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FractalFusion wrote:
A question I ask is this: What is the chance of landing the sceptre on a given tile? Must be pretty small, but how small? The number was not given.
I don't know the exact chance, because I don't know how the RNG works in this game, but Monopoly is definitely much more complex than this.
There are 4 continents, here's the in-game map for the first one:
It's roughly a 1/4 chance that the sceptre is located in the first continent and it can be only on the light green squares.
FractalFusion wrote:
Also, the label "shortest TAS ever" is lacking in objective basis now. At the 10s level, people ask "How do you define the 'shortest TAS ever'?" If I complete Chessmaster in 8s, is it the "shortest TAS ever"? If Aqfaq completes Clue in 3s, is it the "shortest TAS ever"?
Now that I think of it, "the shortest TAS" sounds stupid and mostly fails to be an interesting concept for a movie.
(By the way, Clue can be completed in 30 seconds, not 3 seconds ever.)
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I think this movie is interesting mostly (or only) because it's exceptionally short. That's why I submitted it.
Here's an "argument for expectation" (or something like that):
Imagine a first-time user that watches some of the starred movies. After seeing SUPER NINJA ENTERTAINMENT, he/she probably wants to see MORE and "King's Bounty in 10 seconds" movie certainly isn't what he/she expects to see. An average movie-viewer would probably think: "WTF, this is not what I wanted to see!"
However, this might be an interesting addition to the CCCFFFoncept demos section. After all, who would have thought that ANY video game could be finished in 10 seconds?
I'm not going to judge whether this movie should be published or not, although I enjoy bizarre movies.
I'm not upset if it gets rejected. It was good education for memory reading.
Besides, I'm quite confident that it can be improved. ;)
(If there's something wrong with this post... well... I'm drunk at the momnebetetmtete.. so... judge youerelf....)
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Ash Williams wrote:
two other goals for this movie should be aims for lowest score and pacifist run
That's true, although those goals were met without any effort.
NrgSpoon wrote:
Maybe this would be categorized best in the concept demo area.
I thought about that too. If there are more games that can be completed in ~10 seconds, there's probably no reason to publish all of them. If this movie would aim for being the "shortest TAS ever", then any movie that's faster could obsolete it.
adelikat wrote:
For anyone not familiar with the game, what happened in that TAS is astronimical.
TAStronimical! :)
This is getting more positive votes than I thought. If it gets accepted, give it a month before publishing it. It's always possible that someone (including me) can improve it in the near future.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Edit: Oh, if you'd like to see what "normal" playing looks like, Ouzo's movie that aims for defeating all the villains can be found here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4317
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The desynch issue is not solved yet. I'm going to test all the controller/sound settings now with Gens 9J.
---
Edit:
Hey, this is nice, Gens 9J gives a warning message:
"Saving during DMA transfer; savestate may be corrupt. Try advancing the frame and saving again."
Cool.
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Edit-2:
I think recording should be manageable with 22050 sound rate and 3-button controller. Let's see...
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Edit-3:
The probability of a desynch was greatly reduced with 22050 sound, but it's still not fun enough.
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Gens 9J is super cool!
Now it's possible to disable the fog of war (graphics layer 3). This will make planning the routes and observing enemy movements very much easier.
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Heh, it's funny how fast you destroyed the enemies. It makes the game look stupid (which is good) and repetitive (which is bad). Sadly, there's probably not much audience for a movie like this.
I'm going to give it a weak "yes", but I have a feeling it won't be published.
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1) The location of the sceptre is determined when the player character is chosen. The result can also be affected by moving the cursor randomly before choosing the character.
2) By disabling the sprite graphics (using Gens 9j) you can see all the puzzle pieces at once. (Memory reading would be more effective way to check the sceptre location, but I can't do that yet.)
So, I just start a game with sprites disabled to immediately see where the sceptre is located. If the result is not good, I try different cursor movements before starting the game.
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Well, that was fun!
