Twisted_Eye
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Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
Walllljumps, huh, I'm not sure if that's possible in this one, I don't think it works like that. I like your improvements so far, though, keeping jumps to a minimum and taking optimal paths; I liked how you hit that flying cat with the arrow thing since you were just going to keep running anyway, that's a nice touch!
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Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I know that walljumps depend on a simplistic check for whether you're on the ground or not (I think the assembly equivalent of 16*(y/16)==y ), and this game is probably too complex for that sort of thing. It'd still be worth it, though. That very long wait in one of the later levels needs all the help it can get. For now, I'm having fun with this. I just finished the forest level and cut off more than 3 seconds. I also found a strange graphical glitch and a cool picture that results from firing a flash arrow before catching onto a wire.
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Twisted_Eye
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Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
Another graphical glitch in that very area I've found is that sometimes, jumping and sparking onto a wire can make Pulseman come out of it looking like coming down from a jump and then stay that in that same image for a while while running on the ground after. What's the graphical glitch here, the fact that they shared the sprites for the trailing volteccer bits and the flash arrow? I...never noticed that before, that's pretty cool
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Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
Heh. That glitch you mentioned is actually in the latest gmv. For the pic, I just thought it was cool that Pulseman had a mini-me. Edit: I just realized that I beat you in the first bonus stage by 17 frames. w00r.
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Twisted_Eye
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Joined: 10/17/2005
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Location: Seattle, WA
heh, you're right. Great wip there, the way you blacked out the second area of stage 2 and still beat the level was pretty awesome. I'm sure you didn't straight copy the input from your previous run to make it all work in the dark easily; that's what I would've done, being lazy and all. But yeah, great strategy on that bonus stage, using the green bar to make it faster and cutting out on some lag with the cutting in and out of volteccer state. Nice work!
Player (80)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
Thanks. I kinda did do that for the wire area. I discovered that carelessly switching wires can cause lag, so I made sure to switch wires only when necessary and did the level without the blackout. I noted the first frame my y-coordinate changed when I was on the wire. Then I started the level with the blackout and used the frame where the y-coordinate changed to get the movie in sync. Also, I just finished the tree boss. I think you'll enjoy it. If I didn't see how fast you did it, I probably wouldn't have bothered trying to optimize it. You can use this state to skip the other stuff. Edit: I just found a way to make it even faster. It's a good day.
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Twisted_Eye
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Location: Seattle, WA
Did sparking make you do more damage!? I remember having to hit five times---YEAH I do and you only hit four times. Excellent discovery!
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Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I accidentally volteccered a little too late and discovered that I can hit him twice with the same shot; once as I'm leaving and once as I'm entering. I wouldn't even have noticed if I didn't have the ram viewer going. Doing this twice ends up saving 74 frames over what I posted earlier. Overall, I gain almost as much from this boss fight alone as from all the improvements up to it. (Of course, the earlier boss fight was very sub-optimal.) I hope there's more fun stuff to be found on the Stage 3 miniboss. Edit: Yup. Apparently he takes 10 damage if you punch him while you're near the ground. The fight isn't nearly as frantic and exciting, but it only takes 3 hits. It only ends up saving me 20 frames to the fadeout, though. Edit2: The sig has been updated. I also discovered a way to cut out the wait in the area 5 of Australia, so it should be a little less boring when I get to it.
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Location: Oregon
Progress has been really slow, but I'm not dead yet! I managed to beat your S3 boss time by about 45 frames, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I found the memory value of the timer that determines how long I have to wait between flashes, so each one is done on the soonest frame possible. I also made sure each flash does 10p damage, which was as much as I could manipulate. I can't picture this fight ever being more than 5 frames faster. To cancel out the surprise, I discovered that my dyslexia was responsible for most of the gain on the S2 boss. It's still a 6+ second improvement over v1, but not 21 like I calculated. Edit: I also squeezed 3 frames out of the s3 bonus. I don't have nearly enough patience to figure out if there's a way to get everything with one volteccer.
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Player (80)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
This game is making me suspicious. I know there's some kind of walljump here, but I don't know how to isolate it. If I start out from this state, pushing left while falling against the left wall results in a 1-pixel push to the left every 8 frames (until I get near the bottom of the wall). A similar but less frequent thing happens with the right wall. Additionally, volteccering from this state results in standing on an invisible ledge. I'm going to do what I can to figure this out, but some help from someone with more experience would be appreciated too.
