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This is the DOS version of Prince of Persia, the classic 2D platformer originally released for Apple II in 1989. This version is the most popular among the RTA runners of the game.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: JPC-RR r11.8-rc2
  • BIOS used: The BIOS and VGABIOS that come pre-bundled with the emulator was used as instructed in the emulator description page.
  • The objective of the run is to complete the game, which is this case means saving the princess from the evil Jaffar.
  • No major glitches are to be used in the run, see below for more details.
  • The only notable "programming error" taken advantage of in the run is the jingle skip at the end of few levels. Killing an enemy at the end of a level before entering the final door "replaces" the long end of the level jingle with the the much shorter enemy kill jingle.
  • We control only one character in the run - the kid (who becomes the prince at the end of the game).
  • Hits are taken at some parts of the run if that's how the RNG is, it neither gains nor loses any significant time.
  • There are exactly two restarts, one skips a short jingle and one is just faster in terms of movement. No deaths.
  • Ruleset of this run is completely derived from the RTA No Major Glitches runs, which is as follows:
    • The following things are considered glitches:
      • Screen-wrapping
      • Guard-clipping (guard-jumping)
      • Falling or clipping through floors and closed gates (specifically corners)
      • Fall damage crouch cancel
      • Inactive chomper glitch
      • Guard through-gate lure glitch
    • Here is a guide that explains these with GIFs showing examples - https://www.speedrun.com/pop1/guide/m4j3u
    • Sound & music must be enabled at all times during the run.
    • Ctrl+A to restart a level is allowed, except for situations where it would cause a glitched advance to next level instead of restarting.
    • You can skip cutscenes between levels.

Comments

This is a "No Major Glitches" run of the game which is more movement based. Almost all the inputs can be buffered in this game. The biggest trouble of the run is dealing with guard RNG. They can not only mess you up when trying to cross them but also affect prince's positioning which is super important for the movement section that follows right after. The main way of manipulating the RNG used in the run is waiting for a few frames. In most of the cases waiting for 1 frame was sufficient but there were places where I had to wait for more. The biggest potential to improved this run is doing more research into RNG manipulation and making things stuff line up more perfectly. Jumping is the fastest movement when in flat terrain, however depending on the layout of the room, various other movements are done to gain time. The most common way to deal with enemies is to stop as close to them as possible and switch sides with them. After that we either get further away from them, put away our swords and continue, or strike them and put away our swords and continue. The latter is preferred only when it allows for an extra jump to be possible. I also tried a lot to set up soundblaster but for some reason the emulator used PC speaker sounds for SFX, luckily atleast the jingles played in soundblaster.

Stage by stage comments

Level 1

This level is a simple one but it already does something unintended. We lure the guard into the a specific spot and then we are able to take a path that gets around him without having to pickup the sword and killing him. This saves about a full minute. Aside from that several small movement optimizations were done, the bunny hops to skip the slow "getting up" animation, using the "turnaround" to bonk into walls faster, carefully spacing jumps to travel minimum distance and hence making maximum use of the "snap" feature to grab ledges to name a few. The good thing about this level is that its completely RNG free.

Level 2

This is the level where the RNG Gods strike first. I had to wait 1 frame for the first guard. I got hit by the second guard. The orange guard was surprisingly nice and I used the last guard to set-up a really precise chain of jumps that involves barely avoiding some spikes. The rest of the level is just movement and thanks to the massive "hitbox" of the final door we are able to get a massive snap and enter it to finish the level.

Level 3

This level is actually again one of the completely RNG free levels, despite containing the most infamous skeleton enemy. The entire level is full of movement optimizations, mostly the ones mentioned previously in level 1 description. We are able to jump over the skeleton avoiding having to swap places with him and just run away without having to deal with him, which is a really cumbersome process as he has infinite health and the only way to be rid of him is to push him into a pit. The rest of the level is straight-forward.

Level 4

This level starts with a movement section which involves a precise turnaround to make a loose tile open a door that needs to be opened to progress. It becomes even more precise if we need be in a good position to be able to jump and grab a ledge on the way back. Proceeding further we deal with the first enemy. He didnt pose any problems although he managed to push us one unit further than where we need to be but thanks to the snap feature it doesnt lose any time. We proceed an meet the enemy beside the door, we temporarily spare him and proceed to the section where the final button is. After some precise jumps back and forth through a chomper and going through the mirror that suddenly spawns and creates a friendly shadow of us, we return to the enemy and kill him to skip the end level jingle.

