This is an optimization of my previous Double Dragon TAS submission - with smarter use of damage tables and new combos, please enjoy as I beat the game in under 7 minutes! (6:58)

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Mame-RR 0.139-v0.1-beta
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Get through game as fast as possible
  • Take better advantage of enemy AI
  • kill multiple enemies with single weapon toss (knives, dynamite, etc)
  • Show new out of bounds area I discovered for Stage 3 Boss

Comments

This 6:58 run is an improvement of my previous TAS completed in 8:03 (#5849: sugarfoot's Arcade Double Dragon in 09:42.33). New combo use, better routes, and better understanding of enemy AI allowed me to complete a much cleaner run.
With some more research on knockdown behavior for Adobo/Green Bolos - and some minor cleanups on new combo strats, I think it's possible to shave an additional ~20 seconds off Double Dragon TAS's

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1

New bread and butter 13-point damage combo shaved off a lot of time (punch, punch, knee, knee, elbow) = (2 dmg, 2 dmg, 2 dmg, 2 dmg, 5 dmg) = 13

Stage 2

Very minor cleanups from previous run. Discovered Y-offset of 90 or 91 is the key to getting enemies to fall off stage. The boss is on a global timer after the first round of enemies dies - so there's no point in killing the two whip girls any faster, the boss will still come out at exact same time.

Stage 3

Sacrificed style for speed in Double Bolo fight
Found a new out of bounds area for Green Bolo fight! There is a cliff in the bottom right hand corner

Stage 4

Hot Potato time with dynamite. Figured out how to gather weapons and bundle Bolos together and kill everyone at same time. Intentionally take damage to keep enemies right over the dynamite (glancing blows can do less damage)
Cleaner path up to boss on ledge with less movement
Found a little fun with garbage memory after the enemies clear out of boss area (you can make them drop whips and boxes too). The only common theme I see from what shows up is - it could be unfreed memory from enemies that are thrown off ledges

Other comments

Did I mention how frustrating Hot Potato Time was in Stage 4???
Please visit arcade thread if you want to stay up to date on RAM tables, combos, and new submissions: Forum/Posts/466495

RAM Addresses Of Interest

000003C1: Player 1 Health
0000041F: Player 2 Health
0000047D: Enemy 1 Health
000004D2: Enemy 2 Health
00000527: Enemy 3 Health
0000057C: Enemy 4 Health
000005D1: Enemy 5 Health
00000626: Enemy 6 Health
0000067B: Enemy 7 Health
000006D0: Enemy 8 Health
00000725: Boss Health

