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Fabian wrote:
If you for some reason lose all your running speed on the lava transportation thing, is it still possible to reach flying speed later?
Nope.
Fabian wrote:
Is the running just to preserve the speed you gained at the beginning of the level?
Yep.
Also I will try Desert Secret now. Be back in a bit.
EDIT: I got it in 246 frames, if I measured right. SMV is here. Unless I'm missing something big, I don't think this can be done faster.
Does this mean you are doing the pyramid without firepower? Or haven't you tested yet. Also, about the pyramid spiked place, it may be entirely possible to fly down the whole damn thing, although you still might have to jump off a p-switch or key, because diving down part of it may make the updraft too strong for the last narrow passage.
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The button mashing at the beginning doesn't manipulate anything. It's there because I hex-edited readable text into the run after completing it, since button presses on the first 300 or so frames don't do anything. I also noticed that since there are 12 buttons on the SNES controller, but 16 bits per frame, there are some invalid bit combinations that caused the buttons "0", "1" and "2" to be pressed on some frames.
There was also a question about Bowser's Star World on the SDW forums that is worth answering here also: in this level, being able to fly off of the skull raft requires that I keep my running speed from the platform I begin the level on. This is why I'm always running back and forth and spin-flying to keep my speed. From a standstill, I wasn't able to fly from the skull raft.
Thanks to everyone who voted and commented!
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I have submitted a substantial improvement to this run:
http://tasvideos.org/806S.html
Since this submission is marked as "processing", I'm not sure if it should be canceled or not, so I'm leaving it up for now. If it should be canceled, someone important here let me know.
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Fabian wrote:
I'm not sure how narrow that last passage is, i.e. if it's possible to fly or not. The solution I came up with when I first thought about it some time ago was to throw the P-switch down there and jump off it. I'm not sure if that's possible either though. Do you have any suggestions for that part? Maybe take a detour and fetch the key, which I could jump on/grab like you do, only sideways.
I think you talking about the passage lined with spikes where you are "supposed" to ride that moving platform. Both of your ideas sound like good ones. Jumping off a P-switch is possible, and key-jumping sideways is most likely possible (although I never had thought of trying it).
There determining factor as to which idea is faster will be if you can hit the P-switch early and get the key, and also make it to the bottom before the P-switch runs out of time. If this is possible, this would probably be faster, because running through the wall to the right when it has turned into coins (directly above the key) is faster than running to the left because you are towards the right side of the screen anyway. When keyjumping sideways, I would guess that it's fastest to float towards the right holding Y, dropping the key (by holding down and letting go of Y on the same frame) but still holding B to float, and your speed should catch up with the key once it lands on the ground. One jump should do it, you can almost make it through there just by floating. You'll also have to time the jump to avoid one of those swinging spiked balls, but that shouldn't be a big problem.
If the P-switch does run out, the same idea can work with jumping off the P-switch. Either way it's going to look impressive when it's done.
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You rocked that level! That was sweet. I also forgot to say that I enjoyed the #1 Castle regular exit, especially the ceiling glitch.
You may want to get a yellow shell in your reserve box to prepare for the secret exit in the #2 Castle while you are there, but I'm not sure if you need a different reserve item before that. Unless there is some way to get that secret exit without a special item, but I don't know of one.
And as far as what other people (including me) think of your run, you have to take it with a grain of salt. It's just the way a website like this works unfortunately. I can understand why sometimes you wouldn't feel like posting a WIP. But it is what it is. I'm almost positive that this run would be published though, if it is finished, just because it's very tedious making every frame of a two-hour run count.
Keep up the good work!
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I like what you've done with this last update very much. It's usually the pain-in-the-ass non-linear levels (Desert World 2) that are the most fun for me to watch be timeattacked. Keeping flight while waiting for the lift to go down was a nice touch and it helped with speed also.
I hope you keep posting updates in this forum, but it's up to you. I hope my posts aren't the reason you don't want to, cuz if you want, I won't post anymore movies. I don't want to do anything to make it less likely that this awesome run will be finished. But if you want I'll continue to help however I can.
PEACE
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This is confusing. I'm using improvement7, and this run kept desync-ing even though I had WIP timing turned on. So I turned it off and ran it again, and it desync-ed again. So I turned it back on, along with fake mute and sync sounds with CPU, and it didn't desync. Then I turned off those options, just leaving WIP timing on, and it still did fine all the way to the end.
Glad to finally see this run! Nice job.
