(Link to video)
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FractalFusion's NES Wheel of Fortune in 1:55.18 (6922 frames). An improvement over PikachuMan's previous submission by about 26 seconds.

Goals

  • Starts from savestate+reset.
  • Aims for fastest time from reset to selecting END on the bonus round which results in a bonus round win.
  • 2P input in a 1P game.
  • Manipulates luck.

Why from savestate+reset instead of power-on?

The game uses the RAM range 0x780-0x7FC as a bitfield for the status of its 1000 puzzles. Bit 0 means puzzle is available for selection; bit 1 means puzzle cannot be selected/has already been done. But the game never initializes this range before using it; as a result, the initial RAM power-on state affects this range. The RAM initialization of FCEUX arbitrarily restricts which puzzles are available at first. However, we can use a preparation movie file to manipulate this range, and then start from a reset. This allows much more flexibility.
The preparation movie file, being also a verification movie file, proves that this RAM setup can be reached from FCEUX's power-on state. Nothing special about FCEUX's power-on state; with the right preparation movie file, this setup can be reached from any power-on state whatsoever. This is because, if the entire RAM range 0x780-0x7FC is filled entirely with 1-bits, the game zeroes the entire range next puzzle.
The preparation movie file is in the resource link in the Other information section below.

Verifying the movie

  • Run Wheel of Fortune-verificationfile.fm2 . Pause at the last frame, when frame display says "692332/692332".
  • Stop the movie.
  • Record a new movie starting from savestate (Record from -> Now).
  • Check the header of the new movie. The savestate in Base64 encoding should be the same as for this submitted movie.

Optimizing the TAS

Optimal puzzles

First, I found out where the puzzles were stored in the ROM (ROM file 0x109DE-0x14617, NES address 04:89CE-05:C607). There are 1000 of them. (At first sight, there appears to be 1002 of them, but one of them is a fake, corresponding to the title screen's WHEEL OF FORTUNE, and the other is a lost puzzle that the game's puzzle selection routine will never hit, ever.)
I used a C++ program to calculate a "score" for each puzzle, representing how long the puzzle takes. It is based off both the time taken to enter the puzzle on the solve screen, and the time for Vanna to reveal the puzzle. Each puzzle is calculated as follows:
  • Let val('A')=1, val('B')=2, ... , val('Z')=26. Let k be the number of letters in the puzzle. Let a(0)=val('A')=1 and a(k)=val(kth letter of puzzle). Let b(k)=a(k)-a(k-1).
  • Then the score of the puzzle is:
score=  42*k
      + sum(1 to k)[min( 1+8*|b(k)| , 117-8*(b(k)-16) , 129-8*(-b(k)-16) )]
      + min( 129-8*(15-a(k)) , 121-8*(a(k)-16) )
Puzzles with best results:
ScorePuzzle #Word
06420818TOOTSIE
06430806BEN HUR
06950340EUCLID
06970199BABE RUTH
07020451MONOCLE
07110442TUXEDO
07130138HONG KONG
07240618HIGH JINKS
07270686SO BE IT
07290010FORT KNOX
07290055BOOT HILL
07380456LULLABY
07450462CHESTNUT
07490922BIRTHDAY
07550803PSYCHO
07610688LOOK IT UP
07630953PAYDAY
07650850THE ILIAD
07660392COCONUT
07820122CAPE COD
07820366HAIRPIN
07820430HAIRPIN
07920969YOM KIPPUR
07930081HONOLULU
07930148ETHIOPIA
07970494SOUR NOTE
07980355GALILEO
(The full list is here. It is sorted by puzzle number though. You can sort by score in another program like Notepad++ . The list was generated using wofscript.cpp . See the resoure link in the Other information section below.)
These scores assume the standard first/second round structure.
Speed-up round is a bit different; you have to choose a letter in the puzzle before you are allowed to solve it. I quickly figured that choosing the U in EUCLID pretty much gives the best result; it saves the four seconds needed to go from E to U to C normally, and no other word comes close. It is also near the left side so Vanna doesn't have to walk far.
In bonus round, you choose five consonants and a vowel and if any of them are in the puzzle, they are turned over before you solve it. It is fastest to choose letters that aren't in the puzzle so Vanna doesn't have to do anything. Note that if the letters you choose uncover the whole puzzle (for example, if the puzzle is PSYCHO and you choose, well, PSYCHO), you still have to select END after the puzzle is uncovered, and no, timing out causes you to lose no matter what, in case you were thinking about abusing that.
The best bonus round puzzle happens to be the one with the best score above; that is, TOOTSIE. ZYXWVU can be selected while on the way to T. (The next couple best are MONOCLE, selecting BDFGHI along the way, and HONG KONG, selecting BCDFJI.)
This conveniently leaves BEN HUR and BABE RUTH for the first and second rounds, respectively. Checking shows that BEN HUR first and BABE RUTH second is a couple frames faster than the other way around.
There is the possibility of having a puzzle show up twice in a single game by zeroing the range 0x780-0x7FC during the game, I checked to see if it was feasible. However, EUCLID and TOOTSIE would be impossible for speed and bonus rounds in this case, and substituting other puzzles in their place would be too costly.
So, in conclusion, the puzzles I use are:
  • First round: BEN HUR (#806)
  • Second round: BABE RUTH (#199)
  • Speed-up round: EUCLID (#340)
  • Bonus round: TOOTSIE (#818)

