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Spikestuff wrote:
BomzhbezBMV3000 wrote:
it appears to be the second-best TAS after HappyLee.
I'm going to be blunt.
In real-time attack, a speedrun, done by humans, at best you're equal 1529th.
In the TASing world, with what was published? You're dead last. You're not second. You're last.
DeepL Translation:
Буду откровенен.
В соревнованиях по прохождению в реальном времени, в спидране, выполняемом людьми, ты в лучшем случае занимаешь 1529-е место.
А в мире TASing, судя по опубликованным результатам? Ты — последний. Ты не второй. Ты последний.
Spike, with as much love as I can muster, this is not useful. This is the kind of attitude that leads to people giving up on TASing. I would like to ask you to tone it down.
I will request everyone to stop posting here, piling on to a new submitter who is probably a bit unaware of the TAS process is not going to help them feel welcome here. Let me handle this.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
This seems clear-cut, so I updated this metric. We should probably standardize whether commas are used as a separator for the numbers, as opposed to thin space, full stop, etc. in some countries our viewers might live in. Is there any one right answer?
Yes. For score, commas are best. It avoids confusion with screen readers. People will likely be more confused with a period when reading the score. For time, the way we've been doing it is best. While it may seem like the best idea to use the format shown in game, screen reading programs only read the time correctly with a decimal point at the end: 2:16.73 is read as "2 16 point 7 3". This avoids confusion because I can tell where the minutes and seconds are separated. My screen reader reads 2'16"73 as "2 16 73", no real separation between the seconds and the decimal value.
This sounds sensible to me, thanks for the feedback!
Updated both existing Celeste publications after asking the Celeste TASing community directly.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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Well, it was a matter of time.
As of a couple days ago, our submission form officially allows the submitter to report an alternate timing method or optimization metric, such as in-game time or score! You can now see titles like #1312: ikuyo's PC Sayonara Wild Hearts "maximum score" (2,116,350) in 48:23.136 or #4444: (a lot of author)'s N64 Super Mario 64 "120 stars" in 1:14:04.444 (Console Timing)
Here's also an example of this information in the submission queue (image sourced from a development build of the site)
While we have officially allowed TASers to use whatever metric they want as an optimization target, this decision was not reflected in the way we display submissions and publications on the site, most notably in publication titles and YouTube encode titles. This has been a historical source of confusion, leading to several communities assuming we don't support in-game timers at all, or even causing casual audiences to assume TASes are slower than their real time counterparts.
You will find both a drop-down to select the metric or timing used in the movie, and a field to type how it should be displayed. This information will be used to fill the title data for the movie wherever needed.
If you plan to use this feature, we recommend you explain to us how to calculate or measure the reported metric if it is not obviously apparent, such as when using real time speedrun metrics. This will make it easier for judges or anyone unfamiliar with the game's speedruns to know what to look for.
By the way, if you have or know of a publication that you would like to use an alternate timing method, we have opened a thread for Publication timing/score update requests, as it can only be changed by people with editing permissions. Keep in mind that this could take us a while, as we are as usual working on a lot of things. Also, this feature is likely to get further revisions and changes in the future, as we find more cases that could use it. Thanks for your patience, and happy TASing!
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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IntangibleMatter wrote:
Oh god, I somehow put down the wrong path. I'm so so sorry about that. It's actually the one in linux64_withgfx_nondevelopment_il2cpp
Entirely on me, I'm so incredibly sorry.
I can get the game to run with this, but after the first loading screen, nothing except the four icons in the GUI renders and the game appears completely black. Thus, I cannot check sync, let alone do any other judging.
Is there any other setup that needs to be done?
UPDATE: I figured it out... and we have a lot to explain.
IntangibleMatter, you followed the Unity guide setup pretty well.. but the Unity guide setup sync assumes you are using libTAS 1.4.8. As your submission shows, you are using libTAS 1.4.7, so it has on effect on your movie. I was trying to get it to work with 1.4.8 and kept running into issues, but I got the game to run with 1.4.7, and I'm currently verifying sync. I'll let you know how it goes, and I'm sorry this created a big ball of misunderstandings.
Update, happy to report the movie syns in libTAS 1.4.7 out of the box. I've verified sync and updated the file to trim the final blank frames. Expect a judgment soon.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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TASVideos has been quite busy lately, as you may know. And thus, we may need some more hands and voices to help us handle our work. We are always looking for people willing to help us, but until today the way to approach us and volunteer was rather informal.
