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Here's a decent start. Anti-piracy stuff also gets a lot of online attention anyway, so Googling should help as well.
The bigger problem is actually triggering anti-piracy measures via emulation, if that's what you're going for. You might have to look around for Gameshark/Action Replay codes specifically made to trigger anti-piracy measures. That's probably your best bet. A bad ROM dump or an ancient emulator (or both!) might do it without the need of outside modification.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Link to video
*The triple bounce at the end of 3-1 saves 8 frames over a strategy that would allow me to land at the very edge of the screen.
*Kicking during a damage boost allows you to partially retain your momentum, allowing for the path seen in 3-2. Comparable strategies without that damage boost are around 2-3 seconds slower.
*"Luck" manipulation was done on the boss in order to cause him to cycle back and forth only once after every hit. He'll perform one more cycle every frame, up to a max of 4, then jumps back to 1, so we never need to wait more than 3 frames to get the best pattern.
We're flyin' through the game as a team, so we should have the submission up by the end of the month.
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andypanther wrote:
Let me think...
Two problems with this.
- Samsara, as the tsundere of the group.
I am at least yandere. Or maybe just yan. No dere. No one needs to see me dere-ing all over the place.
- Nach as a super villain that uses TASing for his goal to rule the world. By creating the ultimate TAS AI, he wants to optimize every TAS to the frame. When every TAS would be impossible to improve, this would make him the only TASer, the TASer to rule everything.
Nach? TASing? Bahahahaha. I'm pretty sure Nach's said he doesn't have the time to make a TAS.
I'd see it more as Nach, the leader of the Seventh Reich, either enslaving TASers to do his evil bidding or hooking up their brains to a machine called LSNES (Linked Synapse Neuro-Efficiency System) in order to pool together everyone's knowledge to create these TASes.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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As a sand box game, won't be vaultable, so would need Moon feedback to get accepted.
It looks like the idea's getting a lot of positive feedback so far, but I suppose we'll have to see if the TAS itself lives up to it.
No idea how entertaining creation of the game will end up, but an RPG TAS usually needs to be done to a popular (and thus, known) game to be liked. So it'd require coding some things that'd be generally enjoyable when tased, or people just won't like anything but the concept itself. Maybe some innovative gameplay ideas? How far from RPG genre could the result go?
I'm admittedly one of those ~*game designer*~ types who loves coming up with unique ideas and design elements, so assuming everyone doesn't quit the project due to my pretentiousness I think we'll come up with something worthwhile for people to watch and play.
ventuz wrote:
I'm wondering what are planned process to make this TAS.
1. take time build rpg together
2. write lua script to extract needed inputs to build exact stuff?
Something like that, yeah. I was thinking more "Plan first, then TAS normally".
I'm thinking about setting up a central place for people to post their ideas even if they can't/don't want to actively join the team... But now that I think about it, this thread will probably suffice. I'm still procrastinating on setting up a base of collaboration for the main team, honestly... Anyway. At some point I'll compile all of the stock assets together so people without access to the game can more easily contribute, but for now I can at least give this.
Here's the main menu of sorts:
Title: Just a basic customization of the title screen. Technically optional!
Skill: Think of this as a pretty detailed Class system. Create custom character classes (i.e Warrior, Mage, Thief) and have them unlock under specific circumstances. Give them special abilities such as +1 Attack or Counterattack. Pretty nice.
Configuration: All we wanna do is turn off the collision sound because why is that even a feature. This is also what controls the music that plays while you're editing the game, so we may come back here and change up the music on occasion to keep it fresh. Or we can just leave it on Home 3, the best song of all time.
Monster: Edit monsters and bosses. Self-explanatory!
Gameplay Edit: Less self-explanatory. Allows you to turn on/off specific features, like Special Attacks and the Magic Defense stat. Probably best to just turn everything on and leave it alone otherwise.
Dungeon: This is oddly named, because it's actually how you make all of the in-game maps, not just the dungeons. You can choose from premade areas like towns and forests and, well, dungeons. Or you can build your own custom areas using the stock tilesets.
Parameter Name: Change the names of stats. That's it! Bye!
Field: Create the overworld maps! Hooray! The overworld system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, except there are no random encounters.
Magic: Ah, here we go, something that requires detailed explanation. Set up spells and spell effects! Create your own spell animations with sound effects and stuff! This is pretty cool!
Monster Appearance: You can set up custom appearance rates for random encounters based on the in-game maps you've created.
Item: It's like Monster, except with items!
Blank Space:Main Characters: Create playable characters, with stats and sprites and all the things you'd usually expect from playable characters!
Game Info: It is, indeed.
Event: This is where most of the time will be spent! This is where the actual game is made. Nearly everything is done here: NPCs, cutscenes, things as simple as door transitions and signs... If it's not created in the above categories, it's created here.
Game Info: It is, indeed.
I'm thinking the "Dungeons" can be the first things created, as that's probably one of the more frustrating parts of RPG Maker. From there we can jump from category to category, leaving the Events for last. Once work on the project actually starts, we'll most likely post some progress and ask for community ideas based on what we're working on... But if you have ideas now, we'll definitely take note of them.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
If it’s not RNG it should always default to going left I presume.
