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Good to see this, I played a lot of this game!
(is it just me or are the boss enemies really boring? I mean they are well TAS'ed, of course, but compared to the boss design of TLoZ they just don't look so impressive)
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feos wrote:
The voters weren't too active, but I see a Star potential in this run.
Many times in the middle of levels, it fades to this black computer screen and back. These constant interruptions basically kill the pacing of the run. I don't think that's star material.
Many times in the middle of levels, it fades to this black computer screen and back. These constant interruptions basically kill the pacing of the run. I don't think that's star material.
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Great to see this classic game return! Voting yes, of course.
TASVideoAgent wrote:
Additionally, this feature seems glitchy, and the number of turns needed to push the rock seems to vary under mysterious circumstances.
Well, I don't know about the NES port in particular, but as I recall in the original Boulder Dash you simply have an X-in-8 chance each turn of successfully pushing a boulder, where X is usually 1 but can be set for each level.
henke37 wrote:
Good work, but I'm concerned about the password use. Can you explain why this isn't just skipping ahead in the game?
You should read it as "hardest difficulty" (and arguably this doesn't need a branch name either).
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Warp wrote:
I'm such a huge proponent of a completely separate and independent section of the site dedicated to these demos and playarounds that people are clearly interested in, but don't really fit into the concept of a speedrun.
Have you checked the site logo recently?
"Superplay", not "Speedrun".
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Warp wrote:
I find a degree of irony in the fact that I don't really consider ACE demos a legit form of TASing, yet I'm arguing for ways to have more of them published, while most other people here consider them legit TASes and would want less of them published. There's a certain... cognitive dissonance in all this, for a lack of a better term. "They are awesome! Let's have less of them published!"
Or alternatively, we're saying "They're awesome, let's publish and highlight the best of them!" whereas you're saying "They suck, let's create a dumping ground for them below the lowest tier, and mix the good ACEs with the bad ones so people won't notice them."
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Frankly, I don't see this as different enough to warrant a separate branch. It feels arbitrary to not use one type of glitch but still use another type of glitch that, while technically different, looks pretty similar in the result.
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Warp wrote:
Acceptance is completely arbitrary, as there are essentially no rules nor guiding principles, "obsoletion" is completely nonsensical (how and why exactly would an ACE demo "obsolete" another? On what criteria?)
Have you read Nach's lengthy explanation on why the recent Pokemon run was accepted? It seems to me that answers every single one of your questions here.
It strikes me that the issue is not so much "these questions have gone unanswered", but that "these questions have been repeatedly answered but you disagree with the answer". Now there's nothing wrong with that, you can certainly consider changes you'd like to be made to the site; but it would be vastly more productive if you start with describing the current answers and what exactly you dislike about them.
Because there are clear rules and guiding principles on both acceptance and obsolecense, and Nach (among others) is using those; there's nothing more arbitrary about these runs than about any moon or star run. And again, nor does throwing a new tier into the mix make the decision any more or less arbitrary.
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Warp wrote:
Generally speaking there has always been a principle of keeping the number of different kind of TASes of a given game to a very moderate amount ... A demo tier would pretty much remove those limitations. You could have as many ACE (or whatever) runs of a particular game without having to worry about those limitations.
That strikes me as a strong argument against having a 'demo tier'. The way you describe it, it would basically become a dumping ground for arbitrary videos with no quality control. That already exists, and it's called YouTube; the purpose of TASvideos is different.
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For the publication screenshot, there's a nice moment around the 38:50 mark where the cage at the bottom of the screen is still in the middle of his opening animation, while Rayman is already at the exit sign doing his level completion dance. This combination should not normally be possible.
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The underlying question here is, how many different ACE Playarounds should be published on the site.
Creating an additional tier does precisely nothing to address this question, so it's not going to help. Indeed, it would only confuse the issue further, considering we already have more tiers than most visitors know what to do with. So let's not do that.
Instead, we should look into whether the current guidelines on playarounds are (1) written down somewhere, and (2) sufficient if ACE'ing is becoming more common.
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Given its sheer level of polish, Rayman is a contender for the best 2D platformer ever, and this TAS is correspondingly amazing. Especially with the funny physics of all those plumboosts. You've got my vote!
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Warp wrote:
Maybe "devolve" is not the perfect word, but it seems to me that the rules of what constitutes an acceptable submission are being loosened and loosened as time passes.
...why? This run is clearly a Superplay, and is obviously tool-assisted.
From that same post, I note that the game has an extremely obscure good ending. It would be interesting to see a run of that.
But yeah, this 62-bombs deal does appear to be a deliberate cheat code. I can totally imagine a first-time programmer putting in something like that, and it's clearly not a boundary condition or buffer overflow or other typical kinds of glitch.
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Wow, this classic will be a great addition to the site! And I didn't even know it had warps like that!
(for people unfamiliar with the history of this game, Nintendo tried hard to get it withdrawn from stores, because they feared it would hurt their sales of Super Mario Bros...)
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feos wrote:
zaphod77 wrote:
the genesis version is horribly mangled.
So why won't we obsolete it? It's in Vault, people barely care.
Because the Genesis version is a different port on a different platform, with different graphics, different musics, different glitches and four additional levels (and without the additional level present in the SegaCD version). It's simply not the same game; you might as well ask why NES Donkey Kong doesn't obsolete Atari Donkey Kong.
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feos wrote:
Before I look too hard into this, does anyone think the 1P run is not outstanding enough to remain published alongside this one and should get obsoleted?
Yes, I do. The 2P run is both faster and more fun to watch. I don't think that "the route is different" is a strong argument to warrant two separate branches.
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feos wrote:
Also, should this probably obsolete the Genesis version? The latter has no music, same level design, and its run has less glitches.
I'd say no. They're different ports, with different graphics and sound, on different systems, and with different glitches.
The level design of all POP ports I've seen is based on the Apple-II original, usually with a few extras. For instance, the Genesis version adds four extra levels, whereas this Sega CD version adds an extra fight with Zombie Jafar. Personally I enjoy seeing ports like these (or e.g. Bubble Bobble) side-by-side.
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Well, I noticed today that you guys made our local newspaper. Considering this is a US event and I live in Europe, that's an exceedingly rare thing for anything except top-tier celebrities. So well done TAS'ers!
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See, here's the thing. This is not a pure speed record, this is supposed to be an entertaining moon-tier run with a rather unique goal, i.e. killing all the friends you're supposed to be saving.
In a movie with a goal like that, I want to actually SEE the main character killing the mudokons - not rush out of an area and have the mudokons be counted as automatic off-screen deaths. The skip doesn't sit well with me.
So voting no. For a pure speed run, speed is best. For a special goal, show the entertainment.
"Superplay", not "Speedrun".