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Able to improve MF's run? Oh man I'm excited. Saturn, what would you estimate the final time on an any% run to be with the new tricks that have been found?
Good luck with this run!
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Holy crap this is awesome! I wonder if there is also a hack that puts just the spin-dash in Sonic 1...
Speaking of Sonic 1, I wonder how the run of that game was going, by Xebra, I believe. The first three levels were done and it was looking incredible.
But I digress. Time to play Sonic 1 with Knuckles (and more importantly, spin dash!!!)
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That's the kind of scenario I was talking about when I said "most hacks are just the same game with different sprites or something". I guess the general blanket would be that most hacks are just that - hacks. Super Demo World goes above and beyond what we call a "hack" - it's a brand new game. To me, anyway.
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Dark Mana wrote:
much as people seem to like this i'm not going to watch it. regardless of how good a game it is. its still a hacked rom your using which shouldn't be accepted only if bisqwit likes what has been changed with the game.
Have you played the game? Even if you don't agree with it being timeattacked here, it is still a very thorough and fun game to play that breathes new life into Super Mario World.
In regards to your opinion, I must thank you for not voting "no" based on these merits. I was worried when I submitted this that I would be getting a lot of "no" votes just because the game was hacked and they didn't agree with giving this ROM special exception, regardless of the content of the run.
And as far as my feelings on hacked ROMs - I always assumed they were not accepted because they pretty much suck. There are exceptions, of course, but most hacks are just the same game with different sprites or something. This one in particular is like an expansion pack to Super Mario World, perhaps even beyond that because there are new things added into the core programming that weren't in the original. (Edit: I'm sure companies like Capcom have done similar things to some of their sequels.) And it's not just Bisqwit that likes this game; the forums should be a clear indication of that.
I also wondered if people would be turned off simply because they weren't familiar with the game. That is a prime selling point of making an entertaining video. However, that hasn't stopped games that were only released in some countries from being published. This run has its audience, just like many other "real" games. When it's said and done, the run is entertaining in my opinion, hacked ROM or not. There are many other games that were made professionally and sucked a lot more.
I don't know what percentage of the people here feel this way, but if this run causes conflict, maybe it can be put in its own section of hacked ROMs. Then others could follow. Who knows.
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I can't get over the cool music in this game!!
Voted yes before, voting yes again. If a WIP beats it by some frames, then finish it and submit it, and have it obsolete this run. But until then, there's no reason to not go with this version. If we didn't publish videos because they could be beaten eventually, then this site wouldn't have much content.
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Michael Fried wrote:
I forgot which level it was, but you have to use a star so you can run across some fire and then fly up.
I don't remember a level with fire you run across, but I would think you could do the same trick of getting hit, grabbing a reserve feather, and running up to flight speed while invulnerable.
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I did some stuff to your run Fabian, which can be found here. I owe a lot of thanks to DeHackEd for his cool little upload script.
VIPer7 was right about Iggy. I also messed around on Salty Lake to try and find out where your frames were lost. I never could figure out exactly what caused them, but I did run it myself and not slow down.
Comparison:
JXQ Fabian
Iggy door entered: 18084 18084
Iggy defeated noise: 18528 18544 (16 frames gained at Iggy Koopa)
Salty Lake start: 20877 20893
Salty Lake landmark: 21228 21320 (76 frames gained from different route)
Salty Lake clear: 22475 22622 (51 other frames gained from flying(?))
147 frames gained altogether.
I was not able to stomp the koopa above the screen, but I did hit him with the cape spin. Whether you'd like to use this run is up to you.
I hope I'm not disheartening you by trying to squeeze frames out of your runs. I just figure it's more of a help than just pointing out possible mistakes, especially because this run is going to be a long one and there will be some points that I'm sure you'll want to quit. Hopefully having some help can take that stress off of your shoulders somewhat. I also am trying to not change the style of your run when I do this - hopefully I am mimicking your entertainment "route" well enough that it still seems true to your own.
EDIT: I also just noticed that I didn't get the third Dragon Coin. Frown. Although it is probably fixable without too much trouble.
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Fabian wrote:
After you take the key, is it regular wall jumps you do?
No, what I'm doing there is kicking the key at the wall, landing on the key when it rebounds off the wall, and then jumping off of it and picking it up again at the same time. I tried wall jumps first, but could only get one to work, and I needed two.
In this way, a key could be used to quickly scale any wall, although in most cases, a cape could do the same. But you never know where this might come in handy.