And we are here to fix it: this is the new official TASVideos Volunteer Application form! If you want to do wiki editing, reviewing, encoding, or any other form of volunteer work for the site, fill this form and we will get to you in due time. Thank you a lot! The site and our community appreciate your contributions. Apply here! https://forms.gle/Ly8fXyVtRpwUBn1t7. If you would like further details on how to help the site, please read https://tasvideos.org/Helping
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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Well, I finished my resync, but I cannot produce an encode of it, as for some reason unknown to me the movie tends to desync during the level end screen.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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Alright, so I decided to take it upon myself to resync the movie in libTAS 1.4.8 and Ruffle 0.3.0 stable. While I was at it, I found the following stuff:
- I found a faster strat for level 11.
- I noticed that the game needs get_clocktime monotonic on to run without softlocks in Ruffle 0.3.0
- Most crucially, you can drop each arrow and spring on a level in just two frames and not three.
Between all these discoveries, I am currently about 5 seconds ahead of your movie heading into level 18. Do you mind if I finish my improvement, share it here, and request coauthorship?
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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Got the game to boot by using both UnityPlayer.so and UnityPlayer_s.debug from 2020.3.16f1, but... the game appears to have rendering issues? As in, anything other than the HUD is completely black, and I can't see if there is a desync or I am failing to do something. I've tested with libTAS 1.4.7, 1.4.8 and a development build
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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I can't get the game to start at all with the specified version of ruffle. If I don't include -g gl, the game boots but does not make it past the menu. If I do, the game does not boot with the following error:
Attempt 1: Connected.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
[f:0 t:29784] WARN: Softlocked inside snd_pcm_wait()
Error: Couldn't create wgpu rendering backend
Caused by:
Ruffle requires hardware acceleration, but no compatible graphics device was found supporting Open GL
Is there a reason to use such an old build of Ruffle?
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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Hello! It is I, ikuyo, definitely on time. No, your schedule is behind! Anyway, I already made you wait longer than usual, let's get a Load of this State.
... was that anything?
Starting of with an instant classic, [7167] FDS Super Mario Bros. "game end glitch" by threecreepio, OnehundredthCoin, HappyLee, Simplistic6502 & Kosmic in 05:29.957 is a major technical breakthrough for Super Mario Bros! After the discovery of ACE in SMB2J, the technical community for the games went on to search for a similar glitch in the original, and ultimately found it with the Famicom Disk System release. The story of this find is in itself as entertaining as the movie, and I highly recommend both the author notes and the additional video made by Kosmic, retelling the story of this find and how it was pulled off in the end.
[7174] Genesis Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon by GoddessMaria in 23:41.981 is a really enjoyable movie filled with fun playaround movement and efficient combat. Watch as Sailor Venus kicks, whips and throws her way across several stages, with such speed that she breaks thru the gameplay limits and hits bosses thru cutscenes!
[7188] GB Final Fantasy Adventure by prieR57 in 1:30:24.113 is a wonderful debut, as prieR57 brings their RTA knowledge of this RPG to the TAS table and improves the existing publication by two and a half minutes! Congratulations on your first publication!
I've had Star Fox in my mind lately for... some reason. Not sure why. And if you have too, this is a good time to watch [7190] N64 Star Fox 64 "Main Game, minimum score" by WarHippy in 56:15.200, and see as Fox decides that today he doesn't feel like doing anything, and delivers the bare minimum he can by playing patient, downing his own allies, and getting Wolf to do the job for him.
I heard once that Superman often feels like he lives in a world made of cardboard, and he rarely gets to show how powerful he really is. If you crave a tasting of his power, watch [7196] Genesis Justice League Task Force by alexheights1 in 05:50.952 and enjoy Superman infinite his way thru the Justice League and Darkseid with literal superhuman efficiency.
I have a lot of fondness for those strange RPG-esque sports anime games for the SNES, mostly about Captain Tsubasa, that never made it to the Americas. The need to adapt the look and feel of those manga into the capabilities of early consoles led to a type of game very different to the usual sports titles we are more familiar with. As such, [7197] GB Honoo no Toukyuuji: Dodge Danpei by KusogeMan in 43:36.029 hit me right in the nostalgia with its menu focused gameplay system and charming art. If you want a look at those kinds of games executed with the talent of KusogeMan, this is your chance!
Remember when part of judging sometimes involved figuring out if something is even a video game? While you ponder those questions, go and enjoy [7216] PC West Point Bridge Designer by CoolKirby in 00:03.511, and congratulate CoolKirby on his civil engineer diploma!
ChesetheStickman has found his calling in TASing weird mascot kart games, and [7220] DS Crazy Chicken: Star Karts by ChesetheStickman in 22:52.060 is definitely a game! In some ways less broken than Garfield Kart, in others significantly more broken. If you enjoy absolutely disrespecting the rules of kart racing, this is the movie for you!
