JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
No promises, but what would you all think of a Cool Spot time attack? If yes, then some more questions for you: What difficulty would be the most interesting? I know that we have the "play hardest difficulty" rule, but the higher the difficulty, the more cool points you have to collect before being able to leave the level. Also, more are required to enter the bonus levels, as follows: Easy: 30 to finish, 75 for bonus Normal: 60 to finish, 85 for bonus Hard: 90 to finish, 95 for bonus Each level has 100 cool points hidden throughout. The problem is that many are not on the direct path through the level, so as the required number goes up, so does the time spent veering off-course. Also, this is not the only difference in difficulty. There are a lot more enemies in Hard than Normal. The bonus levels would be the best part of the time attack, in my opinion. You bounce up through a 7-up bottle on reappearing bubbles to get to the top. Also, collecting all the points in these levels ends them early, so getting them as fast as possible would make a good video, and speed up the level. Lastly, this game has eleven levels, only ~six of which are unique looking. This may get boring to watch after a while. Plus, there are only six bonus levels, so after completing them, there is still more game to get through. So, here is the final list of questions for everyone: 1) Would this game make a good time attack? 2) What difficulty would be best to play? 3) Should this be a minimal run (completing levels only), or should it include bonus levels as well, or should it get 100 points in each level? Advantages and disadvantages of each choice:
    Easy difficulty:
      Advantages:
        Would create the shortest movie
      Disadvantages:
        Would create the easiest-looking movie Goes against hardest-difficulty rule
    Medium (default) difficulty:
      Advantages:
        Would create a good balance between fast and good movie No need to change difficulty at beginning of movie
      Disadvantages:
        Goes against hardest-difficulty rule
    Hard difficulty:
      Advantages:
        Would create the best-looking movie
      Disadvantages:
        Would create the longest movie Lots of sidetracking may bore the viewer
    Including bonus levels:
      Advantages:
        These would be the best part of the movie, in my opinion. They are fast paced and fun to watch. Only six out of eleven levels would need to meet the bonus stage requirement, allowing for optimization of which levels to collect those extra cool points in.
      Disadvantages:
        Levels would require more cool point collection, and be longer as a result. Movie would be longer, as it includes six more "levels"
    No bonus levels:
      Advantages:
        The movie would have less levels, and less cool point collection would be needed
      Disadvantages:
        Missing out on a potentially cool viewing experience
My answers would be: 1) Yes 2) Medium (or maybe hard) 3) Bonus levels, not 100% I'd like to know what the community thought before even thinking about doing this run, so fire away. And if there is a better way to edit this page, then feel free to let me know, or edit it better, if you are an editor. Thanks.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Former player
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 375
Do a Medium, no-bonus run (the most "strategic," I think), then do a Hard 100% run (all cool points).
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
I have been thinking about this game too. The way you put it I think of two possible ways: 1) Easy, no bonus levels, just run trough as fast as possible. Would be labeled "easy, skips semi-important goals". As I see it, since you're not playing hard, you might as well make it even quicker. 2) Hard, all bonus levels. One option would be to go 100%, because the movie is plenty long anyway, but you'll miss out on the strategy in choosing which levels to go for bonus. Would be labeled "plays all levels" and possibly "items: 100%" if you do that. I have only played the Genesis version of this game. Are there any substantial differences?
Joined: 4/23/2004
Posts: 150
You don't get to play all levels unless you are playing at the highest difficulty. At least that's how it works on SNES. Andreas
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Truncated wrote:
I have only played the Genesis version of this game. Are there any substantial differences?
I've only played the SNES version, so I don't know, but I wouldn't think that they are mostly the same, aside from graphics and sound comparisons.
A Runnelid wrote:
You don't get to play all levels unless you are playing at the highest difficulty.
EDIT: Just tested, Easy difficulty lets you play up until level 11, and according to all the FAQs I found (and my memory), this is the last level.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
I've looked into it for fun a while ago, mostly to see if I can do such a thing too... I've done the first level some 10 times from scratch and made this demo. From what I tested this route seems fastest in general, and has still 2 spots to skip elsewhere. No frame optimisations were done, just route planning. It's also possible to jump from the third to last balloon near the end to an upper one where one is not supposed to get up, but I couldn't get it unless I waited for about 3 seconds to get them into the right position. (still have a demo of it if you want) Feel free to use it...
Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
I'd like to see a 100% run. I like those, cause they show me things I didn't know were there, or just never found. :3
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
I like this game a lot. It's surprisingly good for a game created to sell a softdrink. Normally one goes for fastest completion at hardest difficulty level or 100%, so one of those would probably stand the best chance of being published. Completing the hardest difficulty level requires almost 100% anyway, so you might just as well do everything. I think the choice of difficulty really comes down to how long people are willing to watch it. Does anyone have an idea of how long the runs would be?
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Watching Gorash's demo made me realize that normal difficulty is going to be boring, unfortunately. I am going to have some free time quite soon so I'm probably going to do the first level and first bonus stage, then upload the WIP to see what people think and if the game is worth continuing. I'm still not sure if I'll be going for entire 100%, because some strategy and overall speed will be lost. I could skip 5% on six levels and 10% on five levels if I wasn't going for 100%, but that would require the huge optimization of which levels to get 95% on instead of 90% in order to enter the bonus level.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
The acceleration for this game is incredibly slow; In terms of physics I'd say it's one of the harder games to TAS. EDIT: I've watched my own stuff again and imagined how this would look with 90%... Does spot take the same amount of damage then? Slowing down to kill enemies doesn't look good. If it's possible that way... maybe "plays on highest difficulty" would look nice in the submission...
