Posts for Foone

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Another great Duke run! definite YES.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
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Quick update: I've found some minor route improvements early on, but the game refuses to sync when I edit the movie. So I'm just going to have to re-run from there, which'll take a little while. I'm having computer difficulties so I haven't been able to do it yet. I'm hoping to have it completed sometime in early August.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
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I'm testing some games I had handy, here's what I found: Note: I'm only testing games far enough to get into the first level without obvious errors, I'm not playing any farther. So they could still be buggy! Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry: Runs Avoid The Noid: Runs, but with graphical corruption. Bio Menace: Runs Blake Stone: Runs, but with minor graphical glitches Cannon Fodder: Runs Chex Quest: Runs Corncob 3D: crashes with divide error on level launch Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: Runs Crystal Caves: Runs Doom: Runs Dschump: Runs Duke Nukem II: Runs ElectroMan: Runs Galactix: Runs God of Thunder: Runs Hocus Pocus: Runs Jetpack: Does not load (no error, just hangs after running) (I used the freeware version, not shareware) Jill of the Jungle: Runs Lemmings: Hung at first level (in VGA/PC mode, didn't test others) Major Stryker: Runs Monster Bash: Runs Monuments of Mars: Runs, but with graphics issues Mystic Towers: Runs Ninja: Runs, but with the same graphics issues Pickle Wars: Runs Prince of Persia: Runs Railroad Tycoon: Runs Raptor: Call Of The Shadows: Runs Scorched Earth: Crashes with an invalid opcode error. Secret Agent: Runs Solar Winds: Runs Star Goose: Runs Super Solvers: Gizmos and Gadgets: Runs Ugh: Runs Word Rescue: Runs Wolfenstein 3D: Does not load (no error, just hangs after running, with or without FPU) Xargon: Runs Zone 66: I wasn't able to get it to run using the freedos boot disk, but it may be possible with a real DOS bootdisk
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Phallosvogel wrote:
sure to dlete dn2.exe? not dn3.exe, since you are deleting the dn3 files and want to play dn2
correct, I've fixed the typo.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Here's my draft of episode 2 Episode 2 went way faster, since I'm much better at TASing this time and I understand how lag frames work from day 1. There's a few places where a slightly different route might save time, like at the end of stage 3 and the beginning of stage 6, but I haven't tried yet. YouTube: PS: I did the following preprocessing on my full-game directory before generating the disk image: 1. Delete everything newer than 1991 2. Delete everything *.DN1 and *.DN3 3. Delete DN1.EXE and DN3.EXE That should result in the minimum number of files required to play the game, so there'll be no problem with different versions of the full game. I bought my copy straight off 3drealms.com, but if you've a version on actual floppies this should be enough to get it in that form.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Here's a lua script for inspecting the DOS key buffer EDIT: Fixed a wrapping bug.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
What, is it that little rising floor spike against the left wall? You can't jump onto just a little of the edge or jump off quickly enough or teleport in another way?
Nope. The game is too grid-oriented to let you stand on the ledge without also touching the spike, and there's no other way in.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Was it a bonus for never getting hit, or a bonus for ending the level with full health? Because if it's only full health you need, then you just have to remember to save a turkey or molecule for after you touch things like the bunnies.
It's for never getting hit. This does mean that (barring glitches) it's impossible get to on stage 3, as you have to take damage to get to the blue key.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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schneelocke wrote:
Now, how about a damage-less max (100% items, 100% kills) run? :)
Barring finding new glitches, 100% kills is impossible. There are unkillable enemies and there are killable enemies placed so that you can't get to them. Now, 100% items (meaning every score-giving powerup) is not possible in a damageless run, but it should be possible. There are items you need to take damage to get, like the full health power-up in Proton's room. Doing a damageless run wouldn't be that much slower. On most levels where I take damage, it only saves 2-4 frames, and very rarely another 15 or so because I'd have to miss a jump. What'd kill you is stage 5, the yellow maze. To it without taking damage, you have to take the green key route, which is much, much slower. That's already the most boring level in the run, and doing it damageless would easily take 4-7 times as long. So I think for that level alone, it wouldn't be very entertaining. If by 100% items you mean just the optional weapon powerups, you can get them pretty easily. maybe another 20 seconds in stage 5 and another 1-2 in stage10.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Phallosvogel wrote:
Nice, this game brings back old memories. What about the other episodes, or Duke Nukem 2?
When this one is encoded, I'm going to start on episode 2. I'm not interested in Duke Nukem II, so feel free to start that one, anyone. EDIT: Didn't see that it'd been accepted! Awesome. Guess I better start some serious episode 2 planning, then. That's the one where Yoda fights Dooku, right?
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Cardboard wrote:
At around 3:01 you fall down a hole, stand still for what seems to be a few frames, then jump and start to move forward again. Could you not have jumped before the edge of the platform, dropped earlier and through that been able to jump faster?