Level 5

This level is both heavily RNG and movement based. There is nothing special to talk about this level other the fact that I got pretty decent RNG from the guards.

Level 6

This is the shortest level of the game, it contains the "mini-boss", aka the fat guard. We dont have to kill him so we just ignore him and jump through the final pit to trigger the next level.

Level 7

If you played the casually, you know that this is exactly where the hard part of the game starts. There are few guards in the level who actually gave the perfect patterns that can be expected from them. This is also the first level where we continuously step away from an enemy till we reach a pit to skip the sword put away animation. After some precise platforming the movement section and dealing with the next guard, we take the floating potion to reach the bottom of the level and exit it.

Level 8

This level has quite a few guards and some cool movement sections. The way we deal with the first guard is the first major difference from RTA runs, we throw him into the spike pit instead of switching sides with him so that we can clear the next jump without having to grab the ledge and also preserving the momentum. After traversing the long corridor and dealing with some guards on the way, we reach the final section of the level. The final orange guard was not behaving and marks the first instance of having to wait multiple frames to get the required result. And then we finish the final corridor and exit it without having to wait for the mouse to come rescue us and proceed to finish the level.

Level 9

If I have to pick one level that I am least happy with despite being happy with the overall result, it will probably be this one. The RNG I got was below decent and were such that it forced me to certain movement sections without making full use of the snap. But as a reward we get to do the most satisfying movement section in my opinion perfectly. And then we proceed to the final guard and again use the backing away continuously to skip the sword put away and enter the final door.

Level 10

This level again has a lot of guards and also a lot of variety in the way we deal with them. This is the first level where were are forced to kill a guard that is not near gate (atleast in order to be fast). We also kill the final guard to skip the jingle. Despite all this, I surprisingly got really good rng and had wait very few frame throughout the whole level.

Level 11

Most of this level is fully consistent, other than the last guard, and he decided to give the worse pattern unfortunately. But as a redemption, we lure him near the end of the door and throw him off the edge and enter the final door while skipping the jingle.

Level 12

As a reward for all the things we did so far, we are presented with a RNG-free level. After some platforming we climb the tower and and the end we meet our friend shadow again and merge with him. We have to wait for the merging to completely finish or else the invisible bridge in the next room wont spawn.

Level 13

Two things in this level. Falling tiles and Jaffar. The former was luckily nice and I was able to get around without having to do any sort of manipulation (yes they dont fall in a consistent pattern). With Jaffar we are able to do a running jump from a very specific position to get as near him as possible and stab him before he wakes up. This is actually slower in IGT which is used to time the RTA runs of the game but faster in TAS timing thanks to fact that we can chain two jumps on the way back. The IGT is already stopped at this point.

Level 14

This level is a nice, charming reward for completing the game and we get to reunite with the princess at the end of the corridor. The only thing notable about this level is some carefully timed jumped to get under doors without losing momentum. And this final cutscene is considered to be the end of the game.

Final Thoughts and acknowledgements

I had quite a lot of fun making this and I hope you will watching this as well :D. I am happy with the result I got but I may return to this in the future to try make some improvements, especially in terms of RNG. I would like to specially thank 7eraser7, eien86, higlak for helping me in routing certain parts, timing the strats and in general the whole RTA speedrunning community for being supportive and providing very good feedback whenever I asked for it.

feos: Embedded the encode.
feos: Fixed formatting.
slamo: The quality of this run is obviously quite good. The routing and the overall use of tech is well done. Unfortunately, as outlined in this post, this run uses a cracked version to skip a copy protection sequence and therefore does not meet our standards for game authenticity.
There was much discussion about the game category. There are still things that might be considered glitches such as the jingle skip, and trying to draw the line between "major" and "minor" glitches is always going to be arbitrary. When you come up with a goal other than any% or 100%, please make sure the goal is very well-defined and constantly adhered to. The goal should offer some different content than any% and 100%, and it should also be entertaining enough; my impression from this run and its feedback is that a pure glitchless run would check both boxes, if you can indeed prove that no glitches are being used.
It's pretty clear that you know how to make a good TAS, and I hope you do pursue other TASes in the future; so much of the DOS library is untouched!
Rejecting for modified game files.
slamo: Revisiting this for Playground, and I think it fits. The goal is somewhat arbitrary but well-defined, and we know that it syncs with a known cracked version. This cracked version isn't eligible for publication but these should generally be ok for Playground, as long as the version isn't too obscure. Moving to Playground.

