000 26000 4-2 33000 29000 4-3 24000 21000 4-4 17000 14000 </TMK paste> Achieving the total expectancy score earns you the Toad Award, one of 5 Medals in the game. Should you gain enough points, you will earn it once more with every multiple, but nothing else happens as a result. I'm a bit surprised that the Challenge Mode hasn't been mentioned yet, so I thought I'd post this. Andreas
Posted: 10/10/2005 3:40 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
But you have to play through the levels normally in quest mode to unlock them for score attacks, right? Maybe there could be a score run of the entire game followed by score runs of the individual levels.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 10/10/2005 4:44 PM
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A_Runnelid
Joined: 4/23/2004
Posts: 150
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
But you have to play through the levels normally in quest mode to unlock them for score attacks, right? Maybe there could be a score run of the entire game followed by score runs of the individual levels.
Oh, right. It's been so long I'd forgotten about that. That's an idea, or you could just get through them quickly (even though that's been done) so you can see two ways of going about the levels. A Challenge Mode movie for all 32 levels would already be quite long, given the amount of leeching you do in most of them. Andreas
Posted: 10/10/2005 6:29 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Well, I don't think it would be so bad. But I was discussing a score run of the entire game on IRC, and I hear you can get MILLIONS of points in the game, while the 18-minute run of the NES game doesn't even reach 700,000. You might have to use deaths to repeat levels just to get one million. So I guess the best thing is to just play warpless as fast as possible, then do the challenge mode as well as possible.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 12/14/2006 11:22 AM
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mwl
Joined: 3/22/2006
Posts: 636
This could be an interesting project. I achieved a total score of around 5.5 million (IIRC), bettering David Wonn on probably around a third of the individual levels. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have known about the glitch, though. It's too bad that I've forgotten some of my routes and strategies, though. Most of my scores (except perhaps those on 3-5 levels) are not optimal, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. I often missed coins here and there, especially the last of the three coins in midair at the end of each bonus section.
Posted: 1/11/2007 7:41 PM
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A_Runnelid
Joined: 4/23/2004
Posts: 150
Interesting that you mention the coins at the bonus stages. You get a 10.000 PERFECT bonus for obtaining all of them. Andreas
Posted: 1/2/2012 3:55 PM
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TheKDX7
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Joined: 7/9/2011
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WIP 1 (OLD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yri3_7VbHBc&feature=related WIP 1 (NEW): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB7lFrbArJ0 WIP 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CQZ1dgQC4k
Posted: 1/2/2012 9:23 PM
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t3h_Icy
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Joined: 8/31/2009
Posts: 236
There have been some TASes of Challenge mode for a high score done by PersonOnEarth. http://www.youtube.com/user/PersonOnEarth He's only done some of them, and mainly, a lot of Koopa-less levels (castles) as he's said he's not a superb TASer.
Posted: 1/3/2012 1:57 AM
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TheKDX7
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There is also piranhaplant which makes this game. part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0NP_oRTTek&feature=related part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUY-qa89JyQ&feature=related
Posted: 1/3/2012 2:02 AM
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TheKDX7
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Player (118)
Joined: 7/9/2011
Posts: 393
Location: Switzerland
WIP 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BdMoVpU8W8 WIP 4 (last): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ajuTki_zPc I finally finished, I hope that he will please you. :)
Posted: 1/3/2012 6:23 PM
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OmegaWatcher
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
well, looks really good,it's very entertaining
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Posted: 1/3/2012 6:57 PM
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CoolKirby
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
Exotic platforms TASer of 2014 NES TAS of 2013
I like it a lot. Great job, TheKDX7!
Posted: 1/3/2012 7:05 PM
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TheKDX7
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Joined: 7/9/2011
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Location: Switzerland
Thank you :)
Posted: 1/3/2012 9:19 PM
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Warepire
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I really liked this TAS, though it seems it needs to be planned better if you want to submit it (and I do believe this challenge can get accepted). You overshot it with the score a bit in several levels (grabbing extra fireflowers when the score passes the requirement with more than 1000 points etc).
Posted: 1/10/2012 4:30 PM
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TheKDX7
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Joined: 7/9/2011
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I improved the world 1 of some second and this time I shall obtain Toad Award (1'600'000pts) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRiMYvwWWiE
Posted: 9/27/2012 10:23 AM
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jlun2
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
GBA TASer of 2010
How's the TAS going?
LLCoolDave wrote:
This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.
Posted: 9/27/2012 10:30 AM
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TheKDX7
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Player (118)
Joined: 7/9/2011
Posts: 393
Location: Switzerland
I have to begin again the TAS since the beginning, I had a small break. But I am soon going to take back him. Otherwise I asked a question I makes the "challenge mode" and I improve the first version that I had made, or I makes the "challenge mode" by raving "toad award"?
