Description

The World Tree is in shambles, and you (henceforth named the Faxanadude) return home to figure out what to do about it. Doing something about it involves dying, talking to the King, climbing a tower, dying again, pestering some old dudes to do their jobs and get the fountains flowing again, entering the World Tree and suffering through the poison mist, dying again, talking to some other dude for a key, running around the branches of the World Tree to collect twoone parts of the mystical battle armour, dying again, and finally beating up the King of the Dwarfs and the Evil One.
This is a 1004 frame (00:16.71 seconds) improvement over [1077] NES Faxanadu by Lord_Tom in 23:23.68.

Author's Comments

It's done. It's finally done. I've asked so many questions about this game along the way:
  • Can I skip all of the enemies until Forepaw and just farm up there? No.
  • Can I just use magic all the way and then get the Glove and use it to farm? No.
  • Can I get a second pair of Wing Boots and sell them to buy the Long Sword and save time? No.
  • Is there somewhere I could sell a potion at a reasonable profit to save time? No.
  • Can I clip through walls? Yes, but it is useless.
  • Hey, what's this box at the ... oh.
I started the run after reading a bit of the source code (thanks to sp's partial disassembly of the game) and discovering that some enemies can be manipulated to face left or right by knowing the current state of RNG and pressing A on the frame where RNG is queried. That turned into an 18 frame savings against Lord Tom's run, but threw off RNG for the entire rest of the run, meaning that enemies decided to be less helpful (until convinced otherwise).
I also started the run with the idea of getting together enough Golds to buy the Long Sword and use it for the rest of the run. However, everything I tried turned out to be a lot slower. Getting a second pair of Wing Boots in the Tower of Fortress (just after Forepaw) was promising, but set me back quite a ways, and then buying the actual sword and selling the boots cost me nearly thirty seconds overall.
The biggest time save in the run came about a month ago, when I was describing my Lua script to someone in my Twitch channel, had to restart playback, and realized that there was a hitbox on the first screen of the game. Building up enough speed to jump over it, I avoided the introduction to the game and saved 12 seconds. That gave me the motivation I needed to power through every other setback and get this finished.
It should be noted that the rerecord count is incredibly low - seeing as the file that ultimately finishes the game is called Faxanadu v13.tasproj, I had a few false starts.

New Tricks

Intro Skip

As discussed above, there is a hitbox that falls from the top of the screen; building up sufficient speed lets you jump over it and save 12.5 seconds when optimized.

RNG Manipulation

Some enemies (not all of them) advance RNG when they have to make a decision. By holding or not holding A during this RNG poll, you can influence the direction those enemies face. This means that enemies can be convinced to not jump off of ledges, and to not turn around underneath you.

Enemy Invulnerability

Enemies go invulnerable for eight frames after being hit by the Dagger (and probably any Weapon) and four frames after being hit by Deluge (and probably any Magic). These two timers do not count down at the same time -- Weapon invulnerability will count down first, from eight to zero and then Magic invulnerability will count down from four to zero.

Particular Time Savings

Description Savings In seconds Notes
Intro Skip 856 00:14.24 Talked about this above.
First Enemy Turnaround 18 00:00.30 Talked about this above.
Mattock Room 67 00:01.11 Lord Tom pointed me to the comment he left in the thread for the currently published run, suggesting that a second could be saved by taking damage on the ladder. He was right.
Wyvern after JO Key 35 00:00.58 By just running right, I was able to still damage boost and avoid fireballs without slowing down.
Triple Kill -23 -00:00.38 This is necessary because of the damage taken during the Mattock Room, but I hope it's entertaining.
Farming Wyverns 34 00:00.57 I spent eight hours trying to save one frame and had the realization that enemy invulnerability timers must exist somewhere in RAM. After I found them, I was able to optimize these four fights and save these frames.
Gremlin Damage 2 00:00.03 ShinerCCC remarked that the RTA route walks through the first gremlin in the upper portion of Branch. Doing that and managing a later gremlin that the currently published run takes damage from saved me roughly half a second immediately but only two frames overall.
Battle Suit Boss 21 00:00.35 Optimizing Magic usage earlier let me save an entire attack cycle against the Dwarf protecting the Battle Suit.
King Grieve 19 00:00.32 I saved roughly one attack cycle against King Grieve. That fight has a lot of lag in it.
The Evil One -5 -00:00.08 Yes, I lost five frames against the final boss. I chalk it up to having one less shot of Deluge (which I fired against Grieve to save nineteen frames). After finishing this fight, I went back and did it again to get rid of some lag frames and better optimize my positioning.