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Congratulations on completing your run! I really loved playing this game. I have the same question about the definition of glitchless. As far as I know, one of the most famous bugs in the DOS version of Prince of Persia (I think it's in most ports) is avoiding damage from falling ceiling tile with a crouching animation, which you used on this run, like 17:40 on YouTube video. Isn't that consided a glitch?
GMP
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Odongdong wrote:
Congratulations on completing your run! I really loved playing this game. I have the same question about the definition of glitchless. As far as I know, one of the most famous bugs in the DOS version of Prince of Persia (I think it's in most ports) is avoiding damage from falling ceiling tile with a crouching animation, which you used on this run, like 17:40 on YouTube video. Isn't that consided a glitch?
Thanks for the kind words Odongdong. That is actually a very good question. It is one of the questions I asked when I started running the game as well. It is not considered a glitch apparently and it's been the case historically since this category has been established. The logic here is, that animation is actually meant to avoid this damage apparently, as there is literally no use of it for anything else in the game, hence it actually might be an intended mechanic.
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GMP wrote:
The reason they are considered a glitch is because even though they tend to look "normal" even compared to other intended mechanics, their execution is so precise and specific that it's obvious they aren't meant to happen at all.
I find it hard to believe that walking on air is meant to happen at all. So why isn't walking on air considered a glitch?
GMP wrote:
The logic here is, that animation is actually meant to avoid this damage apparently, as there is literally no use of it for anything else in the game, hence it actually might be an intended mechanic.
The crouch mechanic can be used to move underneath half-closed doors. Crouching to avoid damage from falling ceiling tiles (not to avoid being hit, but to avoid damage from being hit) doesn't sound like intended behavior to me. The manual, at least, suggests to avoid falling tiles by stepping out of the way, not by crouching. I mean, I'm hoping for a better explanation of what counts as a glitch than "that's how speedrun.com has been doing it for years", because that doesn't really explain anything.
GMP
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Radiant wrote:
I find it hard to believe that walking on air is meant to happen at all. So why isn't walking on air considered a glitch? The crouch mechanic can be used to move underneath half-closed doors. Crouching to avoid damage from falling ceiling tiles (not to avoid being hit, but to avoid damage from being hit) doesn't sound like intended behavior to me. The manual, at least, suggests to avoid falling tiles by stepping out of the way, not by crouching. I mean, I'm hoping for a better explanation of what counts as a glitch than "that's how speedrun.com has been doing it for years", because that doesn't really explain anything.
The "running is air" is quite literally just a parkour mechanic, which the franchise is well known for. I recommended taking a look at the PS3 port of the game where the same mechanic exists with a much cleaner and non-glitchy looking animation (same about swapping sides with the guards that was mentioned earlier). The regarding the crouch, idk, I just tried to justify why it might have been considered not a glitch, but I honestly have no better explanation other than the fact that it's not considered a glitch as per speedrun.com ruleset, and the ones that existed before it. My goal here as I said was to make a run that would be comparable with those runs. Edit: here is the RTA World Record of the PS3 Port I mentioned - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/852203450/
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I seeing there's no argument over the quality of this submission. General consensus is that it is well done and easily falls within the standards we expect to see on this site. I think where people are struggling is deciding what the publication branch would be. I concur with what some have already said. While it may make sense to separate frame-perfect input tricks to a separate category in an RTA forum, on this site frame perfection is the standard, not the exception. The only time we allow a branch that avoids "glitches" in a TAS is when it produces a markedly different run, requiring different strategies and resulting in a different end-product. Good examples that come to mind are the zipless mega man 2 and BLJ-less Mario 64 runs. I don't feel the glitches avoided in this run fall into the run-altering category I cited above (with the exception of Practice mode, which I'll discuss in a minute). In TAS-philosophy, glitches are there to be exploited, and it doesn't feel like there's a good reason not to exploit them here. In conclusion, DOS Prince of Persia is an iconic game from its time, and it would be a benefit to this site to have a run published here. In my opinion, this submission certainly shows off superhuman play, and definitely meets the bar of quality we expect. I propose that we accept this run as our first submission on the any% branch, with the understanding that any future submission that utilizes "glitches" to materially improve the run would then obsolete this one. [Note: In regards to the Practice mode skip, I doubt that will be accepted here, as it would have the exact same content as a full run, just minus the first few levels. Those currently working on the "glitched" run would be wise to take this into account before going too far.]
