(Link to video)
Submission Text Full Submission Page

General

  • Emulator used: JPC-RR r11.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes no damage
  • Pacifist - doesn't even get a weapon!
  • Ends with measly 200 score

About the game:

Castle Adventure is a game made in 1984 about a cloverleaf person trapped in a deserted castle, with monsters roaming around. You have to find a way to escape the castle by searching for clues.
You move around with the arrow keys (and diagonals on the numpad). If you manage to find a weapon (this run doesn't) you can attack enemies by simply moving into them. Similarily, you can pick up objects on the ground by moving into them. You can also type in commands with the keyboard, for example "LOOK DESK", "TAKE KEY", "READ BOOK", "DROP FLASK", etc. There are treasures to find and monsters to slay to increase your score.
This game has great nostalgic value to me, since it's the game from which I first started to learn English.

BIOS/OS/game versions used:

The BIOS/OS versions are same as in #2649: sgrunt's DOS Commander Keen: Episode 5 - The Armageddon Machine "glitched" in 02:42.43. The game is freely distributable and downloadable from for example http://www.myabandonware.com/game/castle-adventure-3k

imageinfo report about game image used:

Type               : HDD
Tracks             : 16
Sides              : 16
Sectors            : 63
Calculated Disk ID : c0c24858ba012cd1bc72d027ca2e8c96
Comments section:
Entry: N/A            N/A                                       2 /
Entry: 19900101000000 abf6d56cc767e47b47968b9935ecebfe      72960 /CASTLE.EXE
Entry: 19900101000000 10a65f63e8176917044d981d447a36e8      48512 /CASTLE.RAN

Tricks:

There are some bugs related to saving and loading games, but I don't think they are useful.
The game runs in some sort of loop, like most games. At the settings used in the movie, the game usually runs two loops per time unit, but sometimes three. The game reads one keypress per loop. Therefore it's important to always have at least three keypresses queued up. After each screen change or accepted command, the keypress buffer is cleared.
Monsters only move if you haven't moved this loop. Due to this it is possible to make them stay in place by moving constantly. There is one instance in the movie where an UGLY OGRE makes one move at the start of a screen, due to the boundaries between the time units in the emulator being in a poor location.

Run walkthrough

The movie is 20 seconds, of which the game takes about 17.5. The slowest computer speed was chosen, but the game still runs incredibly fast. Encoding it at half speed might be a good idea, to give people a chance to see what is happening.
This run gets the minimal set of items required to complete the game, in the following order:
  • ♠ LAMP, to enter dark rooms
  • § NECKLACE, to avoid the instant-kill water traps
  • - WAND, waved to reveal the secret room
  • τ KEY, to open the door to the cellar
and finally
  • ß SCEPTER, found in the secret room, waved to open the front gate and end the game.
The first four can be picked up in any order, and all of them are needed to get the scepter.

Future full score run

A full score run might be interesting in the future. There are 8 monsters to kill (100 points each), and 13 treasures to collect (50 points each). Additionally you get 100 points for winning the game, instead of dying or giving up. This makes the max score 1550.
The interesting thing about this is that the inventory only holds 6 items. Treasures are counted as collected if you have them in your inventory when the game ends, or they have been dropped in the first room of the game. Some items are prerequisites to others (like the SCEPTER), and obviously you need to carry around the SWORD to kill monsters. This would need quite some route planning. The execution is pretty simple, luckily.

Thanks to:

  • Ilari for helping me a lot with this peculiar emulator.

