This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8615: Technoturnovers's Flash This Is The Only Level in 01:56.83

The run you linked doesn't bonk into the wall after touching the button. You lost .22 for the first level, and is .78 behind after finishing the 4th level, not counting the improvement you mentioned for lvl 3.

Okay, lemme fix that too

Got another updated movie: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638307541274450887 This is what I get for foolishly thinking I can neglect to examine runs from different categories. But I seem to have hit some sort of minor snag- I'm still .12s IGT behind the glitchless TAS finishing Level 3, but I can't really figure out where the disparity is coming from without either a TON of testing, or looking at the recording file (which isn't possible since the recording in question isn't on TASVideos). And it could be entirely possible that this is just the IGT being slightly inaccurate, although that seems unlikely. I suspect that the disparity comes from how the pipes are being entered, which may be vertically dependent- I noticed that the TAS hesitates ever-so-slightly before entering the pipe. I'll have to investigate further, if .12 IGT is still too much of a disparity from the external movie. EDIT: I just noticed that A: the external video appears to be running different quality settings, judging by the lack of motion blur, and B: it does some prep stuff in the menu, such as deleting the save and visiting the credits, which both could explain the IGT disparity and also loses time over my any% run regardless.

I have uploaded the recording file for my TAS if you want to take a look. There's two of them because my TAS in the video you linked does some setup before the run actually begins (since it was meant to show off what the fastest run would look like with RTA rules), so I had an alternate TAS which still has the pauseless and glitchless restrictions while not doing the pre-run setup. You can find the files here: User movie #638327585670750437 User movie #638327586812135207

I have uploaded the recording file for my TAS if you want to take a look. There's two of them because my TAS in the video you linked does some setup before the run actually begins (since it was meant to show off what the fastest run would look like with RTA rules), so I had an alternate TAS which still has the pauseless and glitchless restrictions while not doing the pre-run setup. You can find the files here: User movie #https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638327585670750437 User movie #https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638327586812135207

Ah, thanks- I'll see if there's any timesave I missed soon, although possibly not tonight since it's getting late.

The IGT disparity issue goes down a bit of a rabbit hole here: https://www.speedrun.com/titol1/runs/y8eq6qdy This is the SRC WR for same category this TAS competes in. For our intents and purposes, it is a record a TAS must at least match in order to be accepted for publication (and there's no funny exceptions here for records posted after the TAS; this SRC record is 2 years old). The resulting IGT in this SRC WR is 1:14.375. That is .1 seconds faster than the IGT in the (current) TAS submission, which is 1:14.475. This is a disparity of 4 frames, to be precice. Why does this occur? Is it an inaccuracy in Ruffle making this TAS lose IGT? Is it something special the SRC WR does? Well, no on the first part. The TAS is simply suboptimal, on two counts. For the first 3 stages (which are done glitchless), there is just a case of losing 4 frames, which roblox8192 has demonstrated in their own glitchless TAS (NB: you can cut off the 4 frames used to delete the save and it syncs regardless). Stage 1 loses 1 frame, stage 2 loses 1 frame, and stage 3 loses 2 frames. However, an oddity shows up here: the SRC WR is in fact 2 frames slower than this submission with the first 3 stages. Subsquently, it would be slower by 6 frames compared to roblox8192's own TAS with the first 3 stages. This oddity is explained all the way at stage 28. The SRC WR here has the flash window stretched, so the runner is able to click out of bounds here and finish the stage faster with the main glitch used in this run. This can be simulated in libTAS with out of bounds mouse coordinates anyways (which we've published several movies in other flash games abusing this). So while it is something special the SRC WR does, it can be applied to the TAS. This ultimately results in the SRC WR gaining 6 frames compared to this submission, and so is 4 frame faster overall compared to this submission. Going off of this, we could say that at least there is 10 frames that can be shaved off this submission, and for our purposes there is an existing record which beats this submission, thereby making this submission unacceptable. EDIT: I mused a little with making forgoing the out of bounds mouse clicking as a separate category, like other games with out of bounds mouse click glitches. This ends up being problematic as using the out of bounds mouse clicking is itself allowed in Standard for Fastest Completion. So this TAS can't go to Standard's Fastest Completion. Standard also has No Major Skips and Glitchless as possible goals. Which are also barred due to the main glitch used to practically skip nearly every stage being used. So such a separate category would end up being in Alternative. However, even then, there's just not much actually different here, out of bounds mouse clicks can hardly be called a major skip in this context (only being applicable in one stage, and that would be in conjunction with the main glitch abused), not to mention that there is only a 6 frame difference (although that's assuming the SRC WR is optimal, it's maybe some more with TASing, but doesn't really change the point). So I would say it would just not qualify as an Alternative goal, and so it would need to be judged under Fastest Completion, which is comparable against the SRC WR I linked.

om, nom, nom... *burp*!