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Please don't rush, take all the time you need to improve this submission. Forget what I wrote about doing it before year end, it was a selfish request from me, sorry.
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So... It was brought to my attention that today DreamYao uploaded a movie file that documents a new glitch. In the description of the file page, they say that it's necessary to save 1 frame before stage 2-4 of the current submission, otherwise the glitch can't save time due to framerules.
I'd help personally in finding this 1 frame save, but I'm pretty loaded with work, and it's preferred to make the improvement before year end... Any help would be very appreciated.
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crazyjesse wrote:
Hope to see you do the other version of this run with more levels if other people are interested.
I think we need more explanation about version differences. Does the other version of this game contain all the levels from this one, with addition of more levels?
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Hi there. It was brought to my attention that there is a graphical quirk on emulator that seems to be less severe on real hardware. For that reason, I'd like to see a console verification of a Castlevania Aventure TAS, preferably the GB version. This movie file should work for the purpose: submission #6834
Specifically, I'd like to check if we get the same horizontal lines that start appearing from minute 14:57 onward of the following video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/848116999?t=00h14m57s
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fsvgm777 wrote:
Matter of fact, the ratings for the current publication which also avoids damage, aren't particularly strong. The Vault is meant for strictly speed-based records, so I believe it'd be better to take damage to save time (assuming it saves time, of course).
Vault tier limits the movie goal choice to fastest completion and full completion, and including tradeoffs doesn't mean that the movie isn't aiming for fastest completion. In fact, the Movie Rules don't explicitly ban tradeoffs from Vault, unless I'm missing something. Additionally, we have a precedent of a movie being accepted for Vault while knowingly featuring tradeoffs: #5429: Noxxa's PSX TOCA Touring Car Championship "max points" in 10:30:25.84
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crazyjesse wrote:
Well, when I said "Originally I made this TAS just for myself to see how good my record was and to give a benchmark for runners but I was encouraged by several users to submit it with the mistake." I didn't mean I put no effort into it, just that the one mistake was there. Disappointing result.
I'm sorry, but judgements can't always be predicted. After all, if we could know always know the outcome in advance, we wouldn't need to actually perform the judgement process itself. When I suggested you to submit this movie, I was taking in account only the known optimization issues that you already knew about. However, Samsara found out a bit more than that, which did add up. In the end, it turned out a borderline situation, as Samsara noted, which means that this isn't a blatant mistake, so you can't really be blamed.
Unexpected rejections can happen to anyone, but in my opinion there is nothing to worry about. I consider it just as a formality, and I hope that everyone else could feel it the same way. I got quite a lot of unexpected rejections myself, but I don't regret even one bit submitting those TASes! Actually, I'm pretty proud of them, and as such I display them openly in my personal page. Have a look: Wiki: ThunderAxe31
With all that said, don't feel discouraged, and feel free to ask for anything, we're all here to help!
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This submission only got one vote so far, and not even one reaction post! I need (and wish) more people to watch this, so please consider giving it a try! There is also a commentary stream version at the beginning of the submission text!
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I'm not following your explanations about how speed works, so I've just written a Lua script that calculates the speed by performing a simple difference between the current and the previous' frame X position. Have it there by clicking on the download button on the right:
Download robin.lua
Language: lua
--NES Super Robin Hood position and speed v1.0 by ThunderAxe31
local x_sub_addr = 0x0307
local x_addr = 0x0308
local x_old = 0
local x_spe = 0
local framecount = -1
local u8 = memory.read_u8 or memory.readbyte
local u16 = memory.read_u16_le or memory.readword
local text = gui.pixelText or gui.text
local text_y_offset = 0
if u8 == memory.read_u8 then --check if using BizHawk
text_y_offset = 200
end
while true do
local x_new = u16(x_addr)
local x_sub_new = u8(x_sub_addr)
local x_spe = x_new*256 +x_sub_new -x_old
x_old = x_new*256 +x_sub_new
local output = string.format("X:%4i %3i", x_new, x_sub_new)
if framecount == emu.framecount()-1 then
output = output .. string.format(" %+4i", x_spe)
end
text(1, 9 +text_y_offset, output) -- tells the position
framecount = emu.framecount()
emu.frameadvance()
end
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... But that's just for the actual clip into the block, what about the teleport? Uh, to be quite frank, I have no clue. The teleport ONLY seems to work in the first level, and nowhere else. Is it some arbitrary code execution, is it reliant on the current screen scroll? No clue. What I did realize, however, is that during the teleport Robin's X position jumps to an insanely far value and that the actual clip itself only happens on half blocks. Apart from that, got no clue what causes it.
