So, after less than a day, I decided I would focus on Paperboy as my first run.
Now, the one problem with this: I have NEVER played Paperboy EVER before. In my life. I'll need to practice, but I think I can get the hang of it.
Just a couple questions:
-My run is probably going to aim for score as well as time. Any tips for aiming papers into the mailbox?
-Is it recommended to throw papers into non-subscribers' windows? Does it get points?
-Should I be holding "Up" on the keyboard all the time or should I slow down for turns?
Thanks in advance.
Joined: 8/1/2004
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Location: Seattle, WA
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! PAPERBOYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
Sorry... Highest score means best delivery success rate. That means you deliver to people on your route and you don't use any of your other papers. As you do well, you will get more subscribers. This is ideal for a movie on this site, since it is both a 100% movie and a speed oriented movie. Getting everyone to subscribe (and concordently delivering to everyone subscribed) is your goal.
I know there is a pretty wide window of success for deliveries, so firing off papers early/late and still getting a delivery would be interesting. Then again, doing events like stopping the burglar or slapping a baby in the face with a paper are also interesting.
I don't know how to move faster, but it seems as if going off of tiny jumps gives you a boost of speed. Talk to GSGold.
As for the end of the week trial(s), try to get the highest score possible. This is the one actually slightly difficult part of the run, since you need to plan a bit and test some stuff.
You should aim for fastest time, and while doing that, get the highest possible score. You can complete the bonus levels... it looks better that crashing on purpose, although it does take a little longer.
The things you are able to destroy, and howmany points you get from them you should figure out yourself, by trying... it won't even take long.
Aiming at mailboxes shouldn't be a problem, since you have rerecords and frame advance.
I tried this a little a while ago, and by far the hardest part (the part that takes the longest) is luck manipulating the amount of papers that lie on the street.
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The only thing that affects new subscribers is delivering papers to existing subscribers. You definately smash some non-subsriber windows. Unfortunately, even in a perfect run you can't have everyone be a subscriber (since you only get one per day).
As far as completing the bonus levels, It would look better except for the fact that you would have to watch the same one 7 times which might get pretty redundant. I might lean more towards an absolute best time since there more that enough opportunity to rack up points breaking windows and knocking down things.
Also, if I remember correctly, you can deliver several papers to the same house and get the bonus points everytime.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I have been playing around with this game some and I have come up to the following things:
adelikat, you are somewhat right about delivering several papers to the same house. You can deliver 2 papers to the same house and get points for both. However, you only get points for these if one of them hits the housewall (300 points) and one of them hits the mailbox (750 points).
And as for the bonus levels, it would be a lot faster to just get into the training course and crash the bike. This way you will get to the next day much faster than if you'd play the training course. Though it would be a lot more entertaining to watch a run that includes the training course.
And generally about riding the bike: as long as you hold the directional button up you will move upwards as fast as possible, no matter how much you turn or throw papers. This means that you will always complete the course as fast as possible as long as you hold down "up".
I have also done a testrun of monday, you can get it here.
ROM name: Paperboy (U).nes
I know it includes the training course even if it takes up a lot of time, but the thing is that I found out about "skipping the training course trick" after I did this movie, and the training course went so well that I decided to keep it. If I do a run of this game, I will of course skip the training course. Let me know what you think about this movie.
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i like it so far, but you need to break more stuff!!
-luck can be manipulated to get more paper refills
-you can knock down trees and break the oval-looking thing on the cement walls (I don't know how to describe it better than that)
I think the training course should be omitted. You did a great job getting every target but still, It was only mildly entertaining. Certainly not enough to warrant almost doubling the length of this movie.
Joined: 4/20/2005
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I'm glad you liked what I've done so far! Of course, this was more of a test run, so there are several flaws in it.
Let me comment your comments:
-luck can be manipulated to get more paper refills
Actually, I had no idea you could do that! :) That will help out a lot, thanks!
EDIT: I tried out manipulating luck to get more paper refills(I tried this on monday), but with no luck. The paper refills always seemed to be at the same places, and there was always 3 of them. I tried manipulating luck by throwing different amounts of papers, turning around more (and less) and hitting different objects along the way, but as I said, no more paper refills appeared. Do you know how to manipulate luck in Paperboy, adelikat?
