Posted: 7/19/2011 11:09 AM
Post subject: Hi TASers! I make games, need tips
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LegacyCrono
Joined: 7/17/2011
Posts: 16
Location: Brazil
Hey there, people! I'm new around here :P I've found Hourglass recently and got interested on TASing. I've never tried making a TAS before, but I've got a liking for TAS videos for some time now. As I make games for PC, with the release of Hourglass, I also got interested on making TAS for my own games. So I've tried making a TAS of a game of mine, just to get the hang of it. But turns out the game isn't really that interesting for TASing (btw sorry about the lack of audio, I made it on Windows 7 and audio wasn't working there)
Link to video
Well, as you guys are much more experienced than I am, I'd appreciate some tips, specially about what would make a game interesting for TAS videos. I've read the articles on the site that advice against repetitive and fixed-length games, but that's just about the entertainment factor of the videos. What about the TASing itself? Is there anything that could make a game more fun for TASing? Cheers!
Posted: 7/19/2011 11:26 AM
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Noxxa
They/Them
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Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
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What would already make a TAS much more interesting is faster movement speeds, the ability to make shorter jumps (ie. by resetting speed when the jump key is released). Other things that tend to make TASes interesting are glitches such as zipping (although these usually aren't intentionally there to be abused), and a variety of other tools/weapons to work with, but I'm not sure if these would work with your game too well.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Posted: 7/19/2011 11:46 AM
Post subject: Re: Hi TASers! I make games, need tips
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Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1113)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
In addition to what Mothrayas said...
LegacyCrono wrote:
Well, as you guys are much more experienced than I am, I'd appreciate some tips, specially about what would make a game interesting for TAS videos.
Well, here are some tips (this is bit subjective): * Avoid autoscrollers * Lots of action (high amount of enemies, but make sure player weapons are up to that) * Damage boosting itself (damage can throw you at faster than normal speed to the direction you want to go). * Allowing shortcuts from damage boosting. * Nontrivial to pick the fastest route (but this makes TASing bit less fun). * Good non-repetitive background music (might not be easy) * Decent sound effects (don't sound like they come out of PC speaker).
LegacyCrono wrote:
What about the TASing itself? Is there anything that could make a game more fun for TASing?
Here are some (again, there is bit of subjectivity): * Avoid frame rules (the game only proceeding after next fixed cycle, e.g. 21 frame cycle of Super Mario Bros). * Allow input at high rate (allows more precise control) * Allow the character to fully press against the wall (I just TASed one game where that isn't true, that wasn't fun). * If you have subpixels (object position at below-pixel accuracy), allow manipulating that without losing much time (here's another thing that made TASing the same game as above not very fun). * Always reset subpixels when spawning new objects (not doing that makes Super Mario Bros 2 USA one heck of a game to TAS). * If the game has a random number generator, button that burns random numbers or otherwise affects entropy but has no other major effect (Mega Man V has such). * Develop the game so it emulates well (avoid using hardware in exotic ways, maybe even test in TAS emulator for that platform).
Posted: 7/19/2011 3:29 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The TIG forums (indie game design forums) had a thread about this awhile back.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 7/19/2011 4:05 PM
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MESHUGGAH
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There's also some threads here at TASVideos regarding this
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Posted: 7/19/2011 6:59 PM
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Brandon
He/Him
Editor, Player (191)
Joined: 11/21/2010
Posts: 914
Location: Tennessee
Thanks for being the only person on my Game Maker Community thread to actually come here and experiment with Hourglass. Please bring your friends! :P
All the best, Brandon Evans
Posted: 7/19/2011 11:25 PM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4043
The biggest thing that makes a TAS interesting is going way faster than the devlopers expected you to - think the Sonic Advance 2 TAS, and TASes that glitch through walls and sequence break. After that would be needing to strategize your movement based on what's around you - things like acceleration and deceleration and being able to bounce off walls/enemies, for instance. It also leads to a more aesthetically pleasant 'curving' around corners instead of just ramming up against them until you spill over the edge.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 7/20/2011 6:04 AM
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LegacyCrono
Joined: 7/17/2011
Posts: 16
Location: Brazil
Wow, you guys are awesome! :D Thanks for all the tips, I'll keep those in mind when making my next game :)
Posted: 7/20/2011 6:20 AM
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ais523
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1029
Another thing I'd suggest is to add options for the player which make it both harder and faster, potentially stacking indefinitely. (A simple example is the shoes that double your speed in Sonic 2; many casual players avoid picking them up because they make Sonic harder to control and require faster reflexes, although they're obviously useful for a speedrun. For a TAS, imagine if they carried across levels, with the effect stacking, but only if the player didn't take a hit; now, that would allow players to make the game basically impossible for themselves if they wanted, but avoidably, and a TAS could actually get away with it. There are more complicated variations on the same basic priniciple; low-grinding runs in RPGs, for instance.) I'd say, contrary to many of the other comments, having one autoscroller in a game is good for a TAS, as it gives the author a chance to play around without losing time, making the result more entertaining. But you have to give sufficient material in the level for them to play around with. Another good thing to add is to provide the player with things to do that are generally "not worth it", or only obviously useful in specific situations, but which have a lot of other uses to players with a lot of planning. (For instance, consider the weapons you gain in a Mega Man game. Casual players often only use them in boss fights, using the buster elsewhere, unless they're really overpowered; but speedrunners (both TAS and non-TAS) find all sorts of interesting uses for them, both intended and unintended.) Also, if the game has more than one way of moving around, and it should (running along the ground vs. running with repeated jumps is a common case in platformers), try to make them take identical time in ordinary cases; that gives TASers the scope to use one or the other to hit small timesavers or make the run more entertaining. If, say, running was always faster than jumping, then otherwise interesting techniques involving jumps would probably be suboptimal and have to be avoided. One other thing I'll note is that although hard to do, a TAS can be much more interesting if the game has scope for creativity that doesn't interfere with the run itself. ("Shooting in time to the music" is a simple example that's possible in some but not all games, especially as in a TAS you can often vary whether you kill an enemy early or late without losing time. Some of my favourite TASes are ones where you have similar control over the game, but in a much wider scope, allowing for more impressive versions of the same basic concept. Making a game heavy on sound effects can sometimes allow for this, but won't automatically manage it.)