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As you may be aware, Godot games (and most PC games) are usually TASed through libTAS. Therefore a native Linux release is helpful. Historically Godot has been a reliable engine for TASing but more recently there seem to be some unresolved issues (based on messages in the libTAS Discord server). The only specific practice I'm aware of that might help is not using C#, because the .NET runtime can cause issues, but obviously you should program in your preferred language, and ideally libTAS would support all.
You could try testing in libTAS while you develop the game, particularly savestates and RNG (use command line option --audio-driver ALSA, and --rendering-driver opengl3 --single-threaded-scene if they help).
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Sounds quite exciting, Fusion games have lacked particularly good TAS options for a long time. Though I wonder if that savestate method is going to have some fundamental limitations.
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I would like to see a system for categorising submissions that isn't restricted to one type, for example a publication can be categorised by its game engine and its operating system. Something like the Tag or Genre system that exists now.
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Indeed it's possible no one cares. But this thread has been largely dormant since 2024, and has not been used to discuss the implementation of the Celeste or GZ parsers that has happened over the past few months. So unless users are following GitHub PRs, would they even know about such changes?
Edit: To clarify, adding a movie parser to the site in itself is pretty inconsequential. But I have a feeling there is more than that happening
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The site's requirements for adding a new emulator/TASing tool are laid out in Wiki: EmulatorResources/Requirements. These requirements are rarely tested though, I believe in the past 7 or 8 years, the only new tools to be supported by the site have been Citra (2022) and libTAS (2018).*
Adding many new single-game TASing tools for submissions, if that's the intention, will be quite a significant shift for the site, even if it was technically always allowed by the requirements. And I've been concerned such a thing could suddenly drop without public discussion beforehand.
I'm not necessarily against any such changes; I did comment on this thread in 2023 questioning how progress could be made regarding this.
*I'm not counting GBAHawk because it's just BizHawk. There have been emulators run inside libTAS being permitted, but these don't have to go through the whole process
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I haven't been involved in the site much recently, but based on the available evidence, I believe there's been extensive discussion amongst staff regarding support of single game/TASing tools, and similar topics.
I don't know what these discussions have focused on (whether it's more about the rules or the implementation), but my concern is that this is not being discussed with the wider community.
Maybe this is fuss over nothing, but I can't really know what's being discussed in private, and decided to bring this up after considering it for the past couple of months.
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This emulator you're referring to is a reimplementation of the server, with the original game files from 2009 or so?
Hourglass is worth trying, but you'll want a Windows XP virtual machine.
Second question : Assuming that the program recognizes the S4L emulator, how do I make it so that Livesplit works at the same time to know the end time? Or is there an intergrated timer directly in the program that'll tell me?
It's integrated.
Third question : If I'm unable to make it work on any program, would someone be kind enough to help with making it happen via discord?
If no existing tools work then the options are using a basic macro, or creating your own custom tooling. The latter would probably be a long process.
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Nice, I've been hoping to make or see a Flash TAS with RNG manipulation since the Flash algorithm was merged a couple of months ago.
(Platform is supposed to be Flash, how do I change it?)
The site assigns it to Flash if the game name field contains "ruffle", which your previous submission did but this one doesn't. Otheriwse you need to add "Platform: Flash" to the annotations.
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zapkt wrote:
Oh I didn't know website could embed a specific version of Ruffle.
The behaviour is not what was happening back in the days, though. You could drag the hand to a side of the screen, at which point the hand would get "stuck" to this position, go around the embedded player with the mouse and re-enter the player at the other side of it, which would immediately move the hand there. That's what I remember, at least.
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WSL2 (unlike WSL1) uses a real Linux kernel, it's basically a lightweight VM.
BizHawk's Windows support is DOS-based Windows only and won't be useful here.
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It's a Unity game with a Linux release, so chances of it working are fairly good, you need the Linux version of the game though. You can install Steam client on Linux, or use something like DepotDownloader or SteamCMD.
