Posts for Derakon

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Posted: 6/1/2009 9:32 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I suspect that a Tails-only run of S3&K would not be much different from the Sonic & Tails run, seeing as Tails can carry Sonic when he flies.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/1/2009 5:04 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I apologize for my earlier post. The insinuations I made were not warranted. I guess that shows what I get for writing a post when I'm physically and mentally exhausted.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/1/2009 1:42 AM
(Edited: 6/1/2009 5:05 PM)
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Holy cats, I leave my apartment for a day (to go to the Maker Faire), and a run gets submitted, argued over, and gruefooded before I get back? I agree, that seems overly fast. If nothing else, people who don't visit the site on the weekends should have an opportunity to comment. This was on the workbench for only a smidge over eight hours. EDIT: I missed the fact that this submission was cancelled by its author, not gruefooded by a moderator. My sincere apologies. The rest of the original post continues below. Unfortunately, I can't myself watch the movie; a pity, because it sounds like the kind of thing I've been asking for -- a demonstration tournament video that shows what each player in the game can do when controlled by a TASer. The extent to which that description is achieved appears to be up for debate, though... SDR: for future reference, there are ways to overcome the "maximum keys pressed" limit. SNES9x should have an "auto-hold" feature which will make the emulator record a key as pressed until you tell it to stop. Alternatively, you can also bind several controller buttons to the same key on the keyboard.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/1/2009 1:06 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
As far as I'm concerned, this takes the nice Sonic 1 levels and plays through them at a speed that's generally much more entertaining than Sonic himself can manage. Assuming you have a skip-ahead button to skip the bonus tallies, then, this run is more than entertaining enough to stand on its own. Given the existence of the Knuckles run, I say they should both be published, and their descriptions should refer to each other, so viewers can pick which second-string hero they want to watch.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/29/2009 4:38 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I think the issue there is that the developers expected you to install the game to the 360's hard drive, but not all 360s have hard drives. I don't remember the development history for the 360, but that might have surprised the Sonic developers (who could have assumed that like the original XBox, all 360s would have hard drives). It's still inexcusable that the load times are that bad, mind you. I'm just hypothesizing for a reason they are like that. Doesn't help the game itself being crap, of course.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/28/2009 1:27 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I suspect that the MZM planners just weren't quite subtle enough. Super Metroid has a clearly defined "intended" route, but all of the deviations from that route might have been planned for...then again, they might not have! You have to be pretty damned clever to make it up the Red Brinstar shaft without the ice beam, for example...but it's eminently doable in realtime if you're skilled enough. Or getting the super missiles without fighting Spore Spawn by using the mockball -- what is, to all intents and purposes, a glitch. Except it might not be a glitch; it certainly behaves very cleanly with the game environment unlike most glitches you find in other games. The fact that it's so hard to figure out what the designers did and didn't plan for is part of what makes it fun to break Super Metroid. Obviously they had to do some planning as soon as they added the walljump and decided to keep infinite bomb jumps in, but then they added in roadblocks that should prevent even those abilities from letting you get by, but then you find a way around them... In contrast, Metroid Zero Mission mostly just puts in some hidden passages and calls it a day. You need skill to play the game with fewer powerups than you're "supposed" to have, yes, but not a lot of cleverness; just knowledge of which walls are real.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/28/2009 1:20 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I suspect that, given how long the Ornah fight takes, it's worth being at max level for him; the question really becomes when you want to max out your attack level (which is determined by how far out of your way you have to go to get each powerup).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/26/2009 7:14 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Hey, I'd watch it. Valkyrie Profile has a much more interesting battle system than most RPGs do, and I usually find TASes to be more entertaining than human speedruns.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/25/2009 6:09 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Heh. I've always considered Xelotath to be the easier one to run because of her weak zombies (though the inability to decapitate monsters because of that phantom limb syndrome is certainly annoying). Playing with her as the final target would result in plenty of sanity drain, from running past zombies that are doing the "green gaze" on you, and usually it wouldn't be worth your time to cast the spells needed to restore it. Presumably all of the "This can't be happening" cutscenes would have to be manipulated away, though, since they're strictly "wasted" time.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/25/2009 6:04 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Thanks for the encode, FractalFusion. I have to say, though, I didn't really find it all that interesting. It's a nice demonstration of just how far luck manipulation can take you, but there's not really any gameplay to speak of, and the music is horrendous (apparently because of an emulator bug?).
