Posts for NMcCoy


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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Don't know if you all are following it already, but I just saw this and wanted to make sure it was known here: Link to video
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
I know this isn't a terribly active topic at the moment, but I just wanted to chip in a thing that I didn't see mentioned in the thread here - I am pretty sure the reason that healing damages the final boss is due to an overflow. Normally when you cure something, it adds the current HP to the cure amount and sets the HP to that value, then reduces it to the target's max HP if it's over that amount. But the last boss has a huge amount of HP - so much so that if you heal it from its full health, the sum wraps the max integer (presumably 65535, the max of a 16-bit unsigned int), resulting in a total "less than" the boss's max, so it sets it to that sum - and then it checks the change between the old value and the new value, displaying that as a massive amount of damage. This is why the cure spell healing the boss or damaging him seems inconsistent - after you've "healed" him the first time, his current health is much lower, and it can add your cure spell's amount to that without overflowing, resulting in normal healing. Note that I haven't examined the game's code, or played it in a long time, so this is just informed speculation: According to this FAQ, the Dark King has 40,000 HP. In theory, if you can wrangle a way to heal him by exactly 25,536 HP, you might be able to one-shot him with a Cure spell. I don't know how the phase progression figures into it, though (it might cap the damage at the threshold, or even have separate HP totals for each phase), so that might complicate the strategy.
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
A thought I had: What if minimal runs were scored as frames * presses (with the lowest being the best)?
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
I would like to see a run of the "speed expiation" hack instead. This Mario-with-ADD run was fun, but it wore thin after the first couple levels.
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Sweet smoldering dodongos this run is nightmare inducing. Link takes a wrong turn at right angles to reality, wanders into the realm of things man was not meant to know, and causes the end of the world. And then a minute or so later the credits roll for some reason. I don't think I'll be able to get to sleep tonight. Yes vote, obviously.
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Warp wrote:
What next? Remove the endearing "hey, listen!"? ;)
Not to mention this run's endearing "HeyLooWaHeyLooWaLooWaHey!"
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Suggested screenshot: Link lying dead in front of Shiek in the Temple of Time.
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Joined: 6/1/2006
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Reminds me of a glitch I encountered a long time ago, where Yoshi swallowed the bar at the end of Star World 5. (He swallowed a shell at the end of the level, while his mouth was over the bar, and the bar vanished, keeping me from completing the stage.)
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I seem to recall a run of aLttP on GBA that didn't use the sword button at all.
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Just played a game of Star Fox 2 on this emulator, and I am quite impressed indeed. Excellent work.
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Yes vote and star nomination. This is a marvelous exemplar of a TAS.
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Watching the Youtube run now. I admit the "menu chirping with intermittent pendulum" made me giggle far more than it should have. I can already tell this is going to be at least as awesome as the super-glitched Pokemon run.
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I found this very entertaining. Am I the only one that started playing Caramelldansen during the x-ray scope section? Also, when the escape sequence spontaneously started after the secret-worlds goofiness, I giggled at the thought of the game getting so glitched out that it started self-destructing. Congratulations, Samus - you've bent reality so badly that you made the freaking planet blow up. Well, I suppose that takes care of the space pirates at least...
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So does that mean we can add the "plays on the hardest difficulty" tag? Or is there something higher than hard?
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The blue switch palace thing is awesome (I cracked up for a solid minute) but shouldn't be spoiled by a screenshot, so I won't.
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Joined: 6/1/2006
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Just out of curiosity - the [ ! ] one from the powerup bar does the same amount of damage as the blue powerup, right? I seem to recall that the [ ! ] makes the screen flash; is that just a different graphical effect?
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Could you use the Mega Crush power to kill the enemies that "escaped" and truly get 100% kills? Or when it kills all enemies on screen does it really kill things only on the screen?
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Heh. I was giggling the whole time, but nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the "pokedex rating". A great punchline to a hilarious TAS.
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Could someone do a GP run that destroys all drivers every race, to get 174 stars at the end? That'd be pretty spectacular to see - aims for highest time while destroying all other racers.
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I can't watch this right now; does the movie take advantage of bonuses once the chain hits x13?
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I wasn't watching the keypresses, just going by the sound and apparent speed. Do you plan on teaching it to use items?
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Huffers wrote:
My Super Mario Kart bot has already discovered (and exploited) two new things I didn't know were possible in SMK. Don't know if it's on-topic here... but my bot is now doing quite well
That is interesting. Intriguing to see what sort of things it does (letting up on the gas, for instance)... Do you provide it with guidelines on how to navigate the track, or is it all based on the bot watching the track itself? And what are the discoveries it's made, or do you not want to give that away?
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Hm. Might be interesting to have bots competing for score on a shmup, too.
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Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Couldn't that "grid snapping" effect be used for faster movement? That is, move until you're within snapping distance of the next grid line, then press perpendicular for one frame? Or is this already done?
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Awesome job. The spinning tracks, as said, were a bit annoying, but worth it for the sake of an optimal run. Definite yes.