Posted: 12/1/2012 1:13 AM
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jdaster64
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Joined: 12/1/2012
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Location: New Donk City
FYI, if you're still working on this, the Toad Award's only about 1,120,000-some points, I believe. On a related topic, I'm trying to do a maximal-score TAS on 3-1 for the fun of it. I'm trying to plan the fastest route possible through the stage, then I'll optimize the score on the early part after I perfect it. What I've got so far is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ6Ec38A0O4 Going through the pipe saves a handful of frames by the clock timer, and I don't think missing a Goomba or two will make a difference in the long run. The pipe jump at 0:14 is very likely suboptimal, but I couldn't clear the plant regardless of how late I was able to jump. My guess is the stair jumping could be a frame or two faster as well. In both cases, the problem largely stems from your aerial speed being capped at whatever you jumped last at (once you're past walking speed). I'm just impressed I managed to get the second Koopa 8000'd without slowing down at all beforehand; without manipulating the Select-camera, I don't think it would have been possible. If anyone has any comments, they would be appreciated. I could post a link to the movie file as well as some notes on the WIP if anyone is interested. EDIT: I also wrote up a LUA script that shows position (roughly), x-speed, and clock-timer frames counting up and down.
Posted: 12/1/2012 3:17 AM
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jdaster64
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Well, I feel stupid. Piranha Plants' hitboxes are really strange. At any rate, this route should be dang well near optimized: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kdWLzmnn0M According to my script, I had 7,697 playable frames left, give or take a couple. The Koopa-jumps take 30 frames apiece, so I could get 256 more Koopa jumps in (with ~17 extra frames), for 1,280,000 additional points, or minimum total 1,356,300. I figure it'd be worth losing a Koopa jump or two to try to get at least an 8,000 shell combo on the Koopas in the segment before the stairs, as that combo's worth 21k bare minimum. All in all, I wouldn't be surprised if ~1,375,000 was possible. Also, links to aforementioned movie and LUA script.
Posted: 12/1/2012 10:57 AM
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TheKDX7
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I adore it is really good. But my problem is always the one of the route, I shall take back the work when I shall have more motivation. However try to find again tricks from your part. You make of very good job :)
Posted: 12/1/2012 9:19 PM
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jdaster64
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Joined: 12/1/2012
Posts: 103
Location: New Donk City
Well, apparently I was wrong in my calculations; the best I can come up with without using L+R is 1,360,000 even. (2 frames faster and I could have gotten 1,360,550; 6 more, and I would have gotten 1,365,000) Annoyingly, if you get a coin in the bonus area, then the Hammer Bros. will be placed differently and you can't kill them at full speed. I guess you could probably manipulate the frame you get there at; hopefully it wouldn't take another 18 frames to get a favorable arrangement. Also, getting the 10,000 hit from the last Koopa before the stairs isn't possible without either missing the other Koopa at the end or taking too many extra frames for it to be worth it; I might have gone with hitting it to the left to make the shells collide, but when I tried that, this happened. I'll play around with L+R for another run, but I think 1,360,000 might be maxed for no L+R (at most, 1,360,200). With it, 1,365,000 should easily be possible, maybe even 1,370,000+. EDIT: Going to try to finish my L+R-less version first. I did manage to save a couple frames on the stair section and get 1,360,550, but I need five more frames to get it any higher.
Posted: 12/5/2012 5:34 AM
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jdaster64
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Finished a version with L&R (1,370,600 points): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O8ueLLmBK8 I have 11 extra frames on the timer at the end (16 if I don't get the coin in the bonus area); I'm not sure what I could do with those, as I'm positive I can't save an extra nine frames anywhere for 550 from fireworks (and certainly not fifteen for an extra 5,000 hit) without costing myself even more points. At any rate, I like this run much better than the other, even if it was a lot harder to optimize. Incidentally, does anyone know of a level that it might be possible to beat this score in? Only seven levels allow the 5000-trick, and any level that's of similar length or longer will almost certainly produce an inferior score due to not being able to do the free second Koopa-stair combo.
Posted: 12/10/2012 8:03 PM
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jdaster64
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Apparently the Toad Award's exactly 1,160,000 points. I'm considering doing a bit of work on a Challenge Mode TAS, though I don't know if I want to do the Toad Medal as well; fitting in those extra 218,000 (or 291,000!!! in the Japanese version, since I suppose it'd be better to use it for the lower requirements) points would be annoying to optimize.
Posted: 12/10/2012 8:17 PM
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jlun2
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Joined: 9/17/2009
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Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
GBA TASer of 2010
That was amazing how you managed to get over a million points in 1 stage alone. Just a suggestion, try getting the highest score in every stage in challenge mode. lol But anyway, can you please explain some of the tricks you used? Like how does L + R save time, how'd you keep getting 5k points, etc.
LLCoolDave wrote:
This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.
Posted: 12/10/2012 8:52 PM
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jdaster64
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Joined: 12/1/2012
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Location: New Donk City
Holding left+right makes Mario accelerate to max speed about 5-6 frames faster (not sure exactly, as I can't find the subsubpixel value in RAM), and also allows him to accelerate in midair while falling off of a ledge, which can't normally be done in Deluxe. There are a few places where I use corner-clips; if you jump into the middle of the top brick of a column when your horizontal speed is at least 24, not only will you get a boost out, but your speed can instantly jump to 40 (max) on occasion. Using this and left+right right before the stairs made the extra 10,000-point hit cost me only 14 frames, while still allowing me to get the full stair points. For whatever reason, although you can no longer get over 8,000 points from Koopas and the like by using the stair trick, if you let them walk off after the 4,000 hit, you can repeatedly score 5,000 points every time you jump on the shell. There's about a one-pixel space where jumping as soon as you hit the ground (a 2-frame window) will allow you to hit the shell and stop it in a single motion, much like the stair trick, but you actually have to hit A every jump. Each jump takes 30 frames, so optimization is kind of pointless if you can't get an extra 30 (or 24 for the timer+firework).
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