I'm going to take a two-week break from this project now. Here's a as-of-now complete list of trick categories that we're looking for a game to fit in case someone was about to speak up for their game. The exact method of subdividing everything is a bit (a lot) arbitrary so... also the longer the list grows the less likely we'll find just one game to cover everything so we may end up using 2-3 different games after all. Still would love to hear from the people who wanted to advocate Mario Kart 64 etc.
-Movement tricks
-Efficient Combat
-Luck Manipulation
-A.I. Abuse (as separate from luck manipulation)
-Taking damage (mainly damage boosts, invulnerability abuse...)
-Death Abuse
-Going Out of Bounds & Skipping Triggers
-Abusing Faulty Game Logic (e.g. assuming being at B implies you did A so if you can skip A it's still assumed you've done it; also e.g. you're facing left so the game assumes it needs to eject you towards the right enabling entering the wall)
-Pausing-related Tricks & Save/Load Tricks
-Zone-hopping
-Overlapping Events
Note that I got the idea for that last one from what you wrote about DK64 ais. Bioshock has the radio transmission overlap thing where the latter (shorter) message cancels the first triggered one. Making other things overlap like that (kinda reminds you of save/loading which also wasn't even mentioned yet and of pausing tricks) surely could be included.
I was thinking of it as a general cutscene trick (as in, from my point of view, it's one of the many ways to get control early during a cutscene), but your classification may make more sense (there are definitely similar tricks unrelated to cutscenes)
I'm back now and waiting for further input... still looking at something like Mega Man 1 or 2 + 1 or 2 other games but I'd really hate to have to come up with them myself.
EDIT: I realized that save/load tricks were missing completely so I added them to the same broad category with pausing. Feel free to come up with a few more examples for both pausing and save/load tricks.
Just a brief mention that the script has been moved to Google Docs (new link in first post). Can't really recommend ZohoDocs... too glitchy, too ambitious, too much based in India.
Can anyone expound on this point I've been told about: the memory limitations especially relevant to old consoles are part of the reason games tend to be glitchable. Is this more about the memory the console uses to perform computations or about the small size of the cartridges/discs that were used? If the former, without going too deep into the details, can you give examples where this clearly manifested? If the latter, did this encourage programmers to use "shorthand" imperfect solutions when writing the code causing it to become less reliable across the board?
It's for a short little segment on why tricks and glitches are present in most games. I've already listed several other reasons so no need to go to those here.
Thanks!
CPU speed is one reason. Dev needs to find a perfect balance between presenting a quality game with lots of computations and slowdown he can afford to do those calculations. Different developers were choosing different priorities. NES games from Capcom lag a lot whenever there is enough objects, Konami games don't lag, even having more object active, and it's while they are complex enough to be comparable.
Another reason is how well CPU is prepared for all kinds of shit. M68k breaks on any unknown opcode, 6502 and SNES' CPU keep executing no matter what goes wrong.
One more reason is the overall complexity of the game engine. Developers can foresee possible bugs and add workarounds or breaks. Or if they have not enough time/money, they can simply ignore them. Most of the glitches that can only happen TAS only were not known about by the devs and regular players.
I don't know if any of these is stated anywhere though/
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.
Can you think of any specific cases where we can see a game being easy to break because of such limitations? I actually thought of one case already: almost all games have some kind of limit to how far they draw the surroundings and how far the A.I. is active. That's the sole reason we can despawn enemies or avoid encounters in some games like Mega Man. Or so I think.
The very fact we see absurdly massive amount of broken runs done for Nintendo consoles, but little to no (are there any?) ones for other companies' consoles.
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=349411#349411 and the next post.
CPU speed reference is just common sense and how it really is.
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7293&p=71682#p71682
About untested conditions, also reality and common sense. Devs didn't know we'll be taking over total control by manipulating object properties to imitate a bunch of code, jump to it and execute it. Some did block left+right, or other humanly possible conditions, but you can never know all beforehand.
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.
Here's a as-of-now complete list of trick categories that we're looking for a game to fit in case someone was about to speak up for their game.
