(Link to video)
Submission Text Full Submission Page Publication Page
Not yet happy with how much Hero has OPENed the world of Spielburg, he has decided to abandon his name forever, USE some new tricks and HOP right into it.

Game objectives

  • To become a hero!
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Emulator used: JPC-rr 11.9-alpha (I was able to play this back on JPC-rr 11.8 and JPC-rr-segmented release 3)
  • Game Version 1.000

Changes

This is a modification of c-square and mrprmiller's current publication. While digging into the SCI code and playing with high-speed hero, Mr. Miller made a few discoveries:
  1. You can "use chair candle" in the cafeteria, saving 1 character over "move chair candle".
  2. You can "hop" on to the table rather than "climb" it, saving 2 characters.
  3. With high-speed hero it's possible to go off the lower-right side of the screen in Yorick's room and wrap around to the chain.

Name of the hero

I removed the "TAS" name from the name of the hero. This is because of some of Elsa's behavior; see below for details. Removing the TAS name saves about 300 milliseconds.

Cafeteria

I modified the parser input to make use of "use chair candle" and "hop". Some of the mouse-click timings had to be modified to get the rest of the room in sync. Overall this change saved about 200 milliseconds.

Yorick's maze

Unfortunately while the discovery of using high-speed hero in this room was a neat discovery, it is currently not panning out. In order to actually make it to the right side of the screen the Hero has to "RUN". Leaving high-speed hero on through the wrap around will dump the hero into the pit unless there is a keyboard input in the buffer to interrupt it. Turning off high-speed hero will work and leave the hero in the normal expected location. Typing "PULL" will let the hero pull the chain and then miraculously appear on the platform below him (unfortunately not near the door). I tried some keyboard and mouse inputs to see if I could make the hero clip to the final door but was unable to find anything that would work. The best outcome I could get with this trick looked something like this:
The linked video is somewhere between 1-4 frames faster than the old walking movement, but leaves you RUNning when you enter Elsa's room which unfortunately means you need to WALK again to leave it. Still this is worth documenting because...

Elsa has some sort of frame rule

C-Square noted in his previous submission that despite the improvement of 1.8 seconds, Elsa took 0.8 seconds longer to hop the desk. She seems to be on some sort of frame rule that is anywhere from 0.95 to 1.05 seconds. With the changes I have made above (including removing the TAS name), Elsa's room finishes drawing about 514ms faster than the published TAS and her animation to jump over the desk begins about 956 ms sooner. Out of curiosity I experimented with delaying the final click to "open" the door to her room:
  • 0-92 ms delay - animation begins at 41892ms
  • 93-1042 ms delay - animation begins at 42834ms (currently published TAS)
  • 1043-2092 ms delay - animation begins at 43833ms
  • 2093-3092 ms delay - animation begins at 44831ms
  • 3093+ ms delay - animation begins at 45887ms
The improvements in the cafeteria were not enough to make this frame rule. In order to make it, the TAS name entry also needed to be removed. With the frame rule varying between 950-1050 milliseconds, it is highly likely that the next one would require another 900 milliseconds or so to be saved. The alternate movement I came up with in Yorick's room by itself is not faster because of the need to WALK again, but WALKing in Elsa's room would take about 600 milliseconds (very rough estimate) to type and enter. Thus if the alternate movement above is the difference between making a frame rule and not making it, it's worth doing (also worth it for entertainment purposes if you happen to be on the lower end of a frame rule).
