The GamePinball is one of the very first games to be released for the NES, counting even today with a competitive RTA speedrunning scene.
The point of the game is to use the paddles to bounce the ball around and score as many points as possible. Getting the top score gives you bragging rights with your friends and family.
The Competition
Produce a "Game A" TAS that scores 100K in score as fast as possible.
The Rules
TASVideos rules for movie submission apply
Glitches, if you find them, are perfectly acceptable
The last input frame (not the frame where 100k is displayed) counts as the final point of the movie
Teaming up with others is allowed and encouraged
Only one submission per user/team is allowed
Idea exchange in forums/discord is allowed
Sharing or uploading WIPs before the deadline is discouraged. The goal of the contest is to get as many diverse approaches as possible
You may use any supported emulator you like, as long as you don't exploit any emulation inaccuracies to improve your score.
The Example
The current RTA WR by JackPro achieves this goal in 01:17.467:
Link to videoThe Bot
I will not participate in the competition directly. Instead, I will be using JaffarPlus to produce a fully botted solution. I will be revealing this solution at the end of the contest. Those who beat its score will receive a special mention.
The Awards
The list of participants and their awards will be officially posted in the forums for all to forever bask at your glory. The following awards will be given:
1st Place - Eternal glory
2st Place - Long-lasting glory
3st Place - Normal duration glory
Simplicity Award - A special mention for the movie with the least (non-empty) input frames
I beat Jaffar - A special mention for those who beat the botted solution
The Registration
You must be a registered user of the site.
Respond to this topic -- this is for all of us to know you're participating!
Submit your movie by uploading it to https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Upload and send me the link via PM or Discord. IMPORTANT: You must make sure the 'Hidden' option is checked so that others cannot see your movie.
You may re-submit as many improvements as needed until the deadline.
The Award Ceremony
We will host a Twitch award ceremony to showcase all our submissions and give out awards. We will have live commentary and special guests! Stay tuned for the official announcement.
The Dates
Now - Contest Begins (Registrations Open!)
Saturday, February 28th AoE - Deadline for Submissions
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 680
Location: Seattle, WA
It's fun to have these little contests around that are guaranteed to be short runs. Makes it easier to go "heck, I've got an afternoon, I'll throw my hat in" and feel less pressure to devote all that much brain power for a long time.
Throw an entry together, y'all
I’d like to enter the NES Pinball TAS competition.
Pinball is not the type of game I usually TAS, so I’m treating this mainly as a learning experience and a personal challenge. Still, I’ll do my best to optimize the run within the competition rules.
Thanks, and good luck to all participants.
Joined: 2/11/2019
Posts: 17
Location: 🇳🇿 New Zealand
I have something going for this one. It's nice that there's only really 2 buttons to worry about during gameplay here. (Start button + plunger timing is trivial)
Don't mind me, I was born on Friday the 13th.
(I'm not TASing that NES game, okay?)
Ah, the RTA WR run was routed via a TAS... No wonder it was good.
Anyways, here are a few things I noticed while working on a few movie iterations:
Strategies redacted in case the original post gets edited.
Good luck everyone!
As this is a competition, I’d suggest not posting such strategies before the end of the competition.
Once it’s done, then posting them is fine. But the whole point of the competition is to see the different strategies people come up with on their own (or as a team). If everyone were to start their runs with this strategy, because you’ve posted it here; it could potentially cause someone to miss a different starting strategy that would actually yield reaching the goal even faster.
I’d suggest editing your post to remove the info until after the competition.