-Movement tricks
-Efficient Combat
-Luck Manipulation
-A.I. Abuse (as separate from luck manipulation)
-Taking damage (mainly damage boosts, invulnerability abuse...)
-Death Abuse
-Going Out of Bounds & Skipping Triggers
-Abusing Faulty Game Logic (e.g. assuming being at B implies you did A so if you can skip A it's still assumed you've done it; also e.g. you're facing left so the game assumes it needs to eject you towards the right enabling entering the wall)
-Pausing-related Tricks & Save/Load Tricks
-Zone-hopping
-Overlapping Events.
I think Aglar's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 TAS features at least one example of most of those kinds of tricks.
feos wrote:
The very fact we see absurdly massive amount of broken runs done for Nintendo consoles, but little to no (are there any?) ones for other companies' consoles.
Uh... Sometimes I wonder if we visit and spend our time on the same TASVideos.org.
AzumaK wrote: I swear my 1 year old daughter's favorite TASVideo is your R4MI run :3
xxNKxx wrote: ok thanks handsome feos :D
Help improving TASVideos!
Uh... Sometimes I wonder if we visit and spend our time on the same TASVideos.org.
I have the same feeling. On my copy of TASVideos, people who want to tell some idea like to give examples. Not because someone is being proved wrong, just for the sake of productive discussion. They also believe that no one can perfectly know everything beforehand, and care to tell people things they didn't know.
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.
Uh... Sometimes I wonder if we visit and spend our time on the same TASVideos.org.
I have the same feeling. On my copy of TASVideos, people who want to tell some idea like to give examples. Not because someone is being proved wrong, just for the sake of productive discussion. They also believe that no one can perfectly know everything beforehand, and care to tell people things they didn't know.
There's a few. Ex. Symphony ofthe Night, Crash Bandicoot 2, V^6 (Not sure if PC counts, though)
On the relative lower end of broken-ness, there's a lot more games which Zeupar may have been thinking of (practicallyeverySonicgame), but I don't think it sounds like you meant that
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
feos wrote:
The very fact we see absurdly massive amount of broken runs done for Nintendo consoles, but little to no (are there any?) ones for other companies' consoles.
That's likely just because Nintendo console runs make up the majority of the site. There are currently 1009 published Nintendo console runs out of, apparently, 1448 published runs total, meaning Nintendo consoles make up about 70% of the site's runs.
As for another broken run on a non-Nintendo console, how about Magician Lord?
-Movement tricks
-Efficient Combat
-Luck Manipulation
-A.I. Abuse (as separate from luck manipulation)
-Taking damage (mainly damage boosts, invulnerability abuse...)
-Death Abuse
-Going Out of Bounds & Skipping Triggers
-Abusing Faulty Game Logic (e.g. assuming being at B implies you did A so if you can skip A it's still assumed you've done it; also e.g. you're facing left so the game assumes it needs to eject you towards the right enabling entering the wall)
-Pausing-related Tricks & Save/Load Tricks
-Zone-hopping
-Overlapping Events
How about Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow?
Movement Tricks: Several. Soma's movement options get faster and more ridiculous as the TASes progress.
Efficient Combat: The "all souls" TAS in particular has amazing examples of using different souls to just absolutely destroy everything.
Luck Manipulation: ...Again, the "all souls" TAS is perfect for this.
A.I. Abuse: Catoblepas zipping, or the art of using a Catoblepas or Gorgon enemy's odd turnaround movement to backdash into a wall. It's the best thing I can think of.
Damage Boosting: I believe in some of the earlier glitched runs, there's a damage boost used to get to an area you wouldn't normally be able to get to without a normally required soul. Also, in the current glitched run, damage needs to be taken in order to "die" at the correct point. Does that count? Sure, why not.
Death Abuse: The currently published glitched run using "death" to its advantage to skip around the map.
Going Out of Bounds: It's a Castlevania game. To say that you can go out of bounds would be akin to saying you kill Dracula at the end.
