Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
feos wrote:
Will encode a quick one this evening.
I've actually figured things out well enough to throw together a passable temp encode, which I'm uploading to Youtube now. :)
EDIT: Or... nevermind, it's too long apparently. :/
RE-EDIT: Oh there we go, got it.
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
ars4326 wrote:
Ah, I see. In that case, is it also out of the question to possibly manipulate those three floating enemies into generating enough Hover drops and obtain enough fuel to clear the distance?
That was covered earlier in the thread. They can only drop Ps, not Hs.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
ars4326 wrote:
I've got a question that's been bugging me for the longest time. Since you're able to conserve Hover use by using frame-by-frame input, have you looked into the possibility of hovering straight up into area 7's entrance from the hall in area 2?
It's only really possible for horizontal travel. When trying to hover upward, if at any point you release A your vertical velocity is reset to 0, so to ascend as efficiently as possible you must hold A the entire time, meaning you just can't "stretch" your hover any when travelling straight up.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Twisted Eye wrote:
WOW.
How did you come up with that? That's amazing!
I was looking over all the maps again to see if any important doors were near places Jason could reach from an appropriately-pointed door. I noticed that the dungeon door in the lower left of the room with an "X" of floating platforms was actually just on the other side of the wall from the boss dungeon door. The various drops made it look almost impossible to get there from a glitchable door, but I remembered what you said about using enemies to slow your fall in Area 2, so I gave it a try anyway.
My first plan was to try to door glitch in the top left corner of that room... which of course failed, it plants you in midair and too far from any platforms to jump to or land on safely. Next I tried from the other side of the top right door, but when I came into the room my 5-tile offset put me way too far from any enemies to hop down safely, so that was also a no-go.
I eventually moved on to the left side door in the previous room. My original plan was still using enemies to slow my fall... which I eventually got pretty close to, actually... but the first thing I noticed was that as soon as I went through the door to the right, it still left me on the current screen, getting the game confused about what room to load. I tried jumping as I exited the door so I could actually try my original plan, and I worked on that in tandem, but I was having much more luck abusing that loading boundary.
Fairly early I was able to fatally fall into the room with the boss door, but I tried several times to enter that door before dying and failed. I'm glad to know that's possible, since it's probably faster than the silly fiddling I do... I'll need to die one more time anyway and coming into the dungeon with 2 HP would probably be awkward. I'll do both and compare when I actually get there, though.
Moving on, at about the point where I get out, the loading boundary seems to just stop producing safe platforms to land on. Whichever side I go to I just fall, while before I could cross the boundary a little ways, head back, land on something one or two tiles down, and repeat. Somewhere along the line, I got stuck in that ceiling and got to considering that there's an open space above it. I tried pausing to land up there, and I messed around with what would happen if I jumped off the top. Since the screen isn't set up to scroll up from there, it creates another loading boundary I can abuse.
Not too long after that I found that I could jump twice, "land" inside the ceiling but get forced down out of it... unfortunately it caused two extra damage and I was taking two getting onto that ceiling. I made a post about it in the WIP thread, but I kept finagling with it until I got the idea that lying down might make me lower so I could fall from up there without damage. It did, and after some more tweaking to get it so I didn't get stuck in the wall, I finally managed it.
So, uh... yeah. Basically I came up with it by screwing around until something worked.
And while I'm here...
UraniumAnchor wrote:
Timing is probably too precise for real time, sadly, for either yours or mine.
Oh yeah, definitely. So many parts in there I was trying holding right or left for one or two more frames, or one or two less, or whatever... just getting down through the lava is quite tight and it just gets worse from there.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Ohhhhhhh damn. So I think I found a good reason to actually go back and fix all the stuff Twisted Eye and I brought up...
Link to video
This should shave 20-30 seconds off, on top of the maybe 5-10 seconds discussed in the submission text and thread. So I guess the correct thing to do would be to cancel and resubmit after I'm done with this second (or really more like fourth) pass? Since it's probably going to be another few weeks before I'm done given how far back I plan to redo... Really, since there are some changes all the way back in Area 2 and I've been saying that I need to clean up my jumps better throughout the run, I should probably go all the way and start from "scratch." I'll be able to preserve a lot of it, but I want to be pretty thorough now that I have a much better grasp of how the game works.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Uh, wow... hey guys, so I found something kind of interesting.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1821403888/bmbm%20area%207%20shortcut.fm2
Unfortunately it's just the same as my finished run up until frame 91700ish, but still, what comes after that is really close to being magical. I'm 1 HP away from shortcutting to the Area 7 boss dungeon, which would probably save ~20 seconds. Does anyone have any insight on how to avoid falling damage on my way onto that roof? I'm pretty sure the 4 damage from the lava is unavoidable, as well as the 2 falling damage getting down through the roof itself, so if I can avoid falling damage between those (including if that requires me to take 1 damage from an enemy somehow) I'll be able to survive.
If it's possible, that will skip three rooms including the final room, one of those long hallways, and save me so much hover I won't even come close to needing that hover four-pack I detour for to take all the shortcuts I already take and maybe even a few more.
So does anyone else have any insight? Anything I seem to be missing, or more information on how that auto-correct mechanic actually works? I'm abusing the hell out of it here without knowing what's going on, so with just a little more info I'd probably figure it out.
EDIT: Nevermind, got it. :D So I'm probably going to end up redoing the run, unfortunately, but this is amazingly awesome so yeah.
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
UraniumAnchor wrote:
One last thing: The RNG is at 0x13. It only gets advanced when something reads it, and starts the game at a fixed value. However, the hopper enemies that you run across throughout the first room read the RNG every frame that they're not jumping, so in a real time run it immediately goes to hell.
I do actually mention that under "memory addresses," though I guess some clarification of the behavior would have helped. Also, for the part where I need to luck-manipulate myself 3 H items, I definitely take advantage of the hopping guys making the RNG extremely volatile; I intentionally don't jump too high so that the one on the bottom of the screen doesn't get scrolled off the bottom, so I can manipulate what the flying enemies drop just by killing them on specific frames. But yes, the fact that it only gets advanced when it's used definitely makes things very rough to manipulate ideally.
Also, good to know for the jump velocity being the trigger rather than time, I should maybe update that in the text... but at the same time I think I'd find it a bit easier to just use frame counts when TASing, so I'll keep it as is for now. Regarding the tank "crouching"... are you referring to the jump startup? I mention that your tank counts as airborne immediately after you begin jumping rather than once you leave the ground. I guess I don't mention that in the context of ice, but I thought that followed pretty easily. And if you mean something else by "crouching," do tell. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I think the stages which produce horrible barrages of sound are 7 and 9, not 8 and 10, since after the first game it says "stage 2" and after those two stages it says "stage 8" and "stage 10".
Anyway, I found it quite entertaining... I'm a big fan of these "barrage of minigames" games, and the assortment in this game is... very diverse. If I could understand it I'd love to actually play this with some friends. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Hi everyone! I finished updating my submission text and so I'm here to respond to some of the comments. Particularly Twisted Eye's criticisms, but some of the other stuff too.
Twisted Eye wrote:
* I'm really suspicious about leaving the Ps and Hs around--I get an inkling that makes lag worse? Haven't tested though.
Ps and Hs definitely contribute to lag in that they're more stuff onscreen. However, it's often not really possible to kill an enemy in a position where you can grab their drop without slowing down. Additionally, lag tends to appear at certain "thresholds" in this game, and as such having a bit of minor stuff around, like a P or an H or two, doesn't bump you up from one lag threshold to the next. Generally though, yes, it'd be preferable if enemies didn't drop any items you didn't need, and everything that was dropped was right along the way you're going anyway.
Twisted Eye wrote:
* Area 2 boss: Contrary to what you say in the submission text, the little diamond projectiles don't get cleared when the boss dies; they die on collision with a grenade blast--that might've caused the confusion. I just tested, and, yeah, you can use them to die in the boss room and save some time.