Special Thanks

No submission is complete without thanking the people that were supportive along the way. While I am sure that I will miss some people, here are the ones that jump to mind.
  • Lord Tom, for making the previous run and being supportive in IRC.
  • Walker Boh, for making the first two runs of this game.
  • Samsara, for supportive conversations while I was really frustrated with how things were going.
  • adelikat, for repeatedly saying he wants to see an improvement to the currently published run.
  • Cythraul, for asking what the boxes were.
  • MediaMagnet, for the auto-hosts, participating in the chat, and keeping me focused.
  • link_7777, for hanging out in Twitch, throwing people my way, and being supportive in general.
  • ZombieQueen22, for being incredibly supportive and understanding.
  • ShinerCCC, the current RTA WR holder, who kept asking questions.
  • Nifter, for reminding me that there are other worlds.
  • The TASVideos IRC channel, for just being there.
  • HelloBoing, NorBro86, Wreckie, volt_56, duhbat, Ms_Crash, SpiritSpirits, and the rest of the Twitch viewers who have dropped in to ask what the crap I am doing.

Possible Improvements

  • ShinerCCC noted that it can save two frames at a time by equipping items over timer countdown frames because I have to pause anyways. Across the run, I think this would save eight to ten frames. I did start doing this late in the run but didn't go back to the first use of Wing Boots to
  • I am fairly certain I lost frames due to subpixel optimization, but I know that I made them up later. Better subpixel control might help though, so I have to mention it here.
  • Reducing lag in the King Grieve fight would certainly help things, but I don't think it's worth hitting Grieve early to turn him around so that he shoots his fireballs into the wall, because you have to reposition too much.

Lua Script

The Lua script that I used to draw hitboxen and display other vital information can be found at userfiles/info/35925051135496342

Finally

This run is dedicated to my mother, who is responsible for me knowing about the game in the first place.

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Well planned and well executed run. Good improvement. Accepting to Moons as an improvement to the published movie.
Spikestuff: Publishing!


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15537
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5338: Invariel's NES Faxanadu in 23:04.69
MediaMagnet
He/Him
Moderator
Joined: 8/15/2016
Posts: 27
Location: Austin TX
Very much yes I enjoyed every bit of the stream of you working on the stream
"Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!"
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2630)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6435
Location: The land down under.
Damn. I was really hoping that Bible Buffet was going to be your only Newcomer TAS. I mean, this is a very nice TAS... That Buffet though... Voting Yes, and early call on publication.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1352)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
I didn't know about this game, but I already like it. It reminds me of E Mo Dao. Looks well planned and optimized. Also, . So Yes vote.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Joined: 5/8/2010
Posts: 177
Location: Entropy
Very well planned and optimized TAS, I'm giving this an obvious yes vote.
Active player (378)
Joined: 9/25/2011
Posts: 652
Voted yes, but have a question: It looks like you are farming before getting the Mattock, and then again after you get the Mattock (but before the town). Why farm in both places? One has to be faster than the other, so wouldn't it just make sense to farm in the faster spot?
Invariel
He/Him
Editor, Site Developer, Player (171)
Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario
In order to get the Mattock, the hidden item counter at 0x043A needs to read 0. The first time I enter the room with the Mattock, I haven't visited any other hidden item rooms, so the counter goes from 0 to 1. On the fourth visit to that room, the counter resets to 0 and the Mattock will appear. Because I am on the screen anyways, and I have to sit through the screen transitions, it's actually faster to kill the three additional jumping enemies rather than spend more resources killing two more of the mage enemies later. Addendum: Farming in the room beside the Mattock takes 192, 193, and 189 frames (totalling 574 frames) from leaving the Mattock screen to leaving the first room of the Tower, whereas killing the mages beside Forepaw takes 294, 296, 296, 295, 296, 296, 253, and 238 -- dropping those last two because Deluge is involved, roughly 295 frames per kill, times two because I would need to make up the Golds, 590 frames, which would be 16 frames slower. [Edit 2:] than things currently - the time difference would actually be greater because those 192, 193, and 189 frame counts are the total times for leaving the second room, killing the enemy in the first room, and leaving the first room, not the totals of just transitioning screens.
I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Active player (378)
Joined: 9/25/2011
Posts: 652
Great explanation, Invariel. Thanks!
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
That was a very neat improvement, well done. I was entertained. Voted yes.
Experienced player (656)
Joined: 11/23/2013
Posts: 2230
Location: Guatemala
Oh cool, you finally finished it. After all this time your real first submission is now done :P
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15537
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3297] NES Faxanadu by Invariel in 23:04.69
Lord_Tom
He/Him
Expert player (3142)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Just saw this, congratulations on finishing your first publication! I know you worked on this a lot over several years...the end result looks very good and that skip with the initial dialog window was such a great find, I'll have to crank up your Lua script when I get a chance and see what that hit-box looks like. One thing that wouldn't improve time but would be nice for any future run of this game would be to distribute the pause-glitch (that keeps the item timer from running down) usage to avoid having to pause in chapels, where the music effect is most jarring.
Invariel
He/Him
Editor, Site Developer, Player (171)
Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Yeah, I agree - I thought about spacing the pauses out so that it wouldn't generate that horrible chapel noise, but I started in on that a bit too late. It would definitely save peoples' ears though. Thank you for the kind words. I was hoping you'd see it before it was actually published. (It's actually my second publication - Bible Buffet was a collaboration with Spikestuff - but it was the first thing I worked on.)
I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
I just finished watching this. I don't think it was the most entertaining TAS, but it was very well played. Congrads on getting your first solo run published!
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.