Posted: 10/27/2018 10:08 PM
(Edited: 1/9/2019 7:40 PM)
Post subject: The Cowlitz Gamers' 2nd Adventure
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scrimpeh
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TAS of 2017 First edition TAS of 2017 PSX TAS of 2017
I learned of this game in this year's GDQx marathon. It's a homebrew game for the NES in which you advance through 48 screens while collecting diamonds to make the exit to the next screen appear. The game is free, although the devs do appreciate a donation to charity. It also has great music. The game has several difficulties, but they differ in the amount of extra lives you get. The easiest difficulty has the most lives, allowing for the most death warps. Current 1 player any% WR in 11:35 by The_Kov There's also a 2-player mode which can be activated by pressing Start on the second controller. I believe using both players to collect all the gems could lead to a very entertaining and action-packed TAS. Thoughts?
Posted: 10/28/2018 5:57 PM
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Alyosha
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Looks pretty fun. Simple enough to work on as a side project. I think I might give it a try. Thanks for sharing.
Posted: 11/3/2018 5:08 PM
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Alyosha
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/50954041211353444 Here is a WIP of the first 10 levels. I don't think I made any major strategy mistakes, although probably some frames can be saved here or there. Overall, it's pretty straightforward. A one player or 'all diamonds' run might also be interesting.
Posted: 11/3/2018 6:17 PM
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scrimpeh
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TAS of 2017 First edition TAS of 2017 PSX TAS of 2017
Alyosha wrote:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/50954041211353444 Here is a WIP of the first 10 levels. I don't think I made any major strategy mistakes, although probably some frames can be saved here or there. Overall, it's pretty straightforward. A one player or 'all diamonds' run might also be interesting.
Nice! I'm glad to see that you're picking this up. The WIP looked very entertaining as well. Do keep it up!
Posted: 11/4/2018 7:45 PM
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Alyosha
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/50978662357332331 here is a cleaned up WIP expanded to 15 levels. Apparently the game only checks collision every other frame, so you can duck/unduck under certain enemies and save some time. While some of the routes are pretty tight in terms of timing, there are unfortunately quite a few times where an enemy or the other player is holding up progress. Overall it looks pretty smooth though. EDIT: also anyone can jump in and contribute if they want. It's a simple and not too serious game with just enough optimization choices to make it interesting.
Posted: 11/11/2018 1:24 AM
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Alyosha
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/51117134619388334 Here is a 20 level WIP. Also EZgames69 is helping out along the way. Anyone else can feel free to contribute as well. EDIT: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/51134153345450427 Here is the first part of the game (24 levels.) I went back and found a few improvements in earlier levels as well.
Posted: 11/14/2018 2:03 PM
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the_kov
Joined: 4/16/2018
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Hey, this is fantastic! I was just talking with my community about trying to learn to TAS using Cowlitz 2nd Adventure, and I am even more excited to try it since someone else is already working on one. I'll be starting a 1P TAS but having the 2P to compare to will be great while learning what I'm doing.
Posted: 11/15/2018 12:09 AM
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Alyosha
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the_kov wrote:
Hey, this is fantastic! I was just talking with my community about trying to learn to TAS using Cowlitz 2nd Adventure, and I am even more excited to try it since someone else is already working on one. I'll be starting a 1P TAS but having the 2P to compare to will be great while learning what I'm doing.
Cool! Honestly I think 1 player is going to be more interesting. Two player has some close calls here and there, but overall the levels are a bit too simple and the strategies a bit trivial.
Posted: 11/17/2018 10:31 PM
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Alyosha
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/51269910871841142 Here is a new WIP which includes the first 2 levels of part 2 (in the castle.) I went back and redid many of the earlier levels, saving a few frames here ad there and resyncing as needed.
Posted: 11/18/2018 12:46 AM
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the_kov
Joined: 4/16/2018
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I finished levels 1-27 today and will try to do the last 21 tomorrow. I'm sure it's not the best as I'm still getting used to TAS Editor, but I'm pretty proud of it so far. Not sure how to upload, but I'll try to upload the entire TAS tomorrow once I'm done. Here's the Twitch highlight of what I have so far: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/337311533 (Note: I compared to my WR splits, I know it's odd to time a TAS with LiveSplit, but I wanted to see how it did compared to RTA)
Posted: 11/24/2018 2:14 AM
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FractalFusion
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Nice to see you here, the_kov. I saw your TAS (the whole thing) and it looks good. Are you submitting it to this site?
Posted: 11/24/2018 10:43 PM
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Alyosha
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/51425525087708191 Alright here is a complete game 2P WIP. I believe the first half of the game to be pretty optimized. I admittedly ran out of steam on the second half so there are probably more frames to save there. EDIT: The run also syncs on Mesen, so it's very likely it would also work on console, as one would expect from a relatively simple RNG free game.
Posted: 11/27/2018 6:31 AM
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FractalFusion
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Hello Alyosha. The first half of the run looks nice. Though I'm not sure if this is faster (touching the secret square removes the walls): In the second half, it looks like there are some places to improve (especially using deathwarps). Can input easily be hex-edited into the run? I also appreciate that you ended the run on the good (2P) ending, which I had never seen before until now. There is a 2P RTA at speedrun.com (one of the runners is the_kov) but that run kills off one of the players on the last level in an attempt to save time.
Posted: 11/27/2018 11:04 PM
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Alyosha
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FractalFusion wrote:
Hello Alyosha. The first half of the run looks nice. Though I'm not sure if this is faster (touching the secret square removes the walls): In the second half, it looks like there are some places to improve (especially using deathwarps). Can input easily be hex-edited into the run? I also appreciate that you ended the run on the good (2P) ending, which I had never seen before until now. There is a 2P RTA at speedrun.com (one of the runners is the_kov) but that run kills off one of the players on the last level in an attempt to save time.
Ha! I didn't even know about that. Yeah I have no doubt that there are numerous improvements throughout the run, I did not research it super thoroughly. I have run out of motivation for it really (I guess I just don't have the motivation to do actual TASing anymore) but I'm happy I got at least a complete WIP. Anyone is free to use this WIP, it is pretty easy to edit, since there is no RNG, but be aware that it is not entirely sync friendly. Data is processed in slightly different ways on different frames as there is a sort of global timer. If you save an inconvenient number of frames in one level, later levels can desync (although in relatively simple to fix ways, it's not fatal) so just be aware of that.