Posts for Derakon

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Posted: 6/3/2014 3:45 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Runs get updated when people who care feel like doing so. If you don't like there being a suboptimal run, then feel free to fix it yourself; I'm sure you could figure out your Hourglass troubles if you really cared. Nobody is under any obligation on this site unless they choose to become a publisher/editor/administrator, and none of those roles has an obligation to produce TASes. (Is this "secret code" a cheat code? Because we don't usually allow runs that use cheat codes)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/1/2014 3:12 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Man, I missed the WIP you posted on the 29th. That's pretty awesome. I can believe that optimizing bat movement is a pain, but the results look great!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/28/2014 3:47 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
There's two kinds of "pacifist", as I understand it. One is unlocking the Massacre weapon to fight Tor with. That requires you to have 0 direct kills for the entire game. The other is maintaining a kill count of under 5 per level; that one gives you special options for some boss fights. In particular, if you maintain the truce in sector 2 then you don't have to fight its boss at all, and in the later fight against Iosa the Invincible, you get an AI helper (but most of your damage will come from using the shock pads anyway). There's also variations in Iji's dialog and her combat shouts depending on how bloodthirsty she is, but that doesn't really make much difference in a TAS.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/27/2014 11:42 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Dunno about crates; you can definitely find them in walls, but then you'd have to bust the wall open somehow (presumably with a bomb). Some fairly large amount of bombs would be helpful for killing the boss quickly, but it seems likely that the best time to get them is after getting the teleporter, not before. In particular, all the crates in Olmec's chambers can be accessed while waiting for bombs to explode...unless of course going up to get them takes you far enough from the bombs that they enter the frozen zone. Also, the use of bombs in that run was...profligate, at the very least. :) Most of them exploded pointlessly in the air. Can walls in Olmec's room have items? If so, manipulating a pickaxe so you could dig while waiting for bombs to blow up might speed things up marginally.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/27/2014 8:02 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Maybe I'm misremembering, then. I admit to not having experimented much with the teleporter. Pretty sure I've seen it used to teleport downwards in the remake, but that doesn't really say anything about Classic.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/27/2014 7:21 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Okay, that was pretty nuts, once all the tedious gambling was done with. It was hard to follow the teleportation, but I don't think you ever teleported downwards. Can't you teleport down as long as you're in the air?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/26/2014 6:21 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Taking no damage may not be feasible/entertaining, since many levels later on are packed to the gills with battles that in a Pacifist run you're pretty well stuck just walking through. Maybe theoretically you could hang on the edges and slowly reflector all the enemies to death, but that'd get old fast. But in any event, good luck! I hope you feel better soon.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/24/2014 3:03 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The respec command and a few other things I'd forgotten are on this page (the respec is the "nanofield reboot"). There are skillpoints you can find in each stage; each one amounts to an instant levelup. Naturally they require going out of your way. The only potential exception to this I can think of is in the last (or is it second-to-last? It's been years since I last played) stage, where you have the choice of either fighting a boss (Asha) or getting the skillpoint, by using a max-level weapon. Getting the levels required to unlock the weapon may be difficult in a speedrun, though. If you go the entire game without killing anything directly (note this requires getting that aforementioned skillpoint, since Asha, unlike other bosses in a pacifism run, is not killed for you by NPCs; also note that using the projectile reflector to kill enemies doesn't count as a kill), then you'll get the Massacre weapon right before the final boss, which will speed up that fight significantly. On the other hand, this requires you to maintain a truce in sector 2, and the game penalizes your in-game time if you do this for the entire sector. The speedrun by Ultimortal intentionally breaks the truce right before the boss of sector 2 so that this doesn't happen to him.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/24/2014 12:49 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Nothing comes to mind except for general-knowledge stuff like the respec command, skipping the Asha fight (may or may not be faster), etc. The creator ("Ultimortal" on YouTube) has some speedruns he's published that are probably worth watching, especially since they're annotated.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/21/2014 3:42 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Ultimortal difficulty comes with some odd restrictions on what you can do -- specifically, you can only upgrade your health, so you're stuck using the reflector for most fights (lacking the upgrades needed to make/use the more advanced weapons). I guess in an ideal world we'd see a pacifist Ultimortal run and an any% Extreme run, but beggars can't be choosers. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2014 10:43 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Ilari wrote:
Derakon wrote:
So, any opinions about having a movie published to Moons that is currently obsoleted by a movie that's in the Vault? In other words, can we have an obsolete movie show up in the official "current publications"?
Well, I didn't quite parse that, but technically the limits are: - A run can only be obsoleted by one run (not multiple) - One run can obsolete multiple runs. - Obsoletions don't need to be in time order. - Obsoletion chains need to be non-cyclic.
