https://youtu.be/hCHWuSSs2GAMovie file
8842 frames ahead (02:27.37 seconds.)
ACAC doens't have autoscrollers, but Temple of Sands 1 is the exception to that rule, and has a shitton of platform cycles. Ultimately, however, they rely on the two longest: the first floating platform in the middle of the level (10 seconds per cycle) and the floating platform at the very far right of the level (7 seconds per cycle). These two cycles are unavoiable. Ironically, although ToS1 is the level with the second largest amount of ways to get out of bounds in the game, and void access, going there is extremely useless, since the void is too far down and there's no way to navigate around OOB thanks to huge walls and no way around void thanks to death barriers.
While I manage to beat the first cycle thanks to a new sick out of bounds strategy, I am barely too slow for the second cycle, even with another strat abusing convenient level geometry (although I still show it off.) ToS1 also allows for a greater degree of playaround than other levels, and I use that to its fullest extent.
Link to videoMovie file
8486 frames ahead (02:21.43 seconds.)
More jumping goodness. This is mostly to prove I'm not dead yet; had to restart this once due to wrong emulator settings, but no major setback otherwise. Some new clever routes for jumps are devised, such as the triple jump into wallclimb in the middle of the level, which is almost a second faster than the old strategy.
Link to videoMovie file
8573 frames ahead (02:22.88 seconds.)
This is perhaps my favorite level in the entire game, because it has everything to make a good level: clever yet challenging platforming, nonlinear paths, and most of all none of that chase music! This is also probably one of the most challenging levels to TAS, and here an extra challenge was added: being at 5 health. This platforming has lot of options, and I feel it really shows in the TAS, with lots of both tight and unconventional jumps that chain very well into a smooth arrangement.
Being at 5 health had some moments harder than others, but it all led up to this level: if it could be completely succesfuly with 5 health, using the health upgrade in this level, then I would indirectly save over 6 seconds. This was a success, and although I had to make some detours because of having 5 health in earlier levels, it only cost about 2 seconds, leaving me with a huge four second save. Most of all, this means there are no more save/loads in the entire run!
Because of 5 health, however, some changes had to be made to the route. Most notably, in the latter half of the level, I have to use the top route, instead of the bottom route. Initially, this was thought to be slower by me, but thanks to being able to pull off reverse grabs, the whole section is gotten by blazingly fast and ends up faster than the bottom route.
Link to videoMovie file
11560 frames ahead (03:12.67 seconds.)
A youtube user came out of nowhere and suggested to me two new out of bounds. It turns out that this saves a lot of time, 2718 frames exactly, and makes the level more fun to watch. Unfortunately because of how the level is built it's impossible to go from the first half out of bounds area to the second half, which would save much more time.
Link to videoMovie file.
12472 frames ahead (03:27.87 seconds.)
In a surprising twist of fate, Temple of Sands 3 actually becomes an interesting level! It was already possible to go out of bounds at the very start of the level, but that unfortunately led nowhere, as going back in bounds was impossible. Thankfully, I found (completely by accident, while casually testing the level..) a new out of bounds at the start of the desert section.
In particular, this level becomes much more interesting because of the number of choices you are given. The section is pretty linear, and guarded by two boundiary walls: as such, navigation while staying on top of these walls makes for an interesting and hard to optimise route, as well as finding how to stay out of bounds while not wasting time throughout the level. Usually being out of bounds is strictly faster, but due to more advantageous terrain and the fact that this level is pretty linear, if I wasn't able to stay out of bounds for the entire level, staying in bounds would have likely been faster, but staying out of bounds allows to skip the fight at the end, saving a lot of time and, more importantely, a sword use!
In particular there was one area where I had to get creative: the grappling point in the middle of the level. The problem here is that there's a gap right after the grapping hook not crossable by normal means: I either had to get on the bottom wall (which would have wasted time due to needing a triple jump, and being farther away from the optimal path than the top wall) or find a way to conserve enough height and speed so that I would be able to land on the top wall again.
The solution? Simply use the grappling hook! The grappling hook retains all your vertical speed and changes it based on the position where you jump related to the grappling (in my case, all my falling vertical speed got converted to significant positive vertical speed). Altaïr's horizontal speed when he jumps off the grappling is based on how far away he was from the grappling point when initially grabbing it, so I grab it with the maximum distance possible. If I had gone too far, I would have been stuck on the ground below when swinging.
This was pretty precise and hard to optimise, due to a lot of possible approaches when doing the jump, but it turned out to be one of the better looking tricks of the game in my opinion.
A fun fact: you can actually kill grappling points if you fall with enough speed on them. It seems they are coded like vases (and as such coded as ennemies), since they give you a red orb on death and do the same sound as when you kill a vase..
Not much, with the simple reason that I procrastinated almost a year on this (I got occupied with school, so I took on less consequent projects as a result.)
So I was like "Let's TAS some AC:AC today, it's been a while!" then I found a really dumb timesaver. Basically, in the loading zones where Altaïr walks on the minimap from one point to the other on a horse, guess what happens if you press A? Well, the transition goes away early! This saves 126 frames on the spot I tried it; it would probably save 14 seconds alone on the entire run if I applied this on loading zones where this happens.
The downside is that this is AC:AC, the laggiest game of history, and given that this game desyncs very easily, I don't really want to redo the entire run for a second-scale save on not even gameplay but loading screens!!
So I guess I'll finish the run, but this alone has taken a pretty significant toll on my morale, especially considering I will start doing the skip starting at the middle of the game, for no other apparent reason than "the TASer is lazy and doens't want to redo his run." But given this game, and how long it is, I think I just want to finish it at this point, not spend a shitton of time "resyncing" (redoing) it. And maybe put some flashy disclaimers at the top that it's totes unoptimised and all the run should go to shit for some loading screens…
This happened to me a lot with Dementiu: the Ward. I decided to just finish and submit it since it still beats all known records, and the fact it's also very unsync-able. The judges would likely understand your situation, given it's almost an hour long.
I hope you finish it one day. 🙂
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 536
Location: Waterford, MI
With meldonds hitting bizhawk soon, the desync problem should hopefully be fixed. The second I encounter a desync with any game, I give up. I dont think youre lazy at all with this. Desyncs cut motivation and I may try this game once melonds is ported and share if whether or not it syncs.
