In order to help with this, today I added the ability to our YouTube module to play just a subsection of a full video. See http://tasvideos.org/BossFightingGuide.html to see videos that when played show only the exact segment in question.
I took a look at that page, and while the movie does start at the proper point*, they don't end after they finish the segment demonstrating the particular TAS trick/technique. Are they supposed to?
* Exception: Metroid. The movie starts while Samus is climbing one of the Brinstar shafts, far away from any bossfight.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
One thing I think would help keep the audience involved would be streamlining the do-it-yourself encoding process. The more people who can run a movie in their emulator and generate a file that can be uploaded to YouTube, the better. Obviously this doesn't make a difference in situations where the TASer isn't posting WIPs (for whatever reason) but when they are, it'd be nice if everyone could watch them easily.
What'd be super-duper awesome would be if someone were willing to write up a system where you could upload a movie file to a server and it would automatically encode it (possibly starting from a specified savestate) and upload it somewhere. But that would require some serious computing power, which isn't cheap.
Re: documentation of tricks. There's often a lot of documentation in the movie submission notes. It's worth thinking about ways to make it easier to find that documentation. For example, if every submission used the same section header for their "tricks and glitches" section, then we could easily automatically find that section in the submission, split it out into paragraphs, and insert the paragraphs into a wiki page for the game (making certain not to insert duplicate paragraphs in the not-uncommon situation that text has been copied from a previous submission).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
It's definitely an improvement over the previous attempt...but I still found myself watching the second and third worlds at double speed, and then giving up after that point. I guess I just don't find TASes of this game entertaining. Seemed a decent effort, though. Voting meh.
Thanks for the encode, sgrunt.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Lemmings (I'm planning on giving a puzzle TAS a star. I am not fully convinced Lemmings is the most action packed or entertaining for a first-time TAS viewer, or someone unfamiliar with the game. I am not the only one with this opinion, but there are some strong opinions otherwise, and the response in the submission thread was very positive. I'm currently tending towards giving Lemmings a star, or is there a different puzzle TAS preferred?
I think the Lemmings TAS has a bit too much deadtime to be star-worthy. I'm not certain what puzzle game we have that is star-worthy, mostly because I haven't given it much thought.
Kings Bounty (For some it's the TAS most deserving to be in the star list, for others it's a complete joke that it's there. Is there something like a category 'beats game a rediculous amount faster than intended', and if so, should Chrono Trigger take this star for now? Should they coexist?
Much as I love the King's Bounty TAS, I think the Chrono Trigger run represents a greater total achievement and is much more WTF.
Gunstar Heroes / Gunstar Super Heroes Which one is preferred?
Here I prefer Gunstar Heroes, for a few reasons: It has two players; it has a more interesting weapons system (which is taken advantage of for playarounds); it has better music; it doesn't have tons of shouting all the time.
Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past (Just thought I'd bring it up, should Link's Awakening DX obsolete this star, or should the coexist?)
Oooh, tough question. The DX run is pretty glitched-out, though, while LttP is mostly played straight; I think they're different enough to at least consider having them both have stars.
Family Feud (Very popular, and got multiple 2009 awards. The soccer TAS is however already a 'funny TAS', and quite a few other TASes that got 2009 awards were already starred now... should this also get a star?
Family Feud is clever, yes, but once you get the "I can almost write anything I want in here and it'll get accepted" the cleverness is just in what jokes the TASer decided to make, which is sort of orthogonal to the concept of TASing. I think leaving the star just for ISSD is sufficient.
Golden Axe (Does this TAS still have support for a star? Is some other TAS preferred in its stead?
To be honest I've never liked the Golden Axe series.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Cute and colorful. The gameplay looked good, too, though I found the second and last levels (with all the teleporting/doors) to get a bit tiresome.
