TASVideos

Posted: 9/5/2012 4:30 AM

Post subject: Jelly Boy

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Exonym

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Since there was no topic for this, and I had a WIP from earlier, I figured I'd create one for the heck of it. My WIP included the first 3 levels, but I know it has flaws. My main concern with this game is that it doesn't look very TAS'y on playback, and the game is realllyyyy long (6 worlds, 8 levels per world). Considering thats 48 levels, and the first three levels took 3:47.00 (so far), and not including any of the 6 bosses yet, I'd say the final TAS would probably be over an hour... Here's what I noticed wrong with my test so far: - In the second level, there is a message that plays "collecting oranges gives you extra time" or something. You can skip this by constantly jumping throughout the stage, but that causes some slowdowns in order to make clean jumps in certain parts. I haven't tested if just allowing the message to play so I don't have to jump constantly is actually faster. It most likely is, because it would allow me to collect less oranges (they add time and that adds to the tally at the end of the level) and fruit (also adds tally). I collected too many fruit here. - In the third level the enemies are in awkward positions, especially during the ball transformation section. - I'm not sure why, but you cant punch (it's his stomach, I hope) when falling from a certain height. This means I have to jump to grab the ball powerup, which looks ridiculous for a TAS. The third level also displays a message in which I constantly jump to avoid. It says "collecting pears renders you invincible for a short time" or something to that affect. - I wish there was a way to hammer blocks faster or just skip the parts altogether in the first stage. I haven't messed around with it too much, but I don't think it's possible to skip those parts. If you spot anything else let me know, as I'm messing around with about 5 games right now and will hopefully finish something this year. :P Okay, enough ranting here's the file (I think E is the only version of this game) Jelly Boy (E) Snes 9x v1.52 http://www.mediafire.com/?y2m3p5xxsjnsie2 Edit: I just realized I didn't get the puzzle piece in the third level -.-

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 8/29/2012 7:56 AM

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I went ahead and did the third level today out of boredom. I really enjoy the music to this game. The graphics aren't "horrible," I just really want to take this game and improve the controls of the main character.. That is what killed this game from being a unique and otherwise good game. Once again though, I'm not sure if the entertainment value is there mainly because no one knows the game or how frustratingly horrible the controls are (even the first level takes a while to complete in real time. Try jumping around in this game. It will make you tear your hair out or just delete the game. Before I ramble on too long, here're the first 3 levels: http://www.mediafire.com/?y8bclfxner59e64

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 8/21/2012 10:26 PM

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Any progress? Looking forward to this run since you posted. :p

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 8/11/2012 6:42 PM

Post subject: Eek! the Cat

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Sorry to create so many topics, and not follow through with a game. I promise I'll finish something eventually! Anyway, this game is almost impossible to play in real time. The main reason is that when you jump you continue in that direction until you hit the ground. You can not turn around in midair. This is super frustrating in real time. 7E0F81 - xspeed 7E0F83 - yspeed 7E0FC7 - xspeed of object being pushed 7E0FC9 - yspeed of object being pushed The TAS would probably get boring after a while as I think every level consists of pushing someone through the level to the exit. Of course the levels get more difficult, but it wouldn't look that impressive to someone who hasn't played the game (almost everyone). I think the game has great music though (listen to some of the tracks). So if nothing else, you would hear some decent music while watching. Anyway here's the file, I did the first 2 levels (Snes9x v1.52 svn184): http://www.mediafire.com/?nxuzz2cntpmry7s

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 8/3/2012 3:42 AM

Post subject: Incantation

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I found this game while looking for possible projects. I think it has potential as a TAS. The main character moves somewhat fast, the boss hit box is very lenient, you can take a lot of damage before dying, and taking damage doesn't slow the character down at all when running. There is a possible disadvantage in taking damage at some point: it disables your jump for a while (although you can hit the jump button at the right frame to extend your bounce). The first 2 levels are pretty linear, but I'm pretty sure the levels get more complex later. You have to collect 3 feather thingies in each level before it allows you to go to the boss. I completed up to the second boss in a short test. Obviously it's not going to be perfectly optimal first time around. I didn't take time to find the boss hp RAM value, so I'm not sure if just rapid firing against him is the best approach. Anyway here's the first run through test WIP up to the second boss: http://www.mediafire.com/?x4vxawq8o6cdx7h

