Posts for zidanax

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Posted: 8/18/2007 2:36 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I experimented a bit with getting the apple. I had to slow down my movement a bit, but that was balanced out by being able to get hit on the last spike. And since I ended the boss battle with more life, I ended up saving about 10 frames. Thanks for the suggestion; this kind of strategy may be usable in some other levels too. WIP
Posted: 8/16/2007 6:42 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
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Location: Oregon
Still TASing at a snails pace. Fillmore Act 2 is now finished. I ended up having to avoid one of the spikes in the last part of Fillmore Act 2 in order to have enough life for the boss. See any possible improvements? WIP
Posted: 7/29/2007 10:57 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Sir VG wrote:
The choice of skipping all magic related items in Filmoa is an interesting one. So how many scrolls are you gonna end up with in the end?
Look towards the end of page 7 of this thread. I have a big post there explaining my tentative plan for which scrolls to get and why.
Sir VG wrote:
I'm also still curious as to why you build your road at the beginning up, down, then back up again.
From earlier in this thread:
Sir VG wrote:
One thing about the up/down construction at the beginning is seems you have to go up first, then down, then back up. Going down then up seems to cause me to get that stupid house in the fire zone.
I tested this myself when I was making the 1.43 version, and got the same results as you did, so I stuck with going up then down then up this time.
Posted: 7/29/2007 9:19 PM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
I decided to revert back to the previous number of souls to bypass the fire. I decided to take advantage of cheat roads to get to the end of the Fillmore sim much sooner, because Fillmore will still grow slowly while I'm away. WIP
Posted: 7/14/2007 6:40 AM
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zidanax
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GOT IT! I was kind of lucky with that last bat coming up right next to the shrine, but I nevertheless made an interesting discovery that's used in this WIP: When trying to hit the bats in the East lair as soon as they come out, I can be somewhat closer to the top and still get them immediately. To be precise, I was using the Y position of 140 before, but it turns out that I can be as high as 128 and still hit the bat as soon as it comes out. This means that I didn't have to travel as much vertically between the West and East lairs. WIP EDIT: whoops, I didn't notice that managing to get 16 souls causes a house to be built on the special spot that causes a fire later. Considering that when building a road, going up then down past the shrine then up again prevented building a house in that special spot, perhaps taking the normal route of down then up might prevent it? It's worth a try, I guess. EDIT #2: well, that didn't work out, so I went back to my previous WIP and delayed hitting the bat that would've earned me the 16th soul just long enough so that it didn't so before the first construction phase. Thanks to that (and perhaps also to more optimized killing of bats), I was able to barely get 6 houses in the second construction phase instead of 5, so I'm satisfied. EDIT #3: except that that causes fires too. AAAAAARRRGGHHH!
Posted: 7/13/2007 5:55 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
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Location: Oregon
Haven't been doing much lately, part of that being frustration from the following, maybe you guys could help me out: I'm having some trouble with the first part of Fillmore. I've gotten to the point where I can have 15 souls on the counter by the beginning of the first construction phase. But having 16 would be really nice, because then I could build 4 structures in the first phase instead of 3. I'm really close to 16 right now, but I haven't quite managed it. Here's my WIP. Suggestions?
Posted: 7/1/2007 11:31 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
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Location: Oregon
OK, I've completed up to the end of Fillmore Act 1. WIP here 12 frames saved from power on to the end of Fillmore Act 1, though some of that may(or may not) be due to timing changes.
Posted: 7/1/2007 6:57 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Sorry it's been so long. I didn't feel very motivated for a while, but now I'm starting this TAS over in 1.51 like I said I would. It seems like some of the actions will take a different amount of time in this version of SNES9x (different timing?). Anyway, I'm posting because I've been going through Fillmore Act 1, and I need a little help. OgreSlayeR's TAS had a trick which I picked up where the hero can "catch" onto the wall and jump off from there. OgreSlayeR used this trick around frame 3290, and I used it in the old WIP of my run. But I'm having trouble executing the trick in SNES9x 1.51. Maybe I'm messing something up, but I'm wondering if any of you guys have managed to execute the trick in 1.51? EDIT: Nevermind, I managed to do it when I got rid of the fly and just started messing around. Hopefully I can execute the trick with the fly present...