Abusing Faulty Game Logic: Bat-zipping, to say the least, or the art of using the Giant Bat soul to get pulled into a wall, and periodically morphing back and forth to travel horizontally, vertically, or even diagonally.
Save/Load: The second part of the currently published glitched run, this is what puts Soma in the "dead" state, allowing him to bypass room transitions until he heals himself.
Zone-hopping: It's a Castlevania game. To say that you can hop back and forth between zones would be akin to saying you can go out of bounds.
Overlapping Events: Collecting a soul and leveling up on the same frame means you get both messages at once, saving the second or two it takes to get them individually.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
There's a few. Ex. Symphony ofthe Night, Crash Bandicoot 2, V^6 (Not sure if PC counts, though)
On the relative lower end of broken-ness, there's a lot more games which Zeupar may have been thinking of (practicallyeverySonicgame), but I don't think it sounds like you meant that
I've been talking about game-breaking glitches, so yeah, Genesis Sonics don't count. Crash and SotN are good examples, but they seem to be caused by dead complex game engines (which means there are tons of conditions devs couldn't foresee or test), and PSX was Sony's first try in game consoles, and its powers were revolutionary (increasing the amount of possibilities one can't run into playing in real time).
PC is another story, there bad games are caused by how few people create them. Can't tell anything about how bad API they rely on, probably not too good.
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.
Just a quick mention that I'll study your responses in more detail in the coming week. I'll let you know if the question is left unanswered on some part.
Okay, I think I'm good for my original question here. Thank you Feos!
Zeupar: Are you well-acquainted with said Sonic 2 TASes? If you are, I can use you for the tricks section for finding everything we'll need. Otherwise I'll try contacting the TASer himself.
Samsara: You seem to know the game (CAoS) well. If you have some time later could you help me by finding specific instances of each kind of trick within the TASes?
It's not gonna happen until a bunch later.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
Svimmer wrote:
Samsara: You seem to know the game (CAoS) well. If you have some time later could you help me by finding specific instances of each kind of trick within the TASes?
That shouldn't be too hard. I could probably just go through the encodes and provide timestamps, or would something else be preferable?
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Zeupar asked me to post here about S3&K, so here it goes:
Movement Tricks: The elemental shields give different abilities that can be abused in different ways (glitching into terrain, for example). For the newgame+, turning Hyper gives yet more juicy abilities, as well as changing jump strength. Tails can carry Sonic, with various consequences. Slope jumping to get crazy speeds. Spindash followed by jumping to hit a ceiling, to avoid losing speed due to rolling deceleration or air drag. Spindashing off ledges to avoid rolling deceleration. Spindashing by alternating button presses, allowing full rev in 6 frames.
Efficient Combat: Frame-perfect boss fights whenever possible by staying as close as possible, even using Tails to help hit the boss offscreen when useful. Skips bosses in MGZ1, ICZ1, LBZ2, FBZ2, LRZ2 and SSZ x2 (can't get more efficient than that :-p). SOZ2 boss forces hitbox back on when Egg Golem opens, so delaying a hit by a couple frames before it closes can save almost 30 frames on a "double hit" when it opens. Knuckles in HPZ is hit several times in sequence by ignoring his invulnerability period since it is reset by Tails.
Luck Manipulation: newgame+ manipulates balloons in CNZ2 and Red Eye (DEZ1 boss); both manipulate Death Ball (DEZ2 boss). In newgame+, this also ends up manipulating the DDZ mid-boss. The SSZ boss generally needs to be luck-manipulated, but this wasn't needed in the current runs because the most favorable pattern happened anyway.
A.I. Abuse: Knuckles' AI programming is abused in HPZ to get him stuck with Tails, allowing hits on sequential frames. Red Eye (DEZ1 boss) is manipulated in the any% run so its spiked platforms are never an issue.
Damage Boosting: ICZ has a damage boost in any% run to land on an ice block without destroying it, so slope glitch can be acquired when Tails destroys it. LBZ1 and LRZ1 take damage so that spiked crushers can be used to push Sonic into the ground for zips.
