TASVideos

Posted: 8/12/2009 4:32 AM

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Derakon

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"Broken down for the layman" could include discussion of game mechanics, y'know. It's patently obvious that there's not any significant amount of text in either of the games you listed, so I assumed you were looking for some other kind of in-depth discussion.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/12/2009 2:30 AM

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Derakon

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Does collecting the crystals require anything more interesting than going through the levels would otherwise allow for? Or is it just a more "complete" run? Usually TASes try to avoid bonus-giving items if they have the option.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/12/2009 2:28 AM

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Derakon

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People are going to make priorities for the games they think are worthy (or simply for the games they actually know anything about). We shouldn't demand that other movies get the better treatment first if nobody's willing to provide that treatment for those games.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/11/2009 5:53 PM

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Derakon

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No, he managed to get it to synch. We don't ask for ROMs around here anyway. I like your avatar, by the way. :)

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/11/2009 5:55 AM

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Derakon

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Shouldn't be more than ten minutes or so, I'd think. It may be that this was lost in the site transition, though. I suggest making a post in the Sites subforum asking about this.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/11/2009 1:26 AM

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Derakon

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There should be an autoseeder that kicks in if you wait for a bit. Is that not happening?

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/10/2009 4:56 PM

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Derakon

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Whelkman: that just goes to show that they didn't really change the Sonic engine much from Sonic 1 through Sonic & Knuckles. :)

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/10/2009 6:20 AM

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Derakon

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I believe the suboptimality in this case refers to Richter, since the optimal run would just be Maria rolling through the entire game. However, that would require a dirty save to have her be unlocked from the start. And you're right about the "prequel" bit; it should probably be labeled a predecessor instead. But that's really pretty minor.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/8/2009 10:42 PM

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Derakon

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Thanks for the encode, Alden! Always a pleasure to watch a Gimmick run, and the improvement was not only quite noticeable but also pretty cool. Nice work. :)

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/8/2009 8:33 PM

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Derakon

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It'd certainly make the movie objectively better. Unless you just can't get enough hot cursor action.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/8/2009 4:43 PM

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Derakon

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For a freely-provided storage solution that provides neat little bits of metadata about the files we're uploading, I'm not about to complain.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/8/2009 7:40 AM

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Derakon

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Janus is working on Breath of Fire 2; it's not exactly a short game.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/7/2009 6:22 PM

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Derakon

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Looking good! :)

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/7/2009 5:01 PM

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Derakon

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The F-Zero X TAS that was being worked on was being done as a set of time-trial runs with a fully-unlocked game. This was necessary not just to allow access to all of the courses, but also to let the TASer use the optimal cars for each course. F-Zero GX is no different in that respect. How prevalent would spaceflying strategies be? I view that as being basically similar as doing tight loops in Mario Kart, and the published TAS certainly does that plenty of times. If you could do them on most courses, though, then it seems reasonable to institute a "no spaceflying" rule.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/7/2009 4:57 PM

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Derakon

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I think most people will agree that TASVideos needs to rework how it publishes movies so that there's a place to put these "super niche" videos (that are made primarily for fans of the game) without having to give them the same prominence that the more standard runs (any% and 100%, and maybe low%) have. Once that's done, Saturn's 14%, the SB 14%, RBO, et cetera could all come out of the woodwork.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/6/2009 11:59 PM

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Derakon

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"Scarily obsessive amounts of practice" is generally what I assume when I watch things like this or perfect runs of bullet hell games.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/6/2009 4:56 AM

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Derakon

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Part of the point of using Perfect Dark is so you can deny yourself any useful weapons. The Cyclone, and especially the Reaper, have absolutely terrible accuracy; in the latter case, you're lucky to hit a target that's standing two meters in front of you when you're pointing right at them. You can easily demonstrate this for yourself by turning on paintball mode and spraying a hallway. Yet the AI has perfect accuracy with them from across the room. So going up against Darksims with the only weapons available being Cyclones is a recipe for disaster. Reapers might actually be more feasible since there's a spin-up time involved, which would give you more leeway in dodging behind walls. Under normal circumstances, TASer vs. Darksim just becomes "perfect reflexes that can plan ahead vs. just perfect reflexes", and it's pretty clear who's going to win that exchange.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/5/2009 6:43 AM