I have a confession to make to you all: I don't watch many DOOM TASes. This is because I can't play or even watch much of classic DOOM as the game just really triggers my motion sickness. Even then, I can absolutely admire the craft of [7221] PC Doom II: Cold Front by Dimon12321 in 3:39 (IGT), with its extremely precise movement and combat.
Well, what do you think? There's a lot of TAS goodness this month and certainly even more to come. Don't forget to let us know what movies you enjoyed this month and let the people that make them know you like what they do! Feedback and appreciation of each other's work is how our community grows.
See you next time, and happy TASing!
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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Hey! I am reposting questions here that I also put on discord. Use whichever medium is best for you:
Do you know what upgrades, if any, do you start Boss Rush with? how is it different than the start point in the main game mode?
Furthermore, is it possible to do any major skips within boss rush mode itself? I assume so considering the main speedrun category is boss rush Glitchless, which bans a bunch of oob stuff.
The main reason I ask this is that I want to know if it makes any sense for us to make a distinction between this movie and a hypothetical movie that enters Boss Rush mode and uses glitches to skip to the end of the mode.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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Put on your best overalls and ready your brooms. It's time for some Tool Assisted Sweeping.
As of today, Dustmod is now officially allowed for submissions and publication, making TASes of Dustforce DX made with it publishable on site! Dustforce DX is a movement centric platform game with 4 acrobatic janitors jumping, wall running and dashing their way thru complex landscapes all to achieve their goal of keeping clean. The game has had an active speedrunning and TAS community for short of a decade by now, and we are happy to have worked with them to make their Nexus scripting tools acceptable on site.
Thanks to Riokaii for acting as our bridge with that community and bringing us up to speed with the details of Dustmod usage, and to Samsara and fsvgm777 to testing sync and identifying specific issues.
This makes Dustmod the 4th single game engine now compatible with the site this year, joining the ranks of CelesteTAS, Coffee Tools and GZ. If you would like some guidance on using the tool, check out our Emulator Resources page!
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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SelflessVanity wrote:
What happened to the YouTube encode?
The author requested us to not host a YouTube encode of the movie, and we obliged. We are currently making it formal that submissions can opt out of having a YouTube video upload, as all prior instances have been rather exceptional and handled privately rather than up front.
The author additionally requested us to link to their encode, but due to concerns about authenticity we have not done so yet (as the temporary encode does not match the submitted file).
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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Hey. I have some thoughts here.
First and foremost, I stand by the decision made by nymx in accepting this movie. I trust his expertise when judging movies and I am certain he followed the steps we expect from our Judges. I will not discuss this further.
For thegugafa, I think incorporating some more tools to your toolbox, even if you don't end up using them always, cannot be a bad thing. I haven't always needed to use things like RAM Watch or debuggers, but being aware of their use cases can help you find a TASing workflow that brings the best of your work. And regarding explanations, you are not expected to find everything out yourself. Any sources or prior art you can find is a shoulder to stand on, and will help make more sense of your own work. We all can look further by standing in the shoulders of giants.
Finally, I would like to address the idea that RTA runners come to TASVideos for discoveries and reference: I like that! I am not opposed at all. Quite to the contrary, I have almost always when possible reached out to RTA runners and communities to get myself immersed in the existing knowledge before jumping in and doing things. And I believe this process can and should go both ways.
If someone is dissatisfied with a specific movie, creative choice of an author, or other aspect of a movie, there is one thing that they can do that will always be a positive for the world: make their own TAS. I assure you, if you disagree with what this person made, you can make it your way. TASing is a creative process that I assure you, you can learn and enjoy. It may give you a further appreciation for the mechanical aspects of a game, it could provide you new knowledge and ideas to implement in your own real time gaming endeavours or game design sensibilities, it could just be plain fun! And even if you don't make it, welcoming those who do or try to is how you get them to listen to you, and how they and you get what you want: more, better TAS work.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
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Xander wrote:
The main goal of this run - grabbing trees - is often slow and uninteresting and none of the exciting movement offered anything significantly more entertaining than the main category (or other freeruns out there) in my opinion.
Also, within the submission they said that they've already found an improvement. And after watching it, within 5 minutes I found a small time save grabbing the last tree in CCM by waiting out the squish animation. I suspect there are more improvements throughout. No vote from me.
Do you think that improvement could be implemented into the movie without major issue? If so, and if any party involved is willing to make it, I can wait for it and have you as coauthor.
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
Admin Assistant, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Experienced player
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Hello gamers of all genders, and welcome! I'm ikuyo, writer who can't type, and I am here as your band leader for this month's Load State! Follow my lead as we revisit the month gone by and find TAS work that makes me love this medium. Let's get to it!