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/31/2012 1:32 AM

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The tricks I listed before for the first level don't work. Or at least; I can't find any way to make them save time. I went ahead to the second level and got through most of that. It most likely isn't going to be the final version, there are many places to optimize landing speed by a small amount.. Anyway, I have concerns about the game regarding TASvideos standards of acceptance. The run so far isn't going to look significantly different from your (Omnigamer's) real time speedrun. There will obviously be precision movement regarding jumps and movement speeds, but I haven't been able to find any major skips or glitches yet (I found a possible skip somewhere, I'm still investigating; read below for details). Here's another problem: the game is somewhat slow paced in the non-skateboarding sections. Even though there are lots of tricks and optimizations to save frames regarding movement speed, they are not very apparent to even someone who HAS happened to play the game (not many). I haven't watched your full run (I watched about half so far to get an idea of what the game will be like), but the game seems to get pretty repetitive after a while. I need some opinions regarding acceptability of the game here at TASvideos. Without any glitches and somewhat slow gameplay through a lot of it, I have my doubts. The site also is pretty strict regarding game choice. Now, about that little trick I (may) have found. It occurs right at the end of my movie. This is what I know so far: when you swing at full speed, letting go at the right frame (only 1 frame window as far as I know) will get you the angle needed to stand on the side of those trees. There is a small window where you have the walking animation where you can perform a jump. Now at this angle, it's not high enough to get over the tree in this instance. In fact, I'm not sure if the programmers have already prepared for the situation and went ahead and blocked the whole area above the tree. I can't jump high enough to find out. I will surely be trying all kinds of angles and combinations to get this to work, as it's my only hope of looking like an actual TAS with superhuman capabilities. Here's the file anyway: http://www.mediafire.com/?xyr9r4e22bodvxo

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/28/2012 9:53 PM

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I saved 66 more frames on the first level. These improvements came from: - Grabbing the fire powerup, so it's now a fire projectile. This makes killing enemies easier so I don't have to use damage to run through them. - faster transition from skateboard to spring plant. - faster landing speeds (the running speed is pretty unreliable when landing from a jump..) - avoided the armadillo thing's spikes later in the stage. Jumping slightly earlier prevented him from shooting his thorns, which would slow me down below. He was in a worse position than last time however, so I couldn't simply jump over him this time. Possible improvements: - Skipping getting the second fireball powerup, and just dropping off that ledge at ~2870. - I haven't tested how many shots it takes to kill the final dragon blocking the exit. With the second fireball powerup it might be faster to just kill him instead of jumping over him. Of course if it's possible, then the above improvement is discarded. - When getting on the final skateboard, going left and eventually up over that ramp where the fireballs are in the way "might" be possible. I spent a good time trying, and really don't think it is. The fireballs are always in the way. The improvements shouldn't be too hard to experiment with, as they are all at the end of the level. Anyway: http://www.mediafire.com/?bbf7jlujamshcc9

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/27/2012 12:40 AM

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Omnigamer wrote:

The main reason I did it on Easy is that Normal and Hard both spawn enemies in terrible locations for proceeding quickly, namely the Pterosaurs.

Wow this game is ridiculously hard to play on hard. I keep dying trying to play through it normally. You are right, the pterosaurs are the most annoying enemies in the game. I try to kill some early to prevent mishaps later, but sometimes it doesn't seem possible. I redid the first level and incorporated tricks I saw in your run (jumping from the ramp to that spring plant for instance. I also found that if your max walking speed is slightly slower than normal, you can sometimes release the direction for 1 frame and resume and you will be at max speed. I have concluded that the fireballs ALWAYS appear in the same position on screen no matter when you arrive at the location. This makes that jump to the slope above where I ended my last test impossible. Anyway, here's the first level, I rerecorded a little more times than I wanted to for a test cause I was trying to find a big skip. Unfortunately some gaps were barely out of range or otherwise unreachable. Still using Snes9x v1.52 svn184 because I already had the RAM values worked out. http://www.mediafire.com/?6f4ca8atqlvmiu7

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/26/2012 4:59 PM

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I watched the first stage of your run and I can't believe I didn't see that shortcut of jumping off the skateboard early onto that spring plant LOL. I did say the test was unoptimal but that was a bit retarded. Anyway, you said you played it on easy, what exactly does the diffculty change in this game? I never got around to really checking. I would assume it just makes enemies have less hp? Edit: Apparently hard mode creates more enemies than easy mode.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/26/2012 2:21 PM