Posted: 6/16/2007 6:27 PM
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zidanax
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All of that bumping into black dots and the lack of decent racing music makes the movie much less fun than I think it could've been otherwise. Voting meh, because this wasn't really a good choice of game to TAS.
Posted: 6/11/2007 6:13 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Less useful lag info? what do you mean?
Posted: 6/10/2007 10:37 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
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Yet another game gets the Nitsuja treatment. Definite yes vote!
Posted: 5/26/2007 7:27 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
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Location: Oregon
Yes vote. I was always interested to see how the next set of bubbles would be quickly taken care of in spite of the complex layout.
Posted: 5/25/2007 5:42 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
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Location: Oregon
Admittedly, part of the reason I said earlier that I wasn't going to restart this run in SNES9x 1.51 was that the pitch sounded off to me in comparison to the real SNES/SNES9x 1.43. It turned out that the pitch in the Windows port WAS off a bit. Nitsuja said just a little earlier that this is due to an option called FixFrequency being enabled by default. Turn off this option in the SNES9x config file, and SNES9x 1.51 sounds great. Apparently, FixFrequency is supposed to be a fix for some sound cards. Since I'm going to have to redo Fillmore anyway to make it optimal, I think I'm going to go ahead and restart this run in SNES9x 1.51. The sound effects in 1.51 are noticeably better, so that will hopefully make the sims a little more pleasant to the ears.
Posted: 5/25/2007 5:14 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
nitsuja wrote:
zidanax wrote:
Is it just me, or is the music actually more "off" than 1.43?
I wrote:
It's more the other way around, and we've gotten used to the pitch of everything being slightly wrong. The sound still has some issues and has not yet received the complete revamping it could have used, but it's still noticeably better in a lot of games. (try the Star Ocean intro...)
I was wrong about the pitch, but luckily there is an option to put it back to the way it should be... set FixFrequency=FALSE in the [Sound] section of your snes9x.cfg file. When someone else added that option and left it on by default, I assumed that by "fix" they meant "make it better", not "make it worse so certain old LINUX sound cards can play it".
That did the trick. Now Snes9x sounds great. Thanks!
Posted: 5/22/2007 5:56 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Speaking of subpixels, how did you guys manage to find the memory locations for subpixels? For pixel position, you can just move a bit and then check to see which memory locations increased or decreased, depending on which direction you moved. But is it possible to move less than a pixel at a time in order to use a similar method for finding subpixel memory locations? I may end up sounding stupid here, because I don't know much about the physics of Super Metroid, but I'm curious.
Posted: 5/19/2007 3:42 PM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
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Location: Oregon
Some good points. I'd forgotten that the setup when you enter the Cassandra Act 2 boss' room is slightly different, so I'll test there to see how much 1 scroll makes a difference, and how much 2 scrolls makes a difference in comparison to 1. And I will spend some time testing in Kasandora to see how much not getting the lost people will affect building patterns. As for Kasandora Act 1, well, watch this SMV. I'm able to attack the boss as fast as the sword will let me, then I just cast stardust once in order to not get hit by the pincers, and kill the boss in the process.
