Before we get into the submission text....
This TAS was created by me, with help from the TASVideos discord (I mentioned it about 300 times in the submission text, my fault).
Now, the submission text!
Remember me? You know, the person who made those two very un-optimized TASes for this game?
Well, I'm back, with a TAS that's better than those, and obliterates the other two TASes.
2 Player Co-op Quest is a ROM Hack for the infamous Super Mario World. This ROM Hack is where the first player/controller is controling Mario, while the second player/controller is controling the enemies.
Objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.3.1
- Completes all the normal levels, as the bonus ones are not needed (was decided on with some other people, see Author's comments)
- 2 Players
- aims for fastest time (?)
- no powerups
- abuses programming errors (also see Author's comments)
Game Choice
I chose to TAS this hack because I had seen that nobody has done it. I know this hack is for more casual play, but I thought it would be interesting to TAS this hack, as there could be a potential "play-around" branch for this game. That would probably be the best thing ever. (Now that I thought about that, I might do that. Stay tuned, I guess.)
This hack also caught my eye because of the fact that P2 controls the enemies, which is pretty creative. Like I said above, this hack could potentially make a pretty interesting, short and entertaining "play-around" branch, which I am doing later.
I love playing this hack with my realitives, because it's just awesome to troll people with it. You should definitly try it out, whoever is reading this.
Another thing is that it's kind of hard to find a game or rom hack that has not been TASed yet. When I found out about this, I jumped right on it, which resulted in the un-optimized movie, because I had no idea how to make a TAS before that, watched some YT Videos, then decided to make it. Just saying, jumping right into TASing isn't the best thing to do.
Branch/Goal Choice
The reason why I chose to just do all the normal levels is because the bonus levels are technically not required to complete the game, and most of the input is up to the second controller for them. They would be pretty boring to watch, because they are SUPER long. Like, 1m30s.
However, just all the normal levels, which can be broken in sevral ways (see Author's comments) would be more entertaining because they are short and sweet (this is also why I chose it for my first full movie, because I don't want to spent 2 months on something that probably won't get much attention. Yes, I know that I did get attention for choosing this hack, but nobody has done it, and it came out in 2013.)
Me and greysondn decided on ending the input on the frame the boss falls into the lava, because that's the last input to "complete" the branch. I will post a userfile that makes the last input the save input, if that's what you want. (can be found in Author's comments.)
Also, I chose to do small mario only, because it adds an extra level of challenge onto this TAS in a way. You can't screw up even once, or you'll die.
Level 1
(I know it's not called level 1 in the game, but it's name is really stupid.)
This level, was optimized, optimized, and optimized over and over again. Started with Spikestuff changing my stupid 257 from the un-optimized TAS into a 261, even though he said he absolutely sucks at SMW. Then, I turned it into a 262 with using P-Speed, improved it again into a 263 after I found out about hopping 31 (but I didn't do it right), then I took it down to a 270 (I uploaded the userfile, avalible
here. After I made that, I made a 1 frame improvement for this movie. The first level wasn't too interesting at the beginning, as it was just getting P-Speed. after I got it, it got crazy.....what a second... YOU CAN TURN ENEMIES INTO COINS?!?! Well, yes, you can. It's pretty weird but awesome. What I was going for is P2 was turning all the enemies into coins (except big bills) to help P1 get through the level faster. I'm not sure if it worked out as planned, but the result is pretty awesome. As I said before, this level went through about 5 stages of optimization, going from un-optimized to extremely optimized. I think it could even be imrpoved by a couple of frames, but It's not worth re-creating the entire movie just for 2 frames of improvement. (I'll probably get hate because I said that, but 2 weeks of work is 2 weeks of work, and I don't want to re-sync the entire thing. Sorry.)
Going through the pipe is faster because you get 3F (hex) speed instead of 31 (hex) with the "hopping glitch" (that's literally what it's called on the game resources page, no joke)
This level took me ~1.5 days.
Level 2
(I'm not using the game's names for the levels, because they are dumb, and it's just better to call them what they really are.)
This level has water, and fishes and the spikey-ball things (I don't know what they are called). They are fun to play around with. Try it yourself. But, I don't do that in this TAS. I turn all the enemies into coins, because why not. It wouldn't be a TASVideos movie without some crazy a** sh*t going on.
