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mklip2001 wrote:
Good job! I think this choice of goal makes sense, as a good speed-entertainment tradeoff. The most impressive parts are when you shoot a few shots at once before the enemies appear on screen. This also seems like a better run from a technical standpoint than your first submission.
Thanks Mklip. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's a lot more work than I thought.
mklip2001 wrote:
I'm a little concerned, though, about some of the missed shots you do. I'm fine with them in the boss fights as a way of creating some distraction (like the Lobster fight), but I think it looks sort of bad in the bonus games. Do you need to miss shots to manipulate the enemies in the bonus games?
Thanks for bringing up the missed shots in the bonus games. I would definitely have preferred to kill each enemy with a single shuriken but there's some annoying behavior (bug/glitch?) where that doesn't seem possible with some of the enemies. At first, I thought it was simply that some enemies took more hits than others. However, I later realized that those enemies can actually be killed with a single shuriken... provided that you shoot off another one afterwards (even if the additional shuriken misses). For example, there's a few instances were I shoot off 5 shurikens at a single enemy but only one of them hits. Had I only shot off the one kill-shot shuriken (from the same position on the same frame), the shuriken would have missed. Firing off a second shuriken afterwards will get that first shot to hit. Shooting off a bunch more was just for the hell of it. I'll try to update the main description with this explanation.
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I apologize for the late reply but I've been away for a little bit.
Thanks Samsara for all your feedback in the submission page. I'll be sure to try those techniques you mentioned. I was under the impression that if there was no existing TAS record for a particular game, the run could be accepted.
I've also made a 100% run of the same game but I imagine that one would also be rejected for the same optimization reasons. I was already in the middle of that run when I got the feedback for this run so I had already made the same mistakes there. I figure I'd submit it anyways to get some additional feedback but let me know if that's not a good idea.
Can I also ask what program you used to edit the .fbm file? The best I could find was TAS Editor but that doesn't seem to be able to open .fbm files. Thanks Samsara.
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Samsara wrote:
Technically, we judge from power on to the last piece of input that finishes the game. Blank or extra input at the end is ultimately ignored and usually removed.
I'll verify/update the fixed input file tomorrow.
EDIT: V, would you prefer the 9:56 file with the naming or the 9:27 file without? They will both be judged exactly the same, entering initials is an allowed cosmetic choice for the run. If published, the time discrepancy will be noted in the publication: See the recent publication of Osman for an example of that.
I can do without the naming/signing so the 9:27 time would be fine. As Mklip mentioned, I probably should've entered something else for that anyways. Thanks Samsara.
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Derakon wrote:
You should end input as soon as the game is finished so that it will proceed to the "ending" of the game. There is no need to extend input to cover non-gameplay stuff like credits. The encode that the publisher makes of the run will include these anyway. Adding blank input makes your movie longer, because TASVideos judges movie length based on the length of input. Hence why its time shows as 10:06 in this thread's subject.
Thanks Derakon for the clarification. I didn't realize that that was how TAS times were calculated. I could've easily just stopped the movie before entering the initials but I'll keep that in mind for the next run I make.
£e Nécroyeur wrote:
This input file is edited to also remove the input to enter the player's initials:
http://triplepointwx.org/George/Shinobi.zip
The time is 9:27. This may be the time to which the Submission Text refers. Please forgive the extraneous re-records.
Thanks for all your troubles Nécroyeur. I've noticed that speedruns in general are timed up until no more input is required from the player but I always thought that the timing was done by observation. It never occurred to me that additional inputs would affect the run time.
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andypanther wrote:
Are there any glitches that could save time? If so, can you explain why you chose to not use them?
Other than bouncing through the spinning buddhas on the third boss (if you can call that a glitch), I don't know of any other glitches. I did some searching but I was a bit surprised at how little (if anything) there is available on the arcade release. I'd be happy to try if someone can let me know of anything.
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Hi everyone... thanks for the feedback.
The TAS does indeed have blank input at the end.
So if the author can provide a fix of their input, or if someone can provide an edit to remove the input please do it so it can be replaced.
Sorry about that Spikestuff... I wasn't quite sure what that "blank input" meant. Is it simply a matter of adding some input up until the last frame? Or should I not include the credits and such? Thanks Nécroyeur for fixing that.
How do you avoid dying on the third boss when you walk through all the heads (or whatever they are)? You sound like you get hit a lot there.
The game allows contact with most enemies as long as you don't touch their weapon (sword, knife, bullet, etc) and so you can just bounce off them without getting killed. If you touch the enemy on its left half, you bounce towards the left and vice-versa with the right. You're invincible during the bounce so you can actually bounce past/through enemies so long as you're not touching a weapon when the bounce finishes. For the third boss' spinning buddhas, you might notice that they're slowly moving to the left. If you get close to them and use your special, the first buddha can actually move past you enough for you to bounce to the right and you eventually bounce all the way through. Input does seem to matter here but I find that just holding right does the trick.
There's one very laggy section in Mission 4 with a big gang of ninjas hopping behind you. Would it save time to turn around briefly and kill a few before moving on, to reduce lag?
I never thought of that actually... I'll definitely give that a shot. I'm also trying to do a 100% run so that would have to be in there. I've got enough to go on to make several improvements to this any% run already.
In bosses 1, 2, and 4, you mainly keep throwing jumping shurikens. Can you save any time by jumping closer to the boss between attacks? That way, you get sort of a Doppler effect where each shot takes less time to connect. (It also seems like you can hit boss 2 a little earlier than you do as it's coming down).
With the exception of the third boss, the bosses have a period of invincibility after you score a hit (the duration varies between bosses) so you can only hit them so quickly. The second boss (chopper) starts dropping yellow ninjas and shooting rockets if its door and/or rocket launcher is in screen so I stay to the left to keep those things off screen. But you are right that I could've hit it a bit sooner when it started to come down. The forth boss is easier to hit when he's charging at you, which he'll do when his invincibility wears off and you're far enough away from him (you might notice that he just starts to charge each time I hit him).
Thanks for all the suggestions Mklip... I'll definitely apply all of that in the next run I make.