That is the case, yes. Enemies will always move in the same direction upon stage start, since you're in a fixed position and they start moving on the same frame you do. They'll turn at intersections only if taking those turns would put them closer to your current position, and they can't turn completely around.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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As far as I've tested, enemies are scripted to follow you. The only way to "manipulate" them is to just wait in a certain spot so they move a different direction. The routes in the new file were made with this in mind.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Edit: Oh, it probably looks no different from unassisted runs though, so that’s kinda against the rules? I guess?
I didn't realize that until just after it was submitted. Somehow it's gotten a lot of yes votes, though, so it might still qualify somehow.
User movie #24877001579965924
Routing improvements in every stage, also more close calls that might make it stand out slightly more as tool-assisted.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Level 1 strategy already looks wrong. At 0:06 in the encode instead of going down and eating 1 thingy, go straight to the right and eat them all from the bottom.
EDIT: Misunderstood, nevermind. Can't believe I missed that.
We'll be redoing the room strategies today.
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CoolKirby wrote:
One thing that would help is if you or someone else could provide a list of specific things needed for the design and development of the game. Even if someone just has a grand vision for the game's story and gameplay, sharing it could help get things started.
Hmm... For a basic starting list, I suppose this will do:
* Plot (probably a joint effort)
* Character designs (playable and non-playable)
* Map design/setting
* Dialogue?
* Possibly custom artwork: Game allows custom character sheets, title screens, and monsters to be made
On a bit more of an advanced level:
* Controlling pacing/Trimming down excess into something more manageable
* Difficulty balancing
* Playtesting
I'll go through the exact specifics of the engine soon, though to anyone who's interested in directly contributing I'd recommend finding the game and playing around with it over just reading my future explanations.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Recommended listening material:
Link to video
I had a crazy idea and a burst of nostalgia, which usually go together about as well as a blindfold and a skydiving trip, but after discussing this idea in IRC there's a lot more support behind it than I was expecting... I mean, I wasn't expecting any support in the first place, so having even a single person support it was unexpected, but there's actually a fairly large amount on top of that!
I guess the idea is easy enough to figure out from the title of the thread, but here it is anyway: Let's TAS the making of an RPG... then TAS the RPG itself.
Now I don't just mean we make some stupid little 5-minute RPG. I won't accept cop-outs (or Cop Dog). I want to put together a "legitimate" "game development" team to actually create a worthwhile game for this TAS. Yeah, we could make a "game" where you start in front of the event trigger that calls the end of the game, and the TAS would be maybe 5 minutes tops, but then there'd be absolutely no point. I want the game to be playable, something we could theoretically "release" for people to play if they have the means to do so.
So I guess I want to know two things:
1. Who else is interested in seeing this come to light? It's definitely an odd project and the actual TAS might not be the most exciting thing to watch, but I think it'd still be interesting/fascinating to watch a game being developed at top speed with absolutely no downtime.
2. Who would be interested in working on the project? Ideally, I'd want to get a group of 5-10 people to hash out all the design aspects and maybe an artist or two to create some custom artwork... And who knows? If this actually ends up happening and getting finished, and this team works really well together... perhaps we could go on to actually make games outside of RPG Maker... But maybe that's just me being ambitious.
One last thing: I'm not concerned at all about whether or not this TAS would be publishable on the site. This would be done entirely out of just wanting to see how it would look when it's finished. If it's publishable, then that's just an added bonus.
EDIT: Looks like the feedback is completely positive so far. Excellent~ I'll keep track of progress and other important posts below. Once we get some planning done, we'll most likely make our planning document available for public viewing so people can discuss/criticize/add to our ideas.
Current Team
Samsara
ars4326
arandomgameTASer
Invariel
xy2_
Posts Of Interest
*Menu screen explanations: Use these to help post/discuss ideas if you don't have access to the game.Progress Posts
yo man we ain't even started yet chill
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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micro500 wrote:
Why are we using Brain Age instead of Mario Paint, Color a Dinosaur, or Flipnote Studio?
I think the appeal here is that using Brain Age to draw/tell a story is completely unexpected. Using something specifically made to draw/tell stories wouldn't have the same sort of impact. Sure, you could TAS Mario Paint, do some really nice drawings for a few minutes and call it a night, but where's the fun in that? Think of it this way: You could've programmed a couple basic games in Game Maker and you would've gotten more freedom to do what you want, but the fact that these games were specifically coded into Super Mario World was what made it incredibly fascinating.
To put my point more eloquently: It's not about the art, it's about the canvas.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Link to video
Sorry about the low quality. An HD encode would have been absolutely massive and given that my connection's been really spotty for a few weeks I doubt I would've been able to get it uploaded.
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TehBerral wrote:
I'm not a programmer by any means, so excuse me if this is a dumb question. But is there anyway that, from a programming perspective, the publication pages themselves could be re-coded (for lack of a better word) to facilitate this idea without it too badly affecting the rest of the site's code? Seeing how much the publication pages are tied into things like movie/player/voter statistics and various other things on the site, I would guess not.