feos: Judging...
feos: Replaced the movie with a trimmed version.
feos: As was said in the thread(s), Easy is the fastest difficulty for this game, and the harder ones are only harder due to enemies' HP. 2-player run would lag lake crazy, even this one does. What looks unreasonable in this run is in fact either lag reduction or enemy manipulation.
Overall, nice run, good audience feedback, accepting to Moons.
Note to publisher: This movie was started while unpaused, and mame-rr beta autopauses on any movie load. So use alpha version, run with avi enabled, then manually open the movie replay dialog while unpaused and start the movie. The emu will restart, avi will also restart, not putting any garbage video at the start of the encode.
fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15583
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5869: sugarfoot's Arcade Double Dragon in 07:13.06
Memory
She/Her
Site Admin, Skilled player (1556)
Joined: 3/20/2014
Posts: 1765
Location: Dumpster
You should probably cancel your previous submission
[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
PLANET
He/Him
Joined: 1/3/2018
Posts: 73
Hey man, I'd love to see that TAS, however the encode video on YT is 'unavailable', please try to look at this, thanks!
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (311)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
I had the same problem, sugarfoot in the <video>, don't put "https://youtube.watch?=" only what is next.
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
PLANET wrote:
Hey man, I'd love to see that TAS, however the encode video on YT is 'unavailable', please try to look at this, thanks!
ViGadeomes wrote:
I had the same problem, sugarfoot in the <video>, don't put "https://youtube.watch?=" only what is next.
Sorry! I forgot to make the video public: should be fixed now (verified in Incognito browser window): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeqYfzzoJUE
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
Memory wrote:
You should probably cancel your previous submission
Why? (serious question - I thought it was good to keep old iterations available on site, even if they just end up in Vault)
Memory
She/Her
Site Admin, Skilled player (1556)
Joined: 3/20/2014
Posts: 1765
Location: Dumpster
sugarfoot wrote:
Memory wrote:
You should probably cancel your previous submission
Why? (serious question - I thought it was good to keep old iterations available on site, even if they just end up in Vault)
They have to get accepted in the first place to end up in vault. Your old submission was never judged and since it does not beat all known records at least as of this submission, can never end up in vault.
[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
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
Memory wrote:
sugarfoot wrote:
Memory wrote:
You should probably cancel your previous submission
Why? (serious question - I thought it was good to keep old iterations available on site, even if they just end up in Vault)
They have to get accepted in the first place to end up in vault. Your old submission was never judged and since it does not beat all known records at least as of this submission, can never end up in vault.
Ahh got it thanks for info! I set the previous submission to canceled and added link to updated TAS
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (311)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
I think you can delete your last inputs and finish them at your last punch of the boss if you have inputs after because I see your character moving but I don't know if it's you or the game.
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
ViGadeomes wrote:
I think you can delete your last inputs and finish them at your last punch of the boss if you have inputs after because I see your character moving but I don't know if it's you or the game.
When I'm moving around into deep right part of the corner after I kill the boss (and before jingle plays as Mariam drops from Rope) - that's intentional (and think the inputs after the boss are relevant to playback)
    I thought it was funny that the last Black Roper drops the bat and Nopes his way out of there when I run towards him The glitch that makes the boulder and White Roper appear after I kill the boss - it only appears when I wedge myself in that corner (after I kill the boss)
I can generate the glitch with dying White Roper with Boxes and Whips too using a kick as the input as the game ends, but wedging myself in corner is most consistent so far
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (311)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
sugarfoot wrote:
When I'm moving around into deep right part of the corner after I kill the boss (and before jingle plays as Mariam drops from Rope) - that's intentional (and think the inputs after the boss are relevant to playback)
    I thought it was funny that the last Black Roper drops the bat and Nopes his way out of there when I run towards him The glitch that makes the boulder and White Roper appear after I kill the boss - it only appears when I wedge myself in that corner (after I kill the boss)
I can generate the glitch with dying White Roper with Boxes and Whips too using a kick as the input as the game ends, but wedging myself in corner is most consistent so far
Ok, yes vote by the way :)
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
ViGadeomes wrote:
sugarfoot wrote:
When I'm moving around into deep right part of the corner after I kill the boss (and before jingle plays as Mariam drops from Rope) - that's intentional (and think the inputs after the boss are relevant to playback)
