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ZX Spectrum - Castlevania: Spectral Interlude "100%" in 34:33.12

About the game

Castlevania: Spectral Interlude is a Castlevania fangame for the ZX Spectrum, developed by Rewind and released in 2015. It mostly pays homage to the classic Castlevania games of the NES era, particularly Simon's Quest, but also takes on elements from later "Metroidvania"-style titles in the series.
Regarding the plot/timeline, the game is set in the early 1800s, a few decades after Symphony of the Night, with the plot aiming to explain the disappearance of Richter Belmont and the Belmont clan after said game. The protagonist of the game is Richter's son, Simon Belmont (named after his ancestor of classic Castlevania fame), who with the help of sorcerer Joseph aims to remove Dracula's evil influence on the world by collecting demonic altar pieces, summoning Dracula, and whipping him to death as usual. However, some things don't go exactly as planned...

About the run

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 2.3
  • 100% completion
  • Best ending
  • Uses hardest difficulty
  • Heavy luck manipulation
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Unofficial game

Goal

The goal of this movie is 100%/full completion of the game. There are quite a few factors of (full) completion for this game, so this movie aims to achieve all of the following:
  • Collect all 28 Altar Pieces
  • Defeat all 7 bosses
  • Get all 6 boss items
  • Get all 9 Health upgrades (HP maxes at 48)
  • Get all 7 Heart upgrades (hearts max at 50)
  • Get all 8 Metallic Plates
  • Apply all 8 Metallic Plate upgrades to the whip
  • Get all 6 subweapons
  • Get all other town upgrades (warp shrine, 2 map enhancements)
  • Complete the map by filling in all map tiles (visit every room)
  • Get the "true" ending (trigger Death event)

Tricks/Notes

Lag/frame dropping

  • The game handles lag, or laggy situations, in a quite interesting way. Instead of slowing down the whole game, the game instead just drops visual frames while the game loop is kept up at the same pace as normal. In extreme situations, the game loop may even be run multiple times per frame. Because of this, even during intensive gameplay situations with many enemies or a tricky boss battle, there is no slowdown, although the visuals may become quite choppy. Sometimes this can make a difference of a frame or so over the course of a sequence or room, but usually it doesn't make a difference.

Luck manipulation

  • There's a lot of it.
  • The RNG is updated whenever a random action calls for it (enemy AI, loot drop, etc). On update, it does some calculations involving the R Register, which increments on every CPU instruction run. Therefore, the RNG can be manipulated by changing the instruction flow of the CPU, and in practice this can be done by feeding any input that is recognized or processed by the game in some way - this includes the 0 key (which opens the minimap) and H key, which resets to the main menu. Both keys do not have their actual effect as long as another key is held, but they do add instructions, and therefore change the R register, and change the RNG by extension. (The same thing can be done with the 1 and 2 keys, which cycle subweapons, when no subweapons are obtained yet). So, in practice, luck is manipulated with relative freedom by adding random 0 or H presses prior to luck-based events.
  • RNG manipulation is primarily used to manipulate random drops from enemies. In particular, gold bags with 50 coins are very rare drops early on (1/64 chance, from memory), but a dozen of them are already manipulated even before the first town visit (so the shrine warp upgrade and several subweapons can already be bought immediately). Later on in the run, many big heart drops from candles or certain enemies are another 1/32 drop at best, yet are manipulated by the dozens.
  • It should be noted that drop table logic varies depending on a few factors, like if the player has visited the same room before (which makes drops much less likely, and makes some bigger drops impossible), what altars have been triggered, whether or not the player is capped on hearts, or the type of enemy (or candle) destroyed.
  • Some boss patterns also can be manipulated by luck. Most notably Grant (randomly climbs along the ceiling) and Medusa (teleport randomly to one of three locations, and move around for a random amount of time) had to be manipulated in order to remain optimally hittable without getting out of reach or intangible while invincibility ends.

Boss notes

  • Bosses have 135 frames of invincibility on hit (7 frames of hit freeze, then another 128 frames of plain invincibility). Therefore, saving hits on bosses is important wherever possible.

Damage boost

  • It's possible to pick up items while taking damage, and taking damage elevates Belmont briefly for about a half tile. This is barely enough to allow Belmont to collect an item that normally would be too high to reach, by taking damage.
  • It's also possible to reach a higher platform by taking damage at the apex of a jump.

Teleporting tricks

  • After starting a teleport, the next teleport can be buffered immediately by pressing the input while the first teleport is underway. This makes it easy to chain teleports at optimal speeds, but also puts a clear limit on the maximum speed of teleporting.
  • Belmont is fully invincible while teleporting, and remains constantly invincible when chaining teleports.
  • Teleports shift Belmont by 64 pixels left or right.
  • It is possible to whip right before teleporting, and the whip will come out during/after the teleport. This is useful for hitting enemies quickly from long range, or for hitting candles while teleporting around.
  • When teleporting from the ground onto the air, it's possible to buffer a jump directly after the teleport. This jump will count as a ground jump, and it will still be possible to do a double jump after.
  • Teleporting into stairs will elevate Belmont by one tile any time a stair block is touched. This translates to a full 45 degree angle teleport upwards when teleporting directly up a set of stairs.
  • Platform teleport: Teleporting into a platform that can be passed vertically will allow Belmont to land on the platform, provided he's less than half a tile below the platform. This effectively allows Belmont to reach platforms a half-tile higher than his combined double-jump height. This saves time in some vertical sections. This is made easier by the fact that teleporting inside a platform doesn't enable horizontal movement (platforms are considered like solid blocks for teleporting purposes).

