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Radiant wrote:
VG Museum shows different text for the ending...
However, Zool was originally an Amiga game. By the time the Genesis version was released, the Amiga platform had already released the sequel. It is possible that the six extra levels simply refer to this sequel (which was apparently planned, but never released, for the Genesis).
Those screens are from the SNES version which is pretty much a different game (except for world/enemy design) with different physics and levels. Amiga version is even more vastly different (though i've never played either of those 2 other versions)
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nymx wrote:
Good run. The beginning started off rather slow for entertainment...but, it got better and better.
So, it took you months to do this? From what I saw on your history with posted YouTubes...you seemed to have been at this for years.
I progressively put more attention to entertainment, and early levels arn't the most interesting too i guess (also RNG manipulation limits my actions)
I started with the idea of that TAS late 2013, abandoned it quickly because i couldn't find how the RNG worked. I then looked at it again late 2015, spent 1 month in debugger and lua scripting to understand and be able to simulate rng, then did first 2 levels and stopped again. I finally started again in September 2017 and did most of the game between that and Decembler, slowing finishing since January. So overall probably 6 or 7 months ^^
Radiant wrote:
...is that the only ending of the game? Because sounds like a pretty anticlimatic sequel bait. Is there a golden ending somewhere?
That's.... actually a very good question. As far as i know (my experience playing as a kid a lot and searching for info on this) there isn't another ending.
But i also wonder if there are secrets i don't know, so maybe there is?
Something that always intrigued me are bonus levels hidden in levels(that are shoot'em up sections, that are kind of bugged on hit detection since it's pretty hard to not get hit on them even playing frame by frame).
I know of 2 such bonus levels, first in level 2-1, the other on 3-2, but there likely are some others hidden. Don't know how i could look for them though and i have not found more info. I'll probably have to look at that at some point, but these don't affect the rest of the game from what i've seen.
Thank you for the votes and the nice responses =)
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Yep, my bad, i meant to just start the submission and fill the comments on a notepad but i pushed the save button by accident '-'
I started editing the comments and will finish it tomorrow to provide more details and some level by level info.
And yea.. there's a decent amount of work on this xD
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Extra post to explain my findings!
- As could be expected, whether or not an enemy drop items is RNG-based. There are 6 2-byte values at 6 consecutive addresses in the RAM used for the RNG.
- I used a debugger to figure out how it worked more precisely: when the RNG is called, all 6 values are modified using each other (probably some classical RNG algorithm at higher level but i don't know much about those), and in the process a 7th number is generated.
That number is then comparated to a constant and if it's higher then the enemy drops items (same process for checking if they drop a little heart that gives 1HP, but it's most likely not gonna be useful for a TAS).
It amounts to a 1/16 "chance" to have a drop.
- I wrote a Lua script that simulates calls to the RNG, keeping the 6 values intact and therefore being able to tell at which state of the RNG i can get a drop. Thanks to it i can know how the RNG will behave for any number of future call and plan accordingly.
-RNG is called for several events, what i found so far is:
---Gathering an item
---Enemies of certain types dying
---Having enemies with random behaviour loaded
---Being in a "sparkly state", which happens when you have invincibility frames which is, when you enter the level, get hit, or pass very near an enemy (like jumping on one to kill it)
-Certain enemy types don't call the RNG when dying, and seemingly can't be made to drop items on death.
-Hitboxes (for enemy contact and for gathering items) are kind of wonky at times. Doing the same movement and being at the same exact position, i might sometimes gather an item and sometimes not, depending on previous actions in the same level. For example, doing the exact same movement in the whole level, only differing by shooting one projectile that kills an extra enemy, i won't get an item i had gotten before.
-Sadly, so far i found no reliable way to manipulate RNG. However it can be affected by killing or not enemies and at different times, getting the "sparkly state" that calls RNG, and picking a different amount of items. However, and especially when tied with the wonkyness of the hitboxes, there's only few ways to affect the RNG that cost a reasonable amount of time, and even less that are costless.
