This is a TAS of the gameboy game Tennis that I made in 2012. It aims to complete the game on difficulty level 4 as fast as possible.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: VBA v24
  • Uses hardest difficulty
  • Genre: Sport

Comments

In July 2012, I was inspired by TheKDX7's video so I made my own TAS that completes the whole game (rather than just one set). I finished it in about 2 hours and uploaded it here. I decided to submit it now for the Vault. The glitch used in this run was claimed to be an emulation bug by someone, but at least two people said it was legit.
(Link to the forum topic.)

Serve glitch

When your character serves, but fails to hit the ball and the ball subsequently lands on the character and on the ground, you will be awarded the point. Random trivia: There is a similar glitch in NES Nintendo World Cup where you can place your character right in front of your own goal, then shoot pass and you are awarded that goal.

Nach: I've been on the fence for a while how to handle this game. Audience response was too weak to place this in Moons, leaving this to vault tier rules.
The vault typically doesn't allow sports games. One problem with sports games although not spelled out is that you have dozens of players and teams with all kinds of stats making it non-trivial to define a single TAS objective. Another is that there normally is no definitive version for a particular game. The particular sport appears in dozens of games, sometimes remade year after year with no noticeable differences other than different players to choose from.
This Tennis game does differentiate itself from some of the above difficulties in that there are no teams or players to choose from. However, it still remains just one of many Tennis games. Although I must admit that the play controls in this game is significantly better than half a dozen other Tennis video games I've played, and with a nice amount of AI difficulty too.
The vault's list of example ineligible sports games are baseball, football, soccer, basketball. The commonalities between those games are:
  • Large teams competing with only a fraction of the play controllable by the player.
  • A fixed amount of time or innings to play, where the winner is decided by a tally of points collected in each segment of play.
    • Meaning a significant chunk of the gameplay is not strictly relavent for winning.
    • Points and advancement are not strictly related, meaning that there is little or nothing the player can do to achieve a speed record.
The nature of Tennis is different in that this is a one on one (or two on two) game leaving much in control for the player. There is no fixed time for play, meaning the player's play can contribute towards time based records. Advancement and points are tied together, demanding that all play is solid in order to progress, there is no reason to get yourself out like in baseball in order to progress, contrarily, you're penalized with additional volleys to complete if you play poorly. Thus, every part of play directly contributes towards completing the game, and as fast as possible.
When comparing the natures of these sports, it should become apparent why most sport games aren't serious games, whereas Tennis differentiates itself. However, let us now compare against other game play mechanics for other genres ineligible for the vault.
Most board games and game-show games are also ineligible for the vault, due to the following possible reasons:
  • The game is too fixed in that the game is nothing but a collection of allowed moves or set responses to certain questions.
  • The AI cannot be played on the highest difficulty, as that causes the game to drag on forever, and the AI is then intentionally crippled.
  • The game-play occurs at a fixed pace leaving little to nothing to show a speed record for.
  • There is no ability to manipulate randomness, or if there is, it doesn't noticeably affect the game.
  • The final result differs little from a real match of the game, and a summary of play can be reduced in some way.
  • The final TAS of the game looks pretty much like a regular run of the video game in question, and nothing special particularly differentiates the two.
When we compare to this particular Tennis game, the game is not too fixed, and the AI is played on the highest difficulty. As already mentioned above, when comparing to other sport games, the pace is not fixed. The manipulation of the randomness for the AI's movement (directly breaking the AI) is very noticeable. Unlike board games or game-show games, there's a lot more variety in the openness of a sports games allowing significantly freer play which cannot be trivially reduced. Lastly, this TAS looks like a TAS, not just some moves inputted quickly, and differentiates itself from a non-TAS well.
Based on these differences I highlighted, I would say that Tennis should not always fall under the ban, as time records for a particular video game can be meaningful, the game-play is non-trivial, and the TAS appears to be a TAS. However, I'm not ready nor willing to give blanket permission for publication to the vault for all Tennis games nor Tennis game TASs. Publication for a sports game must also differentiate it from other implementations in some way, and in a positive manner. Therefore, let me add the following criteria for a worthwhile to TAS Tennis game:
  • All the relavent field of play has to be visible during play, otherwise, it becomes too similar to the example ineligible sports games, and less obvious what is going on during play.
    • This means that the field of vision should be overhead and show all or most of the court, and not just the perspective of a single player.
  • There is no significant player/team choices to make, each which should have their own record.
  • The implementation is done well and appears complete.
    • Meaning the game typically doesn't ignore out of bounds, or double-faults, and things like that.
    • The play-control is decent, and doesn't feel like you're playing drugged and trying to hold a racket through a pair of thick oven mitts.
    • The AI has to be tough (which TASs will abuse or outplay).
  • The run is a single match or series of matches which are meaningful.
    • A run which just competes against a series of sprites which have different AIs shows that several of the AIs are crippled, and therefore unmeaningful.
    • Multiple matches makes sense if each match is on a different court with different physics.
  • The game/run matches all the previously mentioned criteria that differentiates it from other sports/board/game-show games.
  • There are no other similar Tennis games for the console/platform in question which would be considered better suited to all the above criteria, and worthier of a TAS.
    • This means a better Tennis game, especially in TAS worthiness can obsolete a worse one.
    • If certain Tennis games do something significant to differentiate themselves (super powers, different courts with different physics, etc...), then if runs which include these difference are made, they can be published side by side.
Based on the above criteria I find this run to be a meaningful record for a decent Gameboy Tennis game. Accepting to vault.

fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4577: MUGG's GB Tennis in 04:51.42
Post subject: Re: #4577: MUGG's GB Tennis in 04:51.42
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
This is an automatically posted message for discussing submission: <b>#4577: MUGG's GB Tennis in 04:51.42</b> Random trivia: If I remember correctly, there is a similar glitch in NES Nintendo World Cup where you can place your character right in front of your own goal, then shoot and you are awarded that goal.
Not shoot, pass, when I remember it correct.
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Doesn't this fall under the same rules as all the other sports/board games? And this one glitch is in no way entertaining enough for even the short length.
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I can't say I'd want to watch the whole thing at normal speed, but I'm glad it exists. (It helps if you're a tennis game fan and have played this one.) If an existing rule that prevents this from being accepted, then I suggest we create a tier for sports and board games. Research is a higher priority for me than entertainment; being entertained is fine, but I'm more interested in TAS as a form of truth-seeking.
TheKDX7
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Glad to see this submission and this TAS Mugg! Yes vote!
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goldenband wrote:
I can't say I'd want to watch the whole thing at normal speed, but I'm glad it exists. (It helps if you're a tennis game fan and have played this one.) If an existing rule that prevents this from being accepted, then I suggest we create a tier for sports and board games. Research is a higher priority for me than entertainment; being entertained is fine, but I'm more interested in TAS as a form of truth-seeking.
Man this post gives us all the reason to add a Demo tier. RESEARCH! And development. If one develops a script like Jetpack Mario, I'd be all for publishing a movie that demonstrates it (if it's done optimally o course). If someone develops a bot that records some movie, we'd have a reason to showcase it. If someone puts research into figuring out how to best manipulate CPU's actions in a board game, there'd be a place for it. But the question should become "was research/development (put into this otherwise unfitting movie) impressive?" And that way tiers would be absolutely clear: speed-oriented, entertainment-oriented, research/development-oriented.
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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Hey, thanks for the solidarity! :D I'm 100% in favor of adding some kind of research tier for TASes that are boring to watch, or otherwise repetitive, but absolutely capture an optimal strategy or other significant achievement for that game. For example, take chess games: what's the shortest path to checkmate? There must be a line that you can trick Chessmaster into following. But will the shorter line in moves be the shortest line in clock time? It could be that a very fast simplification to a winning endgame will take more moves, but encourage the CPU to cogitate less. I'm also very interested in what happens with perfect play in tennis games and whether there's any unknown content triggered thereby. I already know Andre Agassi Tennis for Genesis gives you a secret screen if you win every match, but it doesn't appear to give you a reward for never losing a point.
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being entertained is fine, but I'm more interested in TAS as a form of truth-seeking.
This sums up something I've felt for a long time very succinctly. I'm really glad there's growing momentum for broader inclusivity - the Vault was a big step forward, but it's time for more!
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goldenband wrote:
take chess games: what's the shortest path to checkmate?
The shortest possible ending in Chess is The Fool's Mate, which would be quite the challenge to convince a chess program to do, but far from impossible. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's what the previously rejected Chess TAS did, but a more sophisticated program like the Chessmaster series would be far more difficult. I think it would be interesting to see this proposed "Technical Achievement" tier. Wouldn't want to be the one to code the website changes for it, though. I suspect there would need to be a blending of the detailed comments from the Submissions combined with the viewing options of the Published movies. I'm sure whoever gets the task (if it happens at all) will come up with something that works well. Edit: Could have sworn I put "gets" instead of "get" the first time. Oops.
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feos wrote:
Man this post gives us all the reason to add a Demo tier. RESEARCH! And development. If one develops a script like Jetpack Mario, I'd be all for publishing a movie that demonstrates it (if it's done optimally o course). If someone develops a bot that records some movie, we'd have a reason to showcase it. If someone puts research into figuring out how to best manipulate CPU's actions in a board game, there'd be a place for it. But the question should become "was research/development (put into this otherwise unfitting movie) impressive?" And that way tiers would be absolutely clear: speed-oriented, entertainment-oriented, research/development-oriented.