-you can knock down trees and break the oval-looking thing on the cement walls (I don't know how to describe it better than that)
Yes, I know you can do that, but that gives the same amount of points as every other obstacle. But it will be more entertaining to hit different kinds of objects on the course, so I'll try to hit more trees and "oval-looking things on the cement walls" :)
I think the training course should be omitted. You did a great job getting every target but still, It was only mildly entertaining. Certainly not enough to warrant almost doubling the length of thismovie.
I agree, I didn't put that much of an effort to make the training course entertaining, I focused more on hitting all of the targets. I'll crash the bike as soon as I get to the training course from here on, to get to the next day faster.
Let me know if you find out anything else that could help.
By the way, are you still working on a run, Icecap M. Veiwin? If so, how is it going? It would be nice if you'd post your progress here.
I tried this a little a while ago, and by far the hardest part (the part that takes the longest) is luck manipulating the amount of papers that lie on the street.
It's also the most annoying part.
randil wrote:
EDIT: I tried out manipulating luck to get more paper refills(I tried this on monday), but with no luck. The paper refills always seemed to be at the same places, and there was always 3 of them. I tried manipulating luck by throwing different amounts of papers, turning around more (and less) and hitting different objects along the way, but as I said, no more paper refills appeared. Do you know how to manipulate luck in Paperboy, adelikat?
I also don't know how to do this... but I know for sure this is possible, and it's probably the reason why I stopped with this game.
adelikat wrote:
I think the training course should be omitted. You did a great job getting every target but still, It was only mildly entertaining. Certainly not enough to warrant almost doubling the length of this movie.
Well... I think this part was the most entertaining to me. It's the only part a skilled player wouldn't be able to do. In spite of this, I do think that is should be omitted, but merely because you'd see the same thing over and over again. But then again... holding up alone makes the movie "as fast as possible", so getting the highest possible score is probably the best thing to choose (of course you should still hold up all the time). But if your goal is the highest possible score, then you would need to do the training course...
You also should avoid wasting a paper on the dog (not 100% sure, but I think this is possible).
Joined: 4/20/2005
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My main goal with this movie is to complete the game as fast as possible, and this means I will skip the training course to save time. And as you said, adelikat, I will try to achieve a high score in the meantime.
I also agree that the training course was the best part of the run, but this wastes a lot of time, so I'll skip this in the furure. Perhaps someone could make a "Paperboy play-around" where you just the things impressively.
Baxter wrote:
You also should avoid wasting a paper on the dog (not 100% sure, but I think this is possible).
I tried to avoid throwing a paper at the dog but couldn't seem to find out how. If you ride the bike to the left of him he will run into you and crash your bike, and this can't be avoided. If you ride the bike to the right of him he will block your paper. Tell me if you find out how to avoid wasting this paper.
I'll put this run on hold for the moment, until we have come to a conclusion about luck manipulation. Since I can get a much higher score by manipulating luck it's not worth making a run now that doesn't manipulate luck, if someone finds out after the run is done how to manipulate luck. That means i'd have to do the run all over again.
Joined: 4/20/2005
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The extra paper placements are decided when you spawn. To manipulate them you need to adjust the frame that you start. That or die a few times.
Since dying would waste a lot of time I guess adjusting the starting-frame seems like the best choise. I'll see if I get the time to check this matter out. I'm have a lot of homework to do ATM.
Joined: 4/20/2005
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Allright, I'd like to the time to sum things up about the Paperboy run, what one should think about when doing a TAS of this game. If I get the time I'll probably give this a try, but I'm pretty busy ATM so if anyone would like to give this a shot, you're more than welcome. A little competition never hurts. Okay, here's what I've come up with so far:
Goal #1: Completing the game as fast as possible
This goal is actually very easy to achieve, you only have to think about three things:
1. Start the game (that is clicking on 1 PLAYER) as fast as possible.
2. Hold directional button up during the entire course.
3. Crash the bike as soon as you get to the training area.
Goal #2: Make a "Perfect delivery" every day
You get a perfect delivery if you deliver a newspaper to every subscriber. The game can still be beaten without having to get perfect delivery every day, but it would be a lot more entertaining to watch the movie if it does.
