Yeah, he was talking about other runs' encodes. But, uh, which other runs? If you encounter a run whose encode nominally has subtitles but doesn't actually, you should post in that run's discussion thread so those with the ability to fix it know about it.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Having watched this now, I have to say that the deaths seriously hurt my enjoyment of this run. Even ignoring the use of continues, the use of deaths at all was distasteful. I recognize that they make the run faster, but they just look terrible. Obviously just my personal opinion, but yikes.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
In my case it was just intended as gentle ribbing. That "verified no cheating" blurb in the SDA logo has always struck me as slightly indefensible for the consoles with accurate TAS-capable emulators. I have nothing against SDA or human speedruns.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
A few other suggestions for SNES games you might try TASing:
* Cool Spot
* Joe & Mac
* Magic Sword (probably want the arcade version though)
* Super Turrican 2
* Aleste
Aleste is a scrolling shmup, but if you get the Japanese version there's a code to unlock a much harder mode where the enemies fire bullets on death; it could be frantic enough to be interesting. Personally I'd find it more interesting than Arkanoid. Recca (for the NES) could be good for similar reasons. It's a serious challenge to kill everything in that game even with rerecords.
Puzzle Quest would involve a lot of luck manipulation. I wouldn't undertake that unless you're willing to learn the ins and outs of lua and memory watching.
Good luck with your next TAS!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
- If the developers knew about the crash and said to the testers to just use morphball instead, why didn't they at least remove the crash for the final version? Miyamoto has said in an interview once that when designing a game, the main things to fix are bugs that may allow a player to get stuck or crash the game. If there was a known crash, it seems like they would have removed it. Now, they could have just forgot about it, so I think Derakon's theory still holds ground, but it is something to think about.
The severity of any bug is the product of the results of the bug triggering and the likelihood of the bug triggering. In this case, the results of the bug are a crash; that's very bad. But the likelihood of the bug is infinitesimal. It wasn't found until more than 15 years after the game was released, by someone who made a hobby of searching through the game's assembly code! Thus even if they did know about the bug, they probably were not very worried about it. It simply wasn't likely to be an issue.
Remember also that development time is not infinite. Take a look at the credits sometime; by my count they had 7 programmers (out of a staff of 15) who wrote the game logic over the course of 2 years. That is not very much time. I can practically guarantee you that the game shipped with known bugs that didn't get fixed because they didn't pass the severity test. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if e.g. glitching through platforms with the ice beam or crystal flash were known about; they're pretty obvious results of animation transitions and changing hitboxes, but fixing them is a very hard problem fraught with edge cases.
Lacking evidence to the contrary, the much simpler explanation is that the crash is a bug, no more, no less. This should be fairly easy to figure out for someone who can read the game's assembly; an intentional crash would probably look something like "jump to the instruction at address -1", while an unintentional crash would be more likely to be something like "load the memory at address 0xcc21ae and jump to it" and it just so happens that that memory holds an invalid value.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think it more likely that the code doesn't properly update the player's state when handing out upgrades. Probably there's some subroutine run when the player gets speed booster or the like that ensures that certain values are set properly, which is not handled correctly when you use the code (but those values are set when you perform a state transition, e.g. going in and out of ball form). Given that the code was just for debugging anyway, it was simpler to tell the testers "Just go through the door in ball mode" than it was to fix the code.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Encodes of this run should have an annotation when Entering the Golden Torizo's room. There will never be a 100% run using the GT code. Starting a game from a completed save using the reset glitch wouldn't be interesting at all, it'd be the same as the last part of a 100% run but without the Mother Brain fight, Samus would just go straight to Tourain and straight back out
Presumably the run would involve not using X-ray glitching to skip the statue room, which means that Kraid, Phantoom, Draygon, and Ridley would all have to be killed, which means that their domains would have to be traversed.
You can also do a few interesting things in Ceres; the last time I played with the reset glitch ISTR I managed to back out of the Ridley fight by destroying the door, for example. Perhaps this hypothetical run could be done as a playaround?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Honestly if we were to add a new run that had what this run has of interest, I'd rather it be a run that starts from a savefile and uses the reset glitch. Thus the movie would start with a fully powered-up Samus, trigger the glitch, reset the game, and then start again from the beginning, only with every upgrade except for missiles already acquired.
That would seem to provide what this run has of interest without the illegitimate feel.