Dialogue skip

  • Multi-page dialogue can be skipped after the first page can be closed by pressing the H key. This has a side effect of making some text in-game appear rather nonsensical as dialogue ends abruptly and some context is omitted entirely. In other words, don't try to follow the plot too much just by watching this movie, as it skips out on quite a bit of text without the viewer being able to realize it.
  • There are a few rare events where two separate sets of dialogue are displayed in succession, so multiple pages appear even when H is pressed. In these cases, H still reduces the total amount of pages visible.

Spike jump glitch

  • With frame perfection, it's possible to walk off a ledge, land on a spike tile and jump from it without taking damage (which resets the scene), while also still keeping the double jump. This can only be done once on a strip of spike tiles (although with double jump, two jumps can be done in total). This allows reaching a few items early that normally would require the teleport ability.

Teleport event graphics glitch

  • No practical utility besides visual quirks, but triggering an event or room transition by teleporting as soon as a new area is loaded (a room is entered, or new location is entered - not by regular scrolling room transitions) will cause the event to trigger before the new area is even visible, and delay or skip its visual loading. This does not affect anything ingame, and the new room graphics will be made visible anyway after the event is passed.
    • This is done when entering the top part of Dracula's Castle from the main part - teleporting left instantly there will trigger the room transition before the new area is loaded yet, resulting in a glitchy looking screen scroll.
    • This is also triggered a few more times when entering the White Altar room, when leaving it, and when entering Richter's house all during the Death sequence. The latter one has the interesting effect of showing the boss door closing before the room is even visible.

Event-skip tile glitch

  • Skipping certain events, or otherwise passing them quicker than should be possible, can corrupt on-screen tiles resulting in odd effects. There are two known instances of this:
    • Entering the White Altar house mid-teleport and then directly teleporting into the dialogue event trigger. Just the direct teleport is fine (even if it triggers the teleport event graphics glitch), but the mid-teleport house entry is not.
    • Skipping the Dracula pre-battle dialogue by whipping him instantly after the Altar is activated.
  • The result of this glitch is that certain on-screen tiles will glitch out and change graphics or properties. This will happen along the bottom two rows of the screen, and effects include tiles becoming a plain blue or water graphic, becoming solid/standable, becoming slippery, or becoming possible to drop through.
    • The White Altar instance is deliberately avoided, as the glitched tiles would hinder coming down in the next section and lose time.
    • The Dracula instance is used but provides no benefits other than some room for playaround after the battle.
  • No beneficial use is known yet for this glitch.

Stage by stage notes

Start

  • The start of the game is highly railroaded. Belmont must talk to Boldo before being able to leave the first screen, and cannot travel to the west beyond Joseph's room before meeting Joseph.
So, naturally, meeting Joseph is the first event that's going to happen in this run.
  • The skeletons in the graveyard are highly manipulated for favorable coin drops. Who says graveyard peacekeeping doesn't pay well?
  • Going to the west after meeting Joseph is advised against by Joseph, although it's still useful to get the blue Altar piece here.
At this point, going west would eventually just lead to a dead-end red Altar without the required pieces to activate it, so going right towards town is the only reasonable option.
  • Upon visiting town for the first time, Belmont spends most of the money obtained from a few minutes of graveyard peacekeeping in town.
    • Donating 300 gold to the Church enables warping to it from any of the shrines scattered throughout the world. This saves a ton of backtracking time, so it's important to get this at the first opportunity.
    • A lot more money is spent stocking up on subweapons at the shop. The Silver Dagger, Holy Water, Golden Axe and Purifying Fire are all bought here.
The only important items here for now are the Holy Water and Purifying Fire, but the other items are bought anyway because we have the money for it and we need to get them down the line regardless. We don't have money for everything, but the rest will come later.
  • After the town visit, Belmont travels to the east for more blue Altar pieces, as well as red Altar pieces and other items to collect along the way. These are needed for progress in the short term.
  • After going down to the cave, it's possible to travel west for a few more items (a metallic plate, heart upgrade, and health upgrade), but those are skipped for now.
The heart upgrade would enable a second Purifying Fire use for the boss, which would save about 12 seconds, but it's not worth the 45 seconds it takes to get it. And this area needs to be backtracked to later anyway, as it contains a teal Altar piece that requires the teleport ability from much later on.
  • Some damage boosting is used all the way to zero health, but Belmont collects a health upgrade mid-death, enabling him to live for longer.
  • The fourth blue Altar piece normally requires a significant backtrack, but this is avoided by abusing a damage-warp from the spikes adjacent to it.

Blue Altar - Skull Knight

  • Skull Knight has 114 health. Whip hits do 6 damage without upgrades, Holy Fire does 8, Purifying Fire does 30, and all other subweapons bounce off. Skull Knight has about 3 seconds of invincibility on hit.
  • Skull Knight's pattern is fully linear and cannot be manipulated.
  • Skull Knight drops the Copper Shield, which allows Belmont to block a projectile from the front. After being used once, it cannot be used again for a few seconds. It's strictly speaking not a needed item, but it's still useful in a lot of places.
  • After warping to town, Belmont gets a whip upgrade.
This is a 25-second detour, but it's worth it - the single upgrade will save multiple hits on the Red Altar bossfight, brings skeletons down from 2 whip hits to 1 to kill, and Mermen from 3 hits to 2. This will make up for the time loss over the course of the next section.
  • A hidden health upgrade is obtained here to refill health. Refilling at the altar would have cost 160 frames.
  • A tricky damage boost allows Belmont to get a Magenta Altar piece early, saving having to backtrack to this place after obtaining the Legendary Boots once more.
  • Another tricky damage boost allows Belmont to get on a platform to get another Magenta Altar piece early, also saving having to backtrack to this place after obtaining the Legendary Boots.
  • Yet another tricky damage boost allows Belmont to get the final red Altar piece early, saving having to go back and forth through 5 screens to get it.

