So vibex and I have broken this game on sda over the past few weeks (thread here) and I decided to start working on a tas of the game.
There are a number of weird glitches and techniques in the game:
Curve jumping:
Link to video
The video first demonstrates how it would be done in tas, then how it would be done in real time (doable real time without buffering apparently).
You curve a long jump which is normally in a straight direction by hitting the direction in which you want to go, then hitting the direction you want to jump in, and hitting the jump button. The later you hit the jump button after switching directions on the dpad, the weaker the curve will be.
The inputs for the first jump in the video are right -> up + b.
Boundary/wall hopping:
Link to video
You can do short hops along walls (which I define as things you cannot long jump into) and along the boundaries of the screen by doing short hops (neutral dpad + b) facing into the wall. When you short jump into a boundary or a wall you will land there if and only if you jump in a direction that is heading into the collision. This means perpendicularly or from an angle. However, if you are jumping parallel to the direction of the collision where you land, you will fall.
This is important for a number of skips.
Launcher Mechanics:
Link to video
The launcher fires a projectile that latches onto objects/enemies. When activated it either pulls you towards them, or pulls them towards you, depending on the object/enemy. If it pulls you towards them and it is an object you can fly over, you will go flying further past it the further back you start. Moreover, you can change your flight path by holding a direction before you activate the projectile. I call this "orbiting" because you will go in circles around the object.
Launcher state glitch:
Link to video
Puts you in a weird state where the targeting reticule is present and you can use other items and actions. It allows you to cancel health upgrade animations and death animations.
Object/Enemy Teleporting:
Link to video
Whenever you drag an enemy/object into you, for whatever reason the coordinates of the collision are stored. If you then fire the launcher at an object/enemy, quickly press and hold the launcher button again before the projectile is fired, then run into the object/enemy, it will get teleported to the coordinates of what you had dragged into you. Even if it was on a previous screen, it will get teleported to matching coordinates on the current screen.
Setting up coordinates for a teleport launch:
Link to video
Teleport Launch:
Link to video
When an object/enemy is teleported, it sometimes leaves what I call residual collision. This seems to happen when running into the upper half of the enemy's collision. What you can do with this is that you can fire the launcher at it and the projectile will go to wherever the enemy was teleported. This means you can setup huge flings like the one in the video, but you HAVE to set up the coordinates from somewhere, limiting it's use.
Plant teleport:
Link to video
The plant enemy will grab you if you get too close. However, this can be taken advantage of. If you do the final step of the teleport inputs while inside the plant with neutral input, you will get teleported along with the plant.
A proof of concept tas I made of the intro section
I didn't use any form of memory watch due to my inexperience at tasing. Last time I tried my hand at it, I got caught up with that, and got burned out. I wouldn't be surprised if this was improvable. Unless somebody else helps me with that, I don't plan on using it for this tas.
I will likely post major discoveries in both here and the sda thread, meanwhile I will only post minor discoveries there, and tas updates here.
EDIT: Only if interest is shown, otherwise I'll just upload progress to my youtube and whatever.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Vibex found a new strategy in the screen before Po-Koro, here is a video I made that has decent execution:
Link to video
That video isn't TAS optimal yet, but it could potentially save time in TAS. Main concern is that I set up a teleport here for later and this skips by the part where I set it up. Despite that I could still see this being faster for TAS. I'd need to experiment with it more when I plan on redoing this TAS this summer.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
oh right I made a thread for this game:
Link to video
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Some possible time saves when pushing boulders. User movie #637838986040538042
I never got the motivation to start a full run, so feel free to improve it, no credit needed.
So on the one hand, I'm glad that somebody else looked into the game and found a cool trick. Given my previous experiences with boulders, getting out of them if you end up stuck inside one, I see how this works and that's really neat.
On the other hand, I deeply wish you posted this sooner. Like within a couple months of having found this you could have been like "I'm not getting around to this any time soon, I should at least make what I found so far public so others could maybe use it." If you had, it would have easily been implemented into my 2019 redo. One of my favorite aspects of TASing is collaboration, and to see tricks go undocumented for 6 years makes me a bit sad. I don't want anyone else to pile onto this but I deeply hope that no additional instances of trick hiding have been occurring nor will they occur in the future.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
That you were making an revision of the old run wasn't noticed by me back then, otherwise I would have let you known. I did caught it only in the submission queue. And I was taking some break from this hobby, so I didn't touch my files for a while. Usually I tell about tricks immideately, but I was trying to look deeper into the game, but got stuck with my map lua, and I set it aside.