GMP
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c-square wrote:
I seeing there's no argument over the quality of this submission. General consensus is that it is well done and easily falls within the standards we expect to see on this site. I think where people are struggling is deciding what the publication branch would be. I concur with what some have already said. While it may make sense to separate frame-perfect input tricks to a separate category in an RTA forum, on this site frame perfection is the standard, not the exception. The only time we allow a branch that avoids "glitches" in a TAS is when it produces a markedly different run, requiring different strategies and resulting in a different end-product. Good examples that come to mind are the zipless mega man 2 and BLJ-less Mario 64 runs. I don't feel the glitches avoided in this run fall into the run-altering category I cited above (with the exception of Practice mode, which I'll discuss in a minute). In TAS-philosophy, glitches are there to be exploited, and it doesn't feel like there's a good reason not to exploit them here. In conclusion, DOS Prince of Persia is an iconic game from its time, and it would be a benefit to this site to have a run published here. In my opinion, this submission certainly shows off superhuman play, and definitely meets the bar of quality we expect. I propose that we accept this run as our first submission on the any% branch, with the understanding that any future submission that utilizes "glitches" to materially improve the run would then obsolete this one. [Note: In regards to the Practice mode skip, I doubt that will be accepted here, as it would have the exact same content as a full run, just minus the first few levels. Those currently working on the "glitched" run would be wise to take this into account before going too far.]
I would not mind at all if it's accepted under the any% branch as it avoids both the problems of "avoiding glitches despite not being too game breaking" and "doing tricks that some people may consider glitches". And yes the people doing the current TAS are well aware of that level skip is not allowed. We want to see the full game anyway as that's the primary any% category.
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Obvious Yes vote, happy to see it done here :) First game I've played on PC (just after seeing a spinning coca-cola can animation demo : D) and naturally, a lot of fondness to it. Love some parts of the run, especially Jaffar "fight" ; ) and the guard on level 10 falling just 2 stories.. to his death :P :D Having said that, I'd really like to see the limits pushed on this game, that is the usual way TASes are done here :) So all glitches/bugs/exploits possible. That would definitely be lovely :) And also agree with c-square, the safest option would be to proceed with the run in simply any%, because categorizing what is glitch and what is not is ALWAYS problematic. Great job man, please keep it up - and consider a total any% TAS of well... BOTH :D PoP 1 _AND_ PoP 2 : )
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PLANET wrote:
Obvious Yes vote, happy to see it done here :) First game I've played on PC (just after seeing a spinning coca-cola can animation demo : D) and naturally, a lot of fondness to it. Love some parts of the run, especially Jaffar "fight" ; ) and the guard on level 10 falling just 2 stories.. to his death :P :D Having said that, I'd really like to see the limits pushed on this game, that is the usual way TASes are done here :) So all glitches/bugs/exploits possible. That would definitely be lovely :) And also agree with c-square, the safest option would be to proceed with the run in simply any%, because categorizing what is glitch and what is not is ALWAYS problematic. Great job man, please keep it up - and consider a total any% TAS of well... BOTH :D PoP 1 _AND_ PoP 2 : )
Thanks man, yeah I have learnt my lesson and will never do a arbitrary goal TAS again lol. PoP1 w/ glitches as I said is cooking and PoP2 any% is definitely one of my future goals.
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GMP wrote:
Thanks man, yeah I have learnt my lesson and will never do a arbitrary goal TAS again lol.
Note that your run still has a 100% vote despite the goal discussion :) Also, I'd love to see a POP2 run.
GMP
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Radiant wrote:
Note that your run still has a 100% vote despite the goal discussion :) Also, I'd love to see a POP2 run.
Yeah I am very grateful for that. Honestly didn't expect that for my first submission, which certainly motivates to do more TASes. I need to first learn the RTA run of PoP2. I know that it's not necessary to do a TAS but it's just my favourite way of learning the ins and outs of a game 😅. No promises but I expect to do it within the next few months.
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Just edited the submission to remove the branch. Wasn't sure if I had to remove it myself or the judges would have done it during the judging process. Either way, its done now.
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Could you tell us which version number you used? I'm having trouble matching your game files, PRINCE.EXE specifically.
GMP
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slamo wrote:
Could you tell us which version number you used? I'm having trouble matching your game files, PRINCE.EXE specifically.
