Game & Watch Collection 2 is a collection of two classic games, Parachute and Octopus, from the Game & Watch series with a new game that combines the two, Parachute x Octopus. Starting with the first Octopus session, each cycle follows the pattern where the points gained during the Octopus session determines the reward for the following Parachute session, with each parachute granting 10 points at most.
This movie reaches the point (1000 mark) in Parachute x Octopus where the speed of parachutes and tentacles stops increasing. As a note, the difficulty increases only as the displayed score counter increases, which means the technical maximum difficulty settings don't take effect until after the inputs end. Detailed explanation can be seen here.
The system time at the start is manipulated to make sure the third parachute doesn't get stuck on the tree.
A trick to cancel the treasure grabbing animation early by moving left and then back right to initiate a new treasure grab in order to increase efficiency is used through out the movie.
The overall strategy mostly comes down to:
grabbing treasure as frequently as possible and head to the surface for 3 points if the treasure is blocked, unless the parachutes are already falling because it wouldn't be possible to return underwater immediately in that case
manipulate for as many parachutes as possible (after the first session) by avoiding being right below a parachute that would have spawn at the specific time
An alternative strategy that might be worth considering if automating becomes possible is to immediately return to the surface after each treasure grab whenever possible.
Typically Game & Watch games have a value that keeps track of game difficulty that goes up the longer the game goes. Does Parachute X Octopus really not have a value for that?
I have found 3 addresses relevant to the difficulty:
0x0F0FC4: the maximum number of parachutes on screen at a time
0x0F188C: the speed of tentacles (and parachutes)
0x0F188D: also related to the speed of tentacles
Apparently, the latter 2 values stay the same after the 999 mark, but the first value varies from 1 to 10 until it stabilizes at 8 after the 9999 mark.
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638171462191305515
I have made a longer version that reaches the 999 mark, around which the speed of the tentacles and parachutes no longer increases. The YouTube video link has been updated accordingly as well.
Review: I noticed ViGadeomes has claimed this, but I thought I might have some useful insight, so I decided to do a review.
Background
I've spent a significant amount of time playing around with and TASing games in the Game & Watch series, and I'm rather fond of the unique puzzles they present. I'm particularly knowledgeable about the games in the first Game & Watch Gallery, which include Octopus. One of the most relevant features of most Game & Watch games is how the score affects game speed: game speed will increase as the score approaches a multiple of 100, and then reset to a new minimum when that multiple is reached, usually higher than the previous cycle's starting point.
Game & goal choice
The game choice here is good, as a game unique to this collection. The Game & Watch Collection games have no overall progression or connection between subgames, in contrast with the Game & Watch Gallery series.
I'm a bit uncertain whether an additional cycle of Parachute is necessary after this milestone is reached. I would personally be inclined to default to the 1000-point threshold as the more natural endpoint as the point where the difficulty stops increasing. I can understand the argument that this game has discrete loops of parachute and octopus, and the rules do say "[you may end after] the loop with the hardest in-game difficulty (enemy speed, AI, etc.) is completed", but the score-based loops are a more intuitive ending point to me.
Optimization
For clarity, I am referencing the updated movie file in the forum post above mine. On the surface, this movie seemed pretty good to me. I was surprised at how short the video is; Game & Watch games vary in length, and some take much longer to reach 1000 points.
However, when I began looking at the Octopus sections, I found significant optimization flaws. Specifically, this submission is missing the fastest treasure grabbing technique, which is to cancel the treasure grabbing animation early by moving left and then back right to initiate a new treasure grab; this is not always possible because of tentacle positioning, but it is often possible. This is not even a TAS-only strategy either; it's very viable in real-time, though you have to adjust when you move based on the game's current speed, which is in turn based on the score.
To understand this technique better, I made a proof-of-concept movie that reached 200 points. Comparing this movie to the submission:
At frame 3826 -- original score: 74, new score: 100
At frame 4065 -- original score: 100, new score: 133
At frame 4920 -- original score: 138, new score: 200
These sorts of comparisons aren't always useful with marginal score differences in Game & Watch games, but this difference is fairly significant, and it seems intuitive to me that this time save would continue to accumulate over the course of 1000 points. Based on the trend and the game's mechanics, I think an improved movie would be shorter than 2/3 the length of this submission. My proof-of-concept is not optimized, but it should effectively illustrate the basic technique and provide a basic comparison benchmark.
There are other optimizations. Varied movement (and maybe other inputs?) will affect when parachuters spawn and where they spawn. I just copied the starting parachute inputs from this movie in my proof-of-concept, but it definitely affects the speed. As far as I understand, the octopus tentacles are cycle-based, not RNG-based (though the starting positions are probably randomized), but there could potentially be sophisticated planning around the cycles. There are also some general nuances of point-scoring that I don't fully understand, such as certain extra points and missing points in places.
Summary
Overall, the lack of animation-canceling makes me think this movie is not quite in an acceptable state for publication; I think the submission should be revised to implement this technique.
Also, as I mentioned in my game & goal choice section, I think the extra round of Parachute at the end of the movie may not be necessary for full completion.
Okay, I spent a few hours and decided to finish my proof-of-concept: updated movie. I saved at least 00:33.06. Not quite as significant as the theoretical 1/3 reduction I claimed earlier, because the gains started to slow down in the second half of the movie. There were some frustratingly close missed cycles that I might look into.