I was obliquely suggesting that we keep the current SMW run in the Moons category, while also publishing this run (which obsoletes it) in the Vault category. This would mean having a currently-published-but-obsolete run on the website, which I don't think has been done before. A similar approach would work for the Rockman 1 run as well. Mm, to clarify, by "published" I mean "currently accessible from the Movies tab of the site". I guess obsoleted movies are still technically published, but they aren't as readily accessible.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2014 10:29 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
So, any opinions about having a movie published to Moons that is currently obsoleted by a movie that's in the Vault? In other words, can we have an obsolete movie show up in the official "current publications"?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/19/2014 2:13 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Looking good so far! I look forward to seeing updates on this run.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/18/2014 8:09 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
This comes up every once in awhile; we've had several threads on the topic. Short version: you don't know just how slow it is. Long version: The GBA has 8 inputs. That's 2^8 possible combinations of inputs every frame. If you prevent the script from searching more than 15 frames away (i.e. a quarter of a second), then that means you have to search up to (2^8)^15 = 2^60 ~= 1 quintillion combinations. If your script can test 1 billion combinations per second, then you'll be waiting for a billion seconds for the script to finish -- about 32 years.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/17/2014 10:51 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Eszik wrote:
Clipping through the walls has absolutely nothing to do with arbitrary code. A 100% run should use glitches as it would make the run faster and more entertaining.
There's arguments for both sides. Personally I'd rather see an unglitched 100% than a glitched one, but ultimately it comes down to what the TASer wants to do. Maybe there's room on the site for both.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/17/2014 3:57 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
In other words, before submitting your Ikaruga run, you should probably ask for feedback from the forums. :) (Hell, you should probably ask for feedback after doing the first stage, since scrolling shmups are very hard to make entertaining TASes of)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/16/2014 3:45 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
It also can be possible to make an "encode-only" TAS on systems that can be emulated but not rerecorded -- that is, where you can't just record your inputs. Basically you start recording an encoding of your run at the start of play, and every time you load a savestate you restart the encode at that point (e.g. if you play to 10s, then load a savestate at 6s, then the encode throws away the last 4s it recorded). Bisqwit used a similar method to make a TAS of Chrono Cross before the PSX was TASable. He didn't submit the TAS here because there was no way to verify it -- it existed only as the encode.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/15/2014 6:57 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
This is ACE, right? The TASer achieves total control? Assuming that, who cares what happens afterwards? It could be literally anything; the TASer has already "won" by breaking free of the limitations of the game's programming. As far as I'm concerned, ACE TASes end when total control is achieved; everything after that point is just them playing around and shouldn't count towards the run's duration.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/15/2014 4:32 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The main differences of Magician mode, as I understand it, are that you naturally start with all cards, and that your physical stats are weaker than in normal mode. The former is almost a nonfactor for glitch-friendly TASes since you can access any card combination once you have at least two cards (albeit at increased time cost), and the latter can generally be avoided through use of Skeleton since the big bone is so bloody powerful.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/14/2014 10:46 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Right, part of the point of a no-DSS-glitch run would be that you don't have access to the "most desirable" cards for most (or, perhaps, all) of the run, because they make the actual strategy of the run pretty degenerate. Fast-run card to boss, skeleton big bone, repeat. You're not going to see weaker cards get acquired and used if you have access to stronger cards. And of course that means that traversal of the castle is a lot slower, but that's part of the limitations imposed on the run, so oh well.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/14/2014 5:21 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
(Haven't watched since there's no encode, but...) One of these days I'd like to see a run that doesn't use the card glitch (or Magician mode's access to all cards from the beginning), so that you'd gradually increase in powers as the run progressed. It might make routing more interesting as there'd be incentives to go out of your way to get certain cards, too. A Fighter or Shooter mode could be good too, where the cards simply aren't available at all.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/13/2014 5:25 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Imagine if, say, Super Mario Bros. 1 had a promotional game that contained a full set of 4 levels with a Bowser at the end. These levels didn't exist in the released version; they were only in the promo. Is a TAS of this promo version, which contains content that is otherwise not available, somehow invalid for not being a TAS of the "actual game"? In other words, I don't have a problem with this TAS; looked good to me. But, like alden, I would like to have an encode with sound if possible. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/10/2014 11:21 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
ZarroTsu wrote:
There isn't, and I don't have any plans on doing so, mainly because I don't think it's possible to do at all. It relies on whether or not there's a mac version of the original CS, and I don't think there is.
Assuming by "original CS" you just mean "not Cave Story+" as opposed to some specific version, yes there is. I played it back in college and still have the program sitting on my hard drive (modified date: December 2006). Granted the program name is "Doukutsu", but it's Cave Story all right.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/10/2014 8:26 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I've searched and haven't found, but I assume you'd know, ZarroTsu: is there a Mac version of this mod? It'd be nice to experience Cave Story again...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 5/9/2014 7:21 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I kind of feel like VVVVVV is one of those games where the only interesting categories are "snap it over its knee" and "play it the way it's meant to be played" (which in this case would probably include 100%ing it). This partially-broken run just occupies an uncomfortable middle ground -- if I want to watch the game get destroyed, then it's not really satisfying; similarly it's not satisfying if I want to watch the game get played because most (but not all!) of it is subverted.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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