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Svimmer wrote:
I guess the shield wasn't making the 53 route any better? Was there a way to plan the level with the shield since you knew it was about to spawn?
How many frames faster would you have to be on 52 to make it one cycle earlier?
Do you always create a route overview picture like the ones you and Nach have been posting? If you do, would it be a lot more effort to upload that one as well, it's simply so difficult to follow what exactly is happening and look for suggestions for improvement if it's just that crazy fast WIP to go on.
Did the spinner affect your decision-making on Tornado? If so did you try manipulating the starting direction?
1. I tried grabbing it on the way to the upper right corner but it was too slow. The missiles weren't a huge issue here so I don't think it would be worth it to grab it earlier.
2. Not sure what you mean...but 52 can't be faster anyway.
3. The only route maps I make are ones I post. I'll make one for this level, here:
Keep in mind that route is ideal and not the one executed in the video.
4. Spinners weren't an issue, no. I had to wiggle around them while falling down but it didn't waste any time.
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Ilari is correct, there's no way to the green teleporter, at least without an invincibility powerup.
Breakout:
Link to video
I tried a few routes for this one. One route just snaked straight lines through the gems at the top and came out on the bottom right, which ran into enemy issues. The other one got the rightmost ones on the floor first, and then zig-zagged through the top blocks, finishing in the middle, then falling and collecting the remaining floor gems. The route in the video is nice because it has a lot of flexibility in evading the missiles and ended up being the fastest.
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Tornado has been kind of disappointing. I'm pretty happy with everything before the last marble section, but that's all pointless because you get severely bottlenecked and have to wait a lot in the end anyway. Oh well, I hope the playaround in there demonstrates why this level is frustrating. Time to move on.
Link to video
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Good questions Nach...
Nach wrote:
If you took out an extra block on your way right, on your way left, would you have been able to jump over the spring instead of pausing a moment?
Couldn't you jump over the spring here too?
In terms of distance you can travel, jumping takes several frames longer than just walking. In some cases it's better to just wait a couple frames instead of jumping over it.
You seemed to waste a couple of frames getting this gem. Did you fall down farther than you had to before flying out?
Hmm...I think you're right here, I landed, yet waited a couple of frames to take off. I can't remember if there's a good reason for that or if I just made a mistake.
What happened here? Were you in danger of a trackbot hitting the red switch, so you had to dance back and forth?
I waited at the teleporter so I could activate it again as soon as possible. If I had gone straight for the gem, the animation would have ended while I was on the way back to it.
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Thank you creaothceann :) I hope the encoders will offer a slower video as well for the final submission, as this run can be hard to keep up with.
Svimmer wrote:
I'm looking at 51... Looks like you may not be able to phase the right wall of the basin the ball you start next to falls into... not in one go at least. So delay-phasing or going round? Your route looks pretty solid... hard to see obvious improvements.
I guess you're using the teleporters to the fullest... i.e. if you can almost pick up an item through a tele using it regularly, then if you use it at the last possible moment, you might be able to do it. Otherwise, let's see if there's a ball cycle thing preventing you from taking the fastest route (looking at (-6,-5)) maybe you can do something useful during that time.
Keep doing what you're doing Crea!
Dang, you predicted everything correctly here, although I don't think either of us were aware there's a third green teleporter at first. Level 51:
Link to video
The most problematic gem is the isolated one across from the bottom left green teleporter. The marble on the rightmost conveyer that Svimmer mentions does have a nasty cycle, so I grab this isolated gem instead of waiting for the marble. This move pays off later as I no longer have to detour there after the area with the red gates, and I just teleport (and grab a gem, why not) closer to the exit. Delay-phasing is used to get to the exit, although I only had to use one extra cycle because the marble is so bogged down by the conveyer.
I don't think I'm done with this level, it's too complex for me to be satisfied yet. I'll try a couple more routes.