Your strategy was very good, the battles were fast and your movement was very precise. It definitely did look tool-assisted. I'd probably vote Yes for it (if it was finished).
Planning the route is the hardest part, because the item placement can be manipulated. It's almost impossible to verify that the world you get is the best possible world.
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Starflight is a funny game. I guess it is supposed that the player takes time to explore the galaxy, slowly collecting resources, upgrading the spaceship, chatting with aliens, searching for powerful artifacts... However, the initial resources (50 000 MU given in the beginning of the game) are enough to complete the game.
Here's how:
1) name yourself (A)
2) recruit a crew (one human called A)
3) sell Class 1 engine and buy Class 4 engine
4) name the ship (A)
5) buy fuel
6) leave starport
7) collect Black Egg (this item is a bomb)
8) collect Crystal Orb (this item negates Crystal Planet defences)
9) destroy Crystal Planet with Black Egg
A few things I noticed:
- Some encounters seem to be unavoidable.
- Weapons can't be used because they waste fuel.
- Planet positions can be manipulated.
Here's a rough movie that shows how to complete the game in 4 minutes: http://www.freewebs.com/aqfaq/starflight-tas.zip
Under 3 minutes is possible, but I think I've had enough fun with this game already.
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canckeraep wrote:
I've been playing this game since childhood and I never kwew it wasn't necessary to play the occarina instrument. How did you do this?
Actually, I do play the ocarina, but it happens so fast that the game can't reproduce the melody. With tool-assistance it takes only a fraction of a second to play those little tunes. You can hear some of the notes, if you listen to it carefully.
I can see that you clearly know the game. Thanks for your comment.
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MovieWatcher wrote:
Wow... great movie...
Thanks.
MovieWatcher wrote:
has this game by any chance been released for Amiga too? I remember playing a game very similar to this about 15 years ago or so...
It's probably some "other" Wonderboy game. There are thousands of them and they get thoroughly messed up each time. For example, the published AVI is called wonderboy3000... even though the game is actually Wonderboy 5000. :P
Thanks to DeHackEd for encoding.
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Updated: http://www.freewebs.com/aqfaq/pq1.fcm
1st set of skeletons destroyed at frame 1741
2nd set: 1999
3rd set: 2272
It's not perfect, but I have no motivation to improve it.
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I noticed that hitting some target (a tree, a gravestone, an enemy) causes 1 frame lag every time. So hitting targets should be avoided as much as possible. Same goes for moving the flippers up and down, which causes lag if there's too much action going on (However, the lag is not noticeable, so it might look cool if the flippers moved in synch with the music.).
adelikat wrote:
are you planning to finish this wip? :)
Probably not, unless someone wants to do it together with me.
Someone should try to beat my movie. Any of these checkpoints may be improvable:
Grave: 361
Gate: 1466
Ball re-launch: 1601
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Here's a movie that shows how to be fast in the first half of the first level: http://www.freewebs.com/aqfaq/pq1.fcm (It's my first FCM ever.)
Gravestone is hit at frame 361 (Xkeeper's submission: 384)
The gate is hit at 1466 (Xkeeper: 1602)
The upper part of the level is very difficult to optimize and my movie stops there. The problem here is that it doesn't matter how early you hit the first skeleton, because all (three) of them need to be hit.
Destroying the skeletons might be a suitable task for Bisqbot.
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I tested this game briefly and it seems that it is not necessary to WALK to the next level. Simply, pressing B in the level transition hallway moves you straight to the next level. That saves many seconds, right?
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Edit:
2 frames can be saved before the game even starts. In the beginning you pressed START-IDLE-START, but START-B is 1 frame faster. Same goes for the game-mode selection screen where you pressed UP-IDLE-START, when it's faster to press UP-START.
I completed the game once and I must say it was not an easy task. The movie is actually quite good, but can be improved.
It's roughly a 1/4 chance that the sceptre is located in the first continent and it can be only on the light green squares.