I used version 1.4
GMP
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Yesterday in the RTA speedrunning community, we discussed about the sort of arbitrary nature of the ruleset and we decided its not very apt to call it "glitchless" and renamed the category to "No Major Glitches". So I decided to add that as the branch to this run. However if the judges feel that it is not necessary, feel free to remove the branch.
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Oh, I didn't realize DOS was the "main" version of the game. I thought NES was the main version at first. Also it somehow reminded me of Karateka, but now I know it was by the same author. I like how when encountering guards, the Prince takes one stab each time and decides he's had enough and leaves. Anyway I'm not familiar with what is and isn't a glitch in this game so I can't really say much regarding that.
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FractalFusion wrote:
Oh, I didn't realize DOS was the "main" version of the game. I thought NES was the main version at first. Also it somehow reminded me of Karateka, but now I know it was by the same author. I like how when encountering guards, the Prince takes one stab each time and decides he's had enough and leaves. Anyway I'm not familiar with what is and isn't a glitch in this game so I can't really say much regarding that.
I wouldn't say "main" version, but the most popular version atleast in the speedrunning scene. It was certainly one of the cleaner ports of the original Apple II version. Yeah after switching sides, prince can just put away the swords and run after either being hit (which pushes him far enough) or by stepping back far enough himself. Which of these 2 happens is purely dependent on RNG, I took whatever the game decided to give and glad it wasn't a huge problem in terms of health management. Thanks for checking the run!
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I think we have a problem with the game files used in this one. So this run uses a cracked version of the 1.3 PRINCE.EXE file that skips a copy protection sequence. The copy protection is a mini-level that appears after level 1 where you have to look up a letter in the manual and drink the corresponding potion. It looks like this: Link to video Our movie rules state:
- Do not use fan translations, cracked game versions, or otherwise hacked ROM images — translators do not want you to use obsolete versions and we prefer non-hacked games. Hacked versions are labeled [h] and [t]. - Exceptions may be made for bad or cracked ROM images only if no good ROM images exist, or are not obtainable.
From what I can tell, this is a very common game and the second point does not apply here. We have certain standards for game authenticity. If the copy protection was simply a password screen, maybe we could let it slide with a warning to use the untouched version next time, but this is skipping gameplay in a mini-level that can be TASed and optimized. What is the reasoning for RTA runners using this version, and why should we make an exception here?
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slamo wrote:
I think we have a problem with the game files used in this one. So this run uses a cracked version of the 1.3 PRINCE.EXE file that skips a copy protection sequence. The copy protection is a mini-level that appears after level 1 where you have to look up a letter in the manual and drink the corresponding potion. It looks like this: Link to video Our movie rules state:
- Do not use fan translations, cracked game versions, or otherwise hacked ROM images — translators do not want you to use obsolete versions and we prefer non-hacked games. Hacked versions are labeled [h] and [t]. - Exceptions may be made for bad or cracked ROM images only if no good ROM images exist, or are not obtainable.
From what I can tell, this is a very common game and the second point does not apply here. We have certain standards for game authenticity. If the copy protection was simply a password screen, maybe we could let it slide with a warning to use the untouched version next time, but this is skipping gameplay in a mini-level that can be TASed and optimized. What is the reasoning for RTA runners using this version, and why should we make an exception here?
A similar objection was made in my submission but I guess we should follow the discussion here. Here are my arguments for the acceptance of this version: - The binaries used in my submission and this one are the gold standard for RTA runs (see https://www.speedrun.com/pop1/guide/r6nek). They can easily be considered the 'official' versions, as they are widely available and agreed upon by the speedrunning community. - The copy protection screen does not count towards the IGT, therefore they serve no purpose other than wasting time in runs. - From a spectator point of view, this interruption serves no entertainment purpose, as it requires no skill. - Once the copy protection screen is passed once, it does not repeat upon restarting the game with CTRL+R. Although this argument may not be relevant here because you measure time since boot up. If these arguments are not sufficient, I won't complain. But I wanted to put them there in case you hadn't considered them. Thanks for reviewing both entries!
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eien86 wrote:
- The binaries used in my submission and this one are the gold standard for RTA runs (see https://www.speedrun.com/pop1/guides). They can easily be considered the 'official' versions, as they are widely available and agreed upon by the speedrunning community.
