Posts for Derakon


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His goal with providing another AVI is to help people get access to the encoded movies. It's a good goal, but as noted, the best way to do this is to provide more ways to download the official AVIs, not to add new unofficial ones. Additionally, it's a good idea to always have the site notifications on any videos you encode, since otherwise people have a tendency to accuse you of cheating...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Aww, the video froze (while the audio continued) for me while Samus was in the room right before the one you normally first get powerbombs in. It didn't appear to fix itself if I fast-forwarded, either. Did this happen to anyone else? Also, shinesparked walljumps look awesome. :) Edit: reopening the video and skipping past that point worked...but if I skip to a point too close to where the video froze, then VLC crashes. Weird.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Quoting from the rules:
Use the (U) version of a ROM unless there is a good reason not to (as an example a shortcut/trick which only works in a different version, or superior music), or the version does not exist. If you decide to start to a run using a version other than (U), make a post on the forum detailing why — this is to prevent future complications. It is generally safe to use (JU) (generic NTSC) or (JUE)/(W) (worldwide, autoadjusting) versions, as this usually means no separate (U) version has ever been released.
English is the lingua franca of this community, so it's polite to submit movies using the English versions of the games, when possible. Now, I'd add a caveat to the above -- if language is basically irrelevant (e.g. in a game like Gradius), then I don't see why a Japanese ROM couldn't be used. I haven't watched this movie, though, so I couldn't say one way or another.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Ahh, my mistake. I read it as "Hey, I have a great idea -- people could actually seed the video files on the site, so that they'd be downloadable!" Which is a complaint that's come up occasionally, so I figured I'd provide the standard response. Sorry for the misunderstanding. But yes, unless your encoded AVI was identical to the one that the officially published version uses (and I can't see how you could manage that without being yourself the publisher), I don't think your suggestion would work. Typically download speeds are very fast right after a movie gets published, though; if you grab the movie file then, then you can save it for later when seeds are needed.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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There's an autoseeder that will kick in if nobody is seeding the file, which will enable you to download any of the currently-published AVIs/MKVs on the site, albeit slowly.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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I'd recommend checking out the Special Stars discussion thread for recommendations; it seems like your goals nicely align with the purpose of the stars.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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I'm sorry, but I just can't read "Guess what guys I did" the way I'm pretty certain it was intended. Looking forward to an encode, though. Always good to see a new movie from you!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Plus, y'know, there's the coolness factor of beating a Zelda game without using the plot-required special arrows. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Okay, bad choice of words, granted. I'm sorry. :) Still, I hope at least the gist of what I was trying to say got across, even if we'd disagree endlessly on the details.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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There's more of one thing in the 70-star than in the 120-star, and yes, that's route planning. There's also less overall gameplay. And shock and horror, videos are less entertaining the second time you watch them, and if you spoil yourself on them, then they aren't as entertaining, again! In short, your statements are true, but vacuous. Anyway, personally what I'm looking at is "I'd like to see a BLJ-less TAS of SM64. Obviously 0-star is out, and 16-star isn't really relevant in this day and age. But having two 120-star TASes (one with BLJs and one without) seems redundant. Therefore, why not have a ''legit any%'' SM64 TAS? Fastest time to complete the game ''as it was meant to be played'' -- no BLJs, no clipping glitches, etc."
