(Link to video)

The Context (+ rant!)

Back in May 2021, I started rating movies on TASvideos in order of their length. I got to about 30% of the content that was published at the time, and it kinda makes me that that the Profile/Ratings no longer works on the new site, because I felt like it was the main thing that incentivised some people, including myself, to rate. Another thing that made me lose interest in rating movies is that, in the current form of the website, it is not possible to sort unrated movies by anything other than the name. It made it so that I eventually lost track of my progress, and it became difficult to start where I left on my previous movie rating session.
Anyway, among all the movies that I've rated, this game had the movie that I thought had the movie that was the easiest to be beaten, and had potential to be good April Fools content too.
So I beat it on the first day of trying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOaKqz2M2MQ
Then I beat my time about 10 more times, until I got to the run that I'm submitting, achieved on November 30, 2021. I really felt like this game could have a movie that could be maxed out due to its simple mechanics, so I tried pretty much every possibility. It was a very tedious process, since I did everything manually, but I'd say I'm happy with the results.

The rules of the game, and how understanding them can save time

  • You must defeat all the enemies without dying. You can still die after the last enemy dies, so you have to plan your movement around that.
  • You cannot have more than 2 of your rockets on screen at the same time.
  • There's a cooldown of 18 frames before you can shoot again. It's just enough for you to go from one side of a shield to the other.
  • The area in which your can move is more narrow than the area in which the enemies can go to. This means that the route needs to be based around the movement of the enemies, as they can be unreachable if they are on the sides of the screen.
  • The least enemies there are, the faster they go.
  • The enemies move 1 row down if one enemy hits the side of the screen. In order to as much time as possible with this rule, I leave the top-left enemy alive so that enemies go down sooner.

The regret

Well, I guess I'm an Atari 2600 TASer now. I really wasn't expecting that when I first started TASing, but I guess there's no going back now.

Samsara: the pipeline from normal TASer to Atari 2600 is a dangerous, yet common one, and usually ends with me falling asleep in the middle of my sentences talking about riddle of the sphzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Samsara: It sure is Space Invaders for the Atari 2600. Love the amount of work that was put into this, happy to see that even the simplest games are still being heavily blasted with effort and improvements over 40 years after their release. Video games are art. Accepting as an improvement to the published run.

despoa: Processing...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7393: g0goTBC's A2600 Space Invaders in 00:16.49
Patashu
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Short and superhuman and optimized. What's not to love? I love the 'shoot on alternating sides of the shield' maneuver, the near misses and the perfectly aimed final shot.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
MESHUGGAH
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Ratings: - I know your pain - Developers currently have higher priorities
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
nymx
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Wow, cut 48 frames over the previous version. GG! Loved this game as a child, still love watching it. Curious though, its puzzling to me that the previous TAS got mixed Yes/No votes, while yours it holding strong at Yes. Well, here is another yes to a great classic.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
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Submission Text wrote:
Back in May 2021, I started rating movies on TASvideos in order of their length.
Thank you for your effort, g0goTBC!
Spikestuff
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Encoding this one out, mainly to test the new stuff going on with the downloadables that I want to make sure works on my end.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Post subject: Movie published
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. ---- [4646] A2600 Space Invaders by g0goTBC in 00:16.49