Over the several months Del's hard work found a few improvements over the previous TAS, and I joined the ride to polish a bit more. Here is our third iteration with an improvement of 867 frames (14.45 s) of in-game time over the 2020 TAS. Enjoy!
Game objectives
- Emulator used: libtas v1.4.5
- Running the speedrun mode
- Aims at fastest in-game time
To unlock the speedrun mode, you have to beat the game once to unlock it. Here is the
movie file which beats the game.
Tricks
See the previous TAS sumbissions for the already known tricks. Here are only the new ones.
Key teleport
Used in level 6-7. When grabbing the key, rewinding to a green state and fast-forward until the green state goes off, we can warp to the position where we picked the key. By rewinding again, we can move back to the green state while keeping the key. This is the major time save of this TAS.
Better grab cancels
Although unintuitive, it is faster to grab cancel ladders from the base, instead of jumping ahead to grab ladders higher. This leads to a few frames of improvement here and there
Top ladder grab cancel
In general, it is not faster, when climbing up, to release a ladder and grab-cancel up. This is because releasing a ladder takes one frame, and although grab-cancel up is slightly faster than climbing, we don't catch enough to make it worth. However, when near the peak of a ladder, pressing forward while releasing the ladder still makes you move up. You can then grab-cancel for two frames, grab the ladder, and repeat the process once more. All of this was performed in the run whenever possible (it is more noticeable by its sound), and it saves exactly one frame each time.
Improvements
Most of the stages were improved with more precise boost speed.
| Level | 2013 TAS | 2020 TAS | Current TAS | Improvement | Cumulative | Comments
|
|---|
| hub | 1025 | 1019 | 1019 | 0 | 0 |
| 2-1 | 2453 | 2299 | 2294 | 5 | 5 |
| 2-2 | 1226 | 1217 | 1210 | 7 | 12 |
| 2-3 | 1281 | 1241 | 1239 | 2 | 14 |
| 2-2 | 615 | 613 | 565 | 48 | 62 | A very precise platform position will trigger a big boost
|
| 2-3 | 254 | 245 | 245 | 0 | 62 |
| 2-4 | 2876 | 2835 | 2824 | 11 | 73 |
| hub | 297 | 297 | 295 | 2 | 75 |
| 3-1 | 291 | 286 | 286 | 0 | 75 |
| 3-2 | 810 | 698 | 695 | 3 | 78 |
| 3-3 | 969 | 858 | 857 | 1 | 79 |
| 3-4 | 1706 | 1644 | 1611 | 33 | 112 | The key was taken with a precise boost on the goomba
|
| 3-5 | 2683 | 2632 | 2631 | 1 | 113 |
| 3-6 | 3714 | 3690 | 3644 | 46 | 159 | A better bounce using the rabbit
|
| 3-7 | 959 | 822 | 812 | 10 | 169 |
| 3-8 | 2669 | 2569 | 2333 | 236 | 405 | With strong optimization, it was possible to barely reach the lever without having to wait
|
| hub | 310 | 310 | 310 | 0 | 405 |
| 4-1 | 378 | 373 | 373 | 0 | 405 |
| 4-2 | 1412 | 932 | 931 | 1 | 406 |
| 4-3 | 1369 | 738 | 711 | 27 | 433 | A slightly different speed after the last spring load gives the perfect trajectory to the door
|
| 4-4 | 1705 | 1656 | 1647 | 9 | 442 |
| 4-5 | 1447 | 1164 | 1156 | 8 | 450 |
| 4-6 | 1369 | 1350 | 1345 | 5 | 455 |
| 4-7 | 1898 | 1867 | 1862 | 5 | 460 |
| hub | 448 | 441 | 441 | 0 | 460 |
| 5-1 | 245 | 239 | 239 | 0 | 460 |
| 5-2 | 1470 | 1311 | 1297 | 14 | 474 |
| 5-3 | 1266 | 1227 | 1221 | 6 | 480 |
| 5-4 | 1604 | 1542 | 1542 | 0 | 480 |
| 5-5 | 3285 | 3242 | 3223 | 19 | 499 |
| 5-6 | 1825 | 1616 | 1547 | 69 | 568 | By using grab cancel up to stay in the air longer while gaining more fall speed, we could have high speed bounce
|
| 5-7 | 842 | 831 | 813 | 18 | 586 |
| hub | 207 | 208 | 207 | 1 | 587 |
| 6-1 | 262 | 258 | 258 | 0 | 587 |
| 6-2 | 1176 | 884 | 884 | 0 | 587 |
| 6-3 | 1052 | 996 | 996 | 0 | 587 |
| 6-4 | 3510 | 3465 | 3465 | 0 | 587 |
| 6-5 | 2587 | 2557 | 2557 | 0 | 587 |
| 6-6 | 3761 | 3551 | 3518 | 33 | 620 |
| 6-7 | 2342 | 1713 | 1484 | 229 | 849 | Key teleport method for a completely new route
|
| hub | 741 | 698 | 691 | 1 | 850 |
| 1-4 | 265 | 265 | 265 | 0 | 850 |
| 1-3 | 391 | 390 | 383 | 7 | 857 |
| 1-2 | 908 | 901 | 900 | 1 | 858 |
| 1-1 | 9009 | 8951 | 8949 | 2 | 860 |
| epilogue | 1757 | 1737 | 1730 | 7 | 867 |
fsvgm777: Replacing movie file with one that includes an additional note in the annotations. The total run time remains unchanged.
feos: Claiming for judging.
Originally, Moons (and Stars by extension) didn't care which goal it is as long as it's entertaining, so it made sense to use clean save and savegame interchangeably there for branches that aren't different enough.
But with savegame being Standard and with the policy to always label it, confusion may come from lack of label. If the modes aren't different enough to co-exist, it just means new movies will keep using the speedrun mode, because regular mode makes little sense to actually TAS. If someone does decide to TAS normal mode, slight timing differences may require a discussion about whether it's still worth to separate them.
So I think the branch using the speedrun mode needs a label, but I'll let the publisher decide.
fsvgm777: I personally don't think labeling it as "Speedrun mode" is really necessary here, cause the key difference during main gameplay is that it adds an in-game timer, and the base game is essentially played with the timer present.
Anyways, processing. I am however interested in what other people have to say, though.
