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Also, for comparison's sakes, here's a longplay version of Coca-Cola Kid which completes the game in 30:49.
Gotta give a shout-out to Team SAD for getting this one made! Always a pleasure to work with Samsara, and it was very nice to get a project done w/ Dekutony, also.
Three cheers, gentlemen!
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Thanks, CoolKirby :) I think this year is going to be the year of long-awaited TASes from me. From Landstalker to Fester's Quest, I've been aiming to knock out a few titles that have been lingering on here since the site launched.
WIP #2 for everyone's viewing pleasure! I blew Tricera-whips to smithereens, and plan on taking out the third own even more spectacularly (missiles + dynamite = PWNAGE).
"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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Alyosha, according to the TASing guidelines, it is preferred for games to be played on the highest difficulty (for more interesting gameplay), unless the only difference between difficulty levels is enemy/boss hit points.
Are the enemy's AI patterns more wild/complex? If more HP is the only real difference, then you guys should be good to go on continuing on the current difficulty :)
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Hi, everyone. I appreciate the feedback given over this recent decision, and will do my best to address the objections brought up.
@Turska
As I mentioned in irc, while I do agree that the 'sketch glitch' run is far more entertaining, Keylie's replacement of the original submission file, which corrected the soft-lock issue, made it necessary to address what to do with the prior publication.
The dilemma I saw here, in essence, was "So we have a branch here with the 'correct ending', but we've also got a branch over here with the 'incorrect, soft-lock ending'." How do we now address this inconsistency?
My solution: Have the 'game-end glitch' obsolete the current 'sketch glitch' so that we'll have a consistent precedent, going forward. And if Keylie can find a workaround in the 'sketch glitch' category that enables the ending to be completed (e.g. by either making similar adjustments that were made here, or completing the World of Ruin, etc.), then I see no reason why the 'sketch glitch' branch couldn't be "grafted" back in.
All in all, I felt this was the most effective way to address the issue.
@SmashManiac
I do agree that it would be best to have a general agreement on this standard for "no soft-lock endings", going forward. Without attempting to speak for everyone on staff, I will see about getting this issue clarified so TASers will know what to expect regarding 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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Since there's no consistent standard on this yet (being as other current PSX runs have the BIOS skipped in their encodes), should there be one at some point, going forward?
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As I spoke with you on irc, I see a great deal of potential in this. If you ask me, it's an innovative idea and thinks outside-of-the-box.
Count me in! We could make some noise on this one :)
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moozooh wrote:
Warp wrote:
I really can't understand what exactly is the problem you are having. I already suggested using the visible picture to fool the OCR for the majority of answers, and then give one or two answers with a completely blank picture, explaining clearly to the viewers what's happening. (In other words, something along the lines of: "All these pictures fooled the OCR to think it's the correct answer. However, we can go even further and give the answer off-screen, making it look like the program is accepting a blank picture as the answer.") If it's just one or two such answers at the end of the demonstration, I don't see a problem with it. As long as the previous visible-picture-answers were genuine OCR-fooling.
This is the way to go in my opinion (and I definitely agree with the sentiments expressed by Warp and others). First show some genuine OCR fooling, then announce a step-up in breakage and do a series of offscreen stuff showing a deliberately wrong answer, then a pretty but completely unrelated picture, then a blank answer, and explain the "magic" behind those.
A bit of a tangent, but to be fair, the audience already knows we break games, and have come to expect nothing less of us. So we need to cater to the entertainment aspects of our gamebreaking just as much, if not more, than the technical ones. Glitches should look and feel fresh, tricks should be executed with style, and so on. Obviously one would be going to run out of things to show if they were only considering technical breakthroughs. Back in 2009 or so, my mother, being an avid soccer fan, had a kick out of the ISSS Deluxe run. Before that, over a dozen of my friends could be seen laughing at Neofix's old Golden Axe run. It doesn't always have to be a technical breakthrough to be an entertaining watch that only TASing can provide.
Good post, moozooh (and Warp).
IMO, that does sound like a solid game plan to go forward on this. After thinking about this more, it does sound like this new technical break though on Brain Age is like the '2015 update', in a way. Having the presentation play out in phases, with the current method showcased first, and then the "step-up" in breaking the game even further, and then explaining it all to the audience when finished, sounds pretty solid.
"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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Kurabu, here is a collection of improvements that I found (not including x-speed optimizations) over the course of the run. These are rough estimates, and most involve strategic use of the gyro. On your 2nd pass through (and I hope you're up for doing it!), make note of these:
Stage 1-1
- At the point where you first use the gyro, you can save roughly 40 frames by riding it all the way up the top of the next building, instead of jumping onto the adjacent platform over to the left, first.