Spin manipulation

It is possible to manipulate the speed-up round's spin. This is also where 2P input comes in.
I manipulate the spin meter to be as low as possible. It is impossible to manipulate the spin further with 1P input; however, with 2P input, the added delay variance is manipulated to be 0. The speed-up round's puzzle can also be manipulated with 2P input as well.

How to manipulate these puzzles (i.e. 0x780-0x7FC manipulation)

The RNG

The RNG (address 0x0A-0x0C) controls randomness in this game. It is influenced by input most of the time. The address 0x0A merely increments whereas 0x0B and 0x0C are chaotic. Usually, puzzle selection in this game (as well as speed-up round's spin) is determined by the RNG when address 0x0A is 200 (0xC8). At that time, only 38505 out of 65536 values for 0x0B-0x0C are possible.

Puzzle selection rules

As stated earlier, if the entire RAM range 0x780-0x7FC is filled entirely with 1-bits, the game zeroes the entire range next puzzle. (It also zeroes address 0x7FD for whatever reason.)
Now the game selects a puzzle using its puzzle select routine that is intricately connected to the RNG. If the routine gives a puzzle that already has its bit set to 1, it runs the routine again up to 7 more times with slightly different parameters. If that fails, the game stops trying to use its fancy routines. It simply takes a point in the range and finds the first puzzle from there that has bit 0.
Now, there are some limitations for puzzle selection. It is entirely possible that two given puzzles must occur in a particular order and never the other way around. Because of RNG timing, this restriction may be particular to the first/second/bonus rounds (the third speed-up round is less restricted). Puzzles 936-959 and 968-991 are extremely restricted. Fortunately, these limitations do not affect the choice of puzzles that I want.

For the puzzles used in this TAS

  • BEN HUR (#806) can be triggered directly; nothing else needed.
  • BABE RUTH (#199) requires all puzzles 96-198 to be done already (bit 1) as well as a sequence of puzzles for which there exists an RNG value causing the routine to try these puzzles before taking the first available puzzle from 96.
  • EUCLID (#340) requires (for optimal speed-up round spin manipulation) all puzzles 224-339 to be done already (bit 1) as well as a sequence of puzzles for which there exists an RNG value causing the routine to try these puzzles before taking the first available puzzle from 224.
  • TOOTSIE (#818) requires all puzzles 800-817 to be done already (bit 1), including BEN HUR (#806), as well as a sequence of puzzles for which there exists an RNG value causing the routine to try these puzzles before taking the first available puzzle from 800.
Note that the completion of BEN HUR in the first round satisfies the requirements for TOOTSIE in the bonus round.
The following RNG values are used, with the puzzle sequence that the puzzle selection algorithm tries:
  • BEN HUR: C8.C7FA (805 124 800 072 814 038 632 804 800 801 802 ... 806)
  • BABE RUTH: C8.6D39 (123 801 075 815 033 633 807 122 096 097 098 ... 199)
  • EUCLID: 99.2327 (333 918 252 672 998 165 999 251 224 225 226 ... 340)
  • TOOTSIE: C8.C7FA (805 124 800 072 814 038 632 804 800 801 802 ... 818)