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
jxq2000 wrote:
I am going to have some free time quite soon so I'm probably going to do the first level and first bonus stage, then upload the WIP to see what people think and if the game is worth continuing.
D'oh! I didn't mention that this would be on hard difficulty.
Gorash wrote:
The acceleration for this game is incredibly slow
I tried lots of left+right to try and find some kind of acceleration glitch, but to no avail.
Gorash wrote:
Does spot take the same amount of damage then? Slowing down to kill enemies doesn't look good.
In Hard mode? Yeah each hit is only one damage point. As far as slowing down to kill enemies, I would think it could mostly be avoided from being able to shoot in all eight directions.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
Careful about that shooting in all directions. The direction you shoot at is somehow computed from the movements over the past few seconds. I tried manipulating it by altering the previous ~5 frames but it doesn't seem to have effect. For moving targets like the bees this is nothing to fear about, but those shells with a small hit box are hard to hit.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Ok, the first level and bonus level can be found here. Thanks to DeHackEd for the upload script. It is not optimized to perfection at this point - for example, I could have chosen to take hits at different spots in the first level to speed things up a bit. To be honest, I didn't have much fun watching it after I was done. The bonus level, which I was looking forward to seeing, ended up not being as impressive as I would have hoped. Therefore, I don't see myself continuing this run, but I wanted to see what everyone else thought of it before I officially decide to quit.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
Using death as a shortcut, very nice. Sadly it results in playing the same level twice. Fast shooting seems to be possible after all. I tried it back then and Spot didn't shoot a second shot, but I only played at 3-6%, frame advance would have probably helped. Nicely controlled jump in the middle. Still I don't see the point in getting so many spots. If you get just fast through the level and collect 60 spots on your way that's enough I'd say. The main challenge in the game comes from the goofy controls anyway so your still playing at hardest difficulty. ;) Would you at least do a 60 spot completion of the first level for comparison?
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Gorash wrote:
Would you at least do a 60 spot completion of the first level for comparison?
Playing on medium difficulty would probably be similar to your run. If I wanted to get the bonus level though, I'd need 85 spots, so then the run would be very similar to the one already there. Which way were you thinking?
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
Completing as fast as possible without stepping so low as to use easy setting. So I would exclude bonus levels. It may look similar to mine, but when I compare those two, getting fast through each level seems much more natural. Such a run may or may not be more interesting, but if every level can be solved within a minute it's at least not boring to watch.
Post subject: REQUEST: Cool Spot
Joined: 8/26/2004
Posts: 5
Does anyone remember that game with the little red dude from 7-UP? It would be so cool if someone would TAS that. Let me know what you think.
Former player
Joined: 4/6/2006
Posts: 462
I remember this game. It's quickly paced enough to make a TAS possible. This would be fun to watch, but I don't know if I can say the same about it being made.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
My mind is way too dirty. For some reason "cool spot" made me thing of something obscene (well, at least from some point of view; some would think of it as beauty).
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
I made a topic on this game a while ago. http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2674 The problem is - on what difficulty should the TAS be, and should bonus stages be included? I encourage further discussion to take place at the other thread.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Warp wrote:
My mind is way too dirty. For some reason "cool spot" made me thing of something obscene (well, at least from some point of view; some would think of it as beauty).
Yeah, the spot where you left your drink on the table is gonna be cool, but some folks'll think the cup ring looks pretty!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/9/2004
Posts: 40
Location: Calgary
Ahhh, I so loved this game as a child. I still need to find the soundtrack. Anyhow, also, would it be 100% collection in each level? That may take some time. But this would be an awesome video to watch, whether 100% or not, since I don't remember beating the game, but I loved the levels.
Joined: 10/25/2005
Posts: 12
Anyone still taking any interest in this game? I think an easy run with no bonuses would be the best...
Player (80)
Joined: 8/5/2007
Posts: 865
Hey guys! I'm completely new to TASing, but I figure Cool Spot is a nice game to start on. It's modestly popular, pretty straightforward, but still requires a fair amount of route planning and optimizing. I also noticed a couple of requests for it. That said, since I'm new, I need a bit of help. Here's a few questions: •Is ZSNESw allowed? I think it's also known as ZSNES WIP or something. I presume it is, but it would be very embarrassing if I completed my run and found out it's illegal because I used the wrong emulator. •Is there a way to make a graphics layer translucent (i.e., semitransparent)? Spots are hidden behind all sorts of objects, but it just so happens that the layer they're hidden behind is also the layer for important things like the ground. I'd like to be able to see where I'm going while searching for spots (at least in my preliminary runs). Is there perhaps a way to force one layer to be displayed on top of the other instead of the default ordering? •Is there an easy or efficient way to make level maps? I'm thinking about putting together a whole bunch of screenshots, but the prospect of that is more than daunting. What do most people do to make level maps? I hope to have a sample level up in a day or two. I've already come up with an invincibility cheat and an infinite time cheat to familiarize myself with each of the levels and track down every last spot. Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance!