Posts for Darkman425

Posted: 10/4/2024 11:42 PM

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Darkman425

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Since this submission was published, you'd need to make a new submission for any improvements regardless of how big or small it is.

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Posted: 9/25/2024 8:37 PM

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Darkman425

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I want to ask a quick question about the SOS part. How different are the routes for the best endings for each character? If they're distinct in their own way in terms of routing and planning, it would make sense that each character's best ending route would be their own distinct branch. Also from I've been informed, there isn't any completed best ending TASes that exists to work with so you'd need to have someone make one if you need it for RTA purposes.

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Posted: 9/8/2024 8:06 PM

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Darkman425

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Playaround TASes are definitely something that feels like needing to vet for entertainment as usually that's the entire point of them. If they fail to entertain in any way then that kind of defeats the whole point of the playaround's goal. The tricky part is if it's meant to entertain a niche audience rather than a broader one.

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Posted: 9/8/2024 12:31 AM

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Darkman425

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I'm going to ask this question here publicly since there's probably others out there who might have this same question. I know that for a lot of older ROM hacks, primarily SNES ones, don't work right with most modern emulators with better emulation accuracy and/or real hardware. For SNES ROM hacks, I've found that some hacks that don't work with BizHawk's BSNES 115+ core but works with the other SNES cores (Faust and SNES9x). Would TASes of those older ROM hacks be acceptable even if they're using the less hardware accurate cores to get the hack working at all?

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Posted: 9/4/2024 5:53 PM

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Darkman425

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I'm having the same problems here. Seems like I'm missing one of the trusted versions of the game, according to the Dat-O-Matic database. The two No-Intro versions I have:

File:   NHLPA Hockey 93 (USA, Europe).md
Name:   NHLPA Hockey 93 (USA, Europe) (EASN)
Alt:    NHLPA Hockey '93 (UE) (REV00)
SHA1:   8EFC1CACB079EA223966DDA065C16C49E584CAC2
MD5:    CB3A005ADAB1CB99F24A7F8B8E420328
Status: Trusted, not verified
Entry:  https://datomatic.nointro.org/index.php?page=show_record&s=32&n=0926

File:   NHLPA Hockey 93 (USA, Europe) (v1.1).md
Name:   NHLPA Hockey 93 (USA, Europe) (Rev A) (EASN)
Alt:    NHLPA Hockey '93 (UE) (REV01) [!]
SHA1:   2AB048FC7209DF28B00EF47F2F686F5B7208466E
MD5:    B6FB2CE20122B319631AF6B697E64082
Status: Trusted, verified
Entry:  https://datomatic.nointro.org/index.php?page=show_record&s=32&n=0927

The version that the submission was made on seems to also be a good dump according to the No-Intro database:

Name:   NHLPA Hockey 93 (USA, Europe) (EA Sports)
SHA1:   76c0f3d4665ffcd53adfffaa27fc4dded694f8f7
MD5:    d49eba72cb0fffcf33469c23bfb713e4
Status: Trusted, not verified
Entry:  https://datomatic.nointro.org/index.php?page=show_record&s=32&n=3115

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Posted: 9/2/2024 8:20 PM

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Darkman425

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I tried directly transplanting the submission inputs into an input file set to PAL-M mode and it desynced immediately, even after adjusting the main menu inputs to get into the game proper. Adjusting the inputs to get the game to sync at 60 FPS would be a lot of work, and there's no guarantee if that would work since RNG could work differently with a different frame rate.

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Posted: 9/2/2024 3:55 AM

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Darkman425

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There was a small thing I noticed when watching this submission. At around frame 3860 is it possible to face left after entering the doorway, avoiding a turnaround animation? I noticed the inputs when entering that doorway didn't involve pressing Up or Down at all so I'm not sure if that turnaround is avoidable at all.

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Posted: 8/30/2024 11:04 PM

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Darkman425

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Considering that I've made a TAS for the NES version of Alwa's Awakening within a month of the game's release, if the game has an acceptable goal point and the TAS input file submitted is well optimized then it shouldn't be a problem.

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Posted: 8/29/2024 5:51 PM

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Darkman425

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Bag of Magic Food is also a pretty active commenter on Twitch and YouTube, so you could also just try to contact them through those avenues first.

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Posted: 8/27/2024 2:35 AM

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Darkman425

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When I saw this get submitted, I had to check to remind myself that there's already a Sonic Jam 6 publication on the site. [2693] Genesis Sonic Jam 6 by True in 07:53.69

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Posted: 8/23/2024 5:33 PM

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Darkman425

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I certainly could do the Time Gal ports, but I have a different idea for a series of follow ups. It's probably either going to be incredibly obvious or not at all obvious.

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Posted: 8/15/2024 6:19 PM

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Darkman425

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There were a few developers making the Game Boy Color do lots of bespoke things with the hardware, so it wouldn't surprise me that this would have technical hiccups on original hardware as well.

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Posted: 8/14/2024 3:54 PM

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Darkman425

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This thread has a lot to process so I don't quite have fully thought out statements to make, though I do have two things I wanted to at least do.

Dimon12321 wrote:

Regarding possible contribution to the community. - I am not very skilled at describing movies. That's why I don't ask to be a reviewer. - Judgement? No, I don't have time to perform deep investigations. - I have a computer (GTX 1060, Ryzen 7 3800X), that's not utilized that often. My internet is fast. If you provide a step-by-step instruction for complete dummies (because I previously didn't get lucky with TASVideos AviSynth package), I may encode and upload some TASes.

I can use this post to help with my first thing, since I can also respond to each part. From my experience as a staff member, I've definitely seen folks that think being a judge is some sort of difficult task. In reality it's usually not all that hard since my general process is to watch the TAS in the emulator for sync and note if anything feels visually wrong in terms of optimization. Authors usually have good author notes that explain those concerns. I usually don't go in to full investigations unless it's something that feels wrong in a major way and there's no justification for bits to feel off. If it's something minor ("maybe a few frames and that's it") but otherwise feels optimized when watching it then it's just something I bring up in judging notes. As for the points in Dimon12321's posts:

A review doesn't even need to be comprehensive. It can be as simple as "the submission's input file syncs from start to finish", which at minimum means that it's sync stable. Even something as small as that can helpful in situations where a judge doesn't have access to something that can play the TAS themselves for whatever reason e.g. being in an area with limited internet access or having to deal with computer repairs.
I've already said my piece that the judgment process isn't actually all that daunting. Even if you have questions, you can always talk with other judges, reviewers, as well as the community for feedback to help with judging.
Good news! There's a whole Publication Manual for TASVideos on the website that anyone can check out: Wiki: EncodingGuide/PublicationManual

As for my second thing... ...uh, I spent a bit of time making whatever the fuck this is for a dumb joke.

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Posted: 7/27/2024 11:33 PM

Post subject: Big Bad Game-A-Thon 2024 submission open

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Darkman425

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The Big Bad Game-A-Thon 2024 submission window is now open! Generally folks submit speed runs but they accept other ideas, including TASes. As long as it's a weird and/or bad game that fits the marathon's theme and follows the rules, then it'll be a good fit for the marathon. Big Bad Game-A-Thon 2024 submissions page: https://www.bigbadgameathon.com/submissions.html

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Posted: 7/19/2024 11:39 PM

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Darkman425

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I can explain what's going on in a rough order. I'll put them in a spoiler tag since this is a primarily narrative-focused game. I felt the game was straightforward enough that I didn't feel like I had to explain what was done and why but I guess I assumed wrong in this case. 1st half as Mary

Get the ritual book from the library
Get the bat guano from the centipede's room
Get the knife from the torture chamber
The order of the ritual items obtained doesn't matter
Go to the rooftop and attempt to sacrifice the princess
Fail to sacrifice the princess and return to Mary's mind palace

2nd half as Lucy

Get the green key from the spider queen's chamber by talking to her
Get the purple key in the torture chamber by pushing a block into the spot that opens the door
Get the red key in the library by activating books to open the passageway
Get the cyan key by talking to Mary's doppelganger
The order of the keys only really needs the cyan key collected last
Use the four keys to enter Mary's mind palace
Navigate the maze and talk to Mary to gradually open up the path to the center for the ending

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Posted: 6/2/2024 9:40 PM

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Darkman425

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Well over a decade since the last post here and the cross section of "makes TASes" and "interested in ZZT" is probably small but there's something I feel is worth talking about. There's a ZZT emulator called Zeta that can run ZZT worlds on modern systems such as Windows and Linux. I wonder: has anyone ever tried combining LibTAS and Zeta to try TASing a ZZT world at all? A link to Zeta, for convenience's sake: https://zeta.asie.pl/

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Posted: 5/17/2024 2:48 AM

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Darkman425

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If anyone's curious about how rank is normally determined by the game, this is a good place to look: https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/3394064-oyaji-system-daioh

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Posted: 5/1/2024 10:21 PM
(Edited: 5/1/2024 10:22 PM)

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Darkman425

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Changing language does affect the questions that show up. However, language selection isn't instant and requires watching the host walking under the language. This at the outset causes each language to be about 100 frames behind selecting English for every space away they are. I also did a quick test on French and the text from the questions is slightly shorter up until the Arts & Literature question. As it turns out, the French language when following the same path results in one of the questions that involves the host playing music, resulting in a time gap that was about 160 frames behind to over 18 seconds behind. I haven't tested the other languages but the initial time gap seems to be too big for possibly shorter questions to make up the difference.