Whoops. Suspected it may have been something like that when I managed it against the Area 6 boss, but I had tested at 2 at least somewhat so I assumed it may have been some change to make the Area 6 boss harder.
Twisted Eye wrote:
* Area 4, the Jason deaths in the big room: You can jump on top of the ledge over the entry door and drop Jason from there to cut frames, 20~30 each time.
Aw man! That's helpful, but it also obsoletes the ejection seat. Why you gotta do this to me, man? :(
Twisted Eye wrote:
* Door Glitch in Area 5! I know you say that it causes lag to do so, but I guarantee that it saves time to do at least once. The first door won't save time (you can't use the pause trick unless you pause to reset position before entering the door + the position the glitch leaves you in right up against a wall so not really faster to do), the second door outright kills the run haha, the third door COULLLLD help if the lag isn't too bad (might be better to skip the pause trick? The window of possible-saved-frames becomes really small either way), but the fourth, final door definitely saves time to Door Glitch on, despite having to 'enter' the dungeon twice. I counted ~30 frames.
I was trying a fair deal in the other rooms, though I guess I didn't try skipping the pause trick before glitching... and I think I was assuming it wouldn't help in the last room alone since it didn't when I was trying to get to the Area 3 door faster, but I guess that one's different because you have to back up a bit.
Twisted Eye wrote:
* I'm curious about if the 4-pack of H actually saved time, instead of more luck manipulation from the hoverbots in that room. It's a good idea, though, I'm just wondering if one or two more H collected en route and crawling up the wall before Area 7's dungeon would be slightly faster.
Well, in the extended comments I've posted, I talk about some of the ways you can be more or less efficient with your hover fuel, so there's definitely some flexibility, but I'm not really sure how much flexibility. And if you try to get more from the hoverbots in that big open room, there's the issue that it would definitely slow you down, maybe even proportionally to grabbing the 4-pack. The area in which the hoverbots will actually show up is very limited, so in order for them to drop a lot of hover, a lot of them need to spawn. This will either cause lag by having a bunch on screen at once, or will slow you down by forcing you to wait for more to spawn. Additionally, the more hover you want to get, the more likely it is you'll need that golem guy down near the bottom of the screen to be onscreen. He makes the RNG really volatile, which is nice, but he's another guy onscreen and he's laggier than the hoverbots to boot.
Oh yeah, and thanks for the compliment on the area 3 bossfight. I'm pretty sure it's perfect, since I begin damaging each copy as soon as it becomes vulnerable and there isn't any lag during the fight. :)
feos wrote:
Encoding
Thanks for the encode! I was waiting to figure out how to export video with FCEUX until I was done with my submission text, but by the time I was ready you'd already posted it.
JXQ wrote:
Pretty much all your stylistic choices resonated well with me. All the little things really showed.
I'm glad you enjoyed my "playing around." I wanted to find something to do with those boring and time-consuming sections, and that's what I came up with. I hope my shenanigans while waiting for bosses to fade in didn't get to hold.
And yes, Enemy Below. I was writing that section and as soon as I realized what I was writing, I had to capitalize a couple of letters. :P
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Bump because I'm kind of upset about losing 140 frames for an unknown reason.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1897019008/bmbm%20wip2.fm2
So when I kill the Area 5 boss and grab the Dive Mechanics, I'm sent back to the beginning of the "dungeon," but with no enemies onscreen. It seems like the fastest way to take a point of damage is to exit the dungeon, immediately re-enter, and then head to the right to run into an enemy. Another direction may be preferable, but anyway...
In the current run, he's sent back to the beginning of the dungeon and there don't seem to be any enemies, but he begins walking to the left and, conveniently, one of the little guys appears directly in front of him. He takes the fatal point of damage 7 frames after the fade-in, rather than 147 like in my current WIP.
