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Here's an old text file I have. Hopefully it's useful to someone. I can't TAS this game myself currently, but I'd be glad to help as much as I can if someone decides to try it someday. Dosbox seems to emulate it perfectly.
Alone in the Dark TAS walkthrough. Abuses in-game savegame feature. Estimated completion time: 5 minutes.
Take oil lamp
Go downstairs (maybe through the wall)
Take oil can
Use oil can
Open door
Open door
Run through the wall
Open door
Skip nightgaunts
Go downstairs
Open door
Take matches
Open door
Open door
Use matches
OOB into the clock room
Take false book
OOB into the library
Use false book
Take talisman
Open door
Go downstairs
OOB into the cellar
Take block
Skip Cthonian
Push boulder
Use oil lamp
OOB into the boss room
Take HOOK
Use TALISMAN
Throw OIL LAMP
Use HOOK
Run to the exit
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Adelikat, some of your movies are really crazy and funny. This is one of them.
By the way, are you planning to do the same memory watch treatment to the Genesis version?
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arkiandruski wrote:
I tried searching for the bos RAM values, but I couldn't find them. Every value I watched did the wrong thing after a little bit. If you could help me find them, that would be great.
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Well, it's not the most interesting game out there. I never had the patience to even finish the first level, because it was quite hard. So thanks for showing the full game in no time.
If you are still planning to record it, I suggest monitoring the boss health from RAM to guarantee maximum damage in minimum time. Also, I know nothing of the game, but it seems like jumping down ledges might be faster than walking since there's some acceleration in falling.
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moozooh wrote:
On the other hand, why not submit it? Would it hurt anyone, or something?
No, eating shit would not hurt anyone. :)
I am not conviced that it's perfect yet and it looks almost identical to the current movie. Even stanski seems to think that it's pointless to submit it although he was the one who discovered the improvement.
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stanski wrote:
By holding up left, the dude kind of warps to the steps
Small and impressive detail, it saves 1 frame. XD
stanski wrote:
Next, the final level, is there any way to manipulate it so that you can still not have to jump and not have the beer in your way like in my vid? There has gotta be a way around it, I don't see why you need to jump honestly or how that helps.
If you refer to the jumps in the beginning of the room:
Those jumps are needed so that the position is correct for the lever and the rope so that I can go through the wall. If I jump to the rope from a different position, the trick fails. If I recall correctly, you can reach the lever 8 frames faster without the jumps, but it takes more than 8 frames to adjust the position for the rope.
If you refer to the final mug dodging jump:
That would only end the input earlier, but it would not affect how fast the black knight falls. As far as I can tell, the only way to manipulate the pattern of the beer mugs is to leave the first room at different times. (I assume it's because of the rats. When there are rats on screen, the clock of randomness is ticking. There are no rats in the second room, so it does not affect the randomness.) Your SDA run is actually very lucky. I always had bad luck with the last mug and got killed without the jump. However, that is the one and only mug I actually need to dodge, so I suppose it's quite well done.
Thanks a lot, Joe. If I'm right, your ladder trick can be hex-edited in easily, because the second room does not affect the third room. Let's see...
---
EDIT:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/4129/dark-castle-10-frames-improved.gmv
The trick is funny, because up-right gives different result than up-left. So I managed to improve the movie by 10 frames which is a lot. However, I think we'd better not submit it, because it does not look different.
Once again, I have no idea how to improve it.
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Hi Kuwaga!
Nice trick. The funniest combination is UP-DOWN. :)
You seemed to handle it well. The full movie might be interesting, but usually it's best to choose the hardest difficulty setting.
---
EDIT: I used the latest Gens to find the memory address for the boss health: 00FF0318. I don't know if this helps you at all, because the boss health-bar is visible anyway, but it gives the hit points in numbers.
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I like that movie a lot. It's definitely better than my first TAS.
Here are some random things that came into my mind:
- The speed-trick is great and you use it very precisely through the whole movie.
- Wall-jumping is the best thing in the movie.
- I have a feeling that some of the boss fights may be improvable with better strategies, although I have no idea what those strategies might be.
- The auto-scrolling levels are boring.
- The level 2 shortcut might be faster with a wall-jump instead of the hook. :)
- Using death as a shortcut was surprising.
- You even took damage to save time. This movie is quite versatile.
I think it's worth submitting.
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OgreSlayeR wrote:
Can anyone help figure out how to manipulate items in this game?
I don't know this particular game very well, but Wonderboy in Monster World is it's sequel and probably has similar (or even same) RNG.
This is what I know about the Genesis version:
Manipulation is difficult because nothing seems to affect anything, except time. So the manipulation gets a special meaning here: You need to plan where to waste time for item drops in relation to the future encounters. The clock of randomness is ticking from the beginning, so if you need to wait 10 frames for an important spell drop, you can waste those 10 frames at any time before that situation.
Hitting enemies with a weapon caused some changes in other enemies' movements nearby. If I'm right, it did not affect the item drops.
There may be a technique for predicting every item drop, but that's out of my league.
---
EDIT: Wow. This is tough. Time seems to have no meaning here, so it's even worse than the Genesis game. The worst thing is that taking damage affects the drops which makes health management quite complicated. I'm afraid you can't get the drops you would like to.
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The first level always has a one-way entrance.
Switches activate objects immediately from any distance.
Sound travels at infinite speed in all environments.
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If it's up to me, Gods will be finished eventually. But it probably isn't. :)
Anyway, there's some party stuff to do now... and vine to drink... wine... fine... whatever...
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Heh...
Ideamagnate, that one place is quite annoying. I just improved it another 26 frames. I need to play the rest of the game again to see how much of it can be carried to the end. There's hope for a few frames.
Guybrush wrote:
O_o Oh noes...
Please forgive me Gyubrush.
---
EDIT: 28 frames improved! More may be possible, so I'm not sending this to Bisqwit yet.
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Haha!
Level 3 was super!
About the chandeliers, just about anything may (or may not) have an effect on their behavior, I guess:
- time (when you first see them)
- Batman's position
- other enemies (if you hit/kill some)
- score
- number of lives
- number of items
- pause
I would probably continue with the next level myself.
arkiandruski wrote:
Aqfaq, have you seen the driving level from the practice run? If so, what did you think of it.
It was okay. I have no ideas for that part. Good luck!
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Nice game for tasing. Perfected run would be around 10 minutes.
The fastest strategy is to play with the magician and die in the boss fights to regain all magic power. Shop is used to buy continues and magic exclusively. I also believe that the fastest way is to play the first three levels in the opposite order: 3, 2, 1.
There are two different endings. The better one costs a few seconds. The decision is done near the end of the movie, so it hardly affects anything.
However, there seems to be a desynch issue with the game. No movie is possible until it's solved.
