Posts for Invariel

Posted: 4/28/2017 11:29 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

If only we could re-enter the intro stage.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 4/26/2017 5:51 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/38597753864589843 is the information panel that my team used. We had a separate script for drawing boxes around things.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 4/25/2017 2:54 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

In my experience, you can only clip through a ceiling if that ceiling is 16 or fewer pixels tall -- that's why it's trivial to travel through one block floors -- but anything more than that is impossible to do so going up. Conveniently, the lower 16 pixels of a ceiling are generally cosmetic and not solid, which is what makes it possible to clip through many 32-pixel platforms, but those invisible ceilings in the boss rooms are taller than 32 pixels.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 4/25/2017 12:29 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

If I recall correctly, continuing only gives you one life, so the first time you do it it'd be a pain, but every other time (as long as you avoid extra lives) it'd be easy.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 4/22/2017 1:45 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Wait, that thing speeds you up? RIP. -_-

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 3/20/2017 10:29 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

I have waited a while to let my thoughts settle and let themselves be composed, because I don't want to hurt feelings or say something I will regret later. Here, in long form, are my thoughts about TASVideos' presence at *GDQ over the last couple of years, and my hopes going forward. TAS Block at *GDQ, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly It is my honest opinion that TASVideos has overstayed its welcome at *GDQ. Having transitioned away from showing the site's runs and into doing cool things with computers, I feel that the TASVideos envoys have stopped demonstrating what makes TASVideos cool and instead started doing something else entirely. The phrase “technological showcase” has been used, I feel that is an accurate description of what the TAS block has become. The Good I have always hoped that TASVideos’ role at GDQ events has been to raise awareness of TASing as a hobby, and to encourage people to try it out. Talking with people after watching the TAS blocks has generally resulted in people thinking that it is interesting, and I have definitely had people ask me about TASing; I answer them as effectively as I can, but they start from such a position of ignorance that it is frustrating to think that the TAS block is hurting more than it helps. The Bad Due to the limited time granted to the TAS block team, there is not much time for explanation of what TASing is about, little time to explain what tools are used (partially due to not being able to secure commentary), and no time to describe the tricks that are being applied in order to achieve the results that are demonstrated year after year. Furthermore, there is a lot of association of TASing with TASBot, which adds to the number of things which must be unlearned in order to properly teach people about TASing. The Ugly In addition to the association of TASing to TASBot, the movies created for *GDQ have moved further and further away from TASVideos’ stated goals (“to complete games with extremely high precision”; “t must beat the game”) and into the realm of proving that computers are, in fact, computers, leading to runs that are created for the sole purpose of being demonstrated at GDQ and similar events, but not publishable on TASVideos.org, which makes the presentation even less representative of the site. Another problem that has been raised in past years, and which has been highlighted frequently, is the deviation from another of the site’s movie rules: “The movie must be properly attributed.” While I recognize that this is something that dwangoAC has repeatedly commented that he is frustrated about dropping the ball about, it bears repeating that something representative of TASVideos, under the banner of the TASVideos name, should follow the rules of the site. Because the trend in recent years has been to move away from showcasing site runs and toward showcasing just how much the consoles are still computers, and not helping the cause of informing people about TASing, I would be very happy to see TASVideos distance itself from *GDQ events for a time. Finally, something that has irked me for the past two years about *GDQ events is the need to pull a team together to put together these technological showcases; I recognize how much time it takes to put together a decent TAS, let alone a good one, but the teams being asked to put something together are being asked to create something which, in the end, can’t be published on the site, and I am annoyed every time I see one of those threads go up, or someone complaining that not enough people are volunteering their time to work on such a non-representative piece of work. I cannot deny that the end results are incredible – Pokémon Plays Twitch was a delight; Brain Age was an absolute masterpiece; Skypetendo was very interesting to watch – but breaking out of the game to let a computer be a computer is not as interesting (to me) as doing something incredible within the game (Lord Tom’s takeover of Super Mario Bros. 3 to fake a terminal window and prompt, Masterjun’s takeover of Super Mario World to write Snake and Pong using Mario sprites) which demonstrate what can be done within the game and its limited resources to achieve great effect. I feel that TASVideos should withdraw from *GDQ events for a couple of years, to give people the opportunity to seek us out on their own, and if and when we return to *GDQ events, we should focus on accurately explaining what TASes are, as well as showcasing runs from the previous year instead of engaging in more esoteric pursuits.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 3/16/2017 10:55 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Locking the thread because it is irrelevant now.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 2/21/2017 1:27 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

http://tasvideos.org/4311S.html

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 2/4/2017 2:53 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Yeah, I thought he paths himself all the way to the tablet on his own.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 2/4/2017 2:31 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Thanks for the pointer. I haven't been working on Lagoon lately because of work and DTC6, but I will keep this in mind.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/30/2017 10:19 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

The first people you should be asking permission from should be your family. If assassyknitter and your sproglets are okay with you taking the time to attend Californithon, then you should consider it. You are still the site's ambassador, and you are clearly working to be a better one - whether you actually do attend or not, whatever you choose to present, you are our forward-facing voice to the outside world.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/29/2017 8:44 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

pirate_sephiroth wrote:

Today I switched to the latest dev build and it seems better. I was able to use TAStudio without big issues. The only problem I had was with the conversion from bk2 to tasproj. Every time we launch TAStudio while a bk2 movie is running, it is converted but it still starts a new movie. The solution seems to be to close TAStudio immediatly after confirming it (maybe the emulator too? I'm not sure), then launch it again and open the converted tasproj.