Posted: 5/19/2007 6:10 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
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Location: Oregon
I now a (very) tentative plan for which magic scrolls I will retrieve. As previously stated, I won't get the scroll in the woods of Fillmore, because the clearing of bushes alone delays the construction timer by too much. Then there's the 150 or so frames where the people tell you that they found the scroll. I think I may not get the other scroll in Fillmore either. When I did a test, I got a delay of 662 frames for getting the scroll. This includes the delay to the construction timer when clearing the square of rocks (which appears to be a necessary action for getting the scroll), the time it takes for the people to tell you about the fire spell they found, and the time it takes for them to tell you about the scroll when they find it. I'm not sure I could make up for this lost time. I was able to save 24 frames with the fireball spell when fighting the Fillmore Act 2 boss. The savings fighting the Bloodpool Act 1 boss are negligible due to the fireball only doing 3 instead of 4 damage. Assuming I save the same number of frames from using one stardust on the Bloodpool Act 2 boss as I did in my Death Heim testing (278 frames), that leaves me with about 360 frames to save. I will pick up the scroll in Bloodpool because it's not very out of the way at all. And the thing is, I haven't been able to save a non-negligible amount of time with more than one scroll with any of the bosses from Kasandora to the end of Maranha. I will be able to save time with two scrolls with the two Northwall bosses, but by then I will have the Aitos scroll, because it's not very out of the way either. With 3 scrolls at Death Heim (the Northwall scroll isn't very out of the way, so that will be picked up), I wouldn't, according to my Death Heim tests, save more than 360 frames from adding a fourth scroll, namely, the Fillmore one. As for the Bloodpool scroll, I only got a delay of 343 frames when getting it, so it's one of the least out of the way scrolls in the game, with the possible exception of the Northwall scroll. So I will be picking it up. Kasandora is kind of complicated. First, I think I am going to skip both scrolls. To get one of the scrolls, you have to find the lost people in the desert. You then lose about 300 frames from the people in the shrine telling you about finding the lost people and discovering music. That isn't much, but if you want to take the shortest route to the last civilization-level-raising lair, you have to wash two more squares of sand than is strictly necessary to beat the sim, if you want to reach the lost people. It is possible to take a route that finds the lost people, seals both of the upper lairs, and washes the same number of sand squares as the other route in the process, but then it takes longer to reach the civilization-level-raising lair. As far as I can tell, you have to find the lost people in order to find the second scroll in Kasandora. Since finding the lost people will probably waste too much time, I'm not sure getting that scroll would be worth it either, due to the extra conversation and the extra cursor movement. I will probably get the scroll in Aitos. It doesn't take too long to get the extra scroll. Once I've built a road to the mountain, there is about 300 frames worth of conversation total. And no extra squares have to be cleared. Once I have two scrolls, I will be able to save some time in Northwall, and some time in Death Heim. The Northwall scroll is not very out of the way at all, since the people tell you about it in the process of sealing the lairs, so that will be retrieved. In total, only 3 scrolls would be retrieved. Let the criticism begin!
Posted: 5/19/2007 3:21 AM
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zidanax
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I've always found Metroid runs entertaining, and this is no exception. Somehow, even just watching Samus move through the game was entertaining. Yes vote.
Posted: 5/18/2007 5:09 PM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
SXL wrote:
this movie is interesting only if you have been told that it shares the same input for the 4 games, not because you can see it, which it too hard to do in my opinion. casual viewers will have trouble to understand the concept. just watching this has fewer chances to entertain them. the audience of this movie seems limited to me. that's what the concept demo is for, and I never voted no for this destination, in fact I'm ok with that, just that it's not enough entertaining. just imagine some random guy watching this on youtube (intro probably cropped...), will he understand ?
Quoted for truth. I also voted yes, but only because I think it's an interesting concept demo. Some people may like sensory overload, but I can see from the posts here that there are some people who think that there's too much of that in this run. And yeah, it oftentimes looks like there's different inputs being made in the four windows, so it just looks like four badly done runs. It's easier to keep track of what's going on in DeHackEd's two-game run, and there isn't quite as much of that "sensory overload" that some people don't like. Four games simultaneously is a bit much, though.
Posted: 5/18/2007 5:46 AM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
Nice improvement over the previous run. The levels are straightforward, but watching the red ranger do that weird high kick is kind of funny.
Posted: 5/17/2007 7:18 AM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
... My eyes kinda hurt, and my ears are strained, but this is just... amazing. Absolutely amazing. Great for people for have short attention spans! Congratulations on getting this done without going insane! Yes vote.
Posted: 5/17/2007 6:14 AM
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zidanax
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An entertaining quick watch. I thought it was pretty funny watching the enemies fly off the screen when they got hammered :).
Posted: 5/17/2007 4:03 AM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
I've played this game, and I definitely enjoyed this run. I was quite entertained by how smoothly Will went through the dungeons. Yes vote.
Posted: 5/14/2007 6:40 PM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
I've been away for a few days for my sister's graduation and wasn't able to get internet access until now. I won't be back for a few more days, and even then I may not do much TASing for a few days, because I have to catch up on homework.
Posted: 5/9/2007 10:24 PM
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zidanax
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Location: Oregon
A score over ten times as big as Comicalflop's? Definite yes.
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