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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The main difference between 70 stars and 120 stars is that in the latter, you know pretty well exactly what the player's going to do when they enter a level. They have to get all of the stars in that level, and they're going to do them all in one shot to eliminate backtracking; the only question is what order they'll do them in. With 70 stars (or 16, etc.) you don't know which stars will be done. The player's picking only the fastest stars from each map, This does mean that Rainbow Road will not be represented at all, of course (ditto Dire Dire Docks). But it helps create more interest as the player tries to anticipate what the TASer will do. In short, there's more route planning in a 70-star run than in a 120-star run.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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There's nothing wrong with making an unverifiable video. You just can't a) expect it to get published on this site, or b) expect that anyone will believe that it's legitemate. I mean, Bisqwit made that Chrono Cross TAS as just a straight-up AVI. He could have cheated and we'd have no way of knowing. But it still made for an entertaining video (for some people anyway; I don't have the fortitude to watch a movie that long), and isn't that all that really matters in the end?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Your calculation was done with the Master Sword (level-2), but how much of a difference does the level-3 or level-4 sword make? In other words, would it be worthwhile to only temper the sword, and skip the super bomb? Or am I misunderstanding your analysis?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Awesome! So you retain enough control while sliding on the cliffs to avoid going into the water? Man, I can't wait to see that in action. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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It's only a cheat in the sense that you're using a character that the game wasn't designed for. It's a hack, like any other hack; would you say that the storable powerups in Mario Adventure are a cheat? Hacks on this site generally get accepted or denied on their own merits as games, not by comparing them to the games they're descended from. In short, fairness doesn't enter into it because nobody's going to try to compare the "vanilla" Sonic 1 run against the Tails in Sonic 1 run and use that to say that the Sonic run is slower. Though, it would be interesting to see how well Sonic could do if he had the spindash, insta-shield, and elemental shields from S3K.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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That is, of course, for US copyright law. Other countries have different laws. US copyright law is pretty ridiculous right now.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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I tend to think of BLJ as being similar in spirit to the cape in SMW -- it allows you to traverse levels very quickly, but it also means that you aren't really "playing" the levels, either. Yes, in the case of the BLJ, you need to do significant planning and it doesn't let you skip everything, but it feels that way to the viewer. I for one definitely wouldn't mind seeing a TAS that didn't use the BLJ at all. If the cost is slightly more time spent wandering around the castle, then so be it.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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You have two fundamental assumptions here about your population: a) each person in the population knows a fixed number of other people (independent of the size of the total population), and b) the degree of overlap between personal social networks is constant and not absolute. In other words, if you know 20 people, but each of those 20 people only know each other and you, then you form a closed social group that can't be reached. You're going to find such social groups in e.g. isolated villages, which renders the "whole world" thing moot. In any event, the former assumption forces you to increase the number of degrees of separation as the population increases. Obviously when you're talking about six degrees for 300 million people, the number of degrees of separation will increase only slowly. But if you assume each person knows 20 other people, and there's zero overlap (so social networks efficiently "cover" the population), then you can get from any one person to 20^6 other people in six steps -- a very large, but finite, number. Once you hit 20^6 + 1 you absolutely must increase the number of steps.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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The big problem with TASVideos schwag is that it couldn't use any copyrighted content, which includes any game content. So, what're you going to put on there? Text? "I can beat King's Bounty in ten seconds!"?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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If you want a "legit" movie making a savegame that has a maxed-out party, look up the last few New-Game+ runs. The most recent one was for the Japanese ROM to enable a special glitch, but the one before that should be usable.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Post subject: Simple little puzzle game
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I put together this little color-matching puzzle game over the last three days, and would appreciate any comments y'all have on it. It's Mac-only, I'm afraid (though a savvy Linux user could probably get it working); I don't have a Windows box to develop on, and frankly, I had enough trouble making a standalone Mac application. It's written in Python using the Pygame wrapper around the SDL; the reason it's such a bulky download is that the Python interpreter and all the necessary frameworks are included in the download; otherwise the program wouldn't work. It's a pretty standard color-matching game. Click on the white crosses to rotate sets of four blocks. When you have the board the way you like it, click the gradient button on the right to cause matched blocks to disappear and new blocks to fall in from above. Try to score as many points as possible -- you get penalized every time you rotate a new set of blocks, and the penalty increases as you clear more blocks. So far my best combo was a totally-unearned 1610 points, which I got by clicking the button right at the start of the game. Oh, to quit, hit the 'q' key. The game won't end on its own, and your score can go as negative as you like. All that really matters is your maximum score. Screenshot: I don't consider the game done, but I do consider it playable at this point, which means I can get useful feedback. I still plan to add things like sound, actual graphics (including better support for colorblind players), a UI, etc.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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I agree that CotM is not a very accessible TAS, and that if you're going to star a HoD TAS it should be as short as possible just because the sound and graphics are so horrendous. I'm almost wondering if we should just wait for some SotN TASes to get published and see if they're star-worthy.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Actually, I believe it's just that the overall rating is 2/3rds entertainment and 1/3rd technical.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Quick note on Umihara Kawase -- the sightseeing TAS already does the longest route possible through the game in terms of number of levels. There's a longer route time-wise, but that's just because a different set of levels is used which includes another boss. See the field map for more details.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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You're asking for someone to make what would be by far the longest TAS on this site. That's a lot to ask. Hence why everyone's saying "if you want to see it done, then do it yourself." At least FF6 is an extremely well-understood movie; heck, there's FAQs on GameFAQs that basically have all of the combat code mapped out and describe all the possible glitches you can perform. So you'd mostly just have to figure out your route and then do the necessary luck-manipulation to get the results you want.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.