Red Altar - Possessed Grant

  • Possessed Grant has 135 health. Nobody cares about the fact that it's Grant in this game, it's just a normal boss ripped from Castlevania 3 like many of the others.
  • Possessed Grant drops the Legendary Boots on defeat, which allows double jumping. Obviously this is an enormously useful item in a game like this, and allows access to many new places.
  • Thanks to the damage boosts earlier, there's no backtracking for Magenta Altar pieces nearby needed, so Belmont can warp straight back to town.
  • Some backtracking in the graveyard is needed, however, for the third Magenta Altar piece, which is in a hidden area behind Joseph's original location. There's also a whip upgrade here which is not too out of the way, which is also obtained in order to save hits for the Ice Dragons battle. There are more items here, but Belmont needs to come back here later anyway, so they are left for now.
  • Belmont also returns to the cave to use the double jump ability to get a Teal Altar piece and some more items. These items are useful now, and there's not much of a reason to wait with getting them until getting the Teal Altar piece becomes truly necessary.
  • Along the way to the Magenta Altar, a damage boost is used to get a Teal altar piece early. This area won't be revisited any time soon, so it's good to get the Teal Altar piece now, even if it costs a few seconds.
  • Also along the way, another damage boost is used to reach the hidden entrance to Dracula's Castle early. This is used to get a whip upgrade and heart upgrade in these areas. The main reason this is done is that because the whip upgrade needs to be applied in town, this means town must be visited some time after reaching this area with this item for the first time. This area won't be visited otherwise until the end of the game, and by then it's too late to get the whip upgrade, so it's visited now that there is an opportunity for it. Besides that, these items are both also helpful timesavers for later bossfights.

Magenta Altar - Ice Dragons

  • The Ice Dragons have 97 health each. They are essentially designed to be frustrating; if the player is too close, or is facing in their direction (while being on their half of the screen), the dragon won't appear, or will try to hide as soon as possible (which only can't be done while they're firing projectiles). Also, the floor is slippery. Belmont stands on specific positions to be in whipping range of the dragons, while not preventing them from appearing.
  • Projectile subweapons are also used to be able to attack both dragons at once.
  • After the Ice Dragons are defeated, the Dragon Artifact is dropped. By crouching, a nearby body of water or waterfall will freeze up, allowing it to be used as a floor or platform.
  • The newly obtained Dragon Artifact is needed to get a Green Altar piece in the western cave, so Belmont backtracks to there again. Along the way Belmont also gets a whip upgrade.
  • The lake seen earlier on the eastern side can now also be passed, and it features the front door to Dracula's Castle. And of course, a number of items along the way, including the last Green Altar piece.
  • Once inside Dracula's castle, besides picking up a heart upgrade that's on the way, the first objective is to go straight to the Green Altar and defeat Medusa to get the teleport ability. A different route with less backtracking but going to Medusa later was also tried, but turned out slower simply because the teleport ability is that valuable.
  • Belmont gets the last Heart upgrade shortly before reaching the Green Altar. This caps out hearts at 50, allowing me to use five Purifying Fires for each of the next three bosses.

Green Altar - Medusa

  • Medusa has 230 health.
  • Hitting Medusa causes a snake to spawn at her location, and so does her teleporting around. These snakes are generally quickly defeated to prevent even worse frame drops, and for general convenience.
  • Medusa drops the Ring with Inscriptions on defeat, which enables Belmont to teleport by double-tapping left or right. This speeds movement up about threefold, and hence it's enormously useful to have.

Teal Altar - Leviathan

  • Leviathan has 245 health. Teleporting to the edge causes only two blocks to fall instead of three when he pounds the ground, which saves on lag. This is one of the most frame-droppiest areas in the game, so it's nice to minimize some of that, even if it doesn't really save time. The smaller dragon enemies summoned are also quickly dispatched for the same reason.
  • Leviathan drops the Enchanted Amulet on defeat. This will highlight secret entrances and destroyable areas by recoloring them. At this point, all but two items in the game have already been collected, but you can still see one area where it's useful (well, to a non-prescient player).
  • After defeating Leviathan, Belmont warps back to town. The western dungeon must be visited one last time to get the final Yellow Altar Piece (which requires teleportation to reach), and a health upgrade that's in the same room. Then it's back to town again.
  • In this final town visit, Belmont gets his last whip upgrade (soon to be obsoleted by the Vampire Killer), and activates the White Altar, which summons Death.
  • Activating the White Altar and summoning Death triggers the secret/"true" ending. This will take effect after Dracula is defeated.
  • After Death is summoned and the town is overrun, Belmont needs to go to Richter's home to fight Death.