Setting up the preparation movie file

The standard method for setting up bits in the 0x780-0x7FC range is to manipulate a particular puzzle for the first round and then immediately reset after the bit is set to 1. However, not all puzzles can be manipulated this way. Some puzzles require a manipulation in the third (speed-up) round. Thus, some puzzles will have to be solved in the first two rounds. As I was trying to optimize the preparation movie file as well, I chose the puzzles with the lowest possible scores.
The preparation movie, made with a lot of input file editing as well as a bunch of C++-generated information files, boils down to this:
(note that this preparation movie uses only one controller instead of two that the TAS uses)
  • Reach the first round and immediately reset after any one bit is set to 1 (no manipulation needed). Repeat this 511 more times. The range 0x780-0x7FC is now filled with 1-bits and will be zeroed out next puzzle.
  • Let the characters below denote the important RNG values to manipulate:
CharacterRNG value at C8.xxxx CharacterRNG value at C8.xxxx
06D39 c440F
1B4C8 d040C
21F30 e440C
3C7FA f040D
44434 gCD7E
58373 h8368
6C31A iC368
7C373 j8369
8C391 kC369
9040E m662A
a040F nD40A
b440E p4615
  • Perform the following manipulations in this order (brackets means solve the first two and manipulate the third for the speed-up round):
41(012)000000111(012)000011111111(012)00111115678(012)0(002)
000011(012)000111(012)0000000(002)(002)(002)00000001(012)
001111(012)00(002)001(012)0000(002)1(012)0011111111(012)
000(002)011111111(012)1(112)1(112)0000000001111111111(012)
(9a2)0000001bcdef(012)00011(012)00011(012)
00000011gg33333333hijk(m1n)m11(31p)

Memory range 0x780-0x7FC should now look like this. This is starting position for the TAS:
00000000 42000000 01900000 FFFFFFFF
FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FE000000 FFFFFFFF
FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFF000 00000120
00000004 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00040000 000000C0
00000000 80000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 FDFFC000 02000000 00000000
00000200 00000000 00000000 03

Other stuff

Can this TAS be played directly from power-on?

Sure. Just modify FCEUX's source code to write the above memory for 0x780-0x7FC at power-on and you're set.
OK, if you mean play directly from power-on on console, then probably not. Well, let's look at it closely. You'll need the following binary values for the following addresses ('.' means any bit value):
0x784: .1....1.
0x789: 1..1....
0x78C-0x797: 11111111
0x798: 11111110
0x79C-0x7A9: 11111111
0x7AA: 11110...
0x7CF: 11......
0x7D4: 1.......
0x7E4: 11111101
0x7E5: 11111111
0x7E6: 110.....
0x7F2: ......1.
0x7FC: ......11

Count them. That's 250 bits that must be manipulated at power-on. Assuming each bit can be set independently to 0 or 1 with 0.5 probability each, that's a probability of (0.5)^250 to get a RAM state that works. If you set your NES on fire with a laser beam and throw it into a pool of water, then maybe, just maybe it will give you a RAM state that works.
On the other hand, why bother?

How about console verification?