I'm not a programmer either, but from what I understand it's not exactly difficult to do something like this. We just need the right person (I.E, someone with direct access to the site code) to be willing to make this change and it should come about.
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zaphod77 wrote:
The run should be times with bios screen skip AND without. this gives you how many frames are actually eaten by the BIOS screen, to determine obsoletion comparing to bios skipped runs.
That... isn't what this topic is about at all.
As for my opinion: Keep the BIOS screens in encodes. Not only are they great and nostalgic, but they're a good sign of accuracy. It legitimizes the runs just that much more to keep them in the encodes. That, and if they're unskippable in the input file, they shouldn't be skipped in the encodes either.
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Alyosha wrote:
I noticed that the new run didn't actually obsolete the existing one.
Any thought of submitting the any% version, Samsara?
Possibly, though it wouldn't be for a while. I started refashioning my run into an any% run once I heard the verdict, but I realized that I wouldn't be happy with submitting a run that's almost completely identical.
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£e Nécroyeur wrote:
This sort of ruse has occurred with other users in the past, with the frauds being promptly revealed as such (as it should be). In this case, I was the only user who cared to mention it.
Certainly I could have waited 2 months before my first post about it, but why tolerate for so long that which was immediately apparent to me? This is just a confirmation for those less inclined to act on instinct. I won't ask for an apology; the life lesson is the important thing.
Why, exactly, does this matter so much to you anyway? Even if this were real, what makes it so horrible that you just can't tolerate it even two months later?
This is one isolated incident, with the only """""""""proof""""""""" being mere coincidences. It didn't harm the site in any way, nor did it even have any effect on the judgement of the movie. Not even a minor effect. Not even the slightest, tiniest little effect. This is, in no way, any indication of sitewide corruption. There's no significance to it. It wasn't worth bringing up two months ago when the submission was actually new, and it's absolutely not worth bringing up two months later when everyone's clearly forgotten about it.
Just drop it.
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Samsara wrote:
Exonym wrote:
First of all, is landing on the skateboard necessary? I don't see anything that warrants it, or do you have to be on it to advance the stage?
It ends up faster from what I tested due to how that stage ends, but it's been a couple months since I did that stage so it's worth taking another stab at.
Well, no WIP yet, but I've confirmed that I'm an idiot... Okay, I confirmed that well over a decade ago, but seriously I confirmed that skipping the skateboard is about a second and a half faster. I have no idea how badly I did the first time around that made the skateboard strategy initially faster, but this time around it's much better.
Redone WIP is currently 3 seconds faster than my original WIP, and it'll be up once we finish Area 2 and we're happy with it.
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Titan91 wrote:
Hm? I try to make my posts helpful and meaningful. Just found this site and am just giving back. But sure, I have no problem with reducing my post frequency if it's not helpful.
Helpful or not, it's still quite disruptive.
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Titan91 wrote:
If you're recording a run anyway you can also use the frame dumper option. This will create a lag-free recording while simulatenously slowing down the emulator (unless you have a super gaming PC that wouldn't flinch at that).
You're flooding the IRC with new post/topic notifications. Please slow down. You don't need to respond to everything.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Title: Just a basic customization of the title screen. Technically optional!
Skill: Think of this as a pretty detailed Class system. Create custom character classes (i.e Warrior, Mage, Thief) and have them unlock under specific circumstances. Give them special abilities such as +1 Attack or Counterattack. Pretty nice.
Configuration: All we wanna do is turn off the collision sound because why is that even a feature. This is also what controls the music that plays while you're editing the game, so we may come back here and change up the music on occasion to keep it fresh. Or we can just leave it on Home 3, the best song of all time.
Monster: Edit monsters and bosses. Self-explanatory!
Gameplay Edit: Less self-explanatory. Allows you to turn on/off specific features, like Special Attacks and the Magic Defense stat. Probably best to just turn everything on and leave it alone otherwise.
Dungeon: This is oddly named, because it's actually how you make all of the in-game maps, not just the dungeons. You can choose from premade areas like towns and forests and, well, dungeons. Or you can build your own custom areas using the stock tilesets.
Parameter Name: Change the names of stats. That's it! Bye!
Field: Create the overworld maps! Hooray! The overworld system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, except there are no random encounters.
Magic: Ah, here we go, something that requires detailed explanation. Set up spells and spell effects! Create your own spell animations with sound effects and stuff! This is pretty cool!
Monster Appearance: You can set up custom appearance rates for random encounters based on the in-game maps you've created.
Item: It's like Monster, except with items!
Blank Space:
Main Characters: Create playable characters, with stats and sprites and all the things you'd usually expect from playable characters!
Game Info: It is, indeed.
Event: This is where most of the time will be spent! This is where the actual game is made. Nearly everything is done here: NPCs, cutscenes, things as simple as door transitions and signs... If it's not created in the above categories, it's created here.
Game Info: It is, indeed.
I'm thinking the "Dungeons" can be the first things created, as that's probably one of the more frustrating parts of RPG Maker. From there we can jump from category to category, leaving the Events for last. Once work on the project actually starts, we'll most likely post some progress and ask for community ideas based on what we're working on... But if you have ideas now, we'll definitely take note of them.