Nope! I just tried it to be sure, it's a frame slower. There's a frame where you don't move when you bounce off the low ceiling, and the gap isn't wide enough to let you land and jump without stopping horizontal motion, so you have to stop anyway. The game requires you to have a frame where you're on the ground, even though you can hit jump a frame before that. This means that jumps like this tend to look poor, since it appears I hit jump a frame too late. Nope, it's just the way Duke jumps.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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As I mention here, it may be possible to end the movie early. There's several candidates for end-of-movie, and I picked the last one. If earlier ones would be accepted, it'd shave off some seconds. The short reason for why this is an issue is the game has a multiple-stage ending cinematic that can be aborted at points and requires input to finish. The game is over, but you still need to push keys to see all the ending screens. I've got a youtube video uploaded and I'm working on a high-quality encode.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
And here's the video.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
http://foone.org/downloads/tas/dn1/rerun2.jrsr Ok, I've completed my re-run of the game. I saved a bunch of (at minimum, 10s) off the previous run, but until I have a chance to reload the previous movie and get the timing of it, I'm not sure how many exactly. Now before I can submit this, I'm not sure when to end the movie file. There's a bunch of choices: 0. The last input that will cause the boss to die without further input (you could always unpress the key or hit ESC and quit) 1. The last point at which you can't avoid ending the game. This is ~3s later because you can still quit during the first stage of the ending cinematic. 2. the end of the ending cinematic. (~10s later than 0) 3. the end of the post-boss fight conversation This is several static screens of talking heads you need to hit a key to advance through. 4. the "to be continued" screen 5. the ordering information screens (3 of them) 6. the "enter name" screen 7. the high score list 8. the main menu Personally I'm leaning towards 4. The time for 0 (last in-game action) is 6m58s. By the way, the question I had earlier about one game or three has been answered: It's three. In the ordering information screen, they list them separately for ordering. So it's entirely possible to legally own only episode 1, 2, or 3, and they're considered distinct games. So I can submit this without tacking on a run of episodes 2+3. (By the way, I'd have to redo the whole run to attempt that! My current disk doesn't have episodes 2 or 3 on it, and adding them would desync the movie) I'm encoding a video of it now. Any thoughts on the ending issue?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Usually I'm avoiding the jump cancels, not the damage. But I might be able to take more damage in stage 5 and get away with it, I didn't take as much damage at the beginning of stage 6 as I was expecting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Finished! Well, finished in that I beat it, not finished in that I'm done. Besides the whole "is this one game or one-third of a game?" issue, I think I'm going to redo a bunch of early levels, I'm pretty sure I was mistiming a good number of things because of lag frames. Final time: Approximately 7:26. I don't think there are any route changes that'd improve things much. The two big alternatives would be to get the firepower upgrades I missed. The first one is very, very slow to get (it's in that huge maze level, stage 5 I think), and the second one is right before the boss (so it'd only help with his fight). Firepower upgrades only affect how many bullets you can have in the air. It's very rare that it'd be even possible for me to have three bullets usefully fired, and four is unthinkable. Most of the time I'm shooting at things from close up (so I can only keep one in the air with one firing) or they die in one hit. I don't think the maze level powerup would help enough to make up for the time to get it (could easily be 30-45s) and the last one definitely not (though it'd be easy to check), since in the Proton fight I'm right in his face for the whole thing anyway. As always, clicky for video:
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Stage 6, done The ice/destroyable blocks were a pain to optimize, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten it now. ok, so stage 6 is done: There's three levels left. One annoyingly long one (lots of enemies and nasty short jumps), an insanely short one, and the final boss level. I gotta run all over and backtrack and it's a mess.
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Stage 5, completed This one was pretty straightforward with help of a map, just long and tedious. I got as far as uploading a copy to youtube before I realized that I could optimize the reactor destruction by not running right up to it. I don't think the previous level could benefit from the same optimization, since I can't sit on a ledge and wail on the reactor, I've got to jump and jump.
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Stage 4, finally I was busy with work and a gamejam, so I got delayed a lot. I'm not 100% happy with this one, there's a few place I might be able to try a different route and maybe save some frames. I haven't had time to try all of them, yet. I'm probably going to do some exploratory tasing to see if I can optimize it, just so I can avoid going on to stage 5. Dear god, it's going to take as long as all the previous levels put together.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
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Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
Stage 3, reran I saved about 1.5 seconds with the alternate route, and by waiting a few frames in other places I was able to save a bunch of health. I end stage 3 with one less than max health, which'll really help rushing the enemies at the start of stage 4. I've encoded it onto youtube, with less-than-stellar quality. The sound doesn't kill you anymore, thankfully.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Stage 3, preliminary I think a different path during the backtracking for the pink key will be a bit faster, and I wasn't worried about health in this level. I realized that he next level starts out with a lot of damaging enemies, it'd be a good idea to keep maximum health here so I can just run through them in the next level.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Level 2 completed I encoded this but the PC speaker came in at about +billion decibels, so I need to reencode it so it doesn't cause hearing damage. Maybe after stage three, that'll be much more interesting. Stage 2 is very very straightforward, there's nothing to do but blast the ice-blocks as fast as possible. Stage 3 has some route choices to be made, so it'll hopefully be more interesting/annoying to TAS.
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You're in luck then, as I was already working on encoding it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 5/6/2010
Posts: 30
I re-ran stage1 and improved it to 25.3s, as well as optimizing the startup time (3.8s from power-on to stage1 loaded) Here's the recording.