Oooh, finally some good questions :)
Derakon wrote:
On the last stage of Aries, you spend some shots clearing out the small red area in the center instead of clearing the large red section on the left. Why not take out the red and white sections immediately and drop the constellation?
Because it is faster to shoot without angles. Removing that part allows me to get direct shots. Also I manipulate better balls for the next stage by ending on that frame.
Derakon wrote:
It seems like manipulation of stars will be a big part of the gameplay. How frequent/hard to manipulate are they?
They can't appear in all the levels, and yeah, two stars would be awesome in that level, but it's not possible, unfortunately.
Derakon wrote:
Wouldn't it be better to use it on orange or purple instead? The star does basically the same thing that a normal red ball would do.
Yes, it would be much better. But red balls can't be manipulated that soon.
Thanks for your observations.
Now I wonder if I should cancel this before someone finds some actual mistake in my manipulations :(
WIP 2 (Cancer)
Duration: 9100 frames
Rerecords: 2248
This wip covers the levels from 1 to 12. The luck manipulation goes on, still in the limits set by the game (e.g. in a level I can't get neither green nor yellow bubbles for a while).
I think this is coming out quite well.
Encoded version if you don't have FBA.
If there is something wrong with this movie, PLEASE TELL ME NOW, I don't want to submit this just to see it rejected :(
The feedback so far has been positive, can I get some criticism too? Or can I assume this is liked and I should go on?
They're different enough, and this is the most "classic" version, in my opinion. I think it should be published at least for nostalgia, everyone had a GB Tetris cartridge.
WIP 1 (Aries)
Duration: 2388 frames
Rerecords: 811
What happens in this WIP?
I enter service mode
I set difficulty to level 8 ("plays at hardest difficulty")
I exit from service mode
I start a 1P game
I play the first three levels
This movie heavily relies on luck manipulation in order to get the most appropriate balls all the times. From my tests it seems that the RNG doesn't depend on the keys you press, but only on the frame number. Therefore, delaying a shot for one or more frames may result in a better next-next-ball (since the next-ball has already been generated). However, sometimes the "random" generator is forced to output some colors until a certain condition is fulfilled (you deleted some balls, you did at least N shots, etc), so the "optimal" strategy might include some seemingly useless passages. I will try to minimize them as much as I can, but there's nothing to do if the game is set to work in a certain way.
Also, in before "why didn't you disable the how to play while in service mode?" --> "because it is faster to just skip it with one button press when the time comes"
Well, let me know what you think and if I should do all the 39 levels of this :)
Nice work at setting it up so quickly.
I'm currently unemployed (and besides, I already donated to another website a few days ago so I'm completely broke now), but I will donate something eventually, I see you're good to go for approximately one year by now, so there's no rush, let me find a new job first :P
The objective about the time is to finish as fast as possible with that kind of car. As for watching an unassisted run for comparison, I once made one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlGits9BJl8 (unassisted; in-game time: 3:30.44)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTNXKjbs-90 (my first TAS attempt at this game, never submitted; in-game time: 3:17.92)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFY8EFiPltA (this one; in-game time: 3'16"72)
The best unassisted run on that website (for this car) is 3:26, approximately 4 seconds faster than my old unassisted attempt.
The best unassisted run on that website (in general) is 3:10, played with the truck. Possibly a sub 3 minutes run is possible by TASing with the truck. But I'm not insterested into that.
Also I doubt I can improve this even further, when I redid the whole TAS by scratch I managed to save 1.20 seconds on a run that I already found almost optimal, so I'm really inclined to believe this isn't improvable. Not by much, at least.
Double player may increase the on-screen lag when both of them are shooting a lot of bullets/bombs, but definitely makes bosses and hard enemies much faster.
That, and more entertainment, yes.
I think it's better to keep static screenshots.
Also, many browsers out there still don't support APNG files, so I'd recommend animated GIFs if anything, the palette isn't a big deal since most of the consoles on this website can't even reach 256 colors.
But yeah, I don't think animated screenshots would be a good idea.
I didn't want to advertise anyone. I just threw another option on the table, stating in advance my ignorance about this topic. I've had good experiences with their servers, then again tasvideos' needs might be different than my ones. Ignore my link if it's not appropriate.
You should check out this italian hosting company: http://hosting.aruba.it/?lang=EN.
They have a very interesting range of services, from simple hosting to virtual servers and dedicated servers, both for rent and for purchase. I've had a few websites hosted over there and I can tell you they're reliable and efficient. Not sure how they compare to other offers, though, but I thought to show you anyway to have one more option.
Flygon, I'm making an encode limited below 11 minutes, don't worry. I had to cut out ~20 seconds, which contained two pages of credits, but they were names only. The ending scene with "well done Wolverine" is in. I'll edit my post later.
As for the run itself, I'm abstaining, as I don't know the game.
edit: http://rapidshare.com/files/242157249/wolverine-tas-mmbossman.mkv (high quality).
One thing that I'm more worried about, to be honest, is that some Neo Geo games can have access to the system time (technically they all can, you can see that by pressing F2 to go into maintenance mode, there are time and date information at the bottom, the date isn't y2k-friendly but it's correct). I wonder if there is any game that effectively uses the time to alter the RNG thus making it not TASable.
Noooo I just said NOT to let that submission thread deter you!
I'm just being realistic. That submission got 68% of yes votes and didn't get published, and you're way more popular and liked than me. If I make a similar movie I would get even fewer votes and face an instant rejection.
I just saw your Puzzle Bobble submission, I would have voted yes but I wasn't registered yet.
Good to know I shouldn't waste time TASing this btw, I'll look for some other game :\
How much interest would there be into this game? Here's a sample video of it (unassisted): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6_C6zsgil0
It is like Puzzle Bobble (in fact, this is its prequel, to say so). 39 levels in which you have to free a block from the bubbles.
If there are any objections about this game choice, please tell me now, and not after I submit a run.
If there are no objections about this game choice, I'll start TASing in a few days.
Obvious yes vote from me.
I made an encode as well, but for some reasons rapidshare is being retarded right now so I can't upload it. Good think you already made one.
edit: nevermind, rapidshare just got back to work. I might as well post my encode here, since it's captioned and what not, so Flygon can upload it.
High Quality Audio (4075 kB) (Flygon, use this for Youtube).
Low Quality Audio (1712 kB).
I made a LQ version because it didn't feel right to have the audio track bigger than the video track (which only uses 72kbps in both versions).
Actually I've been researching on Tetris since several days ago, and the submitted run in particular took me 3 days. I was planning to submit it sooner, but FBA being approved led me to clean up my OverTop run first. However this is not a rushed project, but thanks for believing so.
For one I don't think this is the best place to talk about Mario 64. However, I also think that some 100 coins stars should be included, in order to get two stars at the same time (just like the 8 red coins stars in the first two Bowser levels).