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I saved 3 more frames at the last jumping section by skipping the middle floating platform. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/5945822/Test_SSLCP4.1laser3.vbm I'll probably be busy the next week or so, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work on this.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/24/2012 6:47 AM

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Buahaha I've DONE IT! By optimizing the trick near the end, I managed to clear all the stone blocks with a midair jump, saving enough frames to bypass the damned lasers at the end. About the max height glitch jumping, I think that's only to be used when you're timing your jump to just miss the ceiling. Since the slide passes the point where you have to worry about the ceiling, immediate glitch jumping is faster I would assume.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/24/2012 12:04 AM

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I may have found some improvements in the first stage using the most recent trick. It all depends how the lasers at the end act. I'll update this post with info when I finish. Edit: GAH SO DAMN CLOSE! I was 15 frames ahead the whole level (from jumping over the spikes) and the lasers at the end beat me by 1-2 frames. I thought surely I would make it, but the damn thing barely catches me. Maybe another frame could have been saved at the jump glitching part at ~3920, being as that area gave a lot of inconsistent results. Maybe I'll try tomorrow, I feel like it should be possible to beat the damn lasers (and I really want to). Also, the rerecord count is getting pretty ridiculous, 16k for the first level. :P

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/23/2012 5:02 AM

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jlun2 wrote:

I'm wondering why the place where the jump glitch is first abused is not an applicable place for this trick. I kept trying, but I'm always ~1 frame behind. I wonder what makes a place "good" enough for this trick to be useful?

I tried to use it at that same spot as well, and I was always behind at least 2 frames. I'm not sure why this place is really the only area where it's not faster. Even so, assuming the lasers at the end of the level stay on the same cycle, it would have to be more than a few frames quicker to beat the second laser. Of course my last update might not be perfectly optimized, so "maybe" it's possible but i'm skeptical. Unless another trick is found I think this is about as quick as the first level will be. Feel free to prove me wrong though :P. If I recall correctly, on my last update I was still able to save 5 pixels by optimizing the jump near the bottom of this same ledge. As it turns out jumping for an extended period to reach max height before glitch jumping is actually faster than immediately glitch jumping.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/22/2012 8:51 PM

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It turns out the trick you found is more useful than I thought. I found a number of applicable places in level 1 and even though the lasers at the end caught me a bit, I still saved 32 frames. Here's the improvement: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/786521149/Test_SSLCP4.0.vbm The next level undoubtedly has places to use this trick as well, as tedious as it may be. :S

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/22/2012 8:08 AM

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Nice! That's pretty similar to what happened at ~5945 in the second level for me. I didn't think it could be applied to other places as well. Is the trick applicable to other parts of the first level (like at the beginning). If so maybe redoing the whole level could get to the end lasers in time to beat them. Edit: It seems this trick can be used when falling to accelerate. In this particular instance of the first level it saves 10 pixels, or about 2.5 frames: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1120989815/Test_SSLCP3.9fall.vbm

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/22/2012 7:42 AM

Post subject: Radical Rex

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Found this platformer the other day, and some sections might make the game fun to watch. There are however, other sections that are tedious and not much fun to watch. The main character moves pretty slow unless on a skateboard, so staying on it for as long as possible is crucial. I want to say this first: I won't be doing a full run of this game at the moment, as I'm working on something else. But if anyone wants to pick up this game I'll be glad to support you. I'll start off sharing what I know; x speed: 7E0525 x subsp: 7E0524 yspeed: 7E0527 ysubsp: 7E0526 xpos: 7E051D ypos: 7E0521 Sometimes using firebreath right before landing reaches the max walking speed. Jumping slows you down, so doing minimal jumps/falls will cut down on frames. Using firebreath sometimes can change an enemy's actions. I used it on that dragon head monster to cause him not to shoot early and I could jump over it. My test is unoptimal in most cases, and at the end of the test run I run into a random fireball with the skateboard. If there is some way to time it so that the fireball is out of the way, I'm pretty sure you could jump up onto the slope above. I didn't complete the first level because of the above mentioned problem, but anyway here's the little test (I used Snes9X v1.52 rr svn184 because I'm still learning lsnes at the moment. Because of this, microstorage won't accept the VBM so I'm using another file service.) http://www.4shared.com/file/hFxDrwqm/Exxonym_radrex.html?