Why is that guy there for him and not me? It isn't the RNG state, since that doesn't update during the fade-in. What gives?
In other news, the boss kill in Area 5 is much faster, though I'm trying to see if I can change things up a bit to have less bubbles, and thus less lag, during its death animation. Even though the lag continues well after the bubbles leave the screen, I was earlier able to have only one lag frame occur during the explosion sequence, but after a significantly slower bossfight.
Oh, and in other news I still don't understand the weapon switching thing at all, but with some trial and error I removed most of the "extraneous" switches, keeping only the ones that actually save frames, and saving 17 frames total as well as making it less annoying to listen to. Notably, whatever is going on there is reset by continuing. After removing weapon switches I had to tweak input to adjust for new or removed lag frames, but the input after the first continue lines up perfectly as before. The RNG, 0x0013, is reset as well on continue.
This indicates to me that input from immediately after a backtracking continue should be re-usable, so if I want to switch to a run that doesn't skip area 4 after finishing the run this way, I'd have to redo Areas 4 and 5 but I could re-use 6 up until its backtracking continue, redo the following backtracking up until the continue in Area 7. But I think I'd be able to keep everything after the continue there. Which, overall, is a lot of work, but isn't as intimidating as I was worrying about.
EDIT: Ah ffffffff- ...I've gotten better at TASing, and techniques I was using during the Area 5 bossfight have revealed to me that I kind of botched the Area 1 bossfight. May need to redo Area 2 and 3, but on the plus side, my redo of the latter part of Area 1 has saved 34 frames so far...
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I guess I might as well post this to get commentary on any time-saving maneuvers I may have missed, as well as to see if anyone else can figure out what's going on with weapon switching.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/842086333/bmbm%20wip.fm2
WIP up through the beginning of Area 5, including the Area 4 skip via the door glitch.
So, for an example of the mysterious properties of weapon switching: If frame 2132 is adjusted so that Right is released for that one frame, thus removing a "weapon switch" that doesn't actually change which weapon is selected, then the tank's tires are at a slightly different rotation once the game resumes, but gameplay (position, velocity, enemy position, etc.) continues to line up until frame 2707, at which point a lag frame mysteriously appears. If an additional frame is inserted to compensate, the movie syncs once again until frame 21790 (19083 frames later!), where another lag frame appears mysteriously... and so on and so forth.
Digging around in RAM I haven't been able to find any sort of explanation for what's going on here. If anyone else has any ideas what could be causing this, your input would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: Oops, 2132 is a weapon switch that does actually change weapons, even though I don't use special weapons until after I switch again. An example of that would be 4441, where if that R is unset, the movie syncs until a lag frame appears on frame 21789. If a frame is added to compensate, that lag frame is recovered on frame 21924, another lag frame is recovered on 31977, but a lag frame occurs on 34043... and so on and so forth.
I suspect it may have something to do with the RAM used for sound effects playing, or something like that? I don't know though.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I've been digging around in RAM to try and find why switching weapons (even uselessly, e.g. switching from the rightmost weapon to the rightmost weapon) sometimes causes a frame of lag to appear or disappear significantly later, but I haven't found any leads yet. Since it's obvious this should be monitored to save as many frames as possible, it seems important to figure out... but I've gotten frustrated with no progress and so I've been trying some other things.
In particular, I was trying to find a way to reach the boss door earlier in Area 3 using the door glitch. Though I've been unsuccessful so far (and am fairly convinced now that it's impossible), I've learned a few more things about the door glitch:
1) When door glitching, you can jump for one frame after "exiting the door," even if this puts you in midair. This allows you to safely door glitch in a few locations that wouldn't work otherwise.
2) Entering your tank corrects your position, just like pausing or attempting to enter down-activated doors. Also, you can only enter your tank when your visible position coincides, not your map position. Unfortunately, this means you can't repeatedly door glitch to offset your position, then re-board your tank to improve your mobility.
I don't know if those were previously discovered, but there we go.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
AnS wrote:
Wait, how is doesn't update RAM Search? I've just tested branching, and it updates it (and if it weren't, that would be a bug).