It follows the same ruleset as this movie, though it also subverts it somewhat. The movie technically ends with a final "cycle" of parachute, but the cycle is trivial (no parachutes fall) and merely serves to give the final +3 bonus to reach 1000 points before eventually forcing the player back into Octopus.Unfortunately, I just realized this doesn't quite follow the same goal. It enters parachute at the end, but it's really during the buffer zone where parachute is still accessible after entering octopus.
I did not include unnecessary rhythmic and high-speed movement movements because it made it more straightforward for me to construct the movie. They could certainly be added, but I did not think the entertainment gain was significant compared to the time it would take me to add them.
There are a few improvements I'll probably look into over the next few days: probably mainly the +3(?) bonus points after emerging from Octopus, but also possibly the initial RNG. As for the parachute spawn manipulation, I think I've basically figured out how it works: often parachutes will not spawn where the boat is positioned, so strategically eliminating or altering certain parachutes (intentionally or unintentionally) can speed up or slow down a cycle. Parachutes can be forced to spawn if there are too few of them on-screen.
Update: I updated this post on 8 June, 2023. I've indicated additions using the word 'Update' underlined, and deletions using strikethroughIntro
I have uploaded two new movie files now: User movie #638214192658269839 and User movie #638214192973773572. The first one reaches 1000 points, while the second one additionally completes parachute after reaching 1000 points; for individual optimization, they diverge slightly. Either way, a clear improvement over the submission of at least 00:25.66. Earlier I mentioned I improved it by 00:33.06, but that is based on a misunderstanding of game mechanics and is only comparing when 1000pts was reached.
Difficulty variables
I was looking at the difficulty variables Fortranm found (0x0F0FC4, 0x0F188C, 0x0F188D; each 1 byte values in Main RAM), and I wanted to document how their values correlated with the score, since it's relevant for determining when this movie is complete:
Goal choice revisitedUpdate: The differences between ending with parachute and ending at 1000 points are somewhat rendered moot by Fortranm's latest movie, which ends the movie at parachute and reaches 1000 points just as the parachute section ends.
At the risk of overexplaining or repeating myself, I'd like to briefly elaborate on why I personally prefer the 1000 point milestone as the movie's endpoint. From the relevant rules:
Movie Rules wrote:
If there's no clear ending, end after completing the first full game loop. However you may play further and end after any of the following:
[...]
The loop with the hardest in-game difficulty (enemy speed, AI, etc.) is completed.
For me, I see the game looping in difficulty every 100 points, gradually speeding up until the next multiple of 100 is reached, and then advancing to a slightly more difficult loop. Under this interpretation, the game would have its most difficult loop between 900 and 1000 points, and reaching 1000 points would be the end of that loop. I like this because it fits naturally within the logic of most Game & Watch games that I'm aware of.
There is some precedent we can look at: #7340: Fortranm's DSi Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr. in 03:49.80 specifically the "Ending" section of the judgement. In this movie, a final round of fully unlocking all four parts Donkey Kong's cage was completed as the endpoint of the movie.
feos wrote:
It is correct that when aiming for maxing out the difficulty in a game without an ending, one has to actually complete the most difficulty loop. We don't really care about how the score is displayed at that time, especially when the internal counter keeps going after the visible counter has looped back to 0. How one decides to time the ending of the movie is probably not critical, especially when the exact point when the loop is considered beaten has to be defined by humans.
I can understand the other argument. This game does clearly alternate between octopus and parachute in distinct cycles. Fortranm's movie goes into parachute an extra time to complete the parachute component after the difficulty variables have theoretically reached their respective maximums.
However, the thing is, each parachute round is not necessarily more and more difficult, because when the round occurs doesn't align with score milestones (it is indirectly affected by the score, but I don't entirely understand the alternation mechanic). Each interval of 100 points is more difficult, based on those difficulty variables.
Game mechanics
I also thought there were a few other things that would be useful to know.
Here are the scoring mechanics to my understanding:
- 1 point from catching parachuters
- 1-2 points from grabbing treasure (not sure how the game decides which to award: sometimes it seems to alternate between 1 and 2?)
- 3 points for reemerging from octopus into parachute
- Update: 10 points per parachute after the first round (doled out one every 8 frames), as long as you've grabbed a sufficient number of treasure in the prior octopus round. With the quick grab, we always manage to grab enough. My guess is that a minimum of 15 treasure is required to reach +10.
- At the beginning of each parachute section, there is a possibility for bonus points. After the first parachuter is caught, the game awards 1 extra bonus point every 8 frames for the amount of times octopus treasure was grabbed since the last time the player was on the surface.Update: My understanding was inaccurate due to an oversight on my part; it's some kind of multiplier for number of parachuters caught. So I want to catch more parachutes, which is the exact opposite of what I was doing (intentionally despawning them).
Given these mechanics, my basic strategy was as follows: finish parachute sections quickly and try to avoid too many stragglers. Because every time you go up to the surface, the octopus bonus point counter will reset, meaning you're going to be penalized later on. At least in my testing, the three bonus points, especially late into an octopus section, do not seem to outweigh the loss of future points, even in cases where going to the surface wouldn't lose any time because tentacles block the treasure chest.Update: In Fortranm's latest movie, parachutes are maximized as far as is possible without automated RNG manipulation, which seems to be the optimal strategy, since each parachute after the first round gives 10 points.
There's definitely potential future improvements with more game knowledge. I even found a way to score a single extra point using the +3 bonus mechanic earlier in the movie, but it would require redoing the whole movie from scratch, and this is not really appealing to me at the moment without better tools for automating the process.