I guess we'll have to wait for Saturn emulation to get a Super Tempo run.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Arukado: the comparison to Recca was just because I found it amusing that the same company made two games with such wildly different speeds. I feel like they could easily have increased the speed of gameplay in this game -- perhaps not double it, but an increase of 1.5x would probably still be playable. Heck, even the music sounded reasonable for the most part.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Thanks for the encode, Aktan!
I actually watched all but one of the levels on double-speed, and while that brought the gameplay closer to the speed I'm used to from NaxatSoft, the game still dragged on. All of the levels are basically identical: you run through a flat area, killing mooks quickly, and occasionally killing a boss before it has a chance to do anything. I spent the first four-five levels wondering if your character could even jump.
I have to say that I don't think this is a great game for TASing. Voting meh.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I do think that in general, Bare Knuckle 3 is the superior game; however, I also think that it'd be a shame to ignore all the work that atro city put into his SOR3 2P TAS.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Isn't "Perfect" determined not by wasted shots, but by not letting any of the birds fly away? So you'd have to wait quite some time to avoid the Perfect bonus.
As for the run as a whole, I'm going to abstain from voting until I can sort out how I feel about it; it doesn't seem amenable to snap judgements.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
FCM files are just lists of inputs at each frame of gameplay. They don't have video or audio encoded in them. What you'll need to do is capture the video and audio generated by the emulator while the movie is being played.
I know the Windows version of FCEUX has a built-in facility for doing AVI capture. I don't know about the Linux version, though. If it does it'll be triggered by some commandline option.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I seem to recall reading that TASing Blast Corps would involve doing everything from as far-out a view as possible anyway, right? Since more zoom == more lag. Same idea as looking down all the time in Goldeneye.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Don't forget subtitles. Those can also be helpful, and they can be easier to create than voiceover tracks since you don't have to worry about your vocal presentation and can easily go back and edit things. Moreover, it's easy to include soft subtitles in the published encodes.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The word "just" doesn't belong in that sentence.
R-Type games tend to involve a lot of memorization of patterns too; that doesn't mean that they have fake difficulty. IWBTG has cruel difficulty, but it'd only be fake IMO if your controls sucked or there wasn't a save point five seconds earlier.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Something amusing I discovered while replaying this: you can get the Eversing armor (second-best armor in the game) as soon as you get to the waterfall room. I just did a dive kick through the waterfall towards the left wall, and managed to break through. I don't know how picky the placement is; I did it without even trying.
I suppose it's theoretically possible that a glitchless TAS would want good armor because it planned on taking a lot of damage...alternatively, the armor does sell for a decent sum too.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Hrm...guess the problem was on my end. I updated my OS recently (OSX 10.4 => 10.6) and Azureus, which I was still using for some unknown reason, got me the resulting behavior. I've grabbed µTorrent and it got the movie downloaded just fine. Sorry for the bother, folks!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I can't seem to download the AVI from BitTorrent. There's apparently two peers with the entire file, but neither of them is sharing anything. I've waited for several hours; looks like the autoseeder isn't kicking in. Any ideas?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I dunno, for levels that blocked my progress, Battletoads level 3 is pretty high up there. In contrast, Quick Man is pretty straightforward once you get used to making your movement decisions while the next room is scrolling into view. And the Grand Palace is a bit of a slog, but I never recall having any serious difficulty making it through -- assuming I have some lives to spare.
Ninja Gaiden's last stage deserves to be on there, though. It's brutal and long, and penalizes you heavily for dying.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think it'd be worth trying a few levels frictionless and seeing what they look like, certainly.
It sounds like your bot would have to spend less time on move decision and more time on move simulation, right? That is, the search space is smaller, but each option requires longer to judge if it is acceptable.
I'm surprised that the game allows for unending shots but has no facility to cancel gameplay except for resetting the console.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Assuming that resetting doesn't block the ability to play in Pro mode, you'd still end up with a movie file that depends on prior-achieved state. It's not any different philosophically from recording from a savestate.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