Makes me curious how convoluted the submission text can become in other to make something mundane as for example moving right for 5 seconds or starting the game sound amazing. If this gets accepted this'll be a fun read.
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the vault is for technical achievements,just like this one.The no sports game rules is only for games where nothing meaningful can be done to speedup the process of finishing the game.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
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grassini wrote:
The no sports game rules is only for games where nothing meaningful can be done to speedup the process of finishing the game.
Note exactly, but close. It was to avoid triviality. And to make sure the vault movies have meaningful technical achievement as you mentioned. In most cases the triviality is indeed due to some uncontrollable timer or some such. And to specifically mention a genre was to avoid as much subjectivity as possible. A rule like "must not be trivial" creates a subjective situation that will be as hotly debated and argued, similarly to entertainment value with moons. If this is a non-trivial technical achievement with no entertainment value, maybe the rules can be adjusted. Then again, if it is so non-trivial, does it not have entertainment value?
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Personman wrote:
This sums up something I've felt for a long time very succinctly. I'm really glad there's growing momentum for broader inclusivity - the Vault was a big step forward, but it's time for more!
Hey, thanks very much, and (unsurprisingly) I agree with your second sentence. :)
evknucklehead wrote:
The shortest possible ending in Chess is The Fool's Mate, which would be quite the challenge to convince a chess program to do, but far from impossible. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's what the previously rejected Chess TAS did, but a more sophisticated program like the Chessmaster series would be far more difficult.
Sorry, I should've been more precise -- I'm a tournament chessplayer so I know about Fool's Mate, though I've never (to my recollection) had the pleasure of delivering it. :) I've administered my share of Scholar's Mates, though, and once had a game that went 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nb5 Nge7?? 6. Nd6#. What I meant to address was the potential conflict in a chess TAS between the shortest path to mate in # of moves -- which might involve a lot of cogitation from the CPU -- and the shortest path in clock time, which might well come from a less-dramatic line that rapidly simplifies to a winning endgame, thus encouraging the CPU to think less. But that depends on a ton of factors, including whether the program uses a fixed search depth, a fixed search time (Battle Chess on 3DO seems to do this, bizarrely enough), or whatever else. Of course if the CPU can be manipulated into 1. f3 and 2. g4 through timing and controller inputs, that's great. But usually a quick checkmate over a computer requires a horizon effect, e.g. a mating attack with sacrifices that the CPU can't quite calculate until it's too late, so it greedily accepts everything you throw at it. BTW I also question playing on low difficulty. The ideal trick would be engine manipulation on the highest level, somehow getting the thing to commit suicide. I don't think a menu command to force the CPU to move early would be legit -- IIRC, Chessmaster denies you a victory screen for that -- but a series on inputs that have the same effect might be OK. I assume the program ireads some register to introduce randomness and keep the game from being deterministic (CPU playing the same openings every time), though some chess games are in fact deterministic (Star Wars Chess IIRC). Novelty chess games like Battle Chess and Star Wars Chess are usually pretty weak, BTW, and might be a good candidate for attack.
grassini wrote:
the vault is for technical achievements,just like this one.The no sports game rules is only for games where nothing meaningful can be done to speedup the process of finishing the game.
Hey, I'm honored to be in your sig! Would you mind correcting my grammatical error? I should've written "existing rule prevents".
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Can't watch this without an encode, but this sounds publishable to me. It's not like, say, football/soccer, which is a fixed-length game, so winning as quickly as possible is non-trivial.
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thatguy wrote:
Can't watch this without an encode, but this sounds publishable to me. It's not like, say, football/soccer, which is a fixed-length game, so winning as quickly as possible is non-trivial.
It's in the submission text, though it's not very obvious if you're just skimming.
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Post subject: Movie published
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2790] GB Tennis by MUGG in 04:51.42