Could you make a list of the other places where it could hypothetically be used? I want to try myself.
Oh also, I don't think that "half block" exist in this game, they just appear like that due to tile graphics, but it's actually always 16x16 wall blocks.
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Really_Tall wrote:
I saved 3 frames at the end of stage 12 with a different strat: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/67831165385882769
Unfortunately, it desyncs in the next stage. The game doesn't seem sync friendly at all (considering the constant lag) so I understand if the authors don't care to implement this. Figured it was worth documenting anyway.
Is there anyone there who's planning to complete the improvement to this submission?
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Samsara wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Except that Epic Pinball has a credits roll, while this game doesn't at all.
I don't see why credits matter. We have published runs of games that reach actual endings with no credits roll at all, they shouldn't be the de facto way of defining what is or isn't an ending.
Sorry, I should have included the quote in my previous post. I was specifically comparing to the example you brought, Epic Pinball. Of course what I wrote there doesn't apply to all the published runs of games that don't have credits roll.
Samsara wrote:
Edit: also, this submission can't be considered as fastest-completion, so the goal can be arbitrary, as long as if follows a clear objective.
That doesn't mean the ending can be arbitrary, though. It accomplishes a clear objective, yes, but then it doesn't finish the game afterward. Granted, since pinball is inherently an infinite game, it's harder to define "finishing the game", but in this case it can really only be running out of balls, stop laughing, and game overing on the field.
I agree that the ending point point can't be arbitrary. My issue here is that I consider more appropriate a screen that tells to the player "you win" instead of a screen that tells "you lose". But I can't deny that for this game, the screen telling "you win" doesn't follow an end for the play, while instead the "you lose" screen marks an objective end.
Samsara wrote:
Samsara wrote:
EDIT: Not to mention this pinball submission that similarly does not end the game, and was rejected for doing so despite accomplishing its goal.
Well, it's true that both this submission and that movie get to a stuck game state after finishing playing back, but it's slightly different. I don't think that movie could be considered entertaining, and on the other hand it couldn't be considered as proper full-completion either, as the movie rules don't consider valid the goal of maxing out the score counter. This submission instead is much more straight-forward in what it does.
Apart that, causing an intentional game over would be pretty trivial to perform, while also detract entertainment by introducing repetitiveness.
I should have clarified that it wasn't PURELY rejected for not ending gameplay and there are other problems with it, but it was explicitly mentioned in the submission text that not ending gameplay was one of those problems, and given that this submission is in a similar state I don't see why the same wouldn't apply here.
What I was trying to say there, is that if we extend the movie from this submission in order to manually trigger a game over, it would lose all chances to be entertaining, and thus it would be doomed (as it's forgoing a known skip glitch).
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Except that Epic Pinball has a credits roll, while this game doesn't at all.
Edit: also, this submission can't be considered as fastest-completion, so the goal can be arbitrary, as long as if follows a clear objective.
Edit 2:
Samsara wrote:
EDIT: Not to mention this pinball submission that similarly does not end the game, and was rejected for doing so despite accomplishing its goal.
Well, it's true that both this submission and that movie get to a stuck game state after finishing playing back, but it's slightly different. I don't think that movie could be considered entertaining, and on the other hand it couldn't be considered as proper full-completion either, as the movie rules don't consider valid the goal of maxing out the score counter. This submission instead is much more straight-forward in what it does.
Apart that, causing an intentional game over would be pretty trivial to perform, while also detract entertainment by introducing repetitiveness.
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Samsara wrote:
I feel like the input should be extended to finish out the game instead of hanging on the next shot for eternity.
Why? It's not like the game over is an ending point, as this game doesn't really have any. Why can't we consider the Rayquaza bonus screen as an ending point?
fsvgm777 wrote:
I personally feel the movie should go all the way to actually catching Rayquaza, instead of just defeating it. It just feels incomplete to me. However, I believe it does require going through Duskull/Dusklops and Kyogre a third time.
But that would add a lot of redundant contents, which would make the movie much less entertaining. And that would be much more of an issue, since this movie is forging the use of known glitches that could allow to skip the bonus stages altogether, so this submission is not applicable for Vault in either case.
I think that this movie should be acceptable for Moons, because it's providing a great alternative to the fastest-completion goal. It's avoiding major glitches, which results in featuring a lot of contents that would be completely skipped in a fastest-completion run. Also, this movie is doing exactly what the label says, so it's goal is sensible. Lastly, this is the most expected and popular goal.