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Twisted_Eye
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Location: Seattle, WA
Greatly enjoying the work so far, you were even able to fall through the slant in s5aWhatever! I haven't been able to reproduce that but you got it right on, awesome. As far as your 'walljumps,' here's the thing. Your first one sure is weird, but unless you can get Pulseman's feet in there there's no walljumping. I definitely haven't seen that before, though. Your second state, however, you're not grabbing a ledge but actually glitching into the wall; the end result is the same deal as when I glitch into the walls a couple times during my run. It's pretty interesting how you were able to do it that way, what with the funkiness of being above the screen and all. But I don't think it could ever be useful unless you somehow glitch into the MIDDLE of a wall, where you can hand-zip to the top by jumping every two or three frames with some somersault kicks in the middle, I think, making it zip even faster. But yeah, it seems like your glitch here can't happen in any other type of situation, and there's no way to zip horizontally in the game like in Megaman. --Actually no, I remember, in Stage 5 there's an elevator that goes up a shaft, one time I got the roof to the left-under the shaft to zip me to the left incredibly fast, but there are very few places in the game where you have to go left, and it was definitely due to the elevator moving me so I don't think there're more than a couple even possible places for a similar zip. But YEAH. Still checking in occasionally, good work dude
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Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I can't believe how lucky I was about falling through that diagonal. I was actually expecting to exploit another glitch and only found that one because I messed up the jump. I've tried to duplicate it at the beginning of the level, but haven't managed to make it work so far. As for zipping, I'd like to see a screenshot of where you're talking about. It's worth it even if there's only one place it will help. This is going on hold for a little while I work on end-of-the-year stuff, but it'll be back in a week or two.
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Twisted_Eye
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Location: Seattle, WA
Do you mean the zipping from my movie or from the time I got sent to the left on a freak accident? I don't know how quickly I could redo that, if I CAN redo that second one I mean. The first one's easy to find a screenshot of, except it wouldn't be of anything; it's the exact same thing as what happens in your second state, but Pulseman's behind the wall in depth so you can't see him. I think you can still see the air puffs from when he jumps though, haha.
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Location: Oregon
I thought you meant something you didn't show in your tas that could be done in my low-glitch version. A demo of glitching the dark pulseman boss would be sweet, but I don't expect that. I suspect I misread your post, so neither of those may exist.
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Player (80)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I found a really cool trick. Here is a movie and state to start from. It took my robot half a day to find, but I think the time was well spent. Edit: Here's a gif, because it's just that cool. Edit2: This actually confirms that this level is trying to kill me. The end result will certainly be fast and wtf-ish, but I'll probably be 50 before I finish it.
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Twisted_Eye
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Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
hahaha, wow, this game just keeps getting better!
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Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
This isn't quite dead yet. I have an initial version of the Alaska falling level done. I'm pretty sure I can improve it, but finding a fast enough bug exploit can take my robot anywhere from 30 minutes to >20 hours per jump. The gmv is here and a starting state is here. The next boss is going to be tricky too. Twisted Eye's times are proving difficult to beat.
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upthorn
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Joined: 3/24/2006
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IdeaMagnate wrote:
This isn't quite dead yet. I have an initial version of the Alaska falling level done. I'm pretty sure I can improve it, but finding a fast enough bug exploit can take my robot anywhere from 30 minutes to >20 hours per jump. The gmv is here and a starting state is here. The next boss is going to be tricky too. Twisted Eye's times are proving difficult to beat.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're trying to beat a glitchy run's times, isn't a less-glitchy run going about it a little wrong? Edit: or do you just mean the bosstimes, which weren't glitched badly in the first place?
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I meant his times on the next boss, which doesn't use the movement glitch.
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Twisted_Eye
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Location: Seattle, WA
And I do so love it when you improve on my times. I'm glad that you're having trouble beating them, though, in the sense that it means I did a good job. I'm going to watch all you've got again, I love this game and its runs so much.
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Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I'd like an opinion on taking damage for entertainment. My wip is here and a working state is here. The damage happens around 75000. Twisted Eye, I managed to beat both your Dark Pulseman fight and your bonus times. It was by 19 and 9 frames, respectively, but I beat 'em. It's a good motivator to have a previous tas to compare mine against.
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Twisted_Eye
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Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
The way you take damage is unexpected and pretty entertaining, but I don't know how well received taking damage for entertainment at one point in an otherwise damage-less run would be. My run took damage, too, though, but after the TAS ended. And I know exactly how much easier it is to do things when someone else sets a standard--comparing my wip to your testrun for bosses and bonuses was how I made my run!
upthorn
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The damage is a little entertaining, but it's not worth breaking the "takes no damage" category for. If you find places where damage can save time, then I'd be for it.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Player (80)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
It's time to post one final wip. This one stops at the final minibosses. If there are any problems, now would be a very good time to post about them. The bosses will be done within a day or two. I used a robot for the autoscrollers, so that's why they're strange. It'll be explained in the submission text.
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EZGames69
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Joined: 5/29/2017
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I dont plan on doing a serious TAS on this game right now, but I did want to look at possible improvements. So far the only thing I can see that can be improved is basic movement. I managed to save I think half a second in the first 3 rooms of the game. Link to video
[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