Space Invaders is a 1978 arcade game from Taito that has received many ports over the decades. This US and European Game Boy port from 1994 is interesting since it has an entire SNES port of the game on the cart, available through plugging in this game into a Super Game Boy. Jeremy Parish has a very good video discussing the historical and technical info about this port.
Run notes
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.8
GB in SGB mode enabled
BSNESv115+ core for SGB mode
Super Game Boy 2 firmware used
Other info
For the most part this plays like Space Invaders. Unlike the Atari 2600 version only one bullet can be fired at a time, which is more accurate to the original arcade version. The plan was to basically keep making shots as soon as possible and to keep at least one alien on the far sides alive to keep the entire fleet moving down as often as possible. The ship has a limited horizontal range that the aliens are allowed to move past so while it seems like I could go out farther to shoot the side groups the game won't allow for that.
I stuck with the goal of competing a loop of 9 waves of invaders. This is different from publications of the Atari 2600 port and Pepsi Invaders TASes since those clear only one wave. At WRAM address 0x010306 there's 3 bits that determine what the next wave difficulty will spawn after clearing the current one. It starts at 0 and rolls over at 7. Upon completing loop 9, the next wave difficulty to call is at value 0, so the 2nd wave difficulty spawns next. Stopping at the last input of wave 9 is what I would consider exhausting all unique content since the game will continue indefinitely going through waves 2 though 9.
Special thanks to ShesChardcore for taking her time to check over my work.
CasualPokePlayer: Fixed movie file not being properly detected as SGB.
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Ignoring the Atari console ports.
For my memory sake. Doesn't the Invaders become progressively more aggressive as time goes on til a specific level where it becomes static or am I just misremembering?
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
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Isn't this Soace Invaders: The Arcade Game the same game as SNES Space Invaders: The Original Game, but rebranded and without the VS mode? Because I believe this movie would sync on the standalone version by simply truncating the beginning of the movie up until the Super Game Boy switches execution mode to pure SNES. This would also save about 20 seconds for identical gameplay.
It's also worth nothing that if we're not careful. we could end up in a weird situation in the future where someone submits a movie for SNES Space Invaders: The Original Game, which could either obsolete this one, or be published alongside it under a completely different system. I'm not sure if some preventive action needs to be done prior to publication to avoid any technical issue.
Isn't this Soace Invaders: The Arcade Game the same game as SNES Space Invaders: The Original Game, but rebranded and without the VS mode?
Yeah. That's covered in the video linked in the submission.
I suppose cross-obsoletions are acceptable in this case for sure, although I definitely wouldn't mind for this submission to stay as it is for technical demo purposes. :P
Edit: Apparently SI: The Original Game is also released on CD-ROM: http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Space_Invaders_Original.htm
Not sure how different it is from the SNES versions.
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Looks like some good points mentioned.
For one, I always wondered why the Atari 2600 version stopped after one round...seeing that the starting point was lower on the next. But, the aggression was clearly the same thereafter.
In regards to comparing it to the Arcade version...if the code is the same, then it doesn't seem to have any difference and is essentially the same game. Seeing that I TAS a lot of C64 games where trainer/hacking screens precede the actual official game, I know that the staff wants to have the original and untouched versions. As it stands now, I can only recall the rule of allowing this in similarity to using VC to load up a game.
Aside from the choice of console/game, I see that you executed this well. I love these classics, and I give you a yes vote. :)
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence.
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SOYZA: Are you playing a game?
NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing.
SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real?
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Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes?
Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :)
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BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
I took a look at score attack videos of arcade Space Invaders and the difficulty seems to max out there at the third wave onwards, where the invaders start pretty much on top of the barriers and are firing a whole lot more. I suspect that, this being as faithful of a port as it is, the same difficulty cap should also happen here. I'll work on this and post an updated input file in the afternoon.
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Darkman425 wrote:
difficulty seems to max out there at the third wave onwards, where the invaders start pretty much on top of the barriers and are firing a whole lot more. I suspect that, this being as faithful of a port as it is, the same difficulty cap should also happen here.
You can confirm this easily by transplanting your input across on the waves after just as a note.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
I managed to find the WRAM address that corresponds to difficulty. At address 0x010306 there's a counter that changes every time a wave of invaders is cleared. This starts at 0 and caps out at 7. this should mean that completing 8 waves is what would be considered a loop, but I haven't confirmed if clearing out the 8th wave will result in a wave 2 setup or a wave 8 setup, since the 8th wave will have the address at 0 like the 1st wave.
It takes 9 waves to loop back to the 2nd wave difficulty, Here's a user file to replace the current file that exhausts all content for a loop of boards.
User movie #638078671425645124
I'm not sure if more obscure versions of this game is relevant or not to the discussion, but I just wanted to let you guys know that a Satellaview version of Space Invaders: The Original Game was found and unofficially published online today. Apparently it is identical to the normal Japanese SNES release, except for the header.
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I don't get how to load this game in bsnes. I have it selected in core prefs but reloading the rom makes it stay on gambatte. My rom matches that in the movie header.
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.
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I beat you by 29 frames in the first level by using a strategyhttps://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638082759640614536
I clear out the lower ones because they are closer, so I can shoot again sooner, and while I'm doing that, the top ones shift downwards closer to me. Can probably be improved further by also using planning.
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.
Hmm. Considering that there's 9 waves in a loop, that would by my estimate mean that there's a good 4-5 seconds that can be done better. I'll take another hard look at this in the future to see how much further I can push this down.