TRON: I would say that the Gradius run using a code was an exception, and exceptions here do not set precedent. Your other examples are completely different; even then there was generally a decent-sized debate over whether to accept them because of the code use.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Yes, that argument's been presented. Unless you have a new argument, is there really any value in bickering back and forth?
For the sake of completeness, here's the arguments I've heard on this issue:
For use of coins:
* It's just another input; why ban it?
* A godlike player has godlike funds.
Against use of coins:
* Humans judge their skill at arcade games by how many credits they need to complete the game. TASes are superhuman gameplay. Requiring the use of multiple credits is not superhuman.
* Buying your way to victory cheapens the accomplishment.
I'm not looking for rebuttals to any of these arguments; I'm just listing them as neutrally and concisely as possible for whichever voice of authority cares to make an official decision one way or another. That said, if I missed an argument then feel free to add it here.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
It seems clear we need an official ruling on this particular issue. Otherwise it's just going to devolve into an argument that never gets anywhere since both sides have reasonable points.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Rogue Squadron, where are you?!
I'm gonna assume that none of the upgrades are worth getting. Maaaaybe the advanced bombs?
I used to play this game with the music off. It makes a great change of pace, especially during the Death Star escape sequence in the last mission. Besides, we've all heard the Star Wars themes a million times.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Okay, having watched this, here's my thoughts. Up to lower Norfair, this basically looks like the RBO run Saturn made earlier, just with a detour to pick up Varia (as opposed to many detours to pick up enough energy tanks and ammo to survive the heated rooms). From the LN entrance to the GT room is new, but that's such a short distance it doesn't really mean much. And from then on, we largely just have standard level navigation with a few minor tweaks to specific rooms (e.g. using grappling beam instead of spacejump / shinespark in the Maridia Mount Doom room) that add up to less than 10 seconds of gains. The boss fights are trivialized even more than usual due to access to the plasma beam + X-ray trick -- while this hasn't been seen before, I felt that it detracted from the entertainment after its first use.
Basically, what's new here is a short segment of Lower Norfair, a few scattered navigational improvements (which I must recognize are a notable achievement especially given how well-understood this game is), and the boss fights. I don't find that to differentiate this run enough from the other runs already published. When you add the fact that this run cheats, I can't vote yes.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
That's a pretty forgiving hang glider landing zone. I'm pretty sure you have to be more precise than that to get your beginner pilot's license in reality. In consistent conditions most pilots should be able to land within a 10' square or so.
I found this pretty amusing. A bit repetitive, but not anywhere near enough for it to get old before the run ended. I did keep thinking "Man, why's he making so many curves? They aren't as efficient as straight lines!" and then remembering that the SNES doesn't have analog input so you really had no choice.
Nice work!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
To do the walljump you need to get knocked into the wall by a nearby enemy. I didn't notice any points where this could have been used but wasn't.
There were some subtitles at the beginning of the first action segment which explained the basics, and then some comments during sim segments, largely about manipulation of the stardust magic. I suspect the authors assumed viewers wouldn't mind being distracted during the sim, but want to be able to pay attention to the action. *shrug*
boct: I'm on OSX. Not gonna fire up a VM just so I can use a different media player.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Minor nit: "it's" is the contraction "it is", not the possessive "belonging to it". So the description should read "its great length", not "it's great length".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I'm inclined to agree that the GT code is a debugging code. It gives you very even amounts of equipment (exactly 100 missiles, instead of 45 or 80 or 140 etc; not to mention the same number of super missiles as power bombs), and otherwise seems to be set up to give you approximately the gear that a new player who hasn't taken that much time for exploration would have at the time that GT is fought.
I haven't watched the video yet, but given the rules against using cheat codes, I can't see it being accepted outside maybe of the hacks and demos section.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
What I find especially weird is that the font size control for subtitle appearance doesn't seem to do anything. Nor for that matter does the subtitle color. I'm wondering if this is a side-effect of the small resolution of the video...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I find the subtitles in your encode very hard to read, sgrunt. They're pixelated (limited by the resolution of the encode) and tend to overlap each other when multiple subtitles are shown shortly after each other. VLC's subtitles controls don't seem to affect their appearance at all. Is this a bug in VLC or were the subtitles not done as softsubs?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
This person was permanently banned earlier. Circumventing the ban, even if you've repented, is presumably a ban-worthy offense. Should we reward people who break the rules just so they can demonstrate that they won't break the rules any more? Permanent bans are permanent.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