There is a method which may allow it to be verified as starting from reset (not from power-on) even though we have no idea of the NES power-on state. See the resource link in the Other information section below.
The file Wheel of Fortune-clearmem-e34f x 77.fm2 (which we call file A) sets 77 bits in 0x780-0x7FC using RNG value C8.E34F (resetting immediately after activating each puzzle, except the last one). Run this file over and over until, during running the file, the range 0x780-0x7FC is zeroed out after being filled completely with 1-bits.
To tell if this has happened, see the shape of the last puzzle and compare it with the 77 puzzles in wofconsoleverify-puzzleshapes.txt (#0512-0588). If the puzzle is not in there, then the zeroing out did not happen. If the puzzle is there and does not have a star, then the zeroing out happened (except see the last sentence below). If the puzzle is there and has a star, then run Wheel of Fortune-e34f.fm2 (sets only 1 bit in 0x780-0x7FC using RNG value C8.E34F) and check the displayed puzzle (which should be the next one in the puzzle order) to confirm whether or not it is one of these puzzles. Also, if this is the first time running file A and the displayed puzzle is the last one in the puzzle order (#0588), then the zeroing out cannot be confirmed to have happened.
Since there are only 1000 puzzles, file A needs only to be run at most 13 times. On average, it requires 6.5 times.
Once the range has zeroed out, run Wheel of Fortune-verifyfrom0mem.fm2 to set up the necessary RAM for this TAS. Whether or not any additional puzzles of 0512-0588 have been activated by file A after zeroing out the range does not matter; neither Wheel of Fortune-verifyfrom0mem.fm2 nor the actual TAS are affected.
Note that this whole set-up takes a long time (anywhere from 1h40m to 5h20m, though if power-on RAM is truly random, then it takes on average 3h30m).
Once everything has been set up, just run the TAS (should begin with a reset). The TAS itself requires two controllers, even though the setup files only require one.
I don't know if there are any other important details for sync on a real console, but this is how it works, theoretically.

Other information (disassembly, etc.)

Some more information regarding game mechanics and disassembly can be found at the Game Resources page.
The resource link contains:
  • The verification movie file Wheel of Fortune-verificationfile.fm2 .
  • The files for possible method of console verification Wheel of Fortune-clearmem-e34f x 77.fm2 , wofconsoleverify-puzzleshapes.txt , Wheel of Fortune-verifyfrom0mem.fm2 as described above.
  • The program to generate the full list of puzzles and calculate a score for each one wofscript.cpp . It requires a ROM for this game, renamed zzz.nes .
  • Files to help with RNG manipulation wofrandomtable1.txt , wofrandomtable2.txt wofrandomtable3.txt , wofrandomtable4.txt , as well as the programs to generate them wof.h , wofrandom1.cpp , wofrandom2.cpp , wofrandom3.cpp , wofrandom4.cpp and an intermediate file woftbl .
    • Given the current value of RNG as BC.xxxx, wofrandomtable1.txt gives the input values required to be pressed on 0x0A=BE, C0, C2 to manipulate the RNG from BC.xxxx to C2.0400.
    • Given the desired value of RNG to be C8.xxxx, wofrandomtable2.txt gives the input values required to be pressed on 0x0A=C4, C6, C8 to manipulate the RNG from C2.0400 to C8.xxxx.
    • Given the value of RNG as C8.xxxx, wofrandomtable3.txt reveals the sequence of puzzles that the routine tries, in a standard/bonus round, before taking the first available puzzle from the last number given.
    • Given the value of RNG as C8.xxxx, wofrandomtable4.txt reveals the sequence of puzzles that the routine tries, in a speed-up round, before taking the first available puzzle from the last number given.
There were other program files and tables involved when I figured out how to use 2P input to manipulate the speed-up round, but it is probably too confusing to include them. They pretty much work on the same idea as the above programs and tables anyway.

Thanks

Thanks to PikachuMan, MESHUGGAH, and everyone else in the discussion thread for the previous Wheel of Fortune submission.

