Posts for Derakon

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Posted: 6/19/2011 5:36 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Relevant XKCD comic. Let's assume that there is a cure for cancer. This is a huge thing, possibly even bigger than a cure for AIDS. If you can cure cancer, then you can pretty much name your price and people will pay it -- what are they going to do otherwise, just give up and die? Oh no! The FDA won't let you provide your cancer cure in the USA! What are you going to do? Move to Canada. Or France. Or Finland. Or wherever. I guarantee you that some country out there would be very interested in playing host to the person who developed a cure for cancer. We're talking serious international prestige here, not to mention gigantic tax revenues. And those people suffering from cancer will just have to fly out to meet you before paying your price to get it cured. Again, what else are they going to do? This is why the "A major problem in our society has been solved but the solution's being kept under wraps" stories always fail. Solutions to big problems are worth big money; someone's going to find a way to profit off of them.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 10:35 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Looking good so far! I liked your playing in the gap opened by Tyson's punches. One nit though on your movie description: Hourglass isn't an emulator. If I had to come up with a category to describe it, I guess I'd call it a "TASing layer".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 7:26 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Oh, so you'd have to re-run the level? Oh well.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 6:39 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
According to Seanbaby's review, not having Moses at the end just changes the ending message. So why pick him up at all? In any event, throwing him into the endzone doesn't seem like it'd work since the level-end is triggered by the player's position, not Moses's.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 3:56 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
OmegaWatcher wrote:
...although I must ask: does this game have any story? It's seems I'm missing something about this game (besides never playing the Metroid Prime trilogy) why everything started exploding for no reason (I know it's Metroid, and almost every game ends with a planet shattering explosion,but still) and the identity of the enemies the enemies are. I know it's a hack, and I shoudn't be asking this, but it makes me wonder...
The Prime series introduced a character called "Dark Samus", which is more or less Samus's evil, crack-addicted twin. Except it's space opera, so instead of crack they use Phazon. This hack has you playing as Dark Samus, hence the new color scheme, Phazon upgrades, and sprite replacements (the space pirates are supposed to look like Galactic Federation troopers to the extent possible, and many biological enemies are replaced by robots). As for the explosions, just assume that one of the bosses was load-bearing. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 3:53 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Thanks for the clarification, Upthorn. I really should have thought about system handles. I'd guess networked games would have similar issues with bound sockets...heh, is there any reason why you couldn't do a multiplayer Diablo 2 TAS now, running each instance of the game on the same computer?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 1:48 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Movement planning actually strikes me as being a pretty difficult problem, given that the walls are generally not straight and don't always go where you need to go, but swimming through open water is slow so the direct route is unlikely to be optimal. Then there's also the need to continually cook up soup for the movement bonus. Naija needs her meth, after all.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/17/2011 12:31 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I don't think you can reasonably declare from one submission that someone is a troll. Even two bad submissions wouldn't be cause for banning in my opinion, though three would definitely be enough. Not that I'm a mod, or would presume to speak for them.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/16/2011 10:11 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I don't think it's been explicitly stated what happens when you plug the teamplayer controller in -- does the game basically receive erroneous input that causes the level to be completed? In that case, it seems like allowing this approach would open a big can of worms; I wouldn't be surprised if many games would lend themselves to this approach.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/16/2011 7:50 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
From what I've read of this thread, it sounds like Hourglass savestates are incomplete -- they don't perfectly replicate the current state of the game but rely on the game to have e.g. properly loaded textures onto the graphics card. Deterministic games will be properly set up to load a savestate so long as you follow the proper set of steps to reach the point where the savestate was made. Thus you can't start recording from wherever you want because there's no history tracing back to a known deterministic point (program launch). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I admit I haven't read every post here. That's just the impression I've gotten. I'm amazed that Hourglass can even do as much as it does.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/15/2011 7:18 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Oh, hello. I haven't touched Jetblade in a few months, I'm afraid. I changed the rendering from software (SDL) to OpenGL awhile back, then a few months ago I did a fairly significant overhaul of basic map generation, but that's about it. It's still not really playable -- you can run around in the maps but that's about it, nothing to find or fight. It uses Cython to compile some modules that do fairly significant computations. This gives a noticeable speed boost. Other than that, Pygame, and PyOpenGL, I don't think it has any external dependencies. The plan always was to provide prebuilt standalone executables (using py2app for OSX and py2exe for Windows) so people wouldn't have to deal with setting up their own development environments just to play the game. Of course since it's not playable, that hasn't happened yet. Top things to do right now: * Add powerups and associated barriers to map generation * Add enemies * Give the player proper attack animations
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/15/2011 4:07 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Incidentally, I'd love to see you do a TAS of Eris, if you think you're up to it. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/13/2011 10:20 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Looks to me like your walking speed is reduced when carrying a block. Or are my eyes deceiving me? If this is the case, then picking up a different block (or chain-throwing the block) might give you faster movement.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/13/2011 7:28 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
adelikat wrote:
Warp wrote:
The only truly "shameful" TAS that has ever been on the site (that I remember of), and for a rather long time at that, was that LoZ:OoT TAS that was slower than the unassisted record. (It's a bit embarrassing to have an officially published TAS which is significantly slower than the unassisted speedrun of the same game.)
This is happened at least 4 times in our site history that I know of. In addition to OoT, there is Majora's Mask which is CURRENTLY published and slower than an unassisted speedrun. Chrono Trigger (the 4 hour one) was beaten by 40 minutes by a regular speedrunner (due to a new trick). And Ziplock's NES Jaws was beaten by a speedrunner (until I improved it).