This level doesn't have much different from the first, mostly just turning enemies into coins to get mario through faster.
I also found out, you can indeed move the charging chucks. I thought you couldn't before, but more testing proved my theroys wrong. As always.
Moving on.
(This level took me ~1 day)
Level 3
THERE ARE SO MANY FRICKIN' ENEMIES IN THIS LEVEL OH MY GOD
(that's a joke)
No but seriously, why are there so many enemies in this level?
Anyways, This level was the easiest to gain P-Speed and gets hopping 31 earliest out of the 5 levels. It's probably the level that can't get much more optimized. (I spent 3 frickin' days on this level just seeing the lowest frame I could get. As Spikestuff once said, "Frame timing matters, not IGT".
Not much different from the other levels. Most of it is just beating it as fast as possible. (I mean, it's a TAS, it kinda has too.)
Honestly, I don't have a lot to say, because most of the levels are the same. Except for the next level. That one was crazy.
(This level took me ~1 day)
Level 4
In this TAS, I don't become big mario before this level, so I couldn't do the clip. Instead, I just pressed L on one frame, R on the other, then just pressed "B" to jump randomly, because why not. I did this because waiting for the platform to move up or down is actually pretty boring.
This level was fun to make, mostly because of the L+R Spamming. But, It's just kind of fun to TAS.
This level took me ~2 days.
Castle
The castle wasn't that interesting. It was mostly like the other levels, but I didn't know until I made this that you can actually turn the saws into coins, aswell as the dry bones. You live you learn, I guess.
Most of the level has unskipable waiting sections, like the cave level. It's un-avoidable, but It really doesn't matter. All games have that.
In the waiting sections, I just spammed L+R for no reason, but it's a TAS.
The boss fight was made using a stratagey by greysondn. He/She helped alot in the making of this TAS, lmao.
Took me ~1.5 days.
This hack is actually pretty weird in the way it handles the 2nd player's input. I noticed there is a 1 frame delay from when you press the button to when the enemy actually moves.
I don't have any screenshots of this, but it's noticeable while TASing the game.
Me and greysondn were talking about when I should end the input, to which I decided it would be after the boss falls in the lava.
Here's the link to the version that ends on the save input, if that's when the input should end.
Why? Because the bonus levels are not needed and brain-numming to watch. Also, they are really hard to get right, kind of like Kazio levels, and I'm just a beginner, so I'm not gonna try that.
I might make a "play-around" TAS for this game (unless someone beats me to it.) because with the control of the enemies you could probably do some pretty amusing stuff, like make mario and the enemy dances to the music.
Special thanks
I would like to thank the community in the TASVideos discord for helping me along the way. To any newbies who might be reading this, join the discord. The community there is super supportive and helpful with any game you happen to be TASing. If it's a hack of a game thats been done 2030200349394 times, then they will probably point you to the game resource page for that game (thanks, people who did that, i forget your name). They are also super helpful. I got a bunch of help from the people there, especially greysondn, who took their time to make a benchmark run for this game for me (tysm btw). I'm super glad that the userfile storage place of TASVideos exists, because it's a good place for me to put my movies that are either just 1 level, a test, or not fully optimized. That's where I stored the improvements and such.
This TAS would not exist without the creator of the rom hack making this rom hack, so shoutout to them too.
The TASVideos discord community basically helped make this TAS, so shoutout to everyone who has helped me. Really means alot to me that so many people are willing to help me with something I basically just got into aprox. 2 months ago. (made a TASVideos account like 3-4 weeks ago)
Suggested screenshot
frame 5446
Closing Statement
Making this was a lot of trail and error, learning tricks, and more. I would just like to say, this is my first TAS submitted (technically not my first but my first optimized one) to the site. I would just like to say, Thanks. I want this to be my first TAS of many.
...also I forgot the pass to my fourm account, so I will probably reply in discord, not the fourm. Sorry about that, I'm a freaking idiot.
Once again, thanks!
...and good night. I need some sleep.
Masterjun: There is enough very good feedback in the
discussion thread, so I'll just quickly summarize. For a hack to be accepted to this site, a TAS of it needs be entertaining and show off unique content. Having a second player control enemies can make for an interesting TAS, however this isn't the case here. The levels are bland and most enemies are not used for creative purposes, but instead disappear, making this run even less entertaining.
Rejected.
