This homebrew game is released in 2012 February by Stefan Adolfsson and David Eriksson. More info at http://www.driar.se. It's about collecting all stars on 38 different levels. You can jump (A) and be faster (B). That's all.
Note! This TAS uses the latest version of this game which can be downloaded from this post (no need to register): http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=103147#p103147.
The difference is a random crash bugfix and much shorter lag frames. This TAS would sync the same way if you would insert empty frames for the lag frames.
There's also a little bit odd thing... this TAS syncs in Bizhawk up to the start of the 18th level where an extra lag frame occurs, 8467th frame. Generally there's always 2 lag frames before a level starts except for this case at Bizhawk 1.4.0.
To make this TAS sync in Bizhawk 1.4.0, you need to add an extra lag frame after showing the level number of 18 and 22. I will upload it soon.Bizhawk sync movie is here.
Game objectives
Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.1
Aims for fastest possible time
Entertains without losing a frame
Uses death abuse
The main character is a dragon. Failed to color it.
List of techniques
Falling down faster
Jumping over a block (to fall down without touching the corner) is faster than walking off the edge.
Position tricks
Pressing both left and right and B ("turbo" button) makes a "fixed" left step while staying in the same position. The ammount of step depends on the previous input. Also you can fine your turn momentum frame precisely.
Death abuse
The only level where it really saved time was level 31. Driar has 10 lives, only 1 used.
Miscellaneous
For entertainment, I tried to implement as many near-death routes as I could. Sometimes bouncy, sometimes solid. Sometimes crazy...
I've recorded a few TASing sessions, I will try to make a tutorial video about my FCEUX 2.2.1 TASing process using this game as a material.
So I hope you liked my TAS, see you until my next one =)
feos: This movie got a good response and I'm accepting it for a Moons tier.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Link to video
I tried to play the game and couldn't beat the second level :D The movie represents quite some action and requires planning and testing, it's pretty fast-paced. I'm voting Yes.
People seem to know nothing about the game and so I'm posting the encode.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
The game looks pretty funny, and the play has a fairly good pace.
Yes vote for entertainment.
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.
MESHUGGAH LEARN TO ENCODE!!!! FCEUX ISN'T THAT HARD TO ENCODE!! <3.
If I would make a list of how bad I'm at different things, video encoding would be on the top of the list (okay, maybe english would be the first and video encoding the second). Deblinking is a full of mistery for me...
I'm currently trying to figure out the proper resolution for the tutorial video, cause cropping this has 2.05 ratio which I don't think is good, I'm thinking about repositioning the elements and somehow fit them to 2.0 ratio. And yes, I don't even know what ratios are good... I hate videos...
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
He probably means uploading straight emulator dumps at least.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks for the encode, feos! I would've tried to comment more on this movie earlier, but I've been on vacation.
The game is very nice. It feels like a quicker version of Nuts 'n Milk. I had fun with this, though I didn't particularly like the death abuse in level 31. If you prefer to use it, though, I'm fine with it.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
I had fun with this, though I didn't particularly like the death abuse in level 31. If you prefer to use it, though, I'm fine with it.
It saves time. There was 3 other levels where it was so close to save time but it was 5-10 frames longer.
Btw, a quick comparison of different levels shows that actually it's faster to load level 18 in FCEUX 2.2.1 than other levels for example level 17.
The other thing I observed that in Bizhawk (and both in puNES which according to the emulator tests, it's the etalon of NES emulation) there's a 1 line of artifact after a level ends.
So I have no idea which version should be preferred. Maybe the MasterjuBizhawk one.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
I have no idea which version should be preferred. Maybe the MasterjuBizhawk one.
Whichever one allows you to "improve" short runs without having to do most of the work and watch as the world marvels due to the previous TAS being produced on an obviously horribly broken emulator. Wahoo!
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Whichever one allows you to "improve" short runs without having to do most of the work and watch as the world marvels due to the previous TAS being produced on an obviously horribly broken emulator. Wahoo!
I can't decide that it's supposed to be funny (I was laughing on this at ~08:00 AM) or you are the first person who found out what I did in those runs. Which is both a good (for you) and a bad thing (for others) =(
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Good! Now I think I should detail what I was talking about. When I was selecting vault submissions, I found that some TASer was used the same file while the "author" tag of the previous TASer remained. While I made these vault runs, I thought I want to check how the judges do their jobs. So I intentionally used their file and just deleted the input part for 2 tases (this way I can have nearly the same text they wrote).
The reason for this is I always wanted to help TASvideos, and I thought that judges are like "super improving masters" and both "judges like a boss" who make deep analysis of these submissions to investigate it's authority (I don't know what word should I use). So before I wanted to apply to be a judge (however I don't think I will ever do it because of time), I thought I should do this test.
This isn't a conspiracy or anything like a "secret plan to dominate the world". I'm pretty sure that judges saw that my movie files greatly differs from the obsoleted runs (as I sad, I deleted the input parts). There was no fail on the judges side and I'm happy with that. Also notice that these 2 tases are really unpopular.
I wanted to make a conclusion when a submission gets wrongly accepted (everyone knows what I'm referring to), but since I already hinted it in my pervious post, I thought I should clarify everyone before thinking something worse.
The 2 TASes I'm talking about:
#3756: MESHUGGAH's NES Archon: The Light and the Dark in 01:10.00#3754: MESHUGGAH's NES North & South in 01:10.93
I hope nobody makes a negative conclusion mistakenly regarding the excellent work of TASVideos users (TASers, judges, admins etc). I apologize if this broke any rules and I will understand if this leads to a negative consequence on my side.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
LOL, well, but your little experiment didn't prove anything (except the obvious notion that nobody looks at the author field), because it is common technique in the traditional TASing method to start improving old movies by replaying the existing file and switching to Read+Write near the frame where a potential timesaver is noticed. Naturally, the previous author name is often left in the new run (until you deliberately change it later), as well as some initial Input (e.g. the titlescreen and everything until the Level 2), which is not important, because you still have to put a lot of effort into making your new improvement and then rerecording the remaining parts of the movie (since the old movie does not sync after you've made the improvement, and there's no easy way to resync the old Input using traditional TASing method, in fact it was often easier to just reproduce the old strategy by recording totally new Input). So, it does not matter if some parts were copied literally (using copypaste) or indirectly (using human memory and a reference movie), the main question is: was the new contribution significant enough. That's what influences judging decision the most. And analysing the author field doesn't give any useful information about the "authority" of the submission (I think you meant "authencity").
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Some submissions really need a good amount of investigation. Some are just clear improvements. No one would check how the movie file header looks unless it causes a bug or something.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.
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[2340] NES Driar by MESHUGGAH in 05:14.45