Goal #3: Achieve an as high score as possible
You get 700 points for hitting a mailbox with a newspaper and 300 points for hitting an object. Find out how many papers you need to deliver one paper to each house, then use up all the other papers you have on objects. Try hitting different kinds of obstacles, don't hit, for example, windows with all of your papers.
Manoeuvring the bike
Try to move around in an interesting way, but avoid to much wobbling. Don't ride the bike straight forward, this will be somewhat boring for a watcher.
Take crazy chances
Remember that you have savestates. Try to do daredevil stuff with your bike, such as being really close to crashing it.
I hope this information was to some help, if now, I hope it was fun to read :)
Let me know if you have any comments on this
Joined: 5/1/2004
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Did anyone think about making the movie for other systems with better graphics? how is the game changed? why should the nes version be picked when its the ugliest? :S
Joined: 4/20/2005
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As far as I know, the only Paperboy games for consoles that support rerecording, are for GB and GBA. And I know that the GB versions are pretty ugly and bad, so that leaves us the GBA version. Anyone who has played the GBA version of this game?
Joined: 4/20/2005
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Oh yeah, you're right. There is a genesis version. I haven't played it though. Does anyone know the differences between the GENS version and the NES version?
Couple questions. What happened to your pb.zip WIP? I wanted to watch it the other day but the link says file not found. Could you please upload it again? Second, have you thought about continuing work on this run? I for one would like to see such a TAS, which is why I did a search and came across this thread. Besides, I think I am a bit weary of Lolo puzzles for the time being.
I'd also recommend doing the NES version since that was the best-selling one and the world is most familiar with it. This is one reason the SMB3 runs typically aren't done on the SNES despite the better graphics.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
And here's a couple of answers:
"What happened to your pb.zip WIP?"
To be honest, I have no idea :) It should still be on the site where I uploaded, because I have no memory of deleting it. Unfortunately I had the WIP on my old computer, which broke down... Perhaps adelikat or someone else who downloaded and watched the WIP could post it here.
"have you thought about continuing work on this run?"
Well, it was pretty fun doing this, even though it's not very exciting as a TAS perhaps. I guess I could give this another try. But I'll redo it from scratch in that case, there were some stuff I was thinking about redoing anyway, so I'll start over. I'll get a WIP up here soon, and hopefully there are still some interest in seeing this get done! :)
I have some questions too, before I start making this run: Should I play the bonus part after each level? If I aim for fastest time possible, I should skip these parts, but on the other hand they could be interesting to see. What do you think?
"Besides, I think I am a bit weary of Lolo puzzles for the time being."
Yes. Me too. Too much thinking! :)
EDIT: I just remembered something. If you press up+down in this game, you will go forward at top speed, but the wheels on your bike won't turn! It looks pretty cool in my opinion. If you want to, I could make the run riding the bike like that.
I think this game would be quite good for a TAS, as the best time attacks are the ones that bring in elements that would never be seen in a console run. In my experience with this game, it was very hard to survive more than the first couple days, and it order to get through I had to play it safe by not going at full speed and avoiding daring maneuvers like riding into the front yards. Likewise with the bonus stages, I'd only make it to the end by avoiding hoops and such.
Maybe I just sucked and so did all my friends, but on the other hand maybe the reason there isn't yet a run for this game on SDA is that the game is hard to run fast.
As for the bonus stages, is the training course the same after every level? If that's the case, then you can just do it at the end of the last stage and crash at the beginning every other time. That way we'll get a record time for this game and still see the trick course.
As for deciding between goals #1, #2 or #3, any is fine with me as long as the route doesn't appear to slow down much.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
As far as I remember, the training courses always look the same. So I agree that maybe I should just throw it in on the last day. I'll start planning how to play Monday later on tonight. If you have anything in particular you want to have implemented, such as hitting a special garbage can or something, just tell me :)
