NES - Super Spike V'Ball

Super Spike V'Ball is a volleyball game created by TechnosJapan (those people responsible for River City Ransom).

Game Objectives

  • Beat the World Cup (Hardest difficulty) as quickly as possible.

Gameplay Notes

  • Uses luck manipulation (via service choice) to determine how the opponent returns the ball after a serve
  • Uses luck manipulation (via delayed spikes) to prevent the CPU from getting defensive hits.
  • Uses 2 player co-op mode to save time.
Serving: The court can essentially be broken up into a 3x3 grid yielding 9 regions for the serve to land. There are also two service options: standard and jump-serve. Thus there are 18 possible serves that will land in bounds.
There are four possible return patterns after a serve.
  1. Regular bump, set, spike sequence (seen scattered throughout run)
  2. Set, spike sequence (seen scattered throughout run)
  3. Bump return directly back over net (seen rarely in run)
  4. Spiked directly off serve (seen rarely in run)
Service choice was based on which option resulted in the quickest return from the opponent.
Standard serves were frequently performed to yield return pattern #2 by the opponents.
Ball flight-speed is faster with a jump-serve than a standard serve, but almost always results in return pattern #1. This is slower than getting pattern #2 with a standard serve; thus, jump-serves rarely yield the quickest return. After the first game, jump-serves were relegated to use when all 18 service options yielded return pattern #1 (taking advantage of the faster ball speed).
Instances where return patterns #3 & #4 were attainable they were selected.
The opponents never get a chance to serve throughout the run.
Defense: Classic defense of waiting for a bump after the CPU attacks is only occasionally used; always followed up with a quick scoring spike.
Blocking: If possible, a block was performed to immediately drive the ball back down to the opponents sand for a point. Otherwise the ball was returned with a bump, spike combination or via a 'failed' block.
'Failed' blocks are blocks in which the ball appears to bounce off the blocking player's head and stays on his side of the net; spikes can be performed following this 'failed' block slightly faster than a bump/spike combination.
'Ball Out': Occasionally in the early stages, the CPU will hit the ball out of bounds. It's also possible for the CPU to lose the ball out of bounds trying to defend a super spike. Both of these results in the referee doing an additional 'Ball Out' animation. In the few instances this arose, I chose a different service/spike option that didn't result in the ball going out of bounds. Though the volley may have taken a few extra frames, they were offset by not playing the animation.
Targeting: In addition to serves, spikes can be directed to any of the 9 court regions and were chosen to prevent defensive hits by the opponent.
Where the CPU targets its hits is mostly predetermined and unaffected by the serve choice. Sometimes the 'Human' character positions can affect the targeted point, but when it does and where the character had to be to alter the target point was not consistent. As my limited trials of position altering showed little consistent benefit, this strategy was mostly ignored in making this TAS.
Side notes on targeting:
There is an U/D L/R input glitch that moves the target point to strange locations, but they're always on the 'human' side of the court and thus this glitch is not useful for a vs. CPU game. It might be interesting in a PvP mode though.

Potential Improvements

As each volley can alter the predetermined CPU targeting of the next volley, changing even one serve/volley would likely impact every volley thereafter. It's possible that a different sequence of service choices could yield more short return combinations (#3 & #4) or even reduce some of the #1 returns to #2. Any such sequence variations may shorten the overall video, but the volley on which that run deviates from this run would likely be slower than the current volley.
To test all such permutations would be impractical (309,237,645,312 if my math is correct).

GoddessMaria: Judging.
GoddessMaria: After having a look at this, I do conclude that there is enough of optimization and entertainment for it to be accepted into Moons. The varying means to quickly score and win kept it from being repetitive helped here. So anyway...
Accepting.
feos: Okay this one will be easy anyway.