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(Time for necro-posting what i started)
Well, after quite a long time now, and since i saw no other attempts at TASing this game, i actually worked more seriously on it this time, to sum up what i did:
-Unlike the early WIP i did, i'm doing the game in hard difficulty because of the slightly higher number of items needed to collect making it a bit more interesting. That means the earlier levels are redone (i actually did first 2 at some point in 2015)
-At that same time in 2015, before starting the game, i spent a quite extensive amount of time trying to figure out when enemies would drop items.I'll put my findings in an other post.
To sum them up, RNG can be somewhat manipulated but it tends to be costly. Even if items drop, they have an animation where they scatter going upwards then fall down, and can't be recovered during that, and it's rather slow to gather all resulting items or even part of them, even in optimal conditions, except when there's a ceiling just above. The routes on my WIP use some enemy item drops to save time so far.
-My go-to method to optimize the route is to first get to the end point the fastest while getting items that don't make me lose time. Then seeing for nearby groups of items how many i can get and how much frames it "costs". Finally simply choosing the best set of item groups that give just enough items in the lowest time loss. (pretty much how Truncated explained it in the earlier post).
Integrating items from RNG enemy drops in that method is not very practical though, because the cost will be dependent on what happens in the level before. Also some levels (so far mainly 1-4, 2-2 and 4-1) don't work too well with that approach: the first requires enemy drops to avoid a large detour to have enough items, while the other two just don't have enough items near the fastest route and require a vastly different route.
-Killing bosses is funny and fast! You can shoot a projectile every 2 frames, with a maximum of 4 on screen at any point. However by staying close enough to the boss by the time you would shoot a 5th projectile has hit and disappeared, so it's possible to shoot at the maximum rate of fire at most point.
-So far i finished worlds 1 to 4, and levels 5-1 and 5-2, and am working on 5-3 at the moment. Knowing that they're 7 worlds in total, so i'm quite past half now. I uploaded WIPs for worlds 1-2 and worlds 3-4, I've also uploaded my WIP movie on the site with the work up to level 5-2.:
Link to videoLink to video
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Well indeed in this case the Hard setting would lead to a more interesting run that is a bit less straightforward, and needs more routing.
(Which is more interesting to me, even for a 1st full TAS =p)
On Easy a lot of levels could be done in a rather "straight" line. (Game is not "go from left to right" in most levels).
Don't know if i can talk of more "tricks" though, since i don't really have such things, at least at that point, and i've never found much information on this game.
Anyway, that would have been my choice, so i'm gonna work on the run in Hard.
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I'm planning to (hopefully more seriously this time) "re"start my TAS project on Zool for the Genesis.
Now there is one point i did not think of back then (although important... damn i'm stupid sometimes), it's the difficulty setting to use for the game.
As for what difficulty changes:
Basically, to finish levels, you have to get a certain number of "collectibles" in the level (they're like coins in Mario pretty much), to activate the exit of the level.
The amount depends on the level... but it also depends on the difficulty.
Havn't tested all levels in difficulties (yet), but the pattern seems to be that Normal has a certain amount, then in Easy you need 15 less, while in Hard you need 5 more.
Obviously it's pretty much impossible to gather the required amount in the fastest path from start to the end "point" of a level, so more Collectibles to gather means longer times.
As far as i know, it's the only significant (if not only) difference between difficulties. The only other different i was maybe expecting, was a difference in the HP of bosses, but so far it seems there's no difference at all (i will do a complete comparison before deciding though, to be sure)
To sum it up, it seems that sometimes the hardest difficulty setting is preferred, but here playing with the easiest setting would end up in a faster run.
So.... is there a choice i should favor in this case? And is there a "mandatory" choice as a criteria for submissions?
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Ok, then according to that, i'll play in Hard ^^
So i'll redo the first two levels =p
So far, still no idea what makes the ennemies give their objects... which is annoying ^^
For the route, i did like that too, seeing how much i can grab while going the fastest, then deciding where i should lose some time to grab more.