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Svimmer wrote:
Still with you Slamo! If you're saying you're feeling confident about routing stuff yourself, do you mean you don't necessarily need contributions to that from others? I think Nach said he's busy with a work project and myself I'm still going to update the RP periodically. Currently working on the (probably quite pointless) marble movement glitchiness.
No way, routing and feedback are always welcome here. Coincidentally some of the upcoming levels are quite complex so some ideas would be appreciated.
Here's a route for level 51, tons of possibilities here...
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Okey, big update. We've reached the halfway point!
(if you've seen the 30-level WIP and want to skip ahead, click here)Link to video
Stats up to this point
Movie length: 15:45.98
Rerecords: 28358
This will very likely be the last multi-level WIP I post, but I hope you enjoy it. I haven't been posting videos for the last several levels so there should be plenty of surprises. The rate that I upload videos is going to slow down quite a bit as I'm becoming more independent with this project and I don't want to spam up the thread if it's getting quiet. Big thanks to everyone that has helped and shown support so far!
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Part II of the labyrinth series:
Link to video
I'm walking through most of this because of fuel management. There are two full tanks on this level, but I get away with using only one by walking to bottlenecks instead of pointlessly flying to them. The main bottleneck is the missile blocking the route to the exit - skipping the second fuel tank not only saves time but also lines up the enemy cycles nicely. I have just enough fuel to sprint to the exit.
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Jetpack Invaders.
Link to video
Just concentrating on one or two Flitzers at a time makes this manageable to attempt. With good enough luck manipulation, they'll part the seas for you - all the routes I tried here actually lost no time to maneuvering around them. With the Flitzers essentially no longer a problem, the level boils down to finding the best path for collecting the gems.
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Lunch Box:
Link to video
I feel like this is the only sensible route through this, since all 3 switches need to be flipped to complete the level. The enemies were surprisingly not an issue except for the trackbot in the upper right that is in a fixed CCW rotation. Lots of destruction and I have no idea what this level has to do with lunch boxes.
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hegyak wrote:
Teleporter says, "Ima move you." You say, "That's cool and all and I will let you finish but first, Ima steal this stuff."
If you want to see really egregious abuse of this, check out level 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm8fzBH7UhY
New video, here's level 39, Golden Pyramid:
Link to video
I don't see a better way to make it through the pyramid...I tried going along the left side first instead of the right, but it was almost a second slower. This route seems to flow a lot better. It's fairly easy to figure out if a route is faster or not by simply adding up how many blocks you have to phase through - dark reds count as 2 and it's possible to backtrack through 3 phased blocks.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Cyberscore:XBLA & PC
I might be asking a bit...
But can you check if your time is faster than theirs because I don't want to see something so hard wasted due to WR (Monkey Ball DS).
It's important to note that most of the WRs are with different characters so they don't apply to any%, although you can see some good (but not necessarily the best) Meat Boy times in each level's leaderboard.
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I did 36 and 37 yesterday, I won't post the videos because they're mostly linear and only required small tests. 38 might look familiar, here's my idea for it. Note that there's a secret passage in the bottom center through the stone, but I cannot immediately enter it because of enemy placement, so I built this route avoiding that.
EDIT: I'll sneak this video in here because I don't feel like posting 5 times in a row. Logo:
Link to video
Getting the stunner saves a ton of time.
I deviate from the route to the green teleporter by going to the left and doing a teleport-grab on the nearby gem.
Fuel management was more important here than I anticipated. If I used all of it as fast as possible I wouldn't have enough fuel to make it up to the exit, so I do some walking (the conveyers at the top helped as well) to save it for later. The last gem is grabbed as the fuel hits zero.
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Level 35, Shameless Plug:
Link to video
I kind of brute-forced this level. It matters which side you do first because the spinner placement can change and the stunner may help more in one side than the other. The spinners also change whether a clockwise or counter-clockwise route is faster, so I tried every combination and this was the best one.
