Shovel Knight is a 2D platform game with retro style released in 2014, and inspired by mechanics from NES platform games. It initially features Shovel Knight as the playable character, but then received additional campaigns with other playable characters.
The above video contains commentaries as subtitles. Also, you may notice that the time in the video differs from the submitted time. This TAS was done on an older version of libTAS. Resyncing to the current one resulted in loosing 29 frames. I was lazy to redo a full encode.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: libTAS v1.3.1
  • Syncs on Ubuntu 18.04 amd64 with Linux kernel 4.13.0-36-generic
  • Finish the game with Shovel Knight campaign
  • Aims for fastest real time
  • Take damage to save time
  • Genre: Platform

Tricks

Jump cancel

Jumping cancels a lot of animations: slash, relics with the throw animation (coin, gear), end of the Knuckles animation. As a consequence, slashes and relics are usually done in the air, and are canceled with Shovel Knight lands by jumping again. It also allows to chain slashes by canceling a slash after it hits by a jump and starting another slash instantly.

Quick Charge

Charge Handle upgrade gives Shovel Knight the ability to charge a slash. When holding the attack button, Shovel Knight does a normal slash, and then charges a powerful slash. By canceling the slash by a jump, Shovel Knight instantly starts to charge, which allows to cut a part of the animation.

Thanks

Huge thanks to the Shovel Knight discord community for their feedback, advices and enthusiasm!
Suggested screenshots: 90824, 124997

feos: Every day I'm shoveling! Synced/judging...
feos: So I synced it on Lubuntu 18.04, Kernel x86_64 Linux 4.15.0-20-generic. Attempts on other distros failed because I decided to disable vsync in the game menu, but it otherwise runs fine on Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Debian, even 32-bit.
Ubuntu 18.04 is stable, so we're fine, but I found out there's no easy way to even run libTAS on stable Debian (Stretch), because it depends on packages only available for Buster+. But Ubuntu happens to use packages from Debian Sid, which are considered unstable for Debian, though apparently stable for Ubuntu. Installing packages from Sid to Stretch also works, but it requires some surgery, and I wouldn't want to accept a movie if it only ran with unstable dependencies. Anyway, since coincidentally unstable Debian packages are stable for Ubuntu, we're fine.
Full completion can be decided on in a thread if needed, independently of this judgment.
Great feedback, great movie, congratulations, and accepting to Moons!
fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6100: keylie's Linux Shovel Knight "Shovel of Hope" in 39:37.68
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Please include your OS details, thank you.
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.
keylie
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I included this info inside the movie annotations, do you want me to also write it in the submission text?
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I didn't see Linux version mentioned in the details. But you did mention it uses Buster, which is not stable. This violates our rules: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#LibtasMovies "The version must be a stable release."
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.
Skilled player (1456)
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Excellent TASes, great work keylie! Voted "Yes" for all three runs :)
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
keylie
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Nach wrote:
I didn't see Linux version mentioned in the details. But you did mention it uses Buster, which is not stable. This violates our rules: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#LibtasMovies "The version must be a stable release."
Indeed, I'll modify with a stable distro. By "Linux version", do you mean Linux kernel version?
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keylie wrote:
Indeed, I'll modify with a stable distro.
If you can ensure it syncs or resync it on a stable distro, great.
keylie wrote:
By "Linux version", do you mean Linux kernel version?
Yes, we need to know which Linux version to ensure compatibility. Some stable distros offer newer kernel versions as time goes on, especially if there's important patches. Anything which has a strong possibility of affecting sync should be mentioned, so we can ensure that our judges and publishers can (easily) play back the movie, especially if they're revisiting a movie that was submitted several years earlier.
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.
Alyosha
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This is an amazing advancement in TASing. I would not have guessed at the start of the year that a Shovel Knight TAS would be possible right now . Great TAS and great work to keylie and anyone else associated with libTAS for making it happen. Yes vote.
keylie
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Nach wrote:
If you can ensure it syncs or resync it on a stable distro, great.
All three Shovel Knight TASes sync on Ubuntu 18.04 amd64 with Linux kernel 4.13.0-36-generic
Nach wrote:
Anything which has a strong possibility of affecting sync should be mentioned, so we can ensure that our judges and publishers can (easily) play back the movie, especially if they're revisiting a movie that was submitted several years earlier.
I didn't encounter any parameter that did affect sync in this game, it seems stable among the few environments I tested, and perfectly fast-forward proof.
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keylie wrote:
Nach wrote:
If you can ensure it syncs or resync it on a stable distro, great.
All three Shovel Knight TASes sync on Ubuntu 18.04 amd64 with Linux kernel 4.13.0-36-generic
Terrific. Please add this to your submission notes for each movie, and we should be good to go!
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.
fsvgm777
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Nice, finally the Shovel Knight TASes have been submitted. Note to other encoders/publishers: I will encode and publish all of them once they get accepted.
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Yes vote, and worth a star?
Kirb0l0gist
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Nice job Keylie, didn't think I'd see a new system in the movies list so soon! I didn't think such a recent game could still have so much to exploit.
Post subject: Re: #6100: keylie's Linux Shovel Knight "Shovel" in 39:37.68
Player (26)
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OMG Shovel Knight! Wow, well done! Link to video[/video]
Post subject: Re: #6100: keylie's Linux Shovel Knight "Shovel" in 39:37.68
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And a big LOL at the second defeat of Tinker Knight!
EZGames69
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ever since I saw the tas I knew that libTAS was going to be the future of modern PC tasing, and what a game to do it with. everything from start to finish was a joy. the perfect movements, the damage boosts, the whatever the heck that thing was at 1:59. and I agree with people saying this game deserves a star, doesn't even matter which category ends up getting it, it's deserved. Yes Vote.
[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
Techokami
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That was the least knightly I've ever seen Shovel Knight behave. Yes vote!
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Some of the coins you threw, such as the one while exiting armor town, had no clear purpose. Is there a non-obvious trick you do when you throw a coin?
Trying 127.0.0.1... telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused telnet: Unable to connect to remote host
keylie
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In this case, the coin is used to have a target for the Knuckles relic. When you cast a Knuckles and there is no target, it doesn't do the attack.
Player (26)
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Out of curiosity, would a 100% run for this game be collecting all items? Completing all levels? Maybe both? Is this something that would be interesting to have in addition to the any% run?
keylie
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The credits shows a completion percentage, so 100% is well defined in this game. For Shovel campaign, I think it is all areas, all bosses, all items, all upgrades, all health/magic upgrades, all music notes. It would be interesting indeed, but quite long and it requires a lot of money. There's also NG+ which would be really interesting, as well as Shovel coop!
Patashu
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Doesn't seem to be too long, if the RTA WR is 1h03m08s: https://www.speedrun.com/shovelknight/run/oy2okw6m TAS should be sub 1 hour easily.
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Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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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. ---- [3800] Linux Shovel Knight "Shovel of Hope" by keylie in 39:37.68