[7112] NES Sack of Flour, Heart of Gold by ZoroarkGX in 03:28.074 is a simple game with a simple TAS. ZoroarkGX is thus required to lean on the basics of platformer optimization, and the result is a movie that in spite of its seemingly basic look, manages to save more than 30 seconds over its equivalent RTA run, reminding us that even the simplest games out there benefit from the superhuman opportunities granted by TASing.
[7114] GBC Rayman "100%" by SuperSqank in 23:01.136 is a really fun run where SuperSqank takes advantage of death warps, glitches and clips to make their way thru every collectible and secret. I appreciated the included drawings and diagrams in the submission notes that helped me make sense of the level layouts.
[7118] C64 Wham Ball by nymx in 04:21.224 is a pinball-inspired game with an interesting twist in the formula, and nymx, with some scripting help, finds a way to speed it up as much as possible with a lot of tilting.
I had a lot of fun judging [7120] PC Momentous: Monumentum by dillthepill08 in 01:46.783, a tricky platformer where the issue is less gaining speed and more making the most out of it, as momentun is generally preserved. In a TAS setting, it becomes a puzzle game where even small one frame changes drastically change your trajectory. For fans of precise fast movement, this is the movie for you!
The Game Boy Advance is not a console we usually assocaite with first person shooters, despite having a shockingly large array of those. Dimon12321 brings us [7123] GBA Serious Sam Advance by Dimon12321 in 20:27.073, and makes it look easy to play!
Krasio makes his first publication on site with [7125] NES Fire 'n Ice by Krasio in 58:26.409, a 5 minute improvement on an over 20 year old movie, with significantly improved routing and execution. Let's give him a round of applause for his first movie!
One of my favorite site traditions is that no matter what, at some point each year, we will get an improvement to the 16-bit Lion King games. And yes, I will watch them every time! This month we got [7130] Genesis The Lion King by Akiteru, EZGames69, ShgofcTAS & Cubbina in 10:43.312, a 3 second improvement thanks to new strats. Optimization is asymptotic work, and we can always find something to improve.
[7133] PSX Thunder Force V: Perfect System by thegugafá in 24:42.978 is everything you love about shoot em up TASes. Speedy, daring, and unleashing maximum violence whenever a boss is ahead. thegugafa continues his work in shoot em ups with this one and I am always glad to see it.
Walgrey went on a spree last month and produced a lot of work. I want to highlight [7146] NES Soccer by Walgrey in 00:14.742, which made me chuckle really hard. Watch as Spain overcomes its anxiety after scoring a single goal, and watch as the United States team fumbles every opportunity to draw while playing solo! Feels a lot like watching my national team, to be honest.
[7148] NES RoadBlasters by DrD2k9 in 21:33.686 is a bullet hell game disguised as a racing game, and DrD2k9 puts his pedal to the metal as he weaves his way thru each obstacle with no hesitation, dodging every obstacle in his path.
McBobX returns to the world of Contra with [7154] NES Super C "1 player, low%" by McBobX in 12:54.192 to prove that where we are going, we don't need no upgrades. Watch as he weaves and jumps his way across levels and dispatches enemies and bosses with nothing but the starting gun.
And to wrap it all up, I will just link you to [7165] Flash The Boohbah Zone "playaround, all interactions" by zapkt in 02:24.444 and not say anything. I promise you, it is best if you go blind. Let go of whatever your ideas about TASing are and let yourself be immersed in this work. I was stunned by it, and I am thankful to zapkt for having made it.
And that's game! Thank you as usual for coming along for the ride. If you have any movies you would like to shout out, you know how to do it on our Discord server on in this forum. Stay safe, stand proud, and happy TASing!
GuanlongX wrote:
auuuugh my face when games are creative and cool and don't fit arbitrary rulesets
While we have officially allowed TASers to use whatever metric they want as an optimization target, this decision was not reflected in the way we display submissions and publications on the site, most notably in publication titles and YouTube encode titles. This has been a historical source of confusion, leading to several communities assuming we don't support in-game timers at all, or even causing casual audiences to assume TASes are slower than their real time counterparts.
You will find both a drop-down to select the metric or timing used in the movie, and a field to type how it should be displayed. This information will be used to fill the title data for the movie wherever needed.
If you plan to use this feature, we recommend you explain to us how to calculate or measure the reported metric if it is not obviously apparent, such as when using real time speedrun metrics. This will make it easier for judges or anyone unfamiliar with the game's speedruns to know what to look for.
By the way, if you have or know of a publication that you would like to use an alternate timing method, we have opened a thread for Publication timing/score update requests, as it can only be changed by people with editing permissions. Keep in mind that this could take us a while, as we are as usual working on a lot of things. Also, this feature is likely to get further revisions and changes in the future, as we find more cases that could use it. Thanks for your patience, and happy TASing!