White Altar - Death

  • Death has 255 health. His pattern is rather simple; he randomly either moves in a diagonal direction or throws a mini-scythe at Belmont, and he teleports to a random location when hit.
  • Death drops the Vampire Killer (formerly held by Richter) on defeat. The Vampire Killer replaces the default whip and any of its upgrades, and does 24 damage per hit.
  • Now, all that's left is going to Dracula and defeating him.
  • The hidden entrance to Dracula's Castle is used again, this time with a platform teleport (slightly clipped into the wall) instead of a damage boost to reach the proper height. (It's also possible to reach this normally now by chaining teleports from the higher ground in the next room, but this would be significantly slower).
  • Belmont stocks up on 30 hearts on the way here, because there's no point getting any more. He now has the Vampire Killer, which does 24 damage, and both Dracula forms have 255 health. This means that in order to save a hit on one of the forms, Belmont needs to use three Purifying Fires. Five is not enough to make a difference beyond that.

Yellow Altar - Dracula

  • Both forms of Dracula have 255 health.
  • The pre-Dracula dialogue can be skipped by whipping him as soon as he appears, which can be done by teleport-attacking onto the altar while activating it.
  • Three Purifying Fires are used on the first form to save a hit. Aside from that, it's just Vampire Killing him to death.

Final comments

Screenshots

Special thanks to Asnivor, for making ZXHawk and making this TAS (as well as ZX Spectrum TASing in general) a possibility!
ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: Before everything else, it must be noted that unofficial games need to be high quality and notable in order for movies made with them to be acceptable. This is clearly not a problem in this case, since this homebrew game showcases gorgeous graphics and music, while featuring a very extensive gameplay and diversity for a ZX Spectrum game.
This game doesn't seem to inform the player when an upgrade is maxed out, nor does show beforehand what the maximum achievable is; the same can be said for collecting all items. The only way to ultimately confirm the limits would be to reverse-engineer the game code, which has nothing to do with playing the game normally and thus doesn't work as a full completion yardstick.
It could be argued that the map could be confirmed to be completed, thanks to the second map upgrade showing undisclosed rooms nearby to the player position; however this can be debatable since it requires the player to walk through the whole world looking for the existence of any undisclosed room, which also means that this feature will work for all cases.
Full completion is usually recognized by the fact that a game features optional challenges or requirements, and that clearing them results in the game awarding the player with a different ending cutscene, a different ending message, or simply by displaying a full percentage gauge. The only clear and obvious full completion scenario applicable for this game is reaching the hidden/true ending, as it requires the player to beat the optional boss, Death; all the other goals of this movie aren't clear or obvious, as explained in the previous paragraph.
Since the goal chosen for this movie doesn't fall under either fastest completion or full completion, it's considered as an additional branch and thus needs to be considered accordingly. I think this is a great choice for an abitrary goal, since it allows to showcase much more contents compared to the two main branches, while the ruleset is well defined and sensible: getting everything that can be obtained in the game. It could be argued that this goal should include killing all enemies and maxing out the money income, but this is not applicable since any non-boss enemy will spawn again after re-visiting the same room, and the money drops still happen even after maxing out the player income.
Being a non-Vaultable movie, it's also required to meet the entertainment standards of Moons tier, which has been achieved thanks to the beauty of the game and the optimized execution of gameplay in general; the audience response was also very welcoming.
As a side note, I have to note that the branch label "100%" is not perfectly indicative of the movie goal, as the game doesn't feature any percentage value and the game does require just the Death fight as a full completion requirement. For this reason, in accordance with feos, I'm renaming the branch label to "completionist", as it's more accurate.
Accepting for Moons as a secondary branch.
Note for the publisher: the goals for this movie should be mentioned in the publication text, due to their compound nature.
fsvgm777: Processing. Holding off on encoding it until the situation with the branch label has been cleared up.
feos: After heated discussion we agreed that when the full completion goal for a game is decided by the community to consist of maximizing several independent units, each on its own, we can't deduce such labels to "all X". If the game does not use the term "100%" for something special, compound full completion can be labeled as "100%". When "100%" means something different in the game, there should be a new iteration of discussion to come up with a name that's not "100%" and still represents full completion.
So we consider the "100%" label iconic and use it when we have to, when we can. Changed the branch back.
fsvgm777: Processing (for real).