I can't speak to the rest of your message, because I don't have answers for you. As to this, the way I've found to convert bk2s to tasproj, even in the official build, is to first open TAStudio, and then open the .bk2 in that. That will convert the file (for me) without issue, and let me keep working where my teammates left off.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/28/2017 8:00 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

What problems are you having with BizHawk, pirate_sephiroth?

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/26/2017 7:15 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

DrD2k9, you raise a significant number of good points in your post. You are entirely correct in suggesting that changing the gameplay in these localized places may result in more difficult challenges later that wipe out the pixels saved by jumping less, and you do make a very valid point that complete runs should be judged, not small portions of that gameplay. However, in attempting to prove that your run is optimal (which is a criterion for your run being accepted), you, as the player, should go back to those criticized portions of the game, implement the suggestions, and see if that does, in fact, save time later. Yes, it is a hassle, but if such an obvious potential improvement is ignored in the process of judging this movie, and then someone comes along and implements those few pixels of optimization, that speaks poorly of the judge, and of the person who submitted the original run.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/26/2017 12:13 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Thanks! I have put it on hold (surprise, surprise) because of DTC6, but I also have some ideas about how to maybe save TAS time on this. Though, I must admit a certain level of frustration with Giles. Not looking forward to leading Thor around by the nose either.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/23/2017 9:59 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Hi, Sieluvaras, and welcome to TASVideos. You've got a great attitude heading into a really fun hobby. Believe it or not, those skills you listed will help you a lot more than you think. While a lot of TASing is about understanding the game you are playing and figuring out how to make the most of that understanding, a lot of getting that understanding revolves around thinking about how the programmers thought. For example, in .NET and other object-oriented languages, you think about structures and objects in memory - contiguous blocks of data. When you're searching RAM for enemy data, you will be applying those principles - searching for contiguous blocks of data that you can parse into enemy information. Or grouping X and Y positioning near each other. Or HP and MP. That sort of thing. As for starting out, if you're going to be looking at Super Mario World specifically, you will definitely want to look at the input files for the currently published videos, and all of the previous publications; you will also want to check out the Game Resources page for that title (http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/SNES/SuperMarioWorld.html), which is extensive, and which will help you get a baseline of information for playing that particular title. The most important pieces of advice I can offer you are to ask researched questions in the Super Mario World thread in the SNES forum, and post your progress in Userfiles so that people can comment on it. Best of luck, and, again, welcome to TASVideos.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/21/2017 4:45 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Our team name has been decided. We're going with, "We'll Hex the Name in Later". (We'll hex a logo in later too. Maybe.)

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/18/2017 9:59 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Stovent, I am moving these posts into their own thread in Encoder's Corner because they do not belong here.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/18/2017 8:43 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Aglar wrote:

I've now formed a team with TehSeven, thelegendarymudkip and Trunc

And who? You got cut off a bit at the end there.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/18/2017 2:17 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

A team (team name: TBD) has been formed. Mostly. Myself, Lord Tom, and Samsara require one additional member. Edit: fsvgm777 has reached out to me and joined the team! Team name is still to be determined, but we have four!

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/16/2017 10:31 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

It wasn't a waste of time if you learned something about how the site works. Welcome, and best of luck honing your skills. Please don't be demoralized.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/15/2017 9:45 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

You don't see a poll voting option because you still have the Lurker rank. Due to prior instances of vote tampering through alternate accounts, Lurkers are prevented from voting. Welcome to the community; if you stick around for a bit, you will be able to properly vote on submissions and publications.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/12/2017 10:31 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

If I don't sign up for this, what the hell did I spend the entire last year for? Who wants an Invariel on their team?

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 1/11/2017 10:54 PM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

https://clips.twitch.tv/invariel/AverageHedgehogWinWaker (Oh, as promised in the First 500 thread, I am now looking at Lagoon.)

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 12/30/2016 5:16 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Yeah, I agree - I thought about spacing the pauses out so that it wouldn't generate that horrible chapel noise, but I started in on that a bit too late. It would definitely save peoples' ears though. Thank you for the kind words. I was hoping you'd see it before it was actually published. (It's actually my second publication - Bible Buffet was a collaboration with Spikestuff - but it was the first thing I worked on.)

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is