Nach: Judging.
FractalFusion: Cancelling this submission as explained in the latter half of this post.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4160: FractalFusion's NES Wheel of Fortune in 01:55.18
Noxxa
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Important note from Nach's rejection message of PikachuMan's run:
Nach wrote:
Nach: Feedback for this run has overall been terrible, and it is quite boring. The vault does not allow for game show games. <snip>
Not to say anything (yet) about this submission's entertainment rate, but it is at least not eligible for Vault. Entertainment rate would have to be good.
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.
adelikat
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This also starts from savestate, that isn't vault friendly either.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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The submission text explains that the RAM state at the start affects the RNG; but I question the usage of save states for this. I think it would be better to (a) prove that a real NES can start with the particular RAM state you want, and then (b) force the emulator to start with that state instead of zeroes. If Fceux cannot do that, I'm pretty sure BizHawk can. Anyway I'm afraid I don't find this particularly entertaining. Unlike the famous Family Feud run, it's just repetitive and not funny.
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Even though I voted no for entertainment, the run does win fast. And he got a new car. That's positive.
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The verification movie seems to doing too much work. It doesn't just unlock all the questions, it relocks them as desired.
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Seems fine to me. One of the goals should be "Wins a Porsche".
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henke37 wrote:
The verification movie seems to doing too much work. It doesn't just unlock all the questions, it relocks them as desired.
Some questions require the locking of other questions to occur. For example, question 818 (TOOTSIE) in the bonus round requires locking all questions 800-817 (and a few others). Without that, question 818 cannot be called up. The routines that the game uses are at http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/WheelOfFortune.html . Anyway, this TAS was intended as a demonstration of how fast Wheel of Fortune can be completed from a reset (allowing for whatever you want beforehand as a set-up; I don't know if this tactic has been used by speedrunners in other games, since they are obviously so used to pressing the reset button). I cannot prove that this arrangement of RAM can occur immediately upon power-on on a real NES, but I don't really care. I recall that adelikat has programmed a way in BizHawk to start from any RAM and register state upon power-on. If anyone likes, I can try to convert the TAS to BizHawk format using this feature to make it seem more authentic, though personally, I don't see what the point is (see the last sentence of the previous paragraph).
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A cool run. Like the way you took apart the entire game to get to a result this fast. For what it's worth, I think board, sports and game show games should primarily be considered "serious games" and be eligible for Vaulting. Why block out entire game genres like this? It's already required that a Vaultable game should have an ending and that its gameplay should stand out as something superhuman (among the other rules). If those rules are fulfilled, by all means, it shouldn't matter what genre the game is.
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AKheon wrote:
For what it's worth, I think board, sports and game show games should primarily be considered "serious games" and be eligible for Vaulting. Why block out entire game genres like this? It's already required that a Vaultable game should have an ending and that its gameplay should stand out as something superhuman (among the other rules). If those rules are fulfilled, by all means, it shouldn't matter what genre the game is.
I would agree.
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.
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I also think that genres like this should not generally be excluded from the vault. This TAS is really technical and shows things that are obviously impossible non-TAS, so why shouldn't this effort be rewarded?
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
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AKheon wrote:
A cool run. Like the way you took apart the entire game to get to a result this fast. For what it's worth, I think board, sports and game show games should primarily be considered "serious games" and be eligible for Vaulting. Why block out entire game genres like this? It's already required that a Vaultable game should have an ending and that its gameplay should stand out as something superhuman (among the other rules). If those rules are fulfilled, by all means, it shouldn't matter what genre the game is.
I also agree. I think it should be done case by case, since some board games, like monopoly, does have superhuman elements that distinguish it from normal play, while some like Chess, doesn't. Also, the same could be said for other games as well like Warioware, so a better rule would be to allowing any game as long as it stands out + actually compete-able regardless of genre.
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That's a good point actually. Could someone please explain why there is a rule that "a board game, sports game, or game show game" is not eligible for the vault?
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Agree with others that if a game has a clearly defined end state, the Vault should accept the fastest movie that reaches it. Was amazingly entertained by this. More by the submission text than the video, but honestly that is true for me for a lot of TASes, even ones that get stars. Yes vote.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