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Posted: 8/8/2018 9:57 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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Posts: 15594
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6065: Noxxa's ZXS Castlevania: Spectral Interlude "100%" in 34:33.12
Posted: 8/8/2018 9:58 PM
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EZGames69
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Publisher, Reviewer, Expert player (4463)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2762
DS TAS of 2023 SNES TASer of 2022 SNES TASer of 2021 SNES TAS of 2021 Exotic platforms TAS of 2021 TASer of 2020 SNES TASer of 2020 Sega TASer of 2020 TASer of 2019 Sega TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
WOO with new TASable systems! will wait until the video is done processing, if it's anything like the WIP's I've already seen than it's an easy yes vote from me!
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Posted: 8/8/2018 10:31 PM
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feos
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Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11480
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
I congratulate everyone on the fact that this day has finally come! Especially our good sir Asnivor who made it possible. Games like this are how you get a new TASable system rolling, will watch tomorrow.
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.
Posted: 8/8/2018 11:09 PM
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scrimpeh
Editor, Skilled player (1440)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2109
TAS of 2017 First edition TAS of 2017 PSX TAS of 2017
Oh man, this game. Quibus once showed me a port of this game to the MSX. It took me all of 5 minutes before I realized that I had no clue what to do, what the controls were or where to go, so I quickly gave up. Kudos for your perseverance on actually not only finishing this game, but making a TAS of it as well. The game is surpisingly large and fully featured for a homebrew. I enjoyed the variety in gameplay and all of the damage boosts. When you got the teleport item, it could get pretty hard to follow what's going on, especially during boss fights. Overall, I'm giving it a yes. The gameplay was interesting and varied enough to hold my attention, and the TAS was clearly put together with a lot of care. Here's hoping for even more ZX TASes in the future.
Posted: 8/9/2018 1:04 AM
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GJTASer2018
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Joined: 1/24/2018
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Location: Stafford, NY
So Simon Belmont II wiped out his entire clan by summoning Death himself with an altar in the middle of town that he REALLY should have just left well enough alone, all for the sake of getting back his dad's weapon? Darwin Award winner, right there... :P Voting yes, and to anyone who is wondering what the deal with the colors in this game, it's a result of the limitations of the Spectrum itself. You watch the footage of ANY ZX Spectrum game, you'll see the same kind of things happening.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Posted: 8/9/2018 5:46 AM
(Edited: 8/9/2018 6:03 AM)
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Asnivor
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Joined: 11/27/2017
Posts: 87
Location: United Kingdom
GJTASer2018 wrote:
.... and to anyone who is wondering what the deal with the colors in this game, it's a result of the limitations of the Spectrum itself. You watch the footage of ANY ZX Spectrum game, you'll see the same kind of things happening.
Colour clash was always a big thing on the spectrum, due to it's attribute-based video system. So software developers either had to ensure that all 8x8 screen pixels in the video field stayed the same colour (very hard with any kind of animation), or did incredibly complex stuff with updating video memory in relation to the CRT beam position in the TV to get around it. So basically, not many did this (although you do see this quite a bit in later scene demos and in certain games) although many did go for monochrome animated areas with coloured HUDs. More info for those who are not bored to death already :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_clash
Posted: 8/9/2018 5:48 AM
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Asnivor
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Joined: 11/27/2017
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Yes, by crickey! Obviously I am somewhat biased, but even though you picked a REALLY long speccy game for the first TAS, it remains entertaining throughout.
Posted: 8/10/2018 8:01 PM
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Noxxa
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Joined: 8/14/2009
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Location: The Netherlands
Exotic platforms TASer of 2018 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018 Exotic platforms TASer of 2017 Exotic platforms TAS of 2017 Exotic platforms TAS of 2017 Exotic platforms TASer of 2016 Exotic platforms TAS of 2016 Gameboy TASer of 2013
I've added a proper encode, including a minimap and progress counters, to the submission. This should help make it easier to follow the run, and some of its routing choices.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Posted: 8/11/2018 7:32 PM
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fsvgm777
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Joined: 5/28/2009
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Location: Luxembourg
That's....kind of a gory ending. Anyway, a note to other publishers and encoders: I'm going to encode and publish this TAS once it gets accepted.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
Posted: 8/11/2018 11:06 PM
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Kroc
Joined: 8/11/2018
Posts: 13
This was the first Castlevania game I played (I know it's a fan-game, but it ticks all the boxes), and the first Spectrum game too. It's a great demonstration of the hardware's capabilities and limitations. This was very enjoyable to watch even though the game wasn't broken to pieces by the TAS; I hope you publish it.
Posted: 8/12/2018 11:57 AM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
whoa this hack is incredibly impressive; special kudos for the somptuous soundtrack the run itself is pretty clean and very entertaning especially the moment you get the teleport. easy yes
Posted: 8/25/2018 3:54 PM
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ThunderAxe31
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Posts: 1646
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Arcade TAS of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 PSX TASer of 2022 Gameboy TASer of 2017
Excellent job Moth, Asnivor, and everyone else who contributed directly and indirectly for reaching this milestone!
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"
Posted: 8/25/2018 3:55 PM
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feos
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NES TAS of 2011
For the reference: Branch for Saturn's Chrono Trigger
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.
Posted: 8/25/2018 5:26 PM
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Memory
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I extremely disagree with the label applied here. Lets go over this:
Full completion is usually recognized by the fact that a game features optional challenges or requirements, and that clearing them results in the game awarding the player with a different ending cutscene, a different ending message, or simply by displaying a full percentage gauge.
Since when? The movie rules state:
A clear consensus is required on what constitutes full-completion.