turska: Judging.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3675: Truncated's DOS Castle Adventure in 00:20.04
Player (65)
Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232
Well, its fast What happened?
it's more comprehensible than Deign's Clue TAS. Therefore I am voting yes
+1
NitroGenesis
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Editor, Experienced player (550)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Well, the entertainment value wasn't that high. But I place a yes vote anyway due to being short enough to not be that boring and giving me a feeling of wtf.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Cooljay
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Active player (391)
Joined: 5/1/2012
Posts: 468
Location: Canada
Knowing how lengthy these 80's text based adventure games can take. This is pretty extraordinary. The technical planning is well thought for it. Entertainment wise there wasn't much time to offer anything, but it's more comprehensible than Deign's Clue TAS. Therefore I am voting yes as well.
adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
crazy shit is happening really fast! I got the impression a lot of detail and planning was actually happening. That was enough to entertain me, despite me having no clue what was going on. Yes vote.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Player (12)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 498
"You are in a Cooridor"? :/ So the only difference between this run and a normal walkthrough is that you can press arrow keys so quickly that you can dodge monsters? That makes the entire game a travelling salesman problem. I really don't think a solution to such a problem is worth publication, not to mention that it goes way too fast to follow the chosen path at normal speed.
Joined: 8/2/2011
Posts: 39
Voted yes. I enjoy seeing early games so quickly beaten. Also, early DOS love
Joined: 4/6/2012
Posts: 44
Location: Lawn, PA
I remember old DOS games. Really short vids like this would be much harder to vote on if we didn't already have multiple others that are even shorter, but we do, and seeing this beaten so ridiculously fast just impresses me. Voted Yes. Also I would indeed love to see a 100% completion run as the author noted interest in creating. The author has also already suggested uploading a half-speed encode, which I would agree with and actually want to see; things happen so fast at full speed I can barely tell what's going on.
1/60 of a second is important; every frame matters.
Player (21)
Joined: 6/2/2011
Posts: 35
Location: Chicago, IL
I can't believe I used to play games like this. It gave me a good laugh. Yes vote.
If at first you don't succeed, load your savestate and try again
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
Wow, you destroyed this game! Yes vote. I liked the really fast pace this run has, but I would also like to see a half-speed encode to have a clue as to what's going on. Also, way to figure out this confusing emulator.
Editor, Experienced player, Reviewer (967)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
Thanks for all the feedback so far! Nice to see that people are enjoying this.
SmashManiac wrote:
"You are in a Cooridor"? :/
Well, I didn't say I necessarily learned proper English. :) There is a treasure named RUBYS as well, otherwise it doesn't interfere that much with your gaming experience.
SmashManiac wrote:
So the only difference between this run and a normal walkthrough is that you can press arrow keys so quickly that you can dodge monsters? That makes the entire game a travelling salesman problem.
A normal walkthrough doesn't necessarily take the shortest path, but yes, you are correct. TASing this game is is 95% route planning and 5% execution.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Is this game trying to emulate the Atari 2600?
Editor, Experienced player, Reviewer (967)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
Warp wrote:
Is this game trying to emulate the Atari 2600?
I'm not sure what you mean, but I don't think it's trying to emulate anything. If you mean the font and resolution, the game uses Code page 437 to get access to special characters for drawing walls, enemies and objects. Is it similar to Atari 2600's standard font?
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Very nice work! The funny thing is, I was thinking of TAS'ing this game just last week, and now you've beat me to it. And yes, I think route planning makes for a valid TAS. Yes vote; we need more games from this era. Who's up for Alley Cat? :)
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Truncated wrote:
Warp wrote:
Is this game trying to emulate the Atari 2600?
I'm not sure what you mean, but I don't think it's trying to emulate anything. If you mean the font and resolution, the game uses Code page 437 to get access to special characters for drawing walls, enemies and objects. Is it similar to Atari 2600's standard font?
It was humor. The graphics (well, "graphics") just reminded me a lot of Atari 2600.
Joined: 10/14/2010
Posts: 27
Location: California
Wow. My childhood just whooshed by in 20 seconds. I loved this game. I spent the time working with my dad to map out every single dungeon level, evaluate different paths to get a perfect score, etc. A definite yes vote for this TAS.
Who's up for Alley Cat? :)
I'll drink to that, too.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down
Player (12)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 498
Radiant wrote:
And yes, I think route planning makes for a valid TAS.
Nothing wrong with route planning for TASing, but that's all there is to it here, and it's not a complex route either. With the exception of frame perfection, the technical quality of this particular TAS is extremely low in my opinion because of this. A similar point was recently discussed in Post #323143 about the controversial rejection of #3667: mtvf1's GBA MegaMan Battle Chip Challenge "no code" in 2:41:48.80.
Active player (266)
Joined: 9/14/2011
Posts: 349
The man was so eager to save his bathroom that he destroyed whole dungeon. I vote yes.
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
can someone make a super slow encode like mega man 1?
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
SmashManiac wrote:
With the exception of frame perfection, the technical quality of this particular TAS is extremely low in my opinion because of this. A similar point was recently discussed in Post #323143 about the controversial rejection of #3667: mtvf1's GBA MegaMan Battle Chip Challenge "no code" in 2:41:48.80.
Fair enough, but that run is almost three hours, whereas this one takes twenty seconds. I think that the Megaman run is so long that it becomes repetitive, whereas this one is not. YMMV, of course.
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... blech!