Are you sure you actually switch between branches? To do it, you have to double-click the icon, not just single-click.
OK, I'm trying it now and it's working. I thought I was following your instructions, but I guess I was doing something wrong without noticing. Anyway, thanks!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
AnS wrote:
Not sure what you mean by desync in this context.
I guess this isn't the normal usage... I mean that I'm getting different results when it doesn't seem like I should. In one branch, I am "switching weapons" while paused, but in a way that doesn't actually change what weapon I have equipped. (Specifically, switching weapons to the right when I already have the rightmost weapon equipped.) This is causing a lag frame to appear or disappear significantly later, and I'm trying to figure out why.
AnS wrote:
To compare results of different movie branches you should use Bookmarks (movie savestates).
Though this helps me visibly compare the resulting frames, clicking back and forth between bookmarks doesn't seem to update RAM search, so that doesn't work. I'm trying to find what RAM values differ between those two branches, since there are few (purely cosmetic) differences until the lag frame occurs and disrupts the whole movie.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I've been working on a Blaster Master TAS, doing the whole thing by hand in TAS Edit... I just find it a lot easier and more intuitive than the traditional frame advance + rerecord method. However, it seems to interact somewhat strangely with RAM Search and I'm wondering if there are some settings I need to change or if there's a workaround for the issues I'm encountering.
When using TAS Editor, the emulator doesn't seem to re-emulate "known" frames when skipping forward and backwards. This is generally convenient since it means you can skip around more quickly, but it also makes it so the RAM values don't update in RAM search unless it's actually emulating new frames. This makes it inconvenient to find changes in memory over the course of a few frames without actually changing the corresponding inputs. Am I missing something?
Also, there's a RAM Search feature that I would find extremely useful but I haven't seen it documented so I don't know if it exists. I'm getting some desync when changing the input sequence during pause frames, manifesting itself as minor graphical differences (the tank's tires are rotating slightly differently, but the tank's position and velocity are the same) followed by dis/appearance of lag frames at seemingly unrelated times. It would be really great if I could use RAM search to compare, say, frame 2600 of two movies which differ only by a minor change in the input on frame 2132. Is there a convenient way to do this?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Twisted Eye wrote:
I seriously believe skipping Area 5 in U-Rom is not possible. The dumb door is way up in the air!! Messing with that weird auto-correct mechanic is still worth looking into. If it's not helpful here, it might yet be elsewhere.
Well, what originally led me to think it may be possible was this platform:
It's only one tile lower than the exit door, so if you could offset your visual position about a screen or so to the left of your map position (or significantly further to the right), then you could jump up to the door... but swimming around thinking in that context, it does definitely seem to be trying to auto-correct the map around you to your actual visible position. So yeah, it's almost certainly not possible to offset things much further than 5 or 6 tiles. I will look for shortcuts in Area 3, or for actually trying to beat the boss in Area 4, but that will be messy too.
On another note, I'm discovering that switching weapons when pausing and unpausing to remove door transition time somehow affects sub-pixel positioning or something. I'm going to need to dig around in ram and figure out what's going on there, and may even need to restart the run if it seems useful/harmful. There were some doors where I left in weapon switching just because I was being lazy and copy/pasting holding right or left the entire way through the door transition, but releasing the direction for the one frame when I unpause sometimes causes the video to desync.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Twisted Eye wrote:
Awesome, thanks for taking it up. The game deserves an update!
We already have a run that skips bosses, so I think it's only appropriate that a U-rom run should be All Bosses. If the only boss the U-rom can skip is Area 4's, there's really not enough of a difference to NOT go the full monty.
Also, using the Door Glitch should be easily faster--my thought is, exit tank BEFORE entering room and glitch across. Doesn't matter where the tank is if you're dying immediately anyway. It'll also be really useful in Area 5!