    Some games reward the player for something internally defined as full completion. Sometime full completion requirements are explicitly mentioned in the game manual. Conditions that are imposed unofficially by players and do not originate from fundamental game-play features are considered arbitrary and are not eligible
I'd quite argue that these conditions do originate from fundamental game-play features. The definition given basically includes every permanent upgrade to the character and to the game world. It does not explicitly state that requirements must be explicitly listed in the game itself, nor should it. This to me feels like blindly applying the rules without actually thinking of the consequences. If I had to choose between labeling both this and Chrono Trigger as Completionist, or 100%, I would choose to label both as 100%, even though Chrono Trigger is really silly. Completionist is NOT a term that people recognize in this context and therefore is USELESS to anyone aside from the pedantic. This is exactly the kind of movie people tend to think of when they think of full completion. If our rules suggest otherwise, than our rules are broken and need to be fixed.
[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
Posted: 8/25/2018 6:10 PM
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ThunderAxe31
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Memory wrote:
A clear consensus is required on what constitutes full-completion.
    Some games reward the player for something internally defined as full completion. Sometime full completion requirements are explicitly mentioned in the game manual. Conditions that are imposed unofficially by players and do not originate from fundamental game-play features are considered arbitrary and are not eligible
I'd quite argue that these conditions do originate from fundamental game-play features. The definition given basically includes every permanent upgrade to the character and to the game world. It does not explicitly state that requirements must be explicitly listed in the game itself, nor should it.
Then this movie would not count as full completion: [3687] GB Pokémon: Blue Version "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" by luckytyphlosion in 37:55.33 In the mentioned movie, the player catches all Pokémon species, which is considered as the sole full completion requirement, since the game keeps track and awards the player with an unique congratulation message for having filled all Pokédex entries. However, if we disregard goals that are proposed by the game itself, we end up with a lot of other things that could be considered as permanent upgrades: The Key Items can be obtained only once, and can't be removed from the player's inventory in any way. Same can be said for the trainer fights: once a trainer is beaten you can't fight them again, which is indeed a permanent game progress. In my opinion these are examples of self-imposed arbitrary goals, since the game does not keep track or award the player in any way for having achieved them.
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"
Posted: 8/25/2018 6:18 PM
(Edited: 8/25/2018 6:24 PM)
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feos
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My take is that while this movie does collect all the permanent items and upgrades, which could lead to the 100% movie class, it aims for more stuff beyond this movie class. It also gets the best ending, which is a different movie class, and it also aims for full map, which we don't have a movie class for, and we haven't ever considered such a goal a part of full completion. If we want "100% map" (or something along these lines) to be considered a part of the full completion goal for a game, we need it to originate from the game recognizing this goal as a part of full completion. In Super Metroid, "100% map" is not a part of full completion. We limit full completion there to just "all items", and this is what the game cares about, awarding you with a 100% screen, which officially states that you've collected them all. If for this game we can agree that everything this movie does can be clearly checked in-game as N out of N, then the game does recognize our completion in all these aspects. If some of them the game doesn't care about, we can't say they clearly and officially belong to full completion. If a game explicitly encourages you to complete N out of N something, it's an easy case, the most obvious, official definition for such a game. If the game just recognizes fullness of something, it is also easy, like "all levels" in SMA4 (don't remember if the game encourages that). But in SMB3, the game doesn't recognize your "all levels" goal, so we decided not to call it full completion for SMB3. In cases where nothing is encouraged or recognized by the game as possible to complete fully, there's no clear and obvious way to define full completion. If my information about this game is correct, this movie does some things beyond clear and obvious, vaultable full completion. If so, it's unvaultable. Since the game does not have any percentage counter, we can't use N%, which is exactly what the publisher guidelines say (agreed by Nach). In such cases we use "all X". But yet again, this run aims for more than just "all X". It aims for "all X, all Y, all Z", and some of these were decided by me (with the information I had) as not parts of the vaultable full completion goal. If we agree that it's not vaultable, we need to come up with a label that reflects the goals the most accurately, if possible. So we just have to agree on something. I'm open for discussion.
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.
Posted: 8/25/2018 6:18 PM
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Memory
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
In the mentioned movie, the player catches all Pokémon species, which is considered as the sole full completion requirement, since the game keeps track and awards the player with an unique congratulation message for having filled all Pokédex entries. However, if we disregard goals that are proposed by the game itself, we end up with a lot of other things that could be considered as permanent upgrades: The Key Items can be obtained only once, and can't be removed from the player's inventory in any way. Same can be said for the trainer fights: once a trainer is beaten you can't fight them again, which is indeed a permanent game progress. In my opinion these are examples of self-imposed arbitrary goals, since the game does not keep track or award the player in any way for having achieved them.
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon only visibly tracks the Pokedex. This game VISIBLY tracks far more than defeating death. Full completion is to be determined on a per game basis rather than applying nonsensical precedents to cases that it does not match.
[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
Posted: 8/25/2018 6:29 PM
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ThunderAxe31
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Memory wrote:
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon only visibly tracks the Pokedex. This game VISIBLY tracks far more than defeating death. Full completion is to be determined on a per game basis rather than applying nonsensical precedents to cases that it does not match.
Spectral Interlude does indeed show how many upgrades you currently have, but it doesn't tell you in any way how many are left to be found, nor does it tell if you already found them all. This means that it's not a goal proposed by the game, but arbitrarily self-imposed by the player.
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"
Posted: 8/25/2018 6:56 PM
(Edited: 8/26/2018 12:15 AM)
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Noxxa
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I mildly disagree with the label given (mostly because it's rather sesquipedalian, and "100%" fits the movie just fine while retaining a similar yet obvious meaning). I also disagree with statements that the movie does not count as full completion.