Hacked versions are not the ones found on my official CD of the game. They are in no way official. That some other community likes to use hacked versions of a game is irrelevant. This is not those sites, this is TASVideos, and we have our own rules which strive for the highest level of authenticity.
eien86 wrote:
- The copy protection screen does not count towards the IGT, therefore they serve no purpose other than wasting time in runs.
Neither does the loading and title screen. Should we hack that out too? While we're at it, let's edit out a bunch of the transition frames too.
eien86 wrote:
- From a spectator point of view, this interruption serves no entertainment purpose, as it requires no skill.
Just because you dislike a part of the game doesn't mean you can just remove it. Also as slamo pointed out, there is skill (or using of TAS tools) in completing it as fast possible.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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eien86 wrote:
- The copy protection screen does not count towards the IGT, therefore they serve no purpose other than wasting time in runs.
I get that from an RTA perspective, the copyprot screen is completely random and a waste of time; but from a TAS perspective it's something you can luck-manipulate so that it's always the closest potion. Personally, as a spectator, I would find that entertaining (you run up to some random potion and it just happens to be the right one? Huh :) )
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slamo wrote:
I think we have a problem with the game files used in this one. So this run uses a cracked version of the 1.3 PRINCE.EXE file that skips a copy protection sequence. The copy protection is a mini-level that appears after level 1 where you have to look up a letter in the manual and drink the corresponding potion.
I was really sad to read this. slamo is right; per the guidelines, the non-cracked version should be used. I'm hoping there might be a chance we could accept this anyway and say any subsequent run has to use the proper version. At the same time, I can see the judge not wanting to set a precedent of allowing it. :( GMP, if you can, please reach out to the team doing the "with glitches" any% and tell them about this before they get too far on the wrong version.
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I used the cracked version and thought it would be exactly for the reasons eien86 stated and additionally I would like to add that this game is open source now as the creator of this game, Jordan Mechner uploaded the source code of the game to GitHub. But if it still fails to clear the site guidelines, I completely respect that.
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GMP wrote:
I used the cracked version and thought it would be exactly for the reasons eien86 stated and additionally I would like to add that this game is open source now as the creator of this game, Jordan Mechner uploaded the source code of the game to GitHub. But if it still fails to clear the site guidelines, I completely respect that.
Is the version you used the one that’s on GitHub? A strong argument could be made for using that one, as it comes directly from the creator.
GMP
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c-square wrote:
GMP wrote:
I used the cracked version and thought it would be exactly for the reasons eien86 stated and additionally I would like to add that this game is open source now as the creator of this game, Jordan Mechner uploaded the source code of the game to GitHub. But if it still fails to clear the site guidelines, I completely respect that.
Is the version you used the one that’s on GitHub? A strong argument could be made for using that one, as it comes directly from the creator.
Well I am not exactly sure how to answer that question. For all we know, we were able to extract a lot of information from that source code and apply it to this version of the game for strat hunting. There is a open source port of the game that was developed based on it called "SDLPoP", which is what the eien ran his bot on and all the rng states synced with version 1.0 of the game. I just stated that as an argument mainly in the sense that "This will surely not run into legal issues".
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
GMP wrote:
c-square wrote:
GMP wrote:
I would like to add that this game is open source now as the creator of this game, Jordan Mechner uploaded the source code of the game to GitHub
Is the version you used the one that’s on GitHub?
For all we know, we were able to extract a lot of information from that source code and apply it to this version of the game for strat hunting. There is a open source port of the game that was developed based on it called "SDLPoP"
The version that was open sourced is the Apple II version. There are many versions of Prince of Persia, and they have various similarities, but most of them also have changes to the levels (even extra levels), and changes to some of the physics and mechanics. Regarding SDLPoP: "SDLPoP is an open-source port of Prince of Persia that runs natively on Windows and Linux. It is based on a disassembly of the DOS version, and uses SDL." To think of it differently, SDLPoP ports a DOS version to Windows and Linux (so the levels and various mechanics found in the game should be nearly identical), and this version is open sourced and freely available. If one were to TAS that, off the top of my head, I don't see any objections as to why we wouldn't accept it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.