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Disc Blitz (Compute's Gazette)

Do you believe in flying saucers? If you don't, you will soon. "Disc Blitz" pits you against endless hordes of alien flying saucers.
You only have a few short lives. Use them well.
The article for this game can be found on page 46 of Compute's Gazette Issue 67 (January 1989)

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 27th TAS from this series.
I remember this issue, but I was more interested in typing in the other two games that were published. Shockingly, I never typed or touched this game until now.
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):

Game Ending

This is a game where game play continues forever. In the article, Level 5 is the highest level the game has to offer. Because each level requires the destruction of 4 waves, I stop after destroying 4 waves on Level 5.

Effort In TASing

TASing makes this game easy. The effort was very minimal, yet it required the experimentation of shooting in different orders to determine the fastest solution. RNG wasn't a factor, since the waves were pre-programmed patterns...which the magazine states can be altered.

Human Comparison

This video proves how a human suffers in trying to get to the end destination.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
DrD2k9: I found a way to improve things in Level 1, so NYMX and I are going to work together to redo the other 4 Levels for (hopefully) more improvements.
Because of the way the game determines collisions, the order in which you shoot the discs matters. Basically, when a bullet makes contact with any disc, the game has to check each disc in sequence until it finds the one that was hit. Because of this, it's not always fastest to shoot the disc closet to the ship. Sometimes shooting farther discs actually saves time by minimizing the time it takes to check though collision sequence.
Setting to delayed until we can get this finished; shouldn't take too long.
DrD2k9: Took longer than I would have liked due to real life stuff taking up my time. Anyway, file updated with a 74 frame improvement. Setting to New so another judge can do so.
ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: All right, the movie is optimized and it reaches the intended end. Accepting.
despoa: Processing...

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Posted: 7/31/2023 1:32 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8480: nymx & DrD2k9's C64 Disc Blitz in 01:51.21
Posted: 8/16/2023 3:06 PM
(Edited: 8/16/2023 7:29 PM)
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nymx
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TASer of 2023 Atari TASer of 2023 Exotic platforms TASer of 2023
So it looks like this game was more interesting to TAS than I originally thought. During my initial effort, I did notice a lot of flashing...after shooting a disc. I never really put two and two together until DrD2k9 figured out what was going on. Basically, the Sprite Register is giving the indication that two or more objects are touching. The problem with this, is that the register can't communicate which two objects are touching. So the game's code has to scan and check each sprite in a logical order. So it doesn't necessarily mean that they are in order on the screen, but how the register detects them. This is a known problem with the Commodore 64, which is worked around by good coding. Because of the many games I've TASed for this computer, during this year, I have run across this problem a few times. For one...the glitch that I discovered in Stronghold helped me to clip through walls, only because the game was checking things in an order that ignored my ship's touching of other objects. So, I have made a valiant effort to re-optimize this game according to this new discovery. I have added to DrD2k9's 37 frames (from Level 1 only), increasing it to 74 frames total at the end of four waves on Level 5. I will replace the new movie, once DrD2k9 decides on reviewing privately first.
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. ---- 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? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Posted: 9/13/2023 10:29 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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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. ---- [5564] C64 Disc Blitz by nymx & DrD2k9 in 01:51.21