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If the community is game on doing another one (and hey, count me in, too!), how about we break it down 2x a year into seasons?
For example, this year we could do DTC Summer '15 (perhaps in May?) and DTC Winter '15 (perhaps again in November?). That way, after a 2 1/2 month competition, there's about a 3 month break period in between events.
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And to think an NES game seemingly has better encryption than most government websites :p
Looking forward to seeing this code get cracked!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Thanks, everyone! When it's all said and done, this will be the most ambitious project I've worked on (competing in DTC 5 especially helped improve my TAS skills for this one).
Progress is slower than I anticipated, but I've completed the Swamp Shrine again and am 663 frames (11 sec.) ahead. A huge chunk of that was just improving rooms in the Swamp Shrine, while the rest was fine-tuning a few things in the beginning along with incorporating Ratfunk's screen transitioning trick.
Might be able to chisel off another 200-300 frames before I resync back to the Tibor quest...
edit: Redone/resynced back up to Ryuma, and back on my way toward Tibor. 953 frames saved total, so far. Even the Thieves Cave had rooms that were still improvable.
edit 2: Overlooked a small shortcut near the end of the Thieves Cave. After fixing that and improving a few other rooms, I'm synced back once more. Total frame savings from prior WIP: 1,061.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Gotta agree with my fellow teammate, Alyosha. The bronze medal ain't bad for a team that originally had 20:1 odds!
Congrats to AAA! I was very impressed at your improved transition glitches through the vertical shafts in Stage 3 :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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EgxHB wrote:
It's due to memory limitations. Basically, early Japanese Famicom (NES) games didn't have large enough character sets to accommodate both of the kana syllabaries, as well as the English/Roman alphabet. A good example of this can be seen in Rockman 2, where all the cutscene text is in katakana.
Also, whatever Jigwally is doing with all these board-game type runs... it's getting old pretty fast. Jigwally, if you're reading this, please don't take it the wrong way, but it's not really what our community wants.
Ah, that makes sense. I could definitely see where memory limitations would be an issue in coding in both of the kana alphabets along with the English/Roman.
Also, I'm of a slightly different opinion on the number of Jigwally's runs recently submitted. Basically, I think it would be most effective if Jigwally spaced out the amount of submissions to the Workbench. Instead of clustering in so many within a week or two, how about submitting one every 3-4 weeks, instead? That way, with a steadier flow of submissions people would be less prone to experiencing oversaturation (and may also create less of a backlog in the Workbench).
For the most part, I've enjoyed your submissions Jigwally; I would only recommend that you space them out a bit further :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Haha, I could have totally used this in my Japanese 101 class.
I'm biased here, but I found this one entertaining. I am curious though, why they used the katakana alphabet instead of the hiragana. As I understand it, katakana is reserved for phonetically transcribing foreign words, not native Japanese ones (kaban, kuruma, etc.).
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Meh vote on entertainment (perhaps there would have been more entertainment value in shooting the aliens during the auto-scroller?), but it looked about as optimized as you can get.
On a side note, imagine how a game like this would've been if a quality developer like Working Designs or Camelot, etc. was in charge. The Doug universe (spanning from both the Nickelodeon and Disney series) was very well constructed, with a good number of memorable characters and locations. I just think a whole lot more could've been done on games like these.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Quick update on my end. After conversing on the SDA thread, a fellow runner named Ratfunk brought to my attention a very subtle screen transitioning trick that I wasn't using. Basically, when Nigel transitions from one screen to another, the game will reset his starting position either to the left-hand side or to the right. What this means is, if you exit a screen slightly to the center of either side, the game will automatically move you completely over to that side in the next screen, saving at least 5 frames each time.
There were at least 30 places where I missed using that trick, lol.
So...back to the drawing board for now :)
However, the next WIP (maybe within 2 weeks) will absolutely have Tibor's side-quest completed along with The Crypt. I did a test run in Tibor's level last night, and was able to save significant time over the current any% with use of a few new exploits (hint: those pesky little ghosts jump high!). It barely took me over a minute to finish this dungeon.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Looks like you two have reaped the rewards of 6 months of hard work! There were, especially, a lot of entertaining surprises within the last half of the run.
Definitely a yes vote!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Game-end glitch description
The glitch is performed in the "alien world" portion of the 1st stage, during the transition off of the first elevator. While on the elevator, Down+A is held as you transition back up again from the bottom screen (RAM address: 0x200 to 0x00EC), causing your character to fall out-of-bounds into a glitched area of the map. Entering and landing in this area causes the game to execute the ending.
