Posted: 5/31/2014 5:06 PM
Post subject: Theory: Could ANY game have a playaround TAS?
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YushiroGowa
Joined: 5/13/2013
Posts: 180
1st of all: WE NEED MORE PLAYAROUNDS! They're very fun to watch. 2nd: If we can TAS Action Adventure games like Zelda: Link's Awakening and so many others, why can't more games have TASes where you just screw around? Lots of opportunities to be found and it'd bring more users to the site. First, we know that games like Zelda, as well as others, give a nonlinear story quest while offering the player total control over what to do next. That means you can either save X kingdom and kill Y Lord of Darkness or just screw with bombs and magic. Given that TASing these games allow you to more accurately use glitches and clip abuse to get around faster, as well as do so much more, who said you HAD to play the storyline? What do you think? Should we start Campaign Playin' Around and have ourselves a month of goofing off with robotic timing?
A wise man once said "Damn, that's one hell of a steak."
Posted: 5/31/2014 5:57 PM
Post subject: Re: Theory: Could ANY game have a playaround TAS?
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Warp
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
YushiroGowa wrote:
1st of all: WE NEED MORE PLAYAROUNDS! They're very fun to watch.
They are a can of worms. What makes one playaround of a game better than another? How do you decide what obsoletes what? Or do we publish all playarounds that are submitted, ending up with hundreds of videos per game?
Posted: 5/31/2014 6:25 PM
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Toothache
Active player (279)
Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791
Lucky TAS of 2013
A playaround video would need to be more strictly controlled and perhaps have even more clearly defined rules than a speedrun or superplay. If you want to just do arbitrary stuff, then it certainly wouldn't be good to submit to TASvideos, as we are in the habit of entertaining and breaking games. If the playaround was something that did something a TAS could only do, like the Link's Awakening playaround (http://tasvideos.org/2021M.html), then it will be worth doing, but if it is just an arbitrary goal or freerun, that would better served elsewhere.
Posted: 5/31/2014 9:25 PM
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thatguy
Editor
Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506
Playarounds are great, but there are several reasons they are quite a rare beast: - They have to do something that a regular TAS, or even a real-time free run, of the game could not do, otherwise it would be better just to make a regular TAS. - They require a great sense of showmanship, and often humour, that not every TASer possesses. - Every game has documented tricks to save subpixels, manipulate the RNG and various other timesaving staples. No game has a list of entertainment techniques, so a playaround TASer has nothing to start with. - Not every game is suited for a playaround, while the existence of the vault means every game can have an any% speedrun.
Posted: 5/31/2014 10:57 PM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4042
The main reason why there aren't so many playarounds is because they're labours of love - you need to know damn everything about a game back and front to make a great playaround. It doesn't have an easy goal like minimize time that anyone can incrementially approach - you need to know everything you want to do already. Case study - Super Mario World. A Super Mario Playaround TAS would be the best thing EVER. It has so many amazing glitches with no speedrun applicability that really screw up the game. But with how much effort and knowledge is required - that means only the most experienced SMW glitchers+TASers could do it, and it would take a very long time for them to be satisfied.
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: 6/3/2014 3:27 AM
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4matsy
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498
Patashu wrote:
Case study - Super Mario World. A Super Mario Playaround TAS would be the best thing EVER. It has so many amazing glitches with no speedrun applicability that really screw up the game. But with how much effort and knowledge is required - that means only the most experienced SMW glitchers+TASers could do it, and it would take a very long time for them to be satisfied.
Possible case in point: nathanisbored's "Let's Glitch Super Mario World" YouTube video series. He uses tool-assistance in many cases to help perform the more frame-precise glitches.
Posted: 6/4/2014 12:04 AM
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jlun2
Skilled player (1738)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4980
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
GBA TASer of 2010
1. Agreed, although it would also be nice to update some existing playarounds. 2. It's really hard to make a good playaround that keeps the viewers entertained/interested all the way until the end. Even if a game allows many things to do, it can only work for so long before it gets dull.
LLCoolDave wrote:
This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.
Posted: 6/4/2014 6:43 AM
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thatguy
Editor
Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506
jlun2 wrote:
It's really hard to make a good playaround that keeps the viewers entertained/interested all the way until the end. Even if a game allows many things to do, it can only work for so long before it gets dull.
If we wanted more playarounds we could lift the somewhat restriction that they must finish the game. Some games may have potential for an interesting playaround but cannot hold interest for that length of time, and in any case shorter playarounds would be less work to make.
Posted: 6/4/2014 10:07 AM
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andypanther
Any
Former player
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1107
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Try making a playaround of an an Atari 2600 game.
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.