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Hello! I want to bot to find the best town map in Animal Crossing: Wild World (the one on the DS). Ideally the shop, town hall, and houses are all as close as possible, to cut on movement. The weather has to be sunny or the game takes extra time to load rain/snow effects.
The map you get is based on RNG, and the easiest way I found to change whatever the "starting seed" is without losing time is to change time a second into the future/past from NDS settings. After that it's adjusting inputs for lag frames until the map is generated, reading and saving RAM locations of the buildings, then restarting a second in the future and doing the same thing. After a while it'd have the best map. I've done it manually ~10 times but this is what people use bots for isn't it?
So, would anyone know the best way to start automating this process? Thanks.
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Some optimizations brought 1-1 to 1-4 335 frames (~4.43 seconds) faster. I also did 1-5 for funsies.
Link to video
bk2: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638606676238917329
Earlier I talked about the "displacements" you get from landing on the ground, i'll go into more detail about that
Whenever you land on the ground, you have the chance of going between positive/negative 73 units to the right/left. Not sure why but it means every jump has to be checked to make sure you get the best boost out of it. You can lose 1-7 frames with a bad jump (which is very bad)
There are 8(?) different boosts you get with jumps to the right, left have their own speeds. from top left to bottom right: 73, 57, 41, 25, 9, -7, -23, -39
All of these jump at the same spot but get different boosts, and looking at the difference from the first/last pic you see how much that affects it. To get a different boost just jump a frame earlier/later
Also i noticed i was getting desyncs in places where i reasonably shouldn't have, and that's because some screen transitions are longer than others. the fastest one is the horizontal stripe across the screen (51f), next is the diagonal swipe (60f), then vertical stripe (62f), and the slowest is the checkerboard (82f). So in addition to getting perfect boosts you need perfect screen transitions as well. but these can also be changed by entering 1 frame earlier/faster. Comparison: Link to video
Except in vertical stages, here the fastest is vertical stripe (69f), diagonal swipe (77f), horizontal (79f), then checkerboard (99f). Comparison: Link to video
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Judge/staff, please replace the current submission file with this one: User movie #638583237078506909. It's an improvement of 3.45s. Thank you.
1-1: 2 frame improvement in last room
1-2: 3 frame improvement in the minecart room
2-2: 6 frame improvement in river room
3-2: 166 frame improvement in spiked ball room
4-1: 2 frame improvement in 3rd room
6-2: 28 frame improvement in 3rd corridor
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In the romFs of the 3ds version, there's a cfg file suggesting a debug mode (as well as functions within the code stating the same). Weirdly the file had the debug mode set to true. There could be a code still in the game to activate it, but I don't think we'll ever find it out unless someone knows how to fully decompile the game to find it.
I tried changing various settings in the config but they don't do anything, so it's certainly an activation thing.
EDIT: Potential hint for accessing debug mode
I went back and reread the config file in case I missed something obvious, and it seems I did. Based on this comment, there was a "debug pad" for the 3ds that they used during development. If we could know what exactly that is, and hack in a way to hit debug pad buttons, mystery solved (if it's not referring to something completely unrelated)
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Crush 3D is a game I first discovered 8-10 years ago, a very unique puzzle-platformer that I think should get more recognition. The demo on the 3ds led me to find the (much cooler) PSP version, but there aren't any TAS tools for the PSP yet, otherwise I'd have done that.
This is a TAS of the first world in the game, which is beaten in under 10 minutes. To progress, you have to collect half of the total marbles in the level. There's different routes in each level to see which marbles are the fastest to grab, because you don't want to grab more than needed (that's extra wait time at the end of the level). For 100%, you have to collect all the marbles and memories, but I don't feel like doing that currently.
Link to video
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There are a few interesting glitches/bugs used throughout the game.
Cutscenes only play if you're grounded, so you can delay them (sometimes skip them completely) by jumping the frame before they activate. That's most notable in "Rocks In Your Head" (the level after Under & Over) because you get the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cutscene to play back to back to back, and with the balls platform lowering. The same is true for the fall damage animation, you can walk and jump for a tiny bit before it plays, do that for the duration of the animation and you get no recoil (done in first level and Tin Can Alley).
For cutscene triggers that you walk into, you can crush during their intro to save some small time (first level).
In Nasty Things the cockroach moves very slow, and only dies if he's on screen and on bricks. That's why crushing the first doesn't kill him, and I have to wait for him to walk out of the hole.
In some areas you can crush while falling, if you go from Falling -> Grounded -> Falling fast enough. It's only used once here (in Upstairs, Downstairs) but will be done in later levels as well.
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Stopping here for now, goes through 1-4. would've done the entire world 1 but got bored of the game pretty quick
jeez, these levels are soo much longer than the GBA games. at 5:48 in EoD 100% we're in 1-6 already 🥴
For some speed info, you don't want Klonoa to be airborne for too long (as his speed in the air is slower than on the ground).
Randomly after landing, Klonoa does something similar to a displacement in PS1 (he gains a tiny speed boost either to the left/right). Idk why, or how this could be gamed to always get the boost, but usually you can just delay your jump by 1 frame and it either won't happen, or boost you in the direction you want. (it can push you to the right when you wanna go left and vice versa)
The wind bullet slows your momentum somewhat, so you want it to be out for as little time as possible (and for it to not affect your momentum past -242 going right, or 498 going left). This point I didn't really realize until 1-2 so 1-1 could see some improvement.
Many of the tricks used in the GBA games (damage boosts, air steps, hops, etc.) don't work here. sad.
lua file for OSD info: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638290218259858296
bk2: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638290216957159448Link to video
Also i noticed i was getting desyncs in places where i reasonably shouldn't have, and that's because some screen transitions are longer than others. the fastest one is the horizontal stripe across the screen (51f), next is the diagonal swipe (60f), then vertical stripe (62f), and the slowest is the checkerboard (82f). So in addition to getting perfect boosts you need perfect screen transitions as well. but these can also be changed by entering 1 frame earlier/faster. Comparison: Link to video
Except in vertical stages, here the fastest is vertical stripe (69f), diagonal swipe (77f), horizontal (79f), then checkerboard (99f). Comparison: Link to video
EDIT: Potential hint for accessing debug mode
I went back and reread the config file in case I missed something obvious, and it seems I did. Based on this comment, there was a "debug pad" for the 3ds that they used during development. If we could know what exactly that is, and hack in a way to hit debug pad buttons, mystery solved (if it's not referring to something completely unrelated)