*The included video link is an added analysis of the glitch (still in Japanese), further explaining that it appears to be caused by the game interpreting map data as instruction to go directly to the ending.
***
That's all I had time to translate (I also didn't want to "hog" it all). FractalFusion, I know you're much further along in Japanese than I am. I just want to work towards being another helper here on Japanese-to-English translations. If I mistranslated any of the above statement, please correct me!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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JoshButro wrote:
I don't know if it needs to be said, but i thought there would be more interest just based on the feedback I received in the SNES forums while putting this run together. If the run is too long, it's because no game breaking/sequence breaking glitches have been discovered, so this run is all levels. If it's because it is Q*Bert, it is a game most won't even attempt because of the high difficulty level, but i hoped this TAS would attract people to the series. I'm not sure what happens now, since the vote count is lower than all o the other movies posted on similar dates, and the viewing rate for this movie has essentially gone to zero. I had played on TASing the X*Bert levels after this to really show off the game, but i may just for my use, it really depends on how this TAS goes, and it didn't get the reaction i thought it would.
I guess i just needed to vent, since i put alot of my time into this TAS to have it go unnoticed. Vent over.
Hey Josh, I can relate to your frustration. That's sometimes just how it goes in the Workbench; especially at the moment, with such an unusually high backlog of runs. Back last spring, I did a run for the Sega Genesis that only had two people initially comment. I put a solid month and a half into it, but it was probably so obscure of a game that it just didn't generate a lot of attention.
To illustrate further, Aqfaq's current submission didn't have any feedback, as of yesterday. But since she was one of the only two in question who gave feedback for my Traysia run, I especially wanted to return the favor and give it some attention. I believe it's nice for everyone to get a little "time in the sun" once they get a quality project submitted.
Anyways, I hope it doesn't discourage you too much. While certain games don't have the name value of a Mario or a Sonic, it's still worth it, IMO, to take the time to do one that you find interesting.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Currently listening to some Noise Therapy; they are such a vastly underrated nu-metal band from the early 2000s.
I dig most of this album!
Link to video
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Watched the two runs side-by-side, and I was impressed with the improvements! Good job, man!
Not sure if that final battle could be improvable, but it was leaps and bounds better than the prior run.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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No one's commented yet? I thought the game itself was ho-hum, but it looks like you got out of it what you could, entertainment wise (the plane autoscroller was my favorite). I'm surprised this kind of game requires so much RNG manipulation. Is this based off a children's show?
Also, saw du hast in the ending text and was immediately reminded of this.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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grassini wrote:
can't u put the messages on a later scripted encode?they seem interesting though so i'm just suggesting so we have alternate method of preservation
Hmmm...I may go with that idea, instead. Simple subtitles could display the riddles while I continue blazing through. I'll definitely think about it.
you should also do the any% LOL
I was just watching the any% again and realized that it looks VERY possible to bypass getting the Death Statue! Simply put, with a little more HP, and possibly some Eke Eke in reserve, Nigel can just run back and get poisoned again by the Red Mushroom. From here, he needs to stay alive long enough to reach the second set of Axe Magic trees in the Mountainous Area; where he'll glitch through again to reach the Lake Shrine.
This makes two significant improvements:
1) There's no longer a need to sit through the forced events in Mercator Castle, as well as spend time setting up inventory for the unique item shop (AT LEAST a 8+minute savings).
2) Having higher HP will be a huge benefit later on in defeating the end-game bosses and elite-level monsters in King Nole's Labyrinth.
Estimated, I could easily see a truly optimized any% run getting as low as 1:05. Heck, with the savings I got so far on the 100%, you might even be able to break the 1-hour mark.
edit: Hold on a sec...I got ahead of myself and overlooked the fact that the first set of Axe Magic trees are still near Greenmaze, lol (got too excited there). *ahem* Anyways, if there's another Red Mushroom prowling around even REMOTELY near the Mountainous Area--that would still save a significant chunk of time over having to sit through the banquet at Mercator Castle. This should really be looked into further...edit 2: Okay, I'm excited and can't stop posting :D It is ABSOLUTELY I strongly believe it is possible to bypass the Death Statue entirely, due to there being a Teleport Tree located at the beginning of the Mountainous Area. In case there are no more Red Mushrooms close by, Nigel can simply teleport back to a prior area, get poisoned again, and return back again. He only needs enough HP/healing items to stay alive.
edit 3 04/2015: I tested out this theory, via frame-advance, in the cave with the Life Stock just before the broken bridge where Zak confronts you. I had a grey mushroom poison Nigel and attempted to reach the set of Axe Trees near Zak's battlefield.