Stage 2-1
- In the 3rd area near the beginning, you can use the gyro immediately after slipping past the hovering goat icon and hover up to the next platform (hoping the remaining ones to reach the exit). This saves roughly 140 frames.
- Likewise, upon immediately entering the 5th area, you can immediately use the gyro to fly up and left toward the exit, above. This saves roughly 130 frames.
Stage 2-2
- In the 7th area (frame: 35060), you can save a little time (25 frames, or so) by going off the ledge and down to the next platform to make a running jump. This should allow you to have enough clearance to reach the floating platform without dropping down into the pit to take damage.
Stage 3-2
- At around frame 59500, there's a direct opportunity to enter a shop and restock on another gyro (if needed).
- In the area where you need to mount the swan to cross the river (frame: 60k), you can save time by activating the gyro and fly across, instead (you can avoid the two pairs of bees by hovering low toward the bottom). This saves roughly 100 frames.
Also, there's another shop available in the next screen, in case this would be a faster way to re-stock.
Stage 4-2
- In the area with the fist power-up (frame: 88150), there's a little trick I uncovered where you can bypass Timmy's smiling "item obtainment" animation by briefly engaging the gyro and flying diagonally upwards toward it (this will cancel the animation from occurring). This can save roughly 15 frames here, but may have other uses elsewhere.
- In the vertical passageway where you use the gyro (frame: 89560), you can save roughly 125 frames by continuing to hover toward the exit, instead of canceling it early.
Stage 4-3
- In the large room with the conveyor belts near the beginning (frame: 93070), you can briefly use the gyro while on the conveyor belt, below the fist power-up, to fly past it and avoid getting it, entirely (since there's no boss fight in this stage). Doing so saves roughly 65 frames.
Stage 4-4
- Near the middle of the stage (frame:100k), 120 frames can roughly be saved by immediately activating the gyro and flying up to the next platform.
Stage 5-2
- In the multi-storied room with the shooting flame vents (frame: 112k), it's roughly 80 frames faster to gyro up to both of the higher platforms, instead of hitting the switches and waiting.
Stage 5-3
- Near the beginning (frame: 118900), it's roughly 145 frames faster to immediately activate the gyro and hover upward toward the first ladder.
- A few rooms later (frame: 119460), it's significantly faster to use the gyro here to hover upward directly toward the exit. Roughly, this saves 360 frames.
- Later on as well (frame: 120760), the gyro can be used to, again, hover up to the top toward the exit, saving roughly 130 frames.
Stage 5-4
- In this area in the final stage (frame: 128100), it's roughly 230 frames faster to head immediately right and hop up on the platform containing the invincibility power-up. From here, a quick use of the gyro will take you to the very top platform. Although this could affect how much gyro you have left for that vertical shaft room, near the end. You'll may need to compare times here, and figure out the fastest method.
- Finally, there's one last shop available before the final boss fight with the Bronze Kneecap. I'm aware that the shop sells two attack items; the Baseball Bat and the Megaphone. I'm not sure if these could possibly save time, but it's worth looking into.
"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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Warp wrote:
ars4326 wrote:
I mean, if I understand all this right, you can input the correct answer off-screen while drawing whatever you want on-screen. But the published run, essentially, does the same thing (only, it embeds the answer within the drawing). Perhaps, I'm thinking, you could get far more creative with the drawings and, say, re-create the Mona Lisa? Or some other type of compelling theme?
The fun of the run does not come from the picture alone. It comes from the picture fooling the OCR.
If you are going to remove the fool-the-OCR element from it, you could just as well switch to Mario Paint.
Or, you could ACE Brain Age and at the very last answer...input Mario Paint.
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Ah, man... the concept seems interesting (and, obviously, quite the technical achievement!), but what I'm asking myself is how different can you really make it from the published run that, visually, accomplishes the same job?
I mean, if I understand all this right, you can input the correct answer off-screen while drawing whatever you want on-screen. But the published run, essentially, does the same thing (only, it embeds the answer within the drawing). Perhaps, I'm thinking, you could get far more creative with the drawings and, say, re-create the Mona Lisa? Or some other type of compelling theme?
I do think, though, that the technical feat is cool; and that it would make for an interesting presentation on how broken a game can truly get.
"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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Just watched the temp, and I've gotta say you've got a pretty entertaining TAS, Soig :) (I'll have an official judgment here soon for you, after I've verified the movie file and taken a closer look at it).
At around 7:10 in the ice stage though, could it have been faster to run across the ice near the top of the screen, instead?
"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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So we got a little derailed on the topic, but what does everyone think about this run's entertainment value?
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Movie file updated! Do you need more time on any potential improvements, Alyosha?