This submission was mainly to familiarize myself with the workings of JPC-rr and Hero's Quest and to make sure recent findings were reflected in the TAS. A big thanks to c-square for their work on previous submissions, all I have done is to make some minor changes to the already-existing file. And big thanks to Mr. Miller for his discoveries that I tried to add. Mr. Miller also discovered a few things in Quest for Glory 2 that should be easier to add with less learning curve.
Files:
HDD, 16 tracks, 63 sectors, 16 sides.
FilenameSizeMD5Timestamp
ADL.DRV8896b2b4afb47ab5bc94d5bdd63b38b6265919900101000000
CGA320BW.DRV201767237a44391ea20481cd85bf3dd3962019900101000000
CGA320C.DRV23765a8ab7f0b418cb2b4e37dfb0c1b5082e19900101000000
CMS.DRV58078d5ad9b51c0c6b82a7abbcf13fe1b0b419900101000000
CSM1.DRV2532da85de05261fd24096dc6b1e7ae9607919900101000000
EGA320.DRV1952d2f9e9ea730745558926518c930e737519900101000000
EXISTS.COM57461f35eec8998802abe2118b26e0c9cfa19900101000000
FB01.DRV2459fa73279cd317612f802a1609f6ea283c19900101000000
GODIR.COM50728d7efe8c850bfb52231fc58567e25cc19900101000000
HERCMONO.DRV2193f548ada27461194ed2671b8a236e666a19900101000000
HERO.BAT1004a413f79a5e15bcad59ae5d3982469419900101000000
IBMKBD.DRV446ab91b093a010aeb63866f71bc491110e19900101000000
IMF.DRV22901b495562c5d107a0577f39ad1dcc606619900101000000
INSTALL.EXE24064a5a151689bfc0d0c5ab3ee61ff2f90ba19900101000000
INSTALL.HLP96987a0925b0cf9d429c4d598ecc774e168519900101000000
INSTGAME.BAT83783cd6f1fd6df591e15a2df654da4b60119900101000000
JOYSTICK.DRV536865fd157f28915c8c831c17ac8b55ed119900101000000
JR.DRV29905195148b419497549252ca91d491ff6619900101000000
MCGA320.DRV16267ced0fc0a7cc5395a1e4321250fcd94319900101000000
MT32.CFG75c6b0d4b6e526a04134c74c82b8032c5719900101000000
MT32.DRV309907664f7d1fab316cf10c433c6b4e1fb719900101000000
MT540.DRV2528686177937d356346279f4cc582645eb619900101000000
PCJR320.DRV1660307e67dbdf6289bf7e0488030f4442af19900101000000
RESOURCE.00080334e4f2ab5f2e0cf5c78a3c072ef1d0dea319900101000000
RESOURCE.001462727308503aa041ff254197d561dba3b506319900101000000
RESOURCE.00264686967f08692e0457e84f81eed714309619019900101000000
RESOURCE.00364220314542d38474c3b36d0cedafbd8777caa19900101000000
RESOURCE.004641688ba7c4ac121c40a125f0b871f7cb8709a19900101000000
RESOURCE.CFG744e14592928598a4736830af6c59418b319900101000000
RESOURCE.MAP6474cb0ba17773dff6eab9628ceeed2e368619900101000000
SB.CFG744e14592928598a4736830af6c59418b319900101000000
SCIV.EXE750279c902990be12e95e82e5845d390cd98519900101000000
SIERRA.COM53848e6faeb6af8e540fed0523f17ec4c0d19900101000000
SPACE.COM500c645587408e33998e9fc6f51be4ee63919900101000000
STD.DRV2471b2f21c19f676932d09ffd8becd80533419900101000000
TANDY320.DRV16676881cad03cd7386836cab4d19b03bdf719900101000000
TANDYKBD.DRV473d51176ceeae179f95ae478933591a0f219900101000000
__INSTH.BAT1009af4fc6a3f46cda7216cdb0b98931434919900101000000
slamo: This looks to be a legitimate gameplay improvement. Even though the name being shortened is a trivial time save, it being combined with actual gameplay optimizations to reach the next frame rule makes this an overall non-trivial time save.
Feedback was really good. The current publication is in Moons, and the ratings on it seem to justify that, so I'm accepting to Moons as an improvement over the current publication.
fsvgm777: Processing. EZGames69 is handling the encodes for this one.
DrD2k9: Edited the file list in submission notes to match actual filename used in the movie file. INSTH.BAT should have been __INSTH.BAT