Death Abuse: HCZ1->HCZ2, LBZ1->LBZ2 and DEZ1->DEZ2 transitions all feature deaths to reset level boundaries and enable level wrapping, as well as skipping/speeding up the act transitions. LBZ1->LBZ2 also skips a score tally.
Going Out of Bounds/skipping triggers: Level wraps and vertical screen wrapping. MGZ goes into the loopback, which is past the right edge of the level, to fight the act 2 boss in act 1. FBZ2 goes under the end of level to trigger rising platform from below. Skips cut-scenes in AIZ2 (transition), HCZ2 (Knuckles), CNZ2 (first appearance of Knuckles, level going dark), LBZ2 (Knuckles), MHZ2 (Knuckles cut-scene and part of the level happen during score tally), LRZ2 (skips Knuckles, boss), SSZ (skips teleport sequences due to fighting mid-bosses). The newgame+ run also skips the round tree in AIZ1, the snowfall in ICZ after the snowboarding section, the ghost capsule in SOZ2 and the engine room in DEZ1.
Abusing Faulty Game Logic: Zips. Level wrapping. Vertical screen wrapping. Stair clip (say, Tails dropping Sonic on a wall). Solid objects don't register collisions while off-screen. You can't be crushed by a solid object if your vertical speed is nonzero. Objects can push you into terrain, allowing zips. Control of object placement in RAM to either break cut-scenes (AIZ2) or enable a fast death (HCZ1->HCZ2 transition). Using spindash camera lock mechanism to go through objects and to control camera position for more efficient level wraps. Using flame shield dash/Hyper Sonic's hyper dash (in newgame+) camera lock mechanism to fine-tune camera movement for level wraps in a manner impossible without them. And many others.
Pausing related tricks: If the luck manipulation counts (it is done through pauses), then yes; otherwise, no.
Zone-hopping: MGZ skips act 2 (it is never loaded). ICZ technically skips act 2 (it is loaded, but you are still on act 1 and you level wrap less than half a second into it). LRZ2 skips the boss, which is technically on a separate zone in the game's internal logic.
Overlapping Events: Object placement manipulation in AIZ2 has a switch being loaded and pressed in the same frame as it mistakes itself for Knuckles. HPZ has two cut-scenes running at once (and both of them broken) while inside the wall after the Knuckles fight, so that level transition occurs in the middle of one of them (which will actually never finish, as it is broken).
Samsara: Yeah, that would be perfect. I'll add your name somewhere so I will remember to get in touch with you when it's time! Before then I need to have written a pretty close approximation of a final script so it won't be just around the corner.
EDIT: actually, did you do any other games that might fill the same purpose? The thing is I forgot Aria of Sorrow is already going to be used for another section later on and I'm trying to employ a wide variety of game series and TASes. My herp though. It's still possible we'll use the game for this instead but we'll see.
marzojr: Thanks! It seems Sonic 3 & Knuckles could work nicely for this. However I don't get who I could ask to help me with finding all the clips later... Would that still be Zeupar or you or should I try someone else? I just need someone who knows the TASes well (it doesn't matter if the tricks are used in a current run or an old one).
I just need someone who knows the TASes well (it doesn't matter if the tricks are used in a current run or an old one).
marzojr is the best person to ask. He's made the vast majority of published s3k runs since 2009 :P
Besides him, Aglar doesn't visit the forums very often atm, and nitsuja and Upthorn disappeared a while ago
marzojr: Thanks! It seems Sonic 3 & Knuckles could work nicely for this. However I don't get who I could ask to help me with finding all the clips later... Would that still be Zeupar or you or should I try someone else? I just need someone who knows the TASes well (it doesn't matter if the tricks are used in a current run or an old one).
As Anty-Lemon says, asking me would be the best bet: I know all the movies very well (having made many of them, and studied those I did not make to learn) and I know the game inside out (to the point of knowing how all the glitches work at the assembly level and knowing how to fix most of them with a handful of ASM instructions).
