TASVideos

Posted: 12/16/2014 4:20 AM

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Exonym

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Did a rough test for stage 3 today, only posting it in unpolished form right now because I'll be busy for a few days at the least. This level is a huge pain in the ass on hard mode, there are enemies everywhere. It's not even the fact that there are a bunch more enemies that's annoying, it's that they're placed in absolutely horrible locations. Also there are more one hit kill instances in this stage. The acid water just disintegrates you, the spikes are still one hit kill, and getting caught by one of those tentacles is a one hit kill. Then, there's an instance coming out of the tube that throws you directly into dripping water, and it cannot be avoided. That's just bad game design in my opinion, but anyway... http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19455759461922041

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/14/2014 2:30 PM

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Saved 11 frames in stage 1 with the new momentum saving trick, not as much as I hoped but still something. The bigger improvement is stage 2, mostly from a small route change. The momentum from slides is preserved but I don't know if it's really noticeable without frame advance. Maybe it is. Total saved is 562 frames over the last WIP. Just saying the momentum saver by pressing A every other frame is more annoying than I first thought. It seems you lose y height in your jump by doing that so you have to take that into account as well so that you land your jumps. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19420778715618818

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/10/2014 4:00 AM

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So I found something out that makes this game a little more complicated to TAS. Jumping cycles through your speed at 1+240/256, 1+224/256, 1+208/256, 1+192/256, 1+240/256... etc By pressing A when your speed is at the highest (1+240/256), you maintain that speed one more frame. This lowers your deceleration rate when falling or anywhere your speed drops off gradually. In this case you can stop every increment of your speed, so that it ends up being 1+240/256, 1+240/256, 1+224/256, 1+224/256, ... etc Now this only saves a matter of pixels, but it's something that will need to be considered and unfortunately means I need to restart the run. It also means that I'll be breathing fire at almost every jump now, so it will look like I'm attacking nothing, and I am. Also found that jumping when exiting a log in stage 2 allows you to turn around a bit faster. Currently about halfway through stage 1 and saved 6 more frames so far. I'll just post when both the levels are redone. Edit: Abusing momentum such as in stage 2 is actually kinda hard, you have to have the right pixels for Rex to even notice the next slope, which is why I turned around for a few frames in my WIP. Sometimes he just likes to fly off the top of the slope and not gain any speed from going down it. Edit2 Just thought I'd throw this useless information in. Keeping your momentum really high from those logs and running into the bottom of the tree puts me into the floor for 1 frame, but can't do anything with it.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/8/2014 3:44 AM

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Finished stage 2, and improved my old WIP in a few areas. When dropping down onto the swinging vine at 4930, it's actually faster to jump to the ledge and then fall than drop from the vine because doing so prevents the animation when you fall too far. Instead of taking damage at the frog at 6880, if you turn around for a few frames while jumping over him it causes him to move to the left instead of the right. The rest of the level is new to me so it might be improvable somewhere, but I'll share my notes anyway. The jump at ~7680 or so might be possibly done in real time, but it would be pretty difficult, it's like a 3 frame window. Jumping on the spiked ledges shortly after it however are basically impossible because you have to be very precise to land on the ledges, and any small mistake causes instant death. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19277615103292616

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/5/2014 12:49 AM

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grassini wrote:

go for a vault movie,fear nothing!

Honestly if I submit the game I know it's probably just vault material, but I find some vault runs entertaining.

Omnigamer wrote:

Can it only be done on colliding with something, or is it possible any time when losing the board?

Only when colliding with a solid object like a wall. It seems you need a higher speed than your normal xspeed, such as a skateboard or those vines from stage 2. By the way, those are some nice improvements, I like the boneyard boss skip especially.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/3/2014 11:46 AM

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A hitbox viewer sounds pretty useful, considering some of their boxes are kinda hard to figure out. I've finished level 1 and actually improved it by 55 frames over my old attempt. I think 30 of those are from using Bizhawk for whatever reason. Improvement comes from staying on the skateboard longer before ditching it when running into that dinosaur at frame ~3025. Doing this puts that Pterodactyl in an annoying position though, so I lose a little bit from avoiding him dropping rocks. He also causes lag if you jump too early to the next ledge. Tested max speed in some areas, and the subspeed is always in multiples of 8 pixels, out of a total of 256 for every 1 speed. So if I can't get 1+256/256 (which is just 2), the next best is 1+248/256. Doing this doesn't actually lose time as long as the distance to the next jump is short. Haven't found any glitches yet, but I did find this:

Letting go of the skateboard right before hitting a wall gives you a frame of being on solid ground, in which you can jump. Not sure if it's useful anywhere though, but something to keep in mind. Not sure why the animation is so large embedded. Here's level 1 http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/19173940827354274

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 12/2/2014 12:21 PM

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Skipping that boss sounds awesome. It also sounds like it would be difficult to do in real time? I haven't had much time to work on it, almost done with redoing the first level though and I'm finding at some points it's hard to get the max movement speed. Sometimes it will be 1 - 244 pixels isntead of 2 - 0. And breathing fire before landing doesn't change that in some locations for whatever reason. Getting the highest pixel count possible to 2 is what I've settled on for some locations, but I feel like it should be max. You can let go a few frames and then resume your direction to get it, but that's not effective on small platforms because there isn't enough distance to cover that loss. Also I'm curious what the new route changes are, nothing changed for level 1 I assume?

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/25/2014 10:25 AM

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mklip2001 wrote:

how does this run compare against the old submission by link_7777?

I can't say for sure exactly how much the difficulty change saved by itself, but that run was still pretty suboptimal. This one is 14754 frames faster up to the last shot that "completes the game". However I had to add 2470 frames to reach the actual credits.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/24/2014 11:22 AM

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I can definitely tell the improvements to this without ever even having played the game. Yes vote!

