Crossroads II (Compute's Gazette)

It's been a year since you've come to the crossroads, and things haven't gotten much better. In fact, it could be said that things are significantly worse. New gangs of creatures have moved in. They've smarter. They're faster. They're more powerful.
"Crossroads II: Pandemonium" is an arcade-action game that will pull you out of your seat and onto an action-packed screen. Race down the halls. Shoot the bad guys before they shoot you. Outrace the creatures to pick up spars and build up your shields. Corssroads II features more action on your 64's screen than you've ever seen.
The article for this game can be found on page 38 of Compute's Gazette Issue 66 (December 1988)

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 61st TAS from this series.
This is the absolute best game ever published by the magazine. It is so good, that I still play it today! Instead of me laying out the details of this game, I'm going to let this gamer do it for me. She does a great job and demonstrates how hard it is to play....even on the beginning level.

Game Difficulty and Ending

There is a selection of difficulty, but it only starts you off later in the game. According to the rules, this would be skipping content, so I start on the first level and play through to Level 20. On the final level, the last increase of a character occurs. The magazine article backs this up...so I decided to play it safe and stop on level 20.

Effort In TASing

I have spent about 1 1/2 years TASing this game. I've manually TASed, I've BOTed, I've tested strategies and routes...and now here is the final effort. The biggest issue is controlling RNG, which in this game...is EVERYTHING! You move one frame...RNG changes. You should a bullet...RNG changes. Pick up a spur...RNG changes. In fact, I dropped BOTing this game because I couldn't come up with any automation to assure the best optimization. I'll just say that I used every tool to get these results.

Special Thanks.

Thanks to DrD2k9 for the talks, over the past year or so. It certainly was a long process of determining what was going to work. This was a game that I wanted to get right. I feel like I have achieved that...so here it is!

Human Comparison


ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: Accepting for publication.

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8943: nymx's C64 Crossroads II: Pandemonium "2 players" in 01:28.09
nymx
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For those of you who are interested, here is a comparison of my original effort. I almost submitted this, but I wanted it to be better. Well...I certainly made it better! Link to video
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
GJTASer2018
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"Pandemonium" is very appropriate for this title, considering how much is going on all at once on the screen! (Although if this is Crossroads 2, what happened to Crossroads 1 perchance?)
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
nymx
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
"Pandemonium" is very appropriate for this title, considering how much is going on all at once on the screen! (Although if this is Crossroads 2, what happened to Crossroads 1 perchance?)
The original Crossroads was good, but not this good. I decided to do this one first. Eventually, I'll get around to it. This version has some things that make it much more exciting. For one, this version has "power-ups". You don't see them much here because I'm going so fast. Instead of "white spars", red and blue ones exists. Blue makes you go faster, which I manipulate RNG to show up on the 3rd screen. Red makes you shoot faster, which I don't get...because it doesn't matter.
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
Joined: 7/7/2017
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So happy to see this tas'd! sadly, you grab the spars so quickly we don't see much gameplay. You'll do "maximum score" and get 99999999 next, right?
nymx
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Joined: 11/14/2014
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jeff_town wrote:
So happy to see this tas'd! sadly, you grab the spars so quickly we don't see much gameplay. You'll do "maximum score" and get 99999999 next, right?
Lol. That sounds like a lot of work.
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
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. ---- [5885] C64 Crossroads II: Pandemonium "2 players" by nymx in 01:28.09