Even using the purple spectres to scale heights quicker, I came nowhere near reaching the trees. As a matter fact, the poison counter timer expired before I even left the screen. Oh well... at least it was worth a test run.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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HECK of an improvement over the prior run (and the ending nailed it)! Can't go any better with the 11:11:11 time length, either.
Yes vote!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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WIP #4 is uploaded!
Btw Samsara, I appreciate you creating the WIP encode (and liked the fade-in/fade-out effect you added!).
With more creative use of village NPCs and animals, I was able to hop my way up and over the Axe Magic trees and into the cave holding the Fire Boots! In addition to cutting down an extra return trip to Massan, this should save some time in the Verla Mine by being able to navigate through all the lava without damage-boosting. The Thieve's Cave also turned out very nice, with clean optimizations made, throughout.
Only a half hour in, and there's a lot of cool stuff to do once I enter Mercator (helping the old lady, gambling, etc.). Creative TASing should provide some very interesting solutions, in these places...
edit: Hey guys. I'm thinking about the idea of incorporating a minor speed/entertainment tradeoff, while in the Crypt. Basically, the Crypt consists of a section of 8 cells that each contain a plaque with a riddle on them. You have to read these in order to activate that room's puzzle. The riddles, themselves, offer a hint on how to solve each of the puzzles.
They are all pretty entertaining reads. Some examples are:
Betty stitched a border yellow, red and white. If everything's in order,
everything's all right.Maria was a jealous wife, she threw the pots and pans, I think she even took a
life with a boulder in her hands!Here lies Whodini magician without peer his body was so skinny, he'd turn then
disappear.
At the most, I was thinking of keeping each of the text boxes up for around 100-120 frames, to give the viewer a chance to read them and understand how they correspond to solving the room's puzzle.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Techokami wrote:
I'd actually like to suggest that TASVideos get a dedicated localizer for the Japanese language. That way, Japanese TASers can use their native language to write the author notes, and they can then get translated into English for the rest of us, thus preventing hostility and confusing machine translations. Just a person fluent in both languages with editor rights.
Admittedly, I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I have a solid foundation in general sentence and grammatical structure, and tense usage (I took two years in college, from 2011-2013). I would be willing to volunteer for this position, in order to bridge the language gap with our Japanese community (this would also motivate me to continue consistent studies).
If TASVideos is looking to fill such a position, I would love to volunteer and help in an increasing manner.
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I've been following up on the WIPs Josh was posting in the forum, and believe this is a worthy run for publication. After reading the submission comments, I was surprised at the amount of technical challenges this game provided in the later levels; in dealing with polarity management, enemy RNG manipulation, and adjusting to Q-bert's increasing speed. Impressive work!
Also Josh, have you checked out the "X-pert" mode that unlocks once you finish all of the levels?
JoshButro wrote:
...even though i've seen the movie more times than i can count.
Welcome to TASing ;)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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I'm on board with dwangoAC, here. As for publishing this, why not? We've got the Vault, and it's also a decent way to spend 30 seconds watching a tool-assisted run of a board game getting blitzed through.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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I had no idea there were two Waldo games published for the NES (at least this one has a catchy title theme). Chalk another one for the Vault!
Guga wrote:
That page wasn't updated when the Vault Tier was made, that's why it seems contradictory of what is done in the site now, so please ignore it until someone updates it.
I agree. It would be great if that page were finally updated.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
It's about as good as my Japanglish (I'm so out of practice...).
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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To give an honest opinion, a 2 frame savings on an hour+ long RPG is a bit of a tough sell (not that it wouldn't technically be accepted).
You mentioned incorporating a new trick from the current run. Is there any other ideas you have for improvements, or new methods that would add new entertainment value?
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
As for my wishlist, I'd love to eventually see an optimized run of Beyond Oasis made, as well as one of The Haunting: Starring Polterguy.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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I voted meh, as t wasn't a bad watch for a 4+ minute TAS. I could readily tell that you did your research on the game, as the technical quality is good (in spite of the bad programming).
Like you stated, that's another game off the list :D
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