feos wrote:
It also gets the best ending, which is a different movie class
This isn't in any way exclusive to full completion. For that matter, in this game, in terms of items collection and boss completion, best ending is a subset of full completion.
feos wrote:
and it also aims for full map, which we don't have a movie class for, and we haven't ever considered such a goal a part of full completion.
Whether or not it counts as full completion depends on the game, and there most certainly are games that count percentage explicitly for full completion (many other Castlevania games do this, we just don't have movies for those), and therefore would have that as a requirement for full completion.
feos wrote:
In Super Metroid, "100% map" is not a part of full completion. We limit full completion there to just "all items", and this is what the game cares about, awarding you with a 100% screen, which officially states that you've collected them all. If for this game we can agree that everything this movie does can be clearly checked in-game as N out of N, then the game does recognize our completion in all these aspects. If some of them the game doesn't care about, we can't say they clearly and officially belong to full completion.
This game tracks map data the same way it tracks any other collection or progress data. It's saved when the game is saved and reloaded, and it's visible on screen (if the minimap is opened). This from a technical standpoint puts it on the same level as item collection and such. You can subjectively argue it's not as important, but that's just introducing more subjectivity in an already subjective argument of what counts as full completion anyway.
feos wrote:
If a game explicitly encourages you to complete N out of N something, it's an easy case, the most obvious, official definition for such a game. If the game just recognizes fullness of something, it is also easy, like "all levels" in SMA4 (don't remember if the game encourages that). But in SMB3, the game doesn't recognize your "all levels" goal, so we decided not to call it full completion for SMB3.
Well, what do you count in this game as "recognizing something", and what not, and how do you follow these guidelines to create a full completion rule that makes sense? ThunderAxe31's argument has been that only best ending is "recognized" and therefore it is the only full completion indicator, but I find any definition of full completion that utterly ignores the dozens of items laid around the world, and various enhancements available, and bosses to be fought, simply absurd.
feos wrote:
In cases where nothing is encouraged or recognized by the game as possible to complete fully, there's no clear and obvious way to define full completion. If my information about this game is correct, this movie does some things beyond clear and obvious, vaultable full completion. If so, it's unvaultable.
My movie fills everything that's part of permanent saved state and no more. I believe this to be a clear definition of full. It might not match the definitions of other games, like how Super Metroid counts 100% without regard to map data, but this game is not Super Metroid and its definition of full completion does not need to be the same.
feos wrote:
Since the game does not have any percentage counter, we can't use N%, which is exactly what the publisher guidelines say (agreed by Nach). In such cases we use "all X". But yet again, this run aims for more than just "all X". It aims for "all X, all Y, all Z", and some of these were decided by me (with the information I had) as not parts of the vaultable full completion goal. If we agree that it's not vaultable, we need to come up with a label that reflects the goals the most accurately, if possible. So we just have to agree on something. I'm open for discussion.
I disagree that this run is not vaultable, per above. Regarding branching, I don't see where the publisher guidelines forbid using "100%" if the movie does not explicitly use a percentage (in fact, it suggests it for a hypothetical full-map Metroid movie, which would not count map completion by percentage). It also contradicts the status of existing published games such as Mega Man X, which also use universally-accepted 100% labels without having an actual percentage counter. See also this line, directly quoted from publisher guidelines:
For achievements which are not directly counted and displayed in-game, use labels such as "0%" or "100%" only if there was nothing less or more that could have been done respectively.
(Achievements that are not directly counted obviously cannot have a percentage counter)
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Memory wrote:
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon only visibly tracks the Pokedex. This game VISIBLY tracks far more than defeating death. Full completion is to be determined on a per game basis rather than applying nonsensical precedents to cases that it does not match.
Spectral Interlude does indeed show how many upgrades you currently have, but it doesn't tell you in any way how many are left to be found, nor does it tell if you already found them all. This means that it's not a goal proposed by the game, but arbitrarily self-imposed by the player.
Many games actually do not tell you if you already found every item. Even Super Metroid does not give any special indicator for 100% completion. (And "100%" by itself is not a reliable indicator - see also examples of other games where percentage indicators go beyond "100").
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Posted: 8/25/2018 7:51 PM
(Edited: 8/25/2018 7:58 PM)
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ThunderAxe31
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Mothrayas wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Memory wrote:
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon only visibly tracks the Pokedex. This game VISIBLY tracks far more than defeating death. Full completion is to be determined on a per game basis rather than applying nonsensical precedents to cases that it does not match.
Spectral Interlude does indeed show how many upgrades you currently have, but it doesn't tell you in any way how many are left to be found, nor does it tell if you already found them all. This means that it's not a goal proposed by the game, but arbitrarily self-imposed by the player.
Many games actually do not tell you if you already found every item. Even Super Metroid does not give any special indicator for 100% completion. (And "100%" by itself is not a reliable indicator - see also examples of other games where percentage indicators go beyond "100").
I see you're referring to the fact that Super Metroid does display the percentage counter at the end of the credits, but it doesn't tell if that is corresponding to actual full completion, since we have many cases of games in which full completion is displayed in-game with a percentage above 100%. The fact is that 100% does implicitly refer to the concept of full completion; it's basically a synonymous (though sometimes it could be less accurate than other wordings, like "all X levels" or "all victims saved"). In the case of Super Metroid, the game is simply happening to be minimalistic on their awarding message, by using the same X% function even if the player didn't reach full completion. And we can't disassemble every single game that shows a bare X% just to make sure that it's or isn't the maximum percentage intended by the developers, since we can't really discern with certain about their original intentions. The only thing that we can do is trusting what the game is displaying, even if it may be a lie. If there could ever happen to stumble into a "100%" run which is not indicative of the true full completion progress, and assuming the remote chance that no one in the world has yet discovered about the existence of the remaining %, how could we ever avoid that? Disassembling every bit of the game? Contacting the original developers for asking them (and assuming they'll not lie as well)? What if someone at some point discovered a way to reach 106% completion that no one ever discovered before in Crash Bandicoot Warped, through intended game mechanics and without glitching the progress display? In the end there will always remain a chance that it could happen. The only thing we can do is going with the highest % equal or superior of 100 known to be the achievable, and obsolete a run in the case a higher legit % is disovered. By the way, all this only applies to games that do display a bare X% value, without giving any additional awarding message or alternative cutscene, which is uncommon.