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/25/2009 1:43 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Maybe they're trying to tell you that practically, knowing how to plug in numbers is an important part of real-life mathematics and physics. Don't get me wrong -- theory is vital. Without theory you're just doing everything by rote. But if you can't apply that theory, then there's very little you can do with it.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/25/2009 1:39 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
In the grand scheme of things, 30-40 seconds is not a huge deal. Good luck with the run!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/24/2009 8:29 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Er, what about the examples being posted in this thread of lossless encodes that are smaller than the official, lossy encodes? As noted, it only works for certain games, but if it produces better quality at a smaller filesize, I see little reason to complain.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/23/2009 9:16 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Don't you also need all the visors to beat Prime phase 2? Or can you hit her even if you can't see her?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/23/2009 8:48 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The Castlevania series continues to have more and more absurd ways of moving quickly. SotN had backdash-spamming, Wing Smash, and the Big Throw; AoS had backdash-jump and Julius's divekick-spam; HoD had whatever you call that weird rebound-off-of-candles thing; now we have backdash-switch-cancelling. :) The run amused me, though if it were longer I suspect I would've become bored. The noises during movement didn't annoy me (again, for a short movie; a longer one should probably mute voices), and your hovering during the Dracula/Death fight was nice.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/22/2009 4:42 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I've never played the game myself, but a friend of mine who has always claimed that "Hard Mode" was easier than "Easy Mode" after the first few levels, largely because you got to confer massive bonuses on your PCs through items that weren't available in "Easy Mode". So what exactly are the differences between the different difficulties? What's your reason for picking "Easy mode B"? Normally we say to go for the hardest available difficulty unless that doesn't add anything to entertainment (e.g. a brawler where hard mode just doubles every enemy's health, or a platformer where it just removes checkpoints/makes the player die in one hit), but it's entirely possible that you are picking the "hardest" difficulty...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/21/2009 7:44 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Warp: I'd say the run doesn't complete all the levels because that would be a very boring run. If level 20 took 60 seconds to complete and level 1 took, say, 10 seconds to complete (so adding 2.5 seconds of additional time per level) then you're looking at a 12-minute-long run, which is pretty long for a simple game like this. Alternatively, you can look at the earlier levels as just being the same game on an easier difficulty. Then asking why they aren't played would be like asking why the Ghouls 'n Ghosts runs by FerretWarlord don't play through the game twice.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/21/2009 5:28 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The special stages aren't all easy. In fact, they get really quite difficult towards the end. Of course the first one isn't anything special. Depending on how much room there is for Sonic to entertain during them (and it is stylus-based, so a TAS of a special stage could probably yank him all over the place at very high speeds), I wouldn't be averse to seeing an all-emeralds run. But given the route changes necessary to access the special stages, it should be a different run from the one that completes every level as fast as possible.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/21/2009 5:20 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Looking good! I guess Very Gnawty's invincibility doesn't give out until he's halfway through the jump? That's kinda weird.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/21/2009 5:12 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
The master of time and space? The wizard of speed and time?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/20/2009 5:45 AM
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Derakon
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Thanks for the encode, Gocha! Man, I can't give over how goofy Arthur's one-frame jump animation is. Especially given how they could easily have done a better job of animating it on the SNES (or, for that matter, on the Genesis), but chose not to. I suggest the bit in stage 3 where Arthur walks through lava in his boxer shorts for a screenshot:
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/20/2009 3:36 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
As I see it, there's basically two types of movies you can make for a street fighter-type game. The first is a combo video, where you show off the different techniques one fighter can perform. Depending on the game and the fighter in question, these can be more or less varied, but I think it unlikely there's a character with sufficient variety to be able to carry it through all of the CPU opponents. Eventually you run out of ways to combine moves, and from that point on the movie gets very repetitive. The second type is much more of a demonstration, along the lines of what Baxter was suggesting. You set up some kind of structure to let you play all of the characters in turn. This lets you show off every character's moves, which greatly multiplies the variety in the movie, but it needs a good end-condition. For my part, I'm in favor of doing a "human" player-only run which just shows off a series of versus matches. You start off, say, with Ryu vs. Ken, and do a match showing off their respective abilities. Neither gets flawless victories, but they have a chance to show off dangerous moves, perfect reversals, complicated combos, etc. One of them wins, so the "player" that lost pulls in a new, different character to challenge the winner. And there's no guarantee that the new character will win! Maybe Ken rings up three matches in a row before losing. That way you don't know going into each match who's going to win, so you preserve interest. But you manipulate things so you can get a nice climatic battle (I don't know, maybe Akuma vs. Vega?) for the last match, with the winner of that match winning the "tournament" and ending the show.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2009 10:16 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
For normal lag, yes. I was suggesting that there might be an emulator bug. Obviously I have no evidence for such a claim, though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2009 7:39 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
How much validation does Sonic Center do? I could easily see people lying about the times they get just so they can be at the top of the list. Alternatively, if the people at the top are known to be good speedrunners of other Sonic games (where the runs can be more easily validated than on the DS), that lends their times more credibility. Of course, given that link ComicalFlop gave to a verified run that's faster than the TAS, it's clear you still have some more improvements to find. :) I can see how figuring out where they are would be difficult given the quality of the "encode" of that video, though. I don't suppose it's possible that the emulator's timer is off compared to reality? It should be possible to check by timing some simple action (like running horizontally from the start of the level until you hit some landmark) in the emulator and in the game.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2009 4:08 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The key to having fun here is to realize the potential for setting up complicated combos. If you just go for making four-in-a-rows to clear the viruses directly, then yes, it's rather boring. It's much more interesting to try to use every single pill you get as part of some grand combination that'll clear many sets of viruses.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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