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Derakon

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Thanks for the encode, Alden! In Zone 3 you grab a vine and then slide down it before jumping to the ground. You have plenty of clearance to make the jump as soon as you grab the vine; why not jump immediately? The point where you take damage in Zone 3b (not counting the boss) seems a bit awkward, since you attack but do not kill the guys that attack you. At around 6:04 (Zone 4c) you hit a bat while standing on the ground, which makes you stop for a bit. Couldn't this have been hit while in-air, or manipulated out of the way, or just jumped over? Getting hit by the Zone 4 boss pauses your charge timer. It seems like this should be avoidable. I'm not convinced that the second damage-taking was worthwhile -- you gain 12 frames of not watching the health bar tick down at the cost of having to suffer a get-hit animation and splitting up the bosses so they're on opposite sides of the screen. Can you hit both bosses with the same charged strike? That'd really speed things up. It seems like Zone 5t could have been handled better; you land very far from the door. If you're going to take damage from the enemies anyway, you may as well set it up so you can land closer and not have to walk as far. When fighting the final boss, it looks like your fastest attack speed is when crouching; is that just my imagination? Standing definitely feels slower. As it stands, even if this movie is played optimally, it doesn't look optimal, which is distressing. Little things like ending the level standing in the middle instead of on the right may not make an actual difference, but they look sloppy; generally I feel it's best to show the viewer at least once "hey, look, even if I do what should be optimal, the game doesn't care". And then there's the enemies you hit but do not kill, the situations where you pause a bit before taking damage, the axe swings in midair (to cancel the charge timer, I know), and so on. The fact that a well-played TAS looks sloppy points to poor game choice, in my opinion. Voting no.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/5/2009 3:41 AM

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Derakon

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1) Don't get hit 2) Don't fall into pits 3) Don't touch spikes If you're having problems, then you're failing one of those three. Figure out which one it is, figure out why it's a problem, and the improvement required should become clear.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/5/2009 3:35 AM

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Derakon

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For the most part, TASes are "played" -- that is, the TASer is telling the program directly which buttons to press at any given time; however, they're played very methodically, one frame at a time, with frequent backing up to try different strategies. Other programs often come in handy, but they usually aren't generating game input. For example, you could have RAM watch running to tell you exactly how fast your character's moving, exactly where they are, exactly how many more frames until their weapon is charged, et cetera. The most program-heavy runs are the ones where massive RNG manipulation is needed. For example, in Shining Force, DarkKobold wrote a set of MatLab functions that would generate the inputs needed to obtain a given order of battle from the RNG in the minimal number of frames. His writeup has some details.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/4/2009 4:35 PM

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Derakon

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Apples: if you don't mind waiting for the heat death of the universe, we can do that. Say there's 8500 frames in the fastest possible movie, and the game has six inputs that matter. So to check every possible combination of inputs, you'd need to do 6^8500 checks. The actual number is smaller (we can assume, for example, that any inputs that result in Mario dying are unproductive, and that input during points where you have no control over Mario don't count), but even 6^20 -- every possible combination of the first twenty frames of input -- is 3656158440062976. If you could simulate 100000 frames per second, you'd need 1160 years to check all of those.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/3/2009 5:03 AM

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Derakon

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Bah. No ammo upgrades. They're just pure tedium and add nothing to the movie.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 8/3/2009 5:01 AM

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Derakon

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The Lolo runs have two key advantages: they're much faster-paced, and they have much more room for multiple non-obvious solutions to any given level. Having played a decent amount of Fire 'n Ice, most of the levels have just one solution, so the TAS devolves to implementing that solution as quickly as possible. There's also a third advantage the Lolo runs have that may as well be mentioned: they're already published on the site. That makes it much easier for improvements to be published.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.