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Posted: 5/1/2024 9:38 PM

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Darkman425

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You know, somehow that slipped my mind. It might be that I'm a native speaker of English and not much else. I might look into it later.

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Posted: 4/27/2024 6:41 PM

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Darkman425

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Okay, so... I did check with the "good" dump that has Sugoi? RPG removed with just Pico Pico Pirates by itself. It boots directly to the game without the Satellaview stuff at the start and the input syncs perfectly. However, I noticed that BizHawk didn't seem to run the game right. There wasn't any sound, the game display wasn't 4:3 (standard definition resolution), or run at the right framerate. This might be an issue with the default settings that need some adjusting to work right, but running the dump directly taken from the Satellaview cart didn't have those issues.

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Posted: 4/24/2024 8:11 PM

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Darkman425

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I actually haven't checked, but I can certainly see how it works out later in the week.

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Posted: 3/29/2024 4:20 PM

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Darkman425

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Hypothetically, if the lives bug wasn't an issue would the game still break if the score went over 1,000,000 points?

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Posted: 3/17/2024 8:23 PM
(Edited: 3/17/2024 8:26 PM)

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Darkman425

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Hmm. I took a look at the RTA times for arcade Mortal Kombat II on SRC. Going by RTA timing rules of starting from selecting the character to when Shao Khan is defeated in round 2, this TAS has an RTA time of about 7:14. Despite using a lower difficulty compared to the RTA rules, this is slower than both arcade speed run categories for Mortal Kombat II regardless of the usage of the high punch trick. HPT RTA record at this time: 5:56.433 No HPT RTA record at this time: 5:59.633 According to the submission notes of the No HPT RTA record, they theorize that with perfect luck the time can reach the 5:4X mark. Those times beat your TAS by over a minute with more optimized strategies. I recommend taking a look at the RTA strategies and try another go at this game for a faster time that beats those times. It's worth taking your time to make sure you've pushed the limits of the game as much as you can.

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Posted: 3/1/2024 9:32 PM

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Darkman425

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Took a quick visual check. The green shell kicked by the kicker koopa just before the moon room pipe in Pekora Planet is definitely grabbable with a little bit of extra time taken. A look at the gap seems like it should be possible to get a shell jump across. With that situation specifically, it's a question of whether doing a traditional midair shell jump is faster/more feasible than having the shell ride the 1F0 blocks and bouncing off the shell at that point instead. Either way would cut out the wait on the goomba recovery to cross the gap.

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Posted: 2/25/2024 6:38 PM

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Darkman425

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Learning how to optimize sections is more of an acquired skill with different possible processes. There isn't any silver bullet method that works for everyone since different TASers have different methods on what to look for. That being said... Since there are readily available RTA individual record videos for the courses of the DS version of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, you should definitely be comparing the lap times between your work and the known records available. If the RTA time is faster your TAS time isn't close, then it's worth taking a closer look at those videos and see exactly what's going on there. It's also worth reposting the info I managed to find out about item RNG and how it can be manipulated, from my judging notes:

Darkman425, from the judging notes of the previous submission wrote:

One of the main things I had to check was if it was possible to RNG manipulate what the item capsules give. With a little bit of work, I figured out that this is determined by the in-game timer when the item capsule is touched. I managed to change what I got by switching between braking and accelerating on different frames so the item capsule is touched at a different time. With that knowledge in hand, it's possible to reasonably avoid getting hit and losing speed in the parts of the TAS where the player gets hit.

This does mean that there are possibilities where going slower can counter-intuitively save time on the total race. This does mean you might have to widen the scope to beating total race times rather than individual lap times. The core idea of what might work is the same since you luckily have readily available RTA times for comparison: focus on just one course at a time and keep refining it until it at least meets or beats known times. Of course this does usually mean spending a lot of your time to actually do all that research and production but you have to remember TASing is something that takes time and experience to become good at.

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