(There is no sound, and the start looks like it is frozen. These are expected behaviors.)
Mega Man 83 - ASM
for the TI-83 Calculator
in 7:39.667
So, while TI83Hawk has been a part of Bizhawk since the very beginning in early 2012, it's never really been reasonable to try to submit TASes for the TI-83 calculator. As far as I can tell, the original Hawk core never had the ability to handle assembly-level programs, and possibly even BASIC programs, meaning that the
two attempts at submissions over the years resorted to TASing the process of programming a game into the emulated calculator, and then finishing the TAS by playing through the entered game. Neat idea, was not accepted into Vault. (Maybe new Playground rules?)
But in 2022, CasualPokePlayer released a brand new TI-83 core for Bizhawk, called Emu83, and it addressed these lingering issues. Thanks to
this YouTube video posted by TiKevin83, I learned how to run Assembly-coded TI83 games--probably the only ones worth running! The process was pretty complicated at first and I could not find any actual write-up on how to use this core, so, for anyone who's interested, I'll quickly type out the process I followed from TiKevin83's youtube video:
HOW TO USE THE EMU83 CORE
- Use the Multi-Disk Bundler to combine your Assembly Shell Program (AShell, ION, MirageOS, etc.) and your game's program file (or files) into one .xml, and load that into Bizhawk.
The core wants them to be .83g and .83p files. Anything else is likely a version intended for a different calculator model and probably won't work.
- Turn the calculator on using the ON button, which is spacebar by default. Bizhawk has a clickable 'Keypad' window you might use, but the ON button does not work very well with it.
- Press the SEND button once. This key is not bound by default for some reason, and there is no associated button in Bizhawk's 'Keypad' window! You must go into the controller configs and bind it to a keypress or mouse press.
- In Bizhawk's lower status bar, an activity LED icon will light up into a yellow circle, indicating that a program is being SENDed into the emulator. When this yellow circle becomes un-lit again, the first program pointed to in the .xml is done.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 once for each file in the .xml. This is often only two times total for Assembly-coded TI-83 games, but some games have, for example, individual level files loaded separately from the main program.
- Now you can continue like you would on any TI-83 calculator. Go into the PRGM menu, run your Assembly Shell program to get it installed, and when it's done, go back into the PRGM menu and run program A at the top of the list to load into the shell. Your game should now be at the start of the list. Enter into it, and you're off to the races.
FILES USED IN THE MULTI-DISK BUNDLER FOR THIS SUBMISSION:
MEGAMAN.83P
ASHELL.83G
^^ In that order.
I am linking to them for judging simplicity because none of the files are paid-for licensed products, this is all homebrew. Oh, I also used the TI-83 v1.02 firmware rom, in case that matters.
THE GAME
MegaMan83-ASM is the Assembly-language version of the TI-83 version of Dave Jaklitsch's homebrew Mega Man game for TI calculators. He ported it to quite a few different calculators in the line. Apparently
there's even a soundtrack in the game, although it definitely doesn't play on the emulator. TI-83 calculators don't have dedicated sound hardware, but
people figured out how to use the I/O port as a headphones jack to output 1-bit audio waves, which is neat as hell.
Anyhoo, this game is a very stripped down Mega Man experience, though it's definitively still a Mega Man-style game. You must defeat 8 stages in any order, and then one final stage to end the game. Each stage has an end boss. Defeating him will give you his weapon, and all 8 bosses are weak to one of the other boss's weapons. Each of the final boss's two forms is also weak to one of the 8 copied weapons. There is also a secret weapon that Mega Man can acquire, but the process to make it work is a secret, and I cannot find the answer anywhere on the internet anymore. I did find it once twenty-something years ago I swear but haha yeah good luck with that nowadays. I feel like it wouldn't help speedruns either, but I really can't remember for sure.
THE RUN
I'm not going to describe things level by level because the game is basic enough that the viewer can understand most things just by watching. The level sequence is Anchorman > Policeman > Madman > Salesman > Milkman > Mailman > Doorman > Freshman. The final boss is weak to Anchorman and then Mailman.
- Horizontal moving enemies take three shots to kill, vertical ones take two shots.
- Mega Man can fire his selected weapon only once every 20 frames, depending on lag.
- Ceilings are a lot more restrictive to Mega Man's movement than you would expect.
- He also does not move with 'momentum' of any kind, so jumping before a ledge makes no difference compared to just walking off. So each stage is just "run to the right, jump when necessary, shoot if you really have to," and not much more thinking than that.
- Bosses do not have quick or evasive movements, so it's just a matter of running up to them, firing as quickly as possible.
- Some boss weapons freeze the screen when used, either by the boss or by Mega Man, this is normal.
- Some boss weapons only move forward a few steps from Mega Man before disappearing or boomeranging back--boss fights where I use these require some extra walking forward at the start before the shots can reach the boss.
- It is ideal to defeat Freshman last because his copy weapon actually requires Mega Man to be very very close to his enemies to hurt them, so it's faster to not have to use it.
- The first phase of the final boss can only be damaged at the tip of its laser weapon, so jumping to its height is necessary--it could be shot twice per jump if only you had one more frame of airtime, but it is impossible, so many jumps are required.
Aaaaand that's about it! Thank you to CasualPokePlayer, TiKevin83, everyone involved in making Bizhawk and bringing the TI-83 into its fold in the first place, Dave Jaklitsch, and to you for reading all this, you're so nice