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/22/2012 6:35 AM

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jlun2 wrote:

I ended up with 1 extra lag frame

Yeah, it seems like the glitched jumping sections give quite a few lag frames. I couldn't really avoid many of them without going out of my way, but perhaps there is a way to avoid them without causing other problems.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/20/2012 11:17 PM

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I have to admit, the game plays faster than I thought. I don't know anything about the game, so I couldn't really provide any feedback, but I will say I would most likely watch a full run of this game. Then again, there's probably no game that I wouldn't watch a TAS of. ;p

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/20/2012 5:01 AM

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I don't know about you, but I've given up improving the first two levels because I can't find any way to make them faster. Should we just move on to the racing level now, unless you've discovered something interesting about the difficulty, or found an improvement.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/19/2012 11:02 PM

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I never thought about this until now, but is there a harder difficulty unlocked after you beat the game? I noticed that there are only "easy" and "normal" difficulties to choose from at the beginning. Also I never really bothered checking what changes with the difficulty so I'm not sure it would even matter.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/18/2012 7:00 PM

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jlun2 wrote:

I found a minor clipping glitch. It allowed me to fall into the floor for 1 frame. I can't find any use for it atm, but anyway, here's the .vbm, incase you want to check it out.

Yeah, I checked it out but I couldn't find any use for it either. I've been trying all sorts of things after my last post, but I haven't been able to find any glitching or timesavers. It's a shame because there are quite a few places where you can clip into walls, such as the one I posted before where you can actually stand in the wall. In all places it just pushes you out. I feel like there should be some sort of zip glitch somewhere in this game, but I can't seem to find any. Sorry if this post is useless. :P Edit; Just some weird happenings with those spiked walls. I found that if you jump up into the top spiked wall, it will send you to the end of the spiked wall immediately, hurting you. So it jumps quite a bit faster than your normal running speed, but there doesn't seem to be any use for this either. Also, when you die on a spiked wall, and it switches to patrick, there is one frame of a purple dying spongebob before patrick switches in. ;P

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/16/2012 4:11 AM

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Well, that level was longer than I though it would be. Anyway, here it is. I don't like some of the solutions/bad luck I had but was unable to make anything faster. Feel free to save some frames if you want. :P http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/219055528/Test_SSLCP3.9.vbm Also, I found some interesting things in the game. However, I couldn't make them glitch or do anything useful. The first thing was being able to stand in a certain wall. If you moved though it would just eject you out the top near the ramp.

Also I found a place in the ceiling where you can jump up in. I'm sure this is not intentional as you have to use the jump glitch to get in there at the max height. Again, however, I could find no use for this as it seems to be a closed off area. Here's that VBM for curiosity (occurs near the beginning of the second level): http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1915127422/Test_SSLCP3.9ceil.vbm

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/15/2012 8:53 PM

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jlun2 wrote:

In stage 2-4, its the exact same thing as stage 1-4, where its like DDR but faster and slightly longer.

Are those levels as boring as they sound? Doesn't sound like you can do much in a TAS of DDR. About the run, I have started a test of the second level using spongebob (I think patrick would actually be slower because you'd have to switch to him and his pound attack is really slow). Have you started the second level or do you want me to post my results when I'm done? I'll still test the patrick thing to see if he's faster but I really doubt it, as you'll have to switch to patrick and then back to spongebob to be able to abuse his infinite jump.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/15/2012 4:22 AM

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I found 1 frame of improvement in the first level, and found 14 more by accident at the end for a total of 15 more frames saved. I was making a framework of the second level when I found the trick that saved the individual frame in the first level. Instead of jumping at ~ frame 3735 off the ledge, there is a 1-frame window at ledges where if you stop all button presses, you'll immediately fall with a speed of 4. It ends up being about 1 frame faster than jumping over it. The other 14 I discovered by accident messing around with the end. I found that instead of jumping clear over the ledge, I jumped up to the ledge and used the newly found drop trick off the ledge. It clipped the ledge below allowing me to jump to those platforms without having to waste frames by jumping in midair. Of course since this was faster, it catches the electricity so I had to turn around twice in order to avoid them, so the frames saved could have been higher, but still ended up being 15 frames. ~~http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/71795707/Test_SSLCP3.82.vbm~~ EDIT: I saved one more frame by not turning around but canceling and reenabling the sprint. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/644987429/Test_SSLCP3.82.vbm

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/14/2012 4:25 PM

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jlun2 wrote:

WIP. (Using some other file-hosting site as MicroStorage is down at the time of writing).

Uhh, that might be the wrong file, it looks like it's just a copy of one of my old WIPs, since it's 15 frames slower than my last posted WIP.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

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