By the way, none of libTAS, Wine, nor WSL are emulators in the typical meaning of the term.
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Nice to see a submission of this after I abandoned my WIP.
Junk - It's also possible to run to the left, collect a Bartman and fly to the exit. It's a few frames slower in a TAS, but a good option in real-time speedruns.
Really? In my movie I seem to finish the stage 23 frames faster.
User movie #638937213542955895Link to video
Otherwise, this submission saves 5f on skateboarding, around 160f on the boss, and loses 10f (I think) at the start of ice cave (which is where my movie ends), probably from RNG.
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This is somewhat different to Unity because the site does not have any "Unity" platform as it does with "Flash".
One thing to note is that AIR programs can contain native extensions, which may tie them to a specific platform rather than being platform-independent.
Personally I think trying to fit this game or others into any one box is pointless, and the site should consider some sort of tag for the engine used which can be searched for, but that's a discussion for elsewhere.
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This game has been decompiled as of a couple of months ago: https://github.com/cflip/HallOfTorturedSouls
They clearly did a better job with Ghidra than I did.
Some things to note:
The code is "xlkfa", not "exlkfa". I don't know why I didn't try this, since I had already found that "excelkfa" wasn't necessary.
You can press Ctrl to fly, removing the zig zag path challenge. Seems like a debug code or similar, but this game is already a hidden secret, so it feels ambiguous what it would count as. I think I wouldn't really want to use it anyway.
This decompilation should make it easier to find some RAM values to help optimise the TAS.
I don't think I would make a TAS with the standalone version.
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CoolKirby wrote:
Does Excel/Hall work with a lower Windows screen resolution, like 320x200 or 320x240, that might make the game window larger in relation to the rest of the screen? It might also save more time during boot.
Interesting idea, I'm not sure how to achieve a lower resolution though, normally the lowest offered is 640x480. Also this would require a verification movie.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
I'm unsure about this classified as a speedrunnable game
Isn't the credits texture always scrolling?
Like there is no code checking where you are, unlocking the ending or giving you a reward. You just have the ability to walk around.
I also think that the front credits (walking forward as soon as you spawn up the stairs) is the same as the background credits. The only difference is the staff photo in the other room.
Yes, the credits are always there and the only difference in the hidden room is the staff photos. The only thing that is unlocked is the wall blocking the hidden room.
This is definitely a borderline case, but I think it has all the traits of a game (at least, the game-inside-a-program does), and it has speedrunning leaderboards on speedrun.com, which this TAS far surpasses through superhuman gameplay.
ACE is freely allowed in playarounds, though the spirit of the original game should be maintained, and copyright should not be infringed. Fair use applies here.
This point seems to have originated here around the time of #5384: MrWint's GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version "arbitrary code execution, playaround" in 05:48.28 (there are some more comments on this point in that submission's judgement). We don't appear to have had any submissions which use ACE to present completely new audiovisual content between 5384 and #8991: OnehundredthCoin's NES Super Mario Bros. "arbitrary code execution" in 04:52.65, and I think this point in the rules was overlooked when judging the latter. I'm not entirely sure how this rule should be interpreted and if it should just be removed.
As for the fair use point, I think the legal aspect of these publications has been overlooked recently. It feels like people are forgetting the considerations that went into the description of [3358] GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version "arbitrary code execution, playaround" by MrWint in 05:48.282. These Bad Apple movies are using a work in its entirety, without transformation, unless you count the reduced graphics and sound quality due to the use of the NES/GB/GBC. The purchase links in 3358 were added due to fourth Fair Use factor in the US Copyright doctrine, which considers the "effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work".
Realistically, Bad Apple has a complicated origin (the original, remix and music video are all by different authors) and it has been reused many times over the years including in the demoscene. But generally I think there should be more consideration put into the legality of publishing these types of ACE playarounds.