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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5815: DrD2k9's NES Super Spike V'Ball "World Cup" in 05:46.15
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I used to play this game with the FourScore at parties. Four people playing NES at the same time was amazing! I've actually been waiting for someone to TAS this game. After the first couple of sets I was afraid it was going to be the same pattern (serve, block) for the entire game, but thankfully there was eventually a second pattern (serve, block, spike), so it managed to be somewhat entertaining for the entire six minutes. Great job!
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
DrD2k9
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hopper wrote:
I've actually been waiting for someone to TAS this game. After the first couple of sets I was afraid it was going to be the same pattern (serve, block) for the entire game, but thankfully there was eventually a second pattern (serve, block, spike), so it managed to be somewhat entertaining for the entire six minutes. Great job!
This game was great with 4 people! I was also worried about the repetition after the first game too. Thankfully, the difficulty increases as does the variety (slightly). It's still a bit repetitive, but hey...real volleyball is watching a ball go back and forth too. To me, the most interesting parts of this run are the few instances where the 'human' player defends a power spike from the CPU and then the other 'human' character spikes it back over to the CPU's side. The KABOOOOM text onscreen must overload the graphical abilities of the NES and the CPU players disappear visually (their spectral presence can still return the ball though).
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This was a wise character choice. Team George/Murphy was last year's champion! :)
DrD2k9
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£e Nécroyeur wrote:
This was a wise character choice. Team George/Murphy was last year's champion! :)
It's the default character. Average in all areas (or balanced if you prefer that descriptor).
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DrD2k9 wrote:
£e Nécroyeur wrote:
This was a wise character choice. Team George/Murphy was last year's champion! :)
It's the default character. Average in all areas (or balanced if you prefer that descriptor).
https://i.imgur.com/GStB79x.png
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.
DrD2k9
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feos wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/GStB79x.png
I suppose that might explain his bias toward that team. Too bad he can't use that team combo in the Arcade version. There it's George/Michael. Side note: I just learned that you can play with a female team using game genie. They are normally unable to be selected.
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It was kind of repetitive. I feel like this game would be better as a playaround.
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I did TAS this game, with some playaround in mind, never got to finish it. One thing that should be tested for time is trying to spike the ball even if it didn,t cross the net. I was able to do that once. I don't have my movie file at this moment though. :/
DrD2k9
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Niamek wrote:
One thing that should be tested for time is trying to spike the ball even if it didn,t cross the net. I was able to do that once. I don't have my movie file at this moment though. :/
I'll take a look into this. While I was doing this run though, my players would only jump into the block animation once the ball had been set by the opponents. The only way I can think of this being possible would be if a jump initiated before the set yields a normal jump and the set is close enough to the net to make contact. I'll see what I can do. EDIT: Ok, I went back through my run. What you describe (the ball being spiked while it's still on the opponents' side of the court) can be seen on the second serve of the 4th match. That particular instance was a direct bump return and the ball is spiked at the earliest possible moment. The opponents would not have done a set/spike even if I didn't immediately spike the ball. I also double checked on my above jumping theory. It's not possible. Jumping isn't allowed after a serve until the opponent has at least hit the ball. And then, the jump immediately goes into blocking animation (unless it's a direct bump return as seen in the example noted). Spiking is not possible out of the block animation. I'd guess what you remember from your playaround was the direct bump return situation.
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I blocked the ball, then the other player jumped and hit the ball while it's on the other side of the net. It won't be a supersmash. But I did jump after blocking the ball. Apologies for not mentionning it was a blocked ball. But if your blocked balls are "good blocks" which happens to send the ball to the ground very fast, I'd guess you don,t have enough time to hit the ball before it land on the ground. Anyway, it happens so fast you'd not notice you hit the ball on the other side of the net. Once I get my computer battery fixed or something, I'll upload the movie file. I think I still have it.
DrD2k9
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Niamek wrote:
I blocked the ball, then the other player jumped and hit the ball while it's on the other side of the net. It won't be a supersmash. But I did jump after blocking the ball. Apologies for not mentionning it was a blocked ball. But if your blocked balls are "good blocks" which happens to send the ball to the ground very fast, I'd guess you don,t have enough time to hit the ball before it land on the ground.
So does the spike then make the ball go to the ground even faster off the block than it does anyway? If not, I don't see a point in doing this. If attempting to spike in that manner would force a blocked ball that would otherwise block into the net to instead land on the opponents side, then it might be beneficial.
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To be honest I didn't even bother testing this. Since the start I wanted to include some playaround stuffs.
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Looked like a good run to me. Voting yes
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. ---- [3646] NES Super Spike V'Ball "World Cup" by DrD2k9 in 05:46.15