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BoltR wrote:
This 'mistake' stood out way more than the 'entertainment' gained by killing a few more koopas.
I guess I was looking at a final time standpoint instead of a video-watching standpoint. Your argument is convincing, but so was Fabian's, saying that we've all seen the same thing on previous Mario runs, and I still think that this game is so long and un-timeattack-friendly that it may need some more entertainment force-fed into it.
I honestly don't know how I feel about it now.
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Michael Fried wrote:
there are some secret exits where you'll need to go back and get an item from a toad house
From what I remember, the item you need is usually in the mushroom house in that same world. For example, the water world has the message box, which gets rid of the water in the castle, considerably speeding up that portion (as long as you have a cape). The pipe world has the vine to eat through the goomba blocks, etc. although there may be an exception I'm not remembering.
GWing_02 wrote:
he's sacrificing frames on some levels for entertainment but then when lag comes he will fly above levels.
Well, the difference is the amount of lag in this game is off the charts. For example, I lost 90 frames in two different levels on my 15-exit run due to lag at the expense of entertainment. That's three seconds, which is tougher to ignore than five or so frames lost in order to pick up a shell from a stomped koopa.
Fabian wrote:
I just realized that I'll need a fireflower very soon (Desert Pyramid b)
The level is beatable without firepower, but I don't know if it's faster or not. Also, you will probably need firepower soon enough anyway. However, I was bored and motivated, so I have a run for you to check out here. It completes Desert Pyramid secret exit without firepower, by carrying a P-switch and the key at the same time. It also uses another neat trick I discovered with the key that may come in useful elsewhere. I optimized everything except the flying speed, but there isn't much of that to worry about. So, I'd suggest that you try the level with firepower and compare the two to see which is faster.
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Yes, good point. It should also be noted that running speed is acheived a few frames before Mario sticks his arms out, although I don't know the exact number.
EDIT: Found a better, more direct route as far as the world map goes, especially if the key idea isn't being used (it didn't look like it was going to save enough time to be worth it anyway). I put it here, same place as the other maproute text file I made.
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Rygar is a game that is full of glitches used to their full potential, and it has a star.
I would say Battletoads fits in this same category. What does everyone think about one of the Battletoads runs having a star?
EDIT: I'd personally vote for the 2-player run by FODA without warps.
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Fabian wrote:
Since this was my first level where I used B-flying, I'd like to describe how I did it so someone can correct me if I did it wrong:
This seems like it works. The only thing you didn't mention (but that you must have done, otherwise you wouldn't have noticed a difference in each savestate) is that make sure to hold -> until the (first-fifth) frame Mario can press left.
Another thing to note is that you don't have to let go of -> within the first five frames. The process is cyclic, so if holding -> a little longer helps out your flight situation, you won't lose speed, as long as after you hold it for a bit, you then do the same process to see which of five frames you should let it go. This works because holding -> is not what slows you down, rather, letting go of it on the "wrong" frame does.
This is the same reason that holding -> for 20 frames shouldn't cause any loss of speed - although occasionally when testing, if I held -> for something like 50 frames (not all at once, but in multiples of five), I would be two frames behind by the time I reached my marker. I could hold -> for 30 or 35 frames without a delay, though. This should probably be tested a bit more.
With the run I posted last night, what I did was make a savestate at your run after getting the feather (and after Mario "reappeared"), holding ->, Y, and B. Then I advanced one frame, still holding ->, Y, and B, and saved state in a different slot. Then I advanced another frame, still holding ->, Y, B, saved a third slot, etc. In this way, your five saves hold -> for five different amounts, each increasing by one before it. Then I would load each state, not holding ->, and fly to the end of the level. Once I found which frame worked best (it was the fifth), then I watched your run to see what enemies you hit, and did my best to duplicate it. I found the frame to press B to enter the castle, and stopped the movie on that frame.
Then I took a hex editor and copied from your original run the press of B which enters the castle (these are usually easy to find if you only press B once, rather than pushing A and B repeatedly on alternate frames) until the end of the file, and I pasted this over the last frame of the new movie, so the presses of B lined up, and it worked on the first try. However, this doesn't always work as easily, because the amount of fade-out between levels has a random factor to it, and can throw off button presses.
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Hey it worked! New run is here. Puts the key in #1 Misty Castle at frame 15290, which is 24 frames earlier.
I'll explain how I did what I did tomorrow, too tired now.
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