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I figure I'm in good company when I say that I was more impressed by the effort than by the final product. The game isn't that interesting, I think, if you just look at it from the perspective of a regular game player, except that somehow the player knows the answer right away. When I see the comments about how EUCLID was picked for a puzzle, though, then I appreciate how quickly the cursor can select every letter other than U. Given this, I voted Meh. This could be an interesting publication with the right description provided. I'm also in favor of allowing any game type to be Vault-eligible as long as it demonstrates something unique compared to regular timeattacking. (I mean, Myst made it into the Vault, and not just because of the slight playaround at the end. That run is exactly the same route and tricks as the RTA.)
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.
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I'm also in favor of allowing any game type to be Vault-eligible as long as it demonstrates something unique compared to regular timeattacking.
That doesn't sound like the purpose of the Vault. The Vault is intended to have strictly-fastest runs, with no regard to entertainment or novelty value; runs that sacrifice speed for either of those have to make it into Moons to be published. With respect to your comment, this means that even if the fastest TAS were only a second faster than the fastest RTA, with the exact same route, the Vault should still publish the TAS. (Note that it IS a requirement that the TAS be faster than all known RTAs)
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
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Personman: By "it demonstrates something unique", I should've said that "it" refers to the run, not to the game. Sorry about that. I figure that a strictly-fastest TAS run will hopefully show a level of skill that is beyond an RTA, which would be novel enough to merit publication. So yep, I would publish a TAS which is only a second faster than the fastest RTA as long as it was optimized enough to meet the main standards of the site.
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.
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I very much enjoyed the submission text. Very technically well done run. I have to give it a No vote for entertainment, but I think it should be published (with a nice explanation of what's going on added to the movie description as mklip2001 said).
Tub
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It's a neat little optimization problem to read about, but a terribly boring video to watch. The reset trick is clever, but if we assume a way to control the NES's ram on startup, then there's nothing superhuman about this TAS - blocking all but the desired words, then solving immediately could be done unassisted. Adding tool assistance gets you.. incredibly precise letter input. So I'd have to vote no. As an aside, aren't ram cells guaranteed to contain just zeros after power loss? Why exactly is the NES's ram "undefined"? Does reading of uninitialized ram on a real console really produce random bits? Google didn't really answer these questions for me.
m00
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I voted no because Fractal keeps wasting his talent on shitty games.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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Tub wrote:
As an aside, aren't ram cells guaranteed to contain just zeros after power loss?
No, they don't. Most games start by zero'ing all the RAM that they actually need, before they use it; some games omit that step. We had a lengthy debate about that just a month ago.
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Location: Georgia, USA
Tub: The RNG is still dependent on user input, so technically the manner in which you enter the answers would affect the next questions, if I understand the description correctly. Controlling the blocked words is important, but there's also an input-dependent factor. I completely understand your opinion though.
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.
Zarmakuizz
He/Him
Joined: 10/12/2013
Posts: 279
Location: France
Radiant wrote:
Tub wrote:
As an aside, aren't ram cells guaranteed to contain just zeros after power loss?
No, they don't. Most games start by zero'ing all the RAM that they actually need, before they use it; some games omit that step. We had a lengthy debate about that just a month ago.
It's in the Cheetamen II run thread.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Radiant wrote:
Could someone please explain why there is a rule that "a board game, sports game, or game show game" is not eligible for the vault?
Most board, sports, and game show games have a very different kind of gameplay style than more typical video games. In most classic board games, the entire gameplay is nothing more than a series of moves, where you can find thousands of exciting move lists on web sites dedicated to the board game. Seeing some moves played back in a particular computerized version of it is not interesting to anyone familiar with the board game, nor is it of particular interest to the TAS community. Most game show games are based around knowing the solution to some question. Even for regular players of the genre, once they know all the answers to the games' riddles, they don't care about it anymore. Sure you can input it fast, but so what? You want a real record, go onto one of these game shows and win there, that's what people want to see records in. I wasn't directly involved in the process to add sports games to the ineligible for vault criteria, but it's easy to speculate along the same lines. The real records for sports games again are in the real world. Most of the games are yet another reimplementation no one cares about a few years after it came out, with a few dozen variations of teams which don't contribute much to TASing. Now on the contrary to what I said above, it is possible to make TASs for board, sports, and game show games that people do want to see and care about. So if you got the votes and confidence in the workbench that people enjoyed the run, it can be accepted, and even extremely well received by the site. The vault is strictly for runs where the video game itself is the game that people want to see records for. Not for when the video game is a poor substitute for something else which people would generally rather see.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Skilled player (1703)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
I guess it should be at least reworded to allow them in a case-by-case submission so that runs like the current Monopoly run would have a chance of being improved rather than stuck with only a faster TAS being mentioned in the movie description.