I'd imagine that a final publication would leave a black space in the middle of appropriate width. It makes a certain amount of sense to not have that for the YouTube videos since they're fixed-resolution (so the taller you make the video, the smaller everything must be), but we don't have that problem for official encodings.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Man, some of those shortcuts are nuts.
I think my favorite part was how the second half of Twinkle Park gets completely ignored. I always figured that most of the background scenery wasn't actually solid, and even if it was, that you wouldn't be able to run on it. Sheesh...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I'd actually independently thought of the concept of TASing the first time I played through Megaman 1. I was massively abusing savestates, and thought "Y'know, if someone could watch this without seeing me load and save states, they'd think I was actually halfway decent at this game."
Turns out someone else did think of it, and actually followed through, to boot. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
My only concern with that idea is when someone makes a video that goes for maximum speed, but spends a couple frames here and there to liven things up a bit. For example, the submission text for the latest DKC2 TAS had words to the effect of "We know it's slightly faster to not kill enemies in this situation, but honestly it's only like two frames per level."
In practice, though, the definitions you gave are going to be slightly flexible, so sounds good to me. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Personally, I don't see any entertainment value in buying everything. Yes, it's needed for 100%...maybe you could just tack all the shopping on the end after the actual gameplay? Especially with the map navigation as slow as it is -- buying out that one shop took about 12 seconds by my reckoning.
I know that buying them as you go is faster, but from the perspective of wanting to make an entertaining run, IMO it'd be better to wait and have one large easily-skipped section at the end for all those purchases.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Nice find with the door! Mightn't a door be several objects, though, since it's the size of (IIRC) 3 blocks? If it's only one object and it causes 5 frames of lag, it might well be worth trying to minimize other objects onscreen when you scroll.
I'm all in favor of sacrificing time for entertainment, but I would suggest pointing those points out in your submission description so someone doesn't think you're being unintentionally inefficient.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
An exhibition of all the silliness in Pocket Fighter would not go amiss. Perhaps done as a "human vs. human" tournament?
Edit: any game that can make screenshots like this one can't be all bad:
(taken from the Arcade version, granted)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Level 20 was pretty dang awesome. Some good bits before that, but I think for a concept demo only doing level 20 would be the right approach, as it has a much higher WTF density.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Inichi's test run was never submitted. It'd be pretty weird to link to a post in the forum when saying "If you want to see a run that plays more of the game, go here".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
There was some discussion in the Site forum on keeping historically-interesting but obsoleted encodings around so that obsoletion wouldn't mean the "loss" of interesting movies. If that were to happen, then we could just include a link from this one to the previous any% TAS and all would be well, right?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Looking good! I liked the use of koopa shells to grab coins -- probably old hat for you but it's novel for me. Any particular reason to use Luigi instead of Mario?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
It's a huge investment of time, that's why not. The Final Fantasy games are vastly better-known than Alundra is, so they attract a lot more attention.
Don't get me wrong -- I'd love to see an Alundra run too. Just realize that saying "Well, someone took a year of their life to make this run, so why doesn't someone else do the same for this other game?" is a bit presumptuous.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Sometimes you do compile the functions directly into the program. When you do, you're statically linking the files; the opposite is dynamically linking. There's good reasons to do both. Statically linking helps keep your program independent of other files, but also means that your program will be much larger. Imagine if you had 300 programs that all statically linked a certain library. Every one of those programs is larger by the size of that library; that's a lot of wasted space!
Of course, these days storage space is pretty cheap -- but there's still a cost. If you had five of those programs running at the same time, then you'd have five copies of the library loaded into RAM. Really you only need one, which the five programs can share.
Dynamic linking (where the library is not compiled into the program, but is loaded at runtime) helps keep program sizes down, and in certain situations allows you to "upgrade" a program without having to recompile it (for example, if a security vulnerability is found in a networking library, you could replace the library without changing the program). Usually, though, changing the library means recompiling the program anyway because of changes in the way you interact with the library.
Basically, dynamic linking is more complicated than static linking, but lets you do some things that you couldn't do with static linking.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Comicalflop: because then you can't verify the savefile's stats are within the legitimate range. What if Super Metroid had a NG+ and someone started with 255 missiles? That seems like a plausible amount, but of course it's impossible to achieve in normal play.
The rules cover this:
However, there are certain games with unlockable modes that can only be accessed if a save file (or an otherwise "dirty" SRAM) is present. If you really wish to submit a movie made on such mode, you will need a verification movie first. Any input file that starts from power-on (for example, a previously submitted or published movie for that game) and creates the exact circumstances for your submission to sync will generally do. Note that you don't have to optimize the verification movie: it only serves as a save or SRAM generator that makes it possible to claim the legitimacy of your effort.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The way to do a movie that depends on a savefile is to create a movie that creates that savefile from power-on and then use the savefile created by that movie to do the second movie. The first movie doesn't have to be TASed or even remotely efficient, so long as it's verifiable and doesn't cheat. Then you submit the two movies together.
In this situation, using a bot to grind would be entirely reasonable. Just find a room you can go into, kill a monster, and leave, record the required button presses, and let it run for a few hours.
Edit: fixed wording.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Alundra is basically what happens when you decide to make a Zelda game that focuses on puzzle solving and plot instead of on combat. And yeah, it's pretty long.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Also I found it humorous that SMB3 and SMW are within ~0.23 seconds of each other in completion time now - http://tasvideos.org/1115M.html
This is actually a good point you are bringing up. It should be possible to create a bigame run that ends both games simultaneously.
I was going to ask what you'd do about the extra buttons, but I guess there really aren't that many -- mainly just you have two jump buttons in SMW and only one in SMB3. I suppose for purposes of getting a better sync you should say that any press of the jump button in SMB3 should coincide with a press of at least one of the jump buttons in SMW.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
(taken from the Arcade version, granted)