Link to video
I'm not patient enough to do a proper TAS but here's a game that's guaranteed to go direct-to-Vault. It's a tame Donkey Kong-style game with essentially no opportunity to save time outside of optimizing movement.
Here's some notes (also in the Youtube video description):
- This game has TONS of frame rules. It seems very hard to do significantly better than this run even if you optimize inputs, because of all the slow-moving objects that need to be dodged. There are a few cases where I barely miss the chance to pass an object that could probably be improved on in a real TAS.
- I tried everything that looked like it could remotely be a shortcut. You just die. Seriously - the programmers _deliberately_ programmed in a death if you try to take any different route from the one depicted. Want to jump from one platform to another? You die. There's no clear indication in the game as to the intended route, so it's very possible for a new player to attempt a jump and die without any real clues as to why.
- Jumping is obviously significantly faster than walking. So I jump as often as possible. You need to already be walking in a direction or else you'll just jump vertically.
- When you leave a rope, the location where you end up depends on if you were on the left or right side of the rope. But it takes a few frames to switch the side of the rope you're on. It's probably not worth it unless you're waiting on a frame rule.
I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet - I'd be very interested in seeing Sonic Robo Blast 2 TAS'd. It's pretty much the canonical good Sonic fangame at this point.
EDIT: Dat Altas encode. If it could be modified to show rings and objects while they're offscreen, it would be perfect. I actually thought about something like that while watching the WIPs, but I didn't think it was already a thing.
Making the offscreen rings/objects work is possible, but it will certainly involve a lot of coding and, even more importantly, some knowledge about the game engine which I do not have.
If you can't make the offscreen rings/objects work, it would be cool to draw a box showing the actual game screen boundaries. I think that'd make it a lot more comfortable, visually.
Voted No for basically the same reasons as SmashManiac.
In particular, I don't think this fangame has enough clout, especially since it clearly reuses assets from published and familiar commercial games.
I think it's time for TASvideos to branch out.
The time has come for galleries of - not just games being played fast, but true art - art made within the game itself!
What's next? Write Tetris to memory and then TAS that? Of course, the Game Boy version of Tetris would take a little over 9 minutes to write, but it would be interesting nonetheless!
I would love to see Super Mario Land written into memory and then TAS'd. That's the sort of thing that should be done just for the sake of doing it. Also, it would be hilarious to watch in an emulator.
This has been mentioned many, many times, but since there isn't a thread for it yet: Mega Man Legends deserves a TAS. The SDA speedrun of it is 57:02, and it seems likely that a TAS could bring that below 50 minutes.
Looks like an unexciting game choice. I can't tall if the author's choice of movement is optimal, having not played the game, but the protagonist is up against a wall at least twice; I wouldn't be surprised if there were improvements available.
Without comments, this gets a meh.
This game should be done as a 100%, as it is a game where the tasks are the interesting thing, not the stages (because, as you mentioned, there isn't a real ending.)
the description text is poor because we’re bad writers
You should try to include at least these in a description text:
- What levels are played, and what you do in each of them.
- All glitches used, and what they do.
- Potential optimizations
This doesn't look great luck-wise; there's a lot of zig-zagging to get items. Voting no because luck manipulation could probably make this substantially faster.
EDIT: Wait, are the courses the same every time? I remember that the main mode is procedurally-generated, but if the courses are the same each time, my vote changes to yes.
I'd really much rather the first Gamecube submission to the site be an actual TAS instead of "entertainment value only." I can't watch it until an encode is put up, but I will not vote "yes" unless it only makes small sacrifices of time for entertainment.
Oh, and regarding screenshots:
All the dialog-only ones are silly and are only there just to get a laugh from how bad they are. In serious, I would prefer screenshots like those used in battles, although there isn't that much to go with since disabling battle animations is what makes it fast. For publication screenshot I'd go with either the dying Magneton or the dying Skarmory one, not only because the opponent is dying, but also because of the "not very effective" as well.
Why does it need to be serious? The point of TASes is to have fun with games, and even if the screenshot doesn't show how broken the game is, a silly one is much more indicative of the flavor of the run. The Skarmory screenshot requires a lot of thought to figure out.
Also, FractalFusion, I highly recommend the use of captions for your encodes in the future, as mine are very well received, and they'd probably shorten your submission text significantly. It's a lot easier to read a play by play than an accompanying essay.
Hey, I like long submission texts. They're good references (often the best source for info on a game's RNG) and fun to read while I wait for a huge encode to download.