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/24/2014 8:02 AM
(Edited: 11/24/2014 8:24 AM)

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So I just realized the file I submitted doesn't reach the "credits" screen. I assume I'll need to fix this? As of right now it stops on "The force will always be with you screen" But if you press start on it the credits will roll. I think this is where the movie should be stopped. It's an easy fix if I need to. Edit So, reaching the credits makes the time 18:36.018. Here's the file anyway if it's deemed necessary to replace it: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18971073642240470

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/23/2014 4:07 AM

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Wow, that's a big increase in damage. In that case you're probably right. I never played up to any of the bosses, so I didn't think about the invincibility time between hits. Maybe it's still possible to skip 1 powerup on the bosses that don't increase quite as much as the pterodactyl? I guess I'd have to get to that point to really see, but your notes say that full flame on hell hive for example does 3-4 damage per hit. It's tough to know for sure, but I guess doubling your damage would decrease the time spent on the boss quite a bit.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/22/2014 2:01 AM

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Awesome! The main thing that will be worth investigating from a TAS perspective is seeing how much time each powerup costs to collect, and how much time it takes to kill the boss without it. Of course this would only really be practical for a TAS because it will have frame precise movements. What I would look for in terms of realtime runs would be some sort of clip or tricky skip. Some skips might be dangerous though because of those one hit kill spikes. I'm working on SSW right now, so it'll be after I finish that and if I have time during DTC5.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/22/2014 1:43 AM

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pootrain wrote:

I have been able to stop the mini boss from spawning on this level

That's interesting, were there any specific actions you did to have the wall blow up? I have kept the miniboss from spawning by sliding across the roof, but the wall just sits there and doesn't blow up, so I dismissed it. Even though I think the miniboss can be entertaining to kill normally, it's quite laggy so skipping it would be a good timesaver. I might experiment with this later on today.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/21/2014 12:48 PM

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I see that you're going to be running this game at AGDQ next year, Omnigamer? I was going to test the game more, because I've been thinking about it and stage 3 and 8 would be interesting with all the bounciness. If you want whenever I get some free time I could take a look into it again and see if I can find anything worth noting for an RTA, though I think your SDA run had most of the game staked out pretty well. Also I enjoyed watching the run, so I'll look forward to seeing it at AGDQ if you're going :).

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/21/2014 5:01 AM

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Just posting this, it IS the offical WIP up to this "glitch" I found. It's not so much a glitch as abusing the mechanics of this block door to get on top of the ceiling. If you manipulate the top blocks to being the first ones to disappear you can jump on it and jump over the ceiling. However it results in a deadend in which you can do nothing, not even kill yourself. I was hoping it would result in an accidental stage end for reaching the end while the boss didn't spawn, but no such luck. Solarplex is uploading a cut encode: Link to video

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/20/2014 5:31 AM

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So, I found a way to make the stage 8 boss repeat his attack over and over, by shooting him for a bit until he attacks me. Then I use the jump-saber attack into him for maximum damage and to keep him looping his head attack. The result is 50 frames saved overall. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18878900796103846

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/20/2014 3:47 AM

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I wish there was a way to cancel your attack so that you could kill enemies to stay closer to the ground, but I know there isn't. But at any rate, this looks awesome so far, keep it up!

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/19/2014 12:41 AM

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On the Mutant Womprat, the blaster only does 1 damage per hit, and since he has 110 hp (after the Detonator reduces 40 hp from 150) that means it would take 110 hits. It does 2 damage vs the Kalharr boss, which makes it twice as fast, and faster than the saber (I think). The womprat is a little easier to hit than the kalharr boss, but I'm still going to test the saber on the stage 8 boss.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/18/2014 4:10 AM

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Stage 8 test is done, going to go back and see if light saber will be faster on the Kalharr boss. In the section of stage 8 where I stand around for a sec before shooting the enemies, if you try to cut them off by sliding to the left, when you come back right you'll have to wait for additional enemies to spawn before the stage advances. I also manipulate a detonator to drop so I can clear the whole next room. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18833888612350027

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/17/2014 2:11 AM

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Lions. That's good enough to vote yes.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/14/2014 9:57 PM

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NES, not my favorite platform but I guess I'll join. 10 weeks seems like a reasonable amount of time to get something done.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/14/2014 4:19 AM

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I'm wondering why the submission file has cpadolf's name in it instead of yours, that should probably be changed to avoid confusion.. But anyway, it doesn't beat the game so this isn't really publishable.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/13/2014 10:52 PM

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So I found out that the thermal detonator does 40 damage to the boss. The time saved isn't quite that much because it costs a few frames to manipulate the drop, and it causes a bit of lag. Saves about 30 frames or so in the end. I want to use this opportunity for a screenshot I think, but I'm not sure if I should waste a couple of frames to do it. The amount of time wasted is anywhere from 2-9 frames. Here are some possible screenshots, which one is the best?

OR

Also, the new file http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18740099852936123

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/12/2014 10:32 PM

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Here's a small list of my potential games, if anyone wants to try one: Home Improvement (Has a topic I think) Pac-in-Time Radical Rex (I started a short WIP a while back) Phantom 2040 (Also has a topic) TwinBee - Rainbow Bell Adventure (Japan) Mickey no Tokyo Disneyland Daibouken (Japan) Magical Pop'n

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 11/12/2014 4:04 AM

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Exonym

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Just want to say the publication image for this game is one he took before I updated the submission file. So it doesn't actually appear in the run. Replacing it with any of the newer ones Sonikkustar posted would work.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

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