    I thought it was funny that the last Black Roper drops the bat and Nopes his way out of there when I run towards him The glitch that makes the boulder and White Roper appear after I kill the boss - it only appears when I wedge myself in that corner (after I kill the boss)
I can generate the glitch with dying White Roper with Boxes and Whips too using a kick as the input as the game ends, but wedging myself in corner is most consistent so far
Ok, yes vote by the way :)
Thank you!
Joined: 4/24/2012
Posts: 129
Location: Atlanta, GA
If you're able to throw the final enemies into the pit from above, why couldn't you do it to the two Abobos you used dynamite on? Is the floor actually different between there and the final fight? Regardless, there was great use of enemy manipulation and it was pretty entertaining. Yes vote from me. :)
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
TheReflexWonder wrote:
If you're able to throw the final enemies into the pit from above, why couldn't you do it to the two Abobos you used dynamite on? Is the floor actually different between there and the final fight? Regardless, there was great use of enemy manipulation and it was pretty entertaining. Yes vote from me. :)
Thank you! Re: the two adobos I used dynamite on - I can align myself on same Y-offset to throw enemies into the pit. The problem is the game glitch won't work here. It's unreachable by the Adobos. The enemies will simply get stuck in place - right out of range, and will never come down. I did manage to throw one of the Adobo's off the left hand side of that area once (not using the glitch... just managing to get them into the lower part of that bridge area) - but I can't get both over here - one of them always gets stuck.
Dimon12321
He/Him
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (596)
Joined: 4/5/2014
Posts: 1222
Location: Romania
Now that's good! Yes vote.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
PLANET
He/Him
Joined: 1/3/2018
Posts: 73
Wow : ) Maan, that's so much better! : ) A definitive yes vote. Gotta love the new improvements, especially the "here, catch!" moment for two black Bolos and their companion, both with knife and the dynamite ; ) @ lvl 4 : D Anyhow, there are some moments of taking in damage where I don't feel it's necessary, and perhaps some other parts could be further optimized, but I think it's safe to say this is great :)
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
PLANET wrote:
Wow : ) Maan, that's so much better! : ) A definitive yes vote. Gotta love the new improvements, especially the "here, catch!" moment for two black Bolos and their companion, both with knife and the dynamite ; ) @ lvl 4 : D Anyhow, there are some moments of taking in damage where I don't feel it's necessary, and perhaps some other parts could be further optimized, but I think it's safe to say this is great :)
Thanks for the feedback. Re: unnecessary damage - there's definitely some points I don't intend to take damage. And there are others where I'm working around the stupid AI system (esp in places where I'm stuck walking towards enemies in straight line instead of being able to approach at angle). I haven't done uber heavy analysis on frame counts consumed on hit trade vs entering fight at slight angle - was waiting to complete a TAS that I felt would be good basis to build an absolutely perfect run upon (and I think this 2nd run nails my basis)
Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Please talk about the difficulty differences.
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.
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
feos wrote:
Please talk about the difficulty differences.
There's 4 levels of difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard, Extra Hard. Enemies gain an extra 4 HP per difficulty level. For example: Stage 1 Adobo has 34 HP on Easy, 38 HP Medium, 42 HP on Hard, 46 HP on Extra Hard. Player health does not change between difficulty levels (you always have 53 HP) The AI difficulty doesn't seem to change much between levels - if at all. From memory - the enemy counts don't change either (I rarely play on Hard and Extra Hard - with the health amounts - it's a boring grind) If you're interested in a full breakdown of every enemy's health on all 4 stages: please take a look at this Google Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rrCgVNUCvbQ-CbDxKYcOKLS3B7h4YxN6liTRHngzw10/edit#gid=0 Fun Fact: Stage 4 Jeff (the Green Palette swap of Billy and Jimmy) is actually the highest HP character on game, not Willy - the final boss
Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Thanks. It indeed looks like Easy is the way to go here.
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.
Joined: 1/13/2007
Posts: 343
this game is very laggy. perhaps lag management will be able to improve things?
sugarfoot
He/Him
Player (75)
Joined: 3/6/2018
Posts: 42
zaphod77 wrote:
this game is very laggy. perhaps lag management will be able to improve things?
Unfortunately I'm not sure how much [more] can be done about lag caused by sprites. This game is infamous for being a laggy P.O.S., and it kicks in as soon as there's 3+ sprites on screen (and trying to fight 1 on 1 makes for a slow stage completion) If you'll notice, I do manage minor lag caused by aux. objects like weapons (boxes, boulders, whips, etc). I'm either throwing them off screen, or making sure they fall into pits/cliffs once I've used them as much as I need to. For example, in my previous TAS when I dropped the Lindas off ledge in Stage 2 Boss Area, their whips fell onto elevator platform - which left them on screen at start of Stage 3 - and caused a little lag. For this run, I elbow them in opposite direction to keep the whips off screen at start of Stage 3
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15583
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. ---- [3658] Arcade Double Dragon "1 player" by sugarfoot in 07:13.06