An odd property of the door glitch forces you to pause and unpause before you can go through doors that require pressing "down" to activate. Otherwise the screen just fades to black then fades back in with you exactly where you were. If this weren't the case, glitching across the room to get to the Area 3 boss door would be something like 16 frames faster (I did that a while ago, so I don't remember the exact number), but instead it's just not worthwhile. It definitely could help in Area 5, however.
I had a dream last night that someone figured out how to skip Area 5 as well, and posted about it... but it involved mario-esque enemy bounces to make some otherwise impossible jumps as Jason. -_- I'm still investigating a few things, though. If you use the door glitch 6 or more times in a row, once you cross the screen boundary again it seems to wildly offset your visual position from your map position, but I don't know the memory addresses that would let me determine where the hell my map position actually is. There's definitely potential there, though, so I'm still investigating for a potential Area 5 skip.Twisted Eye wrote:
OH! Also--did you use that Boss Door glitch against the Area 2 boss as well? Because you might not need to--I've long wanted to test the following:
1) Normal room fight.
2) DON'T immediately use the Pause glitch.
3) Wait until the first frame that he fires one of those diamond shaped projectiles at you from his head
4) THEN press Pause
5) Die on the projectile after unpausing.
Of course, it's untested--I don't know if A) the timing would work right, and B) the projectile can even harm you after the boss has started dying. If this idea works, though, than it should save the frames caused by the door transition to get back INTO the room to get the reward. This, again, goes to the Area 4 boss (Even LESS likely, though! His fireballs move fast. [God, maybe even the Area 5 boss, some of the bubbles are slower than others? No wait, the way it's done in Namflow's run is definitely better])
The timer before the boss arrives and becomes vulnerable seems to be independent, so the time for the screen transition isn't actually lost. On the first boss, I originally designed it as a normal fight and then changed things up to die on spikes in the previous room... the boss became vulnerable to damage on the same frame.
But since this was a while ago I'm second-guessing myself, so I'll probably check for myself sometime soon.
For the moment, I'll keep trying to skip Area 5, and if in a few days I haven't managed and someone else has chipped in to agree with you, I'll suck it up and actually slog through the sewer level. At the moment though it's 1-1 and in a tie I'm inclined to go with my own feelings.
EDIT: Wow, I'm not just getting offset, something very strange is going on. I've done things like swim over to the right, and then sink for a bit and wound up in air. I wish I could figure this out more, because this seems like it could end up being the U rom version of what happens in the E run, and IMO running around in a glitched out world is more interesting to watch than just zipping everywhere you want to go at light speed.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
So, since it doesn't seem like anyone has been working on this and there are definitely a bunch of improvements that could be made, I've started work on a TAS of the Blaster Master U ROM, taking advantage of Twisted Eye's discoveries in the previous post. I'm about halfway through the platformer section of Area 3, and I was thinking about how I want to proceed.
Firstly, it seems to me that on the US rom, without the Tommy infinite jump glitch, the first time you could reasonably take advantage of the door glitch would be just to get across the room faster on your way to the Area 3 boss door, and I'm not sure that would actually save any time. Has anyone discovered something in Area 1 or 2, or is that basically correct?
Also, I was wondering about the tradeoffs between making an "all bosses" run or a standard "as fast possible" run. It seems to me that skipping the Area 4 boss would make for a more interesting run, and personally I'd find it the most satisfying since I always thought the key was a cop-out "upgrade" anyway. Am I in the minority here?
EDIT: Got to the point where I continue, and thanks a ton, Twisted Eye. Due to the time loss from dying early, I was only 68 frames ahead after killing the Area 3 boss, but dying only once allowed me to continue 757 frames faster.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
natt wrote:
As far as "previous best time"... I just encoded what the game spit out at me. Not sure how there'd be a previous anything though, as the movie file only plays the game once?
The default "best time" is 999:59, and the default "fewest detections" is 9999, so that essentially any playthrough will take both records unless the game has been beaten previously.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
natt wrote:
I think you've misunderstood a bit here...