Well that means i'm back to work =p
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I just realized something i completely forgot... what difficulty should i choose?
There is Easy, Normal and Hard, and as far as i know, the only thing it changes is the number of items you have to get to finish the level (like 5 more in Hard than in Normal).
The two levels i have done were in Normal. (i can redo that if i have to change, just saying as an indication)
So i'm really not sure. Hard would just mean more difficult routing and more time wasted to get that, but that might still be the better options...
Can i get any advice regarding that?
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I should have told that i uploaded the videos to spare you having to do that...
Although i don't know how to dump it the best way and it looks much worse on mine ^^
http://www.youtube.com/user/XpLosION59/videos
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Sorry for the being missing in action guys! Had stuff to do during summer, and college since September ^^
I think i'm gonna work on that project again now, just still have some searching to do for the RAMWatch, couldn't decide if there was subpixels values and all.
Also while i'm here, gonna ask if any of you has an idea: basically a big part of the choice for routes inside the levels is to get enough... "objects" or whatever they're called, since you're pretty much obliged to lose time at some points to get them.
But another way to get them is sometimes, when you kill an enemy, instead of expldoing into the 5 little balls, he'll explode into 5 of those objects, and i'm sure being able to manipulate that could be useful at some point.
The problem is, i have no idea how it works. From all i've played, i'd assume it's random, in which case i'd have to manipulate it "manually" (if you see what i mean... not too used to all the TAS vocabulary ^^). But there might be some other reasons besides that.
I'm gonna continue to search that anyway, while looking for routes.
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Thanks for the links =)
i'll take a close look at the ramwatch, even though it seems jumping and all still keeps the same velocity, i'll make me sure of it. One thing i especially want to see is how slopes work and how i can optimize it.
Other than that, does it seem right for the moment?
Here's the movie file http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/299277112/Zool%20%28U%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv
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Hey again guys!
Seems my topic does not have a lot of success, but i'm not surprised considering it's a pretty unknown games.
Anyway, i have done a test work with the first level, and it seems to go pretty good for the moment, although i think it's still improveable, and i still have to take a closer look at the RAMWatch to get numbers and assure i can't go faster.
But i still have to learn how to use the tools efficiently, i nearly only use frame advance right now.
I posted it on youtube to be easy to watch, but i can give the emulator movie file if it can help (although i dunno how to easily give that ^^)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvvKpmokv9M
Any input from you guys about whether i'm on the right path or not would be nice, so that i know if i still have to correct things or think of doing more of it!
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So, this is a game i love, and i've begun some TAS testing on it, although at the moment it's more about getting the hang of the tools since i'm new to TASing myself.
I wanted to know if anyone had any knowledge on the game that could help me?
I know the game overall pretty well since i was already playing it 10 years ago, but there might be specific tips i don't know about. And considering it's a pretty unkown game, it's not that easy to find out information ^^
I'll try putting a first work of the first stage, while i keep getting around the game as a whole.
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Well considering i've played these 2 games when i was like 8.,(Especially Zool), i do like them ^^
Although not in a completely objective way =p
But i think i'll give a try to Zool, even though i have to learn to use the tools and all.
(I've some basic knowledge, but never actually tried)
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Hello everyone!
Ever since i learned the existence of TAS's (which must be a good 3 years now), i've always been fascinated by them, trying understand how they work and the way specific things/programming work in games.
And after that amount of time, i really would like to try things for myself, and also join the community and talk with everyone about the TAS.
Although i don't have much experience yet with the emulator tools, i'll be playing around with them, also seeing what game i'd like to "toy" with. Although i already have two possible ideas. Those would be "Zool" and "Asterix and the power of the Gods" on the Genesis. But i've no idea if those are able to be TASed or i would be able to actually do one. Anyway i'll make tests on both the games to see what is possible.
And overall i'll try to hang around and give my contribution on what's possible.
Hoping i'll have good times here =)