Until recently, the ActRaiser TAS was slower than a non-assisted speedrun, too. As for Smash Bros., we've had several varieties of speed-oriented runs submitted here, which were all rejected for not being entertaining enough. You can't reasonably claim that a non-speed-oriented run is embarassing because a speed-oriented run is faster than it. You can say all you like about their relative entertainment values, of course, but that's all subjective and not pertinent to this discussion.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/13/2011 4:44 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
As far as I'm aware there's no official policy on hack publications, but judging from audience response, I wouldn't expect to see more than one hack published for any given game, at least not until the publication process gets revamped.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/13/2011 4:42 AM
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Derakon
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Ahh, Castlevania games. Always pushing the limit when it comes to new ridiculous means of movement. Here we have protagonists powersliding everywhere!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/13/2011 4:36 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The degree to which you depress them is analog. They aren't "sticks". Typically most games either ignore the analog functionality entirely or just have "pressed all the way" and "pressed but not all the way", since the buttons have a conveniently click when they're fully depressed.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/12/2011 11:52 PM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I always liked this game, and this run speeds through it hilariously quickly. Nice work! ...it's only now, a good 20 years later or so, that I realize just how nonsensical the end cutscene is. SURPRISE MAGNET!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/12/2011 11:42 PM
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Derakon
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This is the kind of run whose entertainment value depends heavily on the submission text so we can know what the heck is going on...and right now the submission text is basically empty. So, waiting for that so I can know what's going on.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/10/2011 3:56 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Tombad wrote:
I am sceptical though as Wii's game library is seriously sucky. Also I seriously hope they redesign their UI completely along with the internet-enabled functionality (friend codes, lol?). They have a lot to do if they want to catch up to current iterations of Live and PSN (and to lesser extent, Steam).
I don't think Nintendo's going to open their console to general internet free-for-alls like MS and Sony have. They seem to be very paranoid about networked multiplayer. As for the Wii library, it seems to me that the leader in any given console generation will get loads of shovelware. We've just forgotten all the unmemorably crap games that were produced for the PSX/PS2 and only remember the good ones. After all, just because a bad game is produced for a console doesn't mean you have to play it. (There's still no excusing Metroid Other M though...)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/10/2011 3:02 AM
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Derakon
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Joined: 7/2/2007
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I certainly enjoyed playing this hack, so thanks for making the TAS! I doubt it'll be published here, but I enjoyed watching it. Was detouring for the Red Phazon worthwhile? It's not really needed; you just have to do a couple of hellruns if you skip it, and I think the early supermissiles is still possible even without it. One of the hellruns is rather lengthy though, I'll grant; the energy requirements might mean you'd need to grab more energy tanks, which might make it not worthwhile. But given how long it takes to get the Red Phazon...plus, going without is more impressive. :) I liked the use of the speedbooster echoes to kill enemies that you usually need the wavebeam for. Speedbooster use in general was quite nice. But what was the highjump needed for? Okay, judging from the fact you turned the speedbooster off for a very short lava trip, I'm guessing this is an in-game-time run, not a realtime run. I do have to wonder if it would be possible to manipulate Ridley to not go where you can't shoot him. Anyway, enjoyable enough, but I'm staying the heck out of the Super Metroid flamewar that's pretty much continually simmering around here. Not voting. sgrunt: what rooms did you see re-used? To my knowledge there's no terrain in common between the hack and the original game. Also, there's more changes to the game that don't get shown off in this hack. In particular the beams have wildly varying behaviors (spazer is a machinegun, more or less) and the item progression is almost completely different compared to usual. Of course, since these don't get shown off, to the average viewer that doesn't mean much, so you're just left with the admittedly questionable palette decisions. Though personally I liked the sprite replacements.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/9/2011 10:52 PM
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Derakon
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If the limitation on controllers is from the console streaming the pixels to display to the controller, then the only way dumbing down graphics would get you more controllers is by reducing the resolution for each controller, which would look terrible. The controllers are evidently not smart (or else they alone would cost as much as a DS). I do agree that it's disappointing that they're saying only one controller per system. Asymmetrical information display can make for much more interesting gaming, but it'd be better if everyone had access to the "same" asymmetrical information -- as it is, this seems more limited to one player in a special super-informed role, and everyone else working against or under the guidance of that one player. As for selling the system or controllers at a loss, I'd be very surprised if they did that, since they never have before.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/9/2011 10:49 PM
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Derakon
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Posts: 3960
Sonikkustar wrote:
Voting No because of a trick that could save 2 minutes off this run.
That being, turning it off and going to play something else?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/9/2011 4:49 PM
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Derakon
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Wow, biased much? Given that the system will sell with the controller, I'd expect that most singleplayer games (or games that only do networked multiplayer) will use the new controller. As for the Wiimote itself being outdated, I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see Nintendo update their motion control system mid-generation, just as Sony and Microsoft did the last time around.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 6/9/2011 12:41 AM
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Derakon
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Nintendo does things backwards compared to the other big console developers: they're far more conservative in software, and far less conservative in hardware. And usually this works out decently for them. I don't claim to understand how this new controller is going to work out, but I'm not going to say "it sucks" until I've seen some real-life reports. (Likewise I'm not going to say "OMG best idea ever Nintendo does it again")
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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