...it can certainly be made to sound different; just render with a different soundfont. If that would make it "better" in someone's opinion, I'm all for it. Just make sure your opinion is not based on "what it happened to sound like on some particular computer I had 5 years ago".
Ah, I misread your earlier post. Specifically:natt wrote:
The reason you get no midi at all, is because Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (the most likely one to use) bombs out because it can't operate in the Hourglass tasee environment.
This made me believe you were referring to a problem with how the default Microsoft soundfont is rendered, rather than a problem with how the default Microsoft midi output functions. I'm not as familiar with MIDI rendering as I'd like to be.
Anyway, that's interesting... I'm running it on a Windows 7 computer I got this year and the music sounds exactly like I remember from when I played it years ago on XP. I'm not sure what soundfonts are being used, since I'm pretty sure they were the defaults in either case. Anyway, I think some of the sounds in the soundfont you used are quieter than they are in mine... in particular, the music is significantly louder or quieter in different stages. I'd expect the intended BGM volume to be a bit more consistent.
...though realistically there's also quite a bit of nostalgia factor making me think the cheesy sound effects fit better with the harsher sounds of my midi soundfont than smoother sounds of yours.
On a final note, it seems a little excessive that the encoded video runs for around 2 minutes after the end screen is reached, and a little odd that the end screen shows the previous best time as 0:00 and fewest detections as 0... but now I'm feeling all nitpicky. Really I'm just happy to see something I made being published here.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I think this game is endearingly awkward, and the level of precision is also quite impressive. I'd give it a yes vote, but as above I'm still a lurker.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Wow, it's interesting that it doesn't desync with the midi support... makes me wonder what the original issue is...
Anyway, it sounds pretty good. The replacement synths have a few issues... some instruments sound distinctly different, some sounds are louder or quieter, etc. The synths/samples actually sounds a bit higher quality, but the improper balance makes things a bit weird... though also, I'd totally forgotten there's music during the end screen, so not missing that is good. So if actual Hourglass output is required for integrity, this is ok, but if we can get something more accurate that'd be better.
Other than being more careful recording the music though, I can't think of any more alternatives.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(228)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Hi, everyone. Thanks for all the support! It's my first time putting together something like this so I'm glad to see it so well-received.
Samsara wrote:
Any other Ikiki games in mind? Buntan would be interesting with the ledge-grab glitch...
I don't really have any specific plans for other TASes, Ikiki or otherwise. I have a bit of a history with Nikujin that led me to making this TAS. I'd love to do something else like it, but I'd need to have a project that presented me with the same degree of... compulsion. So this probably isn't the last you'll see of me, but I don't know what is next, or when.
Blazier wrote:
Having worked very closely with this game, I can say that the quality of this TAS is tremendous. I'm very happy to see the run completed.
That means a lot to me, thank you. How are things progressing with your revised Training run?
keatsta wrote:
Out of curiosity, are you the same BrotherMojo that made stepcharts for DDR/ITG? If so, I have to say I play your Buns of Steel chart like every day as a warmup, so thanks much for that!
I am indeed that same BrotherMojo. Always glad to know people are enjoying my work.
It's only one tile lower than the exit door, so if you could offset your visual position about a screen or so to the left of your map position (or significantly further to the right), then you could jump up to the door... but swimming around thinking in that context, it does definitely seem to be trying to auto-correct the map around you to your actual visible position. So yeah, it's almost certainly not possible to offset things much further than 5 or 6 tiles. I will look for shortcuts in Area 3, or for actually trying to beat the boss in Area 4, but that will be messy too.
On another note, I'm discovering that switching weapons when pausing and unpausing to remove door transition time somehow affects sub-pixel positioning or something. I'm going to need to dig around in ram and figure out what's going on there, and may even need to restart the run if it seems useful/harmful. There were some doors where I left in weapon switching just because I was being lazy and copy/pasting holding right or left the entire way through the door transition, but releasing the direction for the one frame when I unpause sometimes causes the video to desync.