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Another level, finally. 34:
Link to video
The batbots really dictate whether a route is practical or not. They tend to create a lot of traffic above the 6 gems on the ground and love blocking up narrow passages, so the route depends on their placement when you reach that area. The reason I collect the last 3 gems in this order is because a batbot will always get stuck in the nook with the last gem, and I have to coax it out by moving to the right. This is a modified version of the route that Nach posted and it was the quickest out of the 3 routes I tested.
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Warepire wrote:
Log?
Hourglass on my desktop white-screens as well, here's the log if you're curious:
http://pastebin.com/Asb7KKSy
Don't know if this matters, but the log got up to line 900 at first, and then about a minute later added the rest.
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Warepire wrote:
slamo wrote:
I wish I could do a few ILs but the savestate issues are getting in the way. I could post the error log, but it's just some info about memory addresses, not too helpful. Win7-64 support is nonexistent for Hourglass right now so I guess all this is to be expected.
Please upload the log anyway, it could be useful.
Hourglass should work fine on 64 bit systems, the only thing that will not work is TASing 64bit games.
Sure, here's the log.
http://pastebin.com/gTX6j8VS
The first savestate is at line 4619. After I tried loading it the video froze, and the frames kept going up in Hourglass if I tried to advance but nothing was happening in the game. Trying to load the savestate a second time crashed it.
keylie wrote:
Yes, I'm working on individual levels in -ultralowdetail mode, and I will probably capture in -highdetail mode. Both provide the same amount of desync.
What I do to cancel desyncs when working on levels is starting with no input during 1-2 seconds, then a death, and then the actual level completion. As there are no variable loading times after a death, I'm always synced for the actual level completion.
However, when building a complete input file of, let's say, a full world, there are too many places of potential desyncs, so that it's unrealistic to hope for a full sync.
Interesting, you'd think the detail would have an effect on it. If a full run won't sync in Hourglass's current state, at least ILs would be neat. I'd like to use some Naija strats...The Kid warp zone would be amazing as well.
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I've been trying to get this working, here are my experiences, maybe they will be helpful (probably not).
Runs fine in Hourglass on my laptop (Win7-64, onboard Intel graphics), locks on a white screen on my desktop (Win7-64, GTX 560), and also locks on a white screen in a VM (XP-SP3, some experimental D3D support). I have no idea why my laptop works while nothing else does, but whatever.
The game softlocks at the opening screen 50% of the time, but otherwise it's quite playable and seems to sync fine for a couple straight levels (regular playthrough, no tools), I haven't tried an extended session yet. Frame advance and fast-forwarding works fine. The main problem I'm having is with savestates. I tried the recommended performance settings but the best I can do is to have it work about 5% of the time without crashing.
I wish I could do a few ILs but the savestate issues are getting in the way. I could post the error log, but it's just some info about memory addresses, not too helpful. Win7-64 support is nonexistent for Hourglass right now so I guess all this is to be expected.
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Level 32:
Link to video
The level is laid out in a pretty sensible order already, it's just collecting the gems between the ladders that required some testing. A stunner pops up in a really nice spot again, but I don't think getting it actually saved any time.
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keylie wrote:
Finally, I managed to have a working PC. I did Forest already (World 1), but the problem is that loading times take a varying number of frames, so it's really hard to sync :(
Are you using the "-lowdetail" command line parameter? There's a chance it would make loading times more consistent and possibly cause less crashes as well.
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Two worms in this one. 31
Link to video
The level can be split up into a few sensible paths to travel down. I tried three different routes: One with six cycles (two passes each for the outsides and center), one with four cycles (one pass for the outsides and two for the center), and one with three cycles (one pass for each section). The one with four cycles turned out to be the fastest.
I tested a lot of the borderline gems (ones that could be grabbed on another pass) but let me know if I missed anything.
Keep in mind that route is ideal and not the one executed in the video.
4. Spinners weren't an issue, no. I had to wiggle around them while falling down but it didn't waste any time.
EDIT: I'll sneak this video in here because I don't feel like posting 5 times in a row. Logo:
Link to video