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"
Posted: 8/25/2018 7:56 PM
(Edited: 8/26/2018 12:15 AM)
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Noxxa
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Memory wrote:
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon only visibly tracks the Pokedex. This game VISIBLY tracks far more than defeating death. Full completion is to be determined on a per game basis rather than applying nonsensical precedents to cases that it does not match.
Spectral Interlude does indeed show how many upgrades you currently have, but it doesn't tell you in any way how many are left to be found, nor does it tell if you already found them all. This means that it's not a goal proposed by the game, but arbitrarily self-imposed by the player.
Many games actually do not tell you if you already found every item. Even Super Metroid does not give any special indicator for 100% completion. (And "100%" by itself is not a reliable indicator - see also examples of other games where percentage indicators go beyond "100").
I see you're referring to the fact that Super Metroid does display the percentage counter at the end of the credits, but it doesn't tell if that is corresponding to actual full completion, since we have many cases of games in which full completion is displayed in-game with a percentage above 100%. The fact is that 100% does implicitly refer to the concept of full completion; it's basically a synonymous (though sometimes it could be less accurate than other wordings, like "all X levels" or "all victims saved"). In the case of Super Metroid, the game is simply happening to be minimalistic on their awarding message, by using the same X% function even if the player didn't reach full completion. And we can't disassemble every single game that shows a bare X% just to make sure that it's or isn't the maximum percentage intended by the developers, since we can't really discern with certain about their original intentions. The only thing that we can do is trusting what the game is displaying, even if it may be a lie. If there could ever happen to stumble into a "100%" run which is not indicative of the true full completion progress, and assuming the remote chance that no one in the world has yet discovered about the existence of the remaining %, how could we ever avoid that? Disassembling every bit of the game? Contacting the original developers for asking them (and assuming they'll not lie as well)? What if someone at some point discovered a way to reach 106% completion that no one ever discovered before in Crash Bandicoot Warped, through intended game mechanics and without glitching the progress display? In the end there will always remain a chance that it could happen. The only thing we can do is going with the highest % equal or superior of 100 known to be the achievable, and obsolete a run in the case a higher legit % is disovered. By the way, all this only applies to games that do display a bare X% value, without giving any additional awarding message or alternative cutsce, which is uncommon.
This post just reaffirms my point, which is that you cannot know for sure if a set of completion criteria is full and has nothing left (unless the game explicitly says so), and therefore it makes no sense to judge full completion criteria by the game not telling you if anything is left hidden.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Posted: 8/25/2018 8:06 PM
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ThunderAxe31
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Mothrayas wrote:
This post just reaffirms my point, which is that you cannot know for sure if a set of completion criteria is full and has nothing left (unless the game explicitly says so), and therefore it makes no sense to judge full completion criteria by the game not telling you if anything is left hidden.
I didn't talked about cases in which the game isn't telling it, but rather cases where the game is telling and lying, which is a different matter. The yardstick is based upon what the game proposes. Even if the actual full % could be wrong, the request of the game is still clear. A game may lie when it says that there are only 100% items to be found, but it's not the problem: the important fact is that it's telling you to get the items, regardless of how many additional ones are hidden around in secret easter eggs.
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"
Posted: 8/25/2018 9:23 PM
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feos
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The game officially promoting maximizing some item or action, can't be completely disregarded if we want to come up with a solid full completion definition for a given game. On the other hand, we can't limit ourselves to this alone either, because the community speedrunning the game may happen to have fuller definition for full completion. So to actually define full completion for a given game, we can't have strict rules, but we can have guidelines that would let us understand how to even handle this. Here's what has been agreed on, on IRC:
  • Read the manual.
  • See what the game tracks, recognizes, awards for.
  • Check what existing speedrun community does.
  • Talk to the community and try to come up with an agreement.
  • Keep the definition clear and solid considering the above factors.
I added the last point to indicate that when people are brainstorming, we must encourage them to come up with clear and solid definitions, but we still rely on the community decision. So if everyone agrees that this movie's goals should be considered full completion for this game, at least for tasvideos, we can consider it vaultable. Whether or not we should use the "100%" label, is still to be discussed. The guidelines make an exception for counting things other than percentage:
When counting some units instead of percents, apply similar logic. Refer to collecting all items as "all X".
Using this approach has been agreed on by Nach as I said, but in cases when the full completion goal is a compound one in its nature, maybe using "100%" is just the neatest solution, rather than "all X, all Y, all Z, all [, all \, all ], all ↑, all ←". As for MMX, the Mega Man series just weren't revised regarding branches and new labeling rules. Only SMB and Pokemon games were IIRC.
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.
Posted: 8/26/2018 3:51 AM
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And here when I suggested a special tag for movies, where one of the notes was "beyond 100%" I got shot down for the notion of going beyond 100% absurd. Man does this site get funny at times. I like "Completionist" if we're not defining this as 100%.
Posted: 8/26/2018 7:44 AM
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FWIW, [3257] GBC Shantae "100%" by arandomgameTASer in 1:19:15.18 is called 100%, despite the game not tracking a percentage counter, or giving you any reward for getting everything in the game. I don't really see the problem with 100% tbh. As long as the criteria are well defined and it covers everything in the game world, what's the problem?
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