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Posted: 1/16/2021 8:53 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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Posts: 15628
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7003: c-square, mrprmiller & davidtki's DOS Hero's Quest in 00:40.90
Posted: 1/16/2021 9:47 PM
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Radiant
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Yeah, that was very heroic, running past a bunch of mooks without defeating anyone. OPEN vote.
Indie game developer
Posted: 1/16/2021 10:43 PM
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mrprmiller
Player (37)
Joined: 6/12/2011
Posts: 31
I don't think it should be a surprise, but I vote yes. :D More time will certainly be coming off of QFG2, should davidtki or c-square take up the mantle. There are some neat skips.
Posted: 1/20/2021 12:06 AM
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c-square
Active player (378)
Joined: 9/25/2011
Posts: 652
Speedy TAS of 2015
Wow! I was not expecting this. Great improvement and absolute yes vote! I tried all sorts of things to beat that frame rule, but never could get it. Glad to see you guys finally figured out a way to do it. Because of the frame rule, I have a feeling this is now totally optimized. The only way to squeeze another second out of this would be to cut down a bunch of typing, and I can't see where that could happened. Thanks, davidtki, you've made my day!
Posted: 1/20/2021 1:06 AM
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mrprmiller
Player (37)
Joined: 6/12/2011
Posts: 31
c-square wrote:
Wow! I was not expecting this. Great improvement and absolute yes vote! I tried all sorts of things to beat that frame rule, but never could get it. Glad to see you guys finally figured out a way to do it. Because of the frame rule, I have a feeling this is now totally optimized. The only way to squeeze another second out of this would be to cut down a bunch of typing, and I can't see where that could happened. Thanks, davidtki, you've made my day!
I agree - if there is anything else out there, it's going to break the way we look at QFG1EGA. The *only* other thing I thought might work would be skipping Open, believe it or not. A thief with climbing can technically get over the gate on the right side behind the rock, which could skip the need to get the Open spell because throwing a dagger also can unlock Ego in the final room. It does not have a hard minimum as far as I can tell, and Luck factors in to the calculations. So, high climbing or high luck can skip Open. I don't know if it's possible to RNG manipulate that outcome, though. EDIT: Davidtki pointed out that Open is also used for the rock to Fred's Cave. I'm not sure of the exact requirements, but it may be possible to RNG manipulate the door open with Pick Locks and high Luck as well. But that's a stretch then between Strength, Pick Locks, and Climbing. Probably *way* too far a stretch.
Posted: 1/20/2021 3:16 AM
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davidtki
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Joined: 1/16/2021
Posts: 6
Ditching Open might be possible (and I'd certainly do it for a QFG1VGA run that allows stat glitch), but there's a lot of moving parts. You need 75 lockpicking for that rock door if the luck stat is low but a quick test showed 60 lockpicking and 100 luck can do it. Plus the strength requirement on the antwerp door and the climbing requirement. You're also going to lose some time to typing out "toss knife" over "<CtrlC>open". I can't rule it out, but there's a lot of moving parts here. You'd need an exact right combination of stats, luck and RNG to even remotely consider it possible and it's pretty much right out if you have to grind any of those stats.
Posted: 1/20/2021 2:13 PM
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mrprmiller
Player (37)
Joined: 6/12/2011
Posts: 31
davidtki wrote:
Ditching Open might be possible (and I'd certainly do it for a QFG1VGA run that allows stat glitch), but there's a lot of moving parts. You need 75 lockpicking for that rock door if the luck stat is low but a quick test showed 60 lockpicking and 100 luck can do it. Plus the strength requirement on the antwerp door and the climbing requirement. You're also going to lose some time to typing out "toss knife" over "<CtrlC>open". I can't rule it out, but there's a lot of moving parts here. You'd need an exact right combination of stats, luck and RNG to even remotely consider it possible and it's pretty much right out if you have to grind any of those stats.
Agreed on all counts. Especially on the QFG1VGA front.
Posted: 1/27/2021 10:22 PM
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EZGames69
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DS TAS of 2023 SNES TASer of 2022 SNES TASer of 2021 SNES TAS of 2021 Exotic platforms TAS of 2021 TASer of 2020 SNES TASer of 2020 Sega TASer of 2020 TASer of 2019 Sega TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
I'll be taking this one for encoding!
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Posted: 1/29/2021 3:01 AM
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electricslide
Joined: 1/27/2014
Posts: 181
Wow. this one came out of nowhere. Fantastic TAS.
Posted: 1/31/2021 2:21 PM
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EZGames69
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Joined: 5/29/2017
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DS TAS of 2023 SNES TASer of 2022 SNES TASer of 2021 SNES TAS of 2021 Exotic platforms TAS of 2021 TASer of 2020 SNES TASer of 2020 Sega TASer of 2020 TASer of 2019 Sega TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
downloadables: https://archive.org/details/herosquest-tas-csquare_mrprmiller_davidtki screenshot:
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Posted: 1/31/2021 2:30 PM
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PLANET
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Joined: 1/3/2018
Posts: 74
Obvious Yes vote (voted earlier, just late to the party). @davidtki: oooh, do you plan a QFG1VGA TAS? Or a different strategy in QFG1VGA any%? I didn't touch any of my runs for quite some time, but both are definitely beatable, however if there are any new strats concerning them, please do let know. Could help with the TAS (at least I hope I could), if you're planning on it gimme a mention on Discord, thx! @mrprmiller: maybe that's not the right place, but congratulations on such a good work in any% QFG1EGA! I presume that 1:05 will come! : ) Good luck there!
Posted: 1/31/2021 3:36 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4391] DOS Hero's Quest by c-square, mrprmiller & davidtki in 00:40.90
Posted: 2/1/2021 1:25 AM
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mrprmiller
Player (37)
Joined: 6/12/2011
Posts: 31
PLANET wrote:
Obvious Yes vote (voted earlier, just late to the party). @davidtki: oooh, do you plan a QFG1VGA TAS? Or a different strategy in QFG1VGA any%? I didn't touch any of my runs for quite some time, but both are definitely beatable, however if there are any new strats concerning them, please do let know. Could help with the TAS (at least I hope I could), if you're planning on it gimme a mention on Discord, thx! @mrprmiller: maybe that's not the right place, but congratulations on such a good work in any% QFG1EGA! I presume that 1:05 will come! : ) Good luck there!
Thanks for the congrats, PLANET. 1:05 was sooooo close that time, I believe it'll happen soon. I'm just getting used to using HSH in other places. The QFG1VGA strategy would certainly use the stat glitch for the fastest Any%. I think more trouble will go into finding the right stat allocation than the actual routing. I believe as players we're using the most optimized strats for route already, barring anything new, which there really hasn't been in this game in some time. The only *new* strategy I can remember since you were last around comes in Any% No Major Glitches, where we can throw rocks at the Kobold to stun lock him... even without Throwing skill. Magic isn't even considered in that category anymore and isn't remotely necessary - even as a Magic-User. LOL
Posted: 2/1/2021 10:36 PM
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KusogeMan
Experienced player (788)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1804
Location: Brasil
is there a good ending version of this run somewhere?
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Posted: 2/1/2021 11:14 PM
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davidtki
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Player (80)
Joined: 1/16/2021
Posts: 6
The RTA leaderboard has 100% runs which necessitate getting the best ending as part of it. No TAS for 100% or best ending as of yet (however it is on my mind).