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Kurabu, if you (and/or another collaborator) happen to make any improvements, just post a replacement file here in the thread. We'll update the movie file and go from there.
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Samsara wrote:
...Instead of figuring out how to simplify the voting system, maybe it would be easier to figure out a way to give some incentive for it? Votes are tracked on forum profiles, maybe there could be "Voter" ranks for people who've rated lots of movies?
I like the sound of that idea. I'm not sure how much of a headache that would create in coding it, but perhaps there could be some type of voter ranking displayed either below the avatar, or within the signature (and directly across from earned awards)?
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This one's starting to get old, but this was taken back in July of 2012 during a study abroad program in the Middle East. During part of it, we stayed two weeks in Israel at a Jewish Kibbutz just outside of an archeological dig site. The dig site (iirc) was believed to be the Biblical city of Bethsaida. What I'm doing below is finishing up some detail sweeping on an ancient, preserved cobblestone road that our work team labored to uncover during our two week stay.
...you would think that digging up the dirt covering the stone road was easy. Not quite! Packed-in dirt left untouched for the better part of a few thousand years is tough. For about the last 6 or so inches, we had to use full-sized pick axes to (carefully!) chip away at the final layer. Needless to say, the experience gave a huge sense of accomplishment and is still a great memory that I like to look back on.
If these stones could cry out...
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Haven't forgotten about Fester's Quest!
Redone WIP (any%) up to the 1st boss. Dynamite and rapid-fire makes a lethal combination :D
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I could definitely watch an entire TAS of this. I love the overhead, bird's eye view of the battle map.
Keep it up!
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Sometimes, I find it effective to go to a project and resume work on it in chunks, or sections. Bursts of creativity, if you will. Then once I have, say, 700 frames worth of new content, I'll play it all back from the beginning and observe the current finished project. If I'm really enjoying what I'm seeing, I might then get another burst of inspiration and do a little bit more.
Rinse and repeat. I've actually been doing that today and so far have completed 1800+ frames worth of new input (and counting).
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coldsun0630 wrote:
So, the publishing means that it's syncs well on official version, right?
Which version was tested for sync? The newest version?
Hi coldsun0630,
While judging, I confirmed that this movie file syncs on the official version of DesMuMe 0.9.7 (I initially overlooked that the author used the SVN version).
Apologies for overlooking that. This does sync on the official build of 0.9.7.
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CogneatoSwitch, to elaborate on what Spikestuff addressed, using auto-fire isn't the best method to use when TASing. You'll want to get into the habit of using frame-advance and manually attempting to advance menus, and such, at the earliest possible frame. I made a brief test run, up to the stat creation screen, that saved 6 frames just on optimizing input.
Also, and I don't know how this would affect your scripts, but I saved over 300 frames at stat creation by getting values that were just below the max allocation of 109. I stopped before deciding on IQ since finalizing from there will determine the initial RNG seed (otherwise, the AI sent a Ninja toward my fief for the game's very first move!).
Confirming last stat will determine RNG seed.
Anyhow, this isn't necessarily grounds for rejection; just me chiming in and sharing tips for better TASing. I'm still in the process of judging your run, and should have a final decision made later on in the day.
"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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So how does everyone feel about this improvement on the pro levels? Anyone have any ideas on how to improve PRO D?
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I noticed that Alyosha isn't credited along with mmbossman (co-author) on the homepage. Could someone fix this?
edit: That was quick! Thanks a lot, fsvgm777!
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Hi, perfectacle. I have a couple of questions about this run.
So as I understand it, once you obtain a high enough score, you can call either "go" or "stop", in which "stop" ends the round. In this case, why do you continue calling "go" with certain opponents? Is it because there a minimum score required to move on to the next opponent?
Also, as Tangent brought up, apparently one of the game's rules allows for an immediate win if a player has four cards of the same month in his/her hand. Would this be a faster method for a 100% branch?
Also, was luck manipulation a factor in making this run? If so, could you go into some more detail about it?
edit: There are actually two places where auto-wins are utilized, during this run. For those watching on emulator, the first occurs around frame 3150, just after he gets the first victory from his 1st opponent; while the other occurs at around frame 27,900 (first round vs. the 6th opponent). Also, there is a minimum score that has to be obtained against the different ranking opponents, before you can move on to the next one.
Finally, upon closer examination, there's also quite a bit of luck manipulation occurring, apparently to manipulate the opponent into making bad moves. I may make another post here shortly detailing all of the methods the author appears to use to manipulate the RNG.
"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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Wow, this is a far faster time! Good to know that switching to the highest difficulty revealed a much faster strategy, as a result.
Would you like to go ahead and cancel your previous submission?
Also, just to clarify, optimizing by seasons is the slower of the two options?
"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
