Cabal is another NES game ported from the arcade. It's really fun, you play as a guy in overalls (or two guys if doing two-player) and are fighting against an entire army. That's right, one guy (or two) against an army of terrorists. I'm not sure what the real story behind the game is, though from what I gather you are fighting to protect your homeland from invading terrorists. Why your army isn't there helping you is beyond me.
I used FCE Ultra to record the movie and the US version of the Cabal ROM. I played through the first 4 levels and posted the WIP here: impact.megarpg.net/cabal.fcm
You may notice that I throw a grenade at nothing once or twice. That is because the programmers of this game made the throw grenade button the same as the fire button. So when I stop to wait for more enemies to appear before firing again, a grenade gets thrown. This happens once or twice. Also, I know missed shots is a no-no in TAS's but in this game it's kinda unavoidable. You can't really tell I missed because you don't see your bullets, all you see is the crosshair. The only way to move the crosshair is to hold the fire button and use the control pad. It can be moved without holding the fire button but that causes your character to run across the screen faster than the crosshair moves, which usually results in death.
Anyway, if there is any interest in this being completed I'll finish it. The game is really fun. So what do you think?
EDIT:
I decided to complete the movie. I'm probably going to redo it before submitting it, though I may not need to. Use the same link to get the finished version.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Sounds like a large percentage of all video games to me...
Tailz wrote:
I decided to complete the movie. I'm probably going to redo it before submitting it, though I may not need to.
After watching this a bit... it's definitely in need of a redo or two. There's no need to miss that many shots, even if what you say is true that it's unavoidable to miss some shots. And it isn't true; you should make every single shot hit, including grenades, because it's definitely possible to do that without wasting time. (Bonus hint: B+left+right moves the cursor right very fast without moving you or firing.) Also, you let the enemies survive much longer than they should. You should kill them the exact instant that they appear, but instead you let them walk around for seconds on end while you shoot buildings (which you should only do when there aren't any enemies alive onscreen). Also, manipulate luck to make soldiers drop grenades for faster boss fights and weapons for... cooler sound effects and crosshairs?
Yeah, I knew I was going to be redoing this at least once. This was really a rough go through to get the feel of the game. Thanks for the cursor hint, it will come in handy. The tricky thing is it only moves the cursor to the right. I can move it up and down as it goes across the screen and once it gets there, but it only moves right.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
I made a test run of the first level: cabal_u_test.fcm. I'm posting this to show what kind of level of control is possible. I make a few mistakes such as not destroying the building before the level ends (since everything disintegrates after the level it's probably fastest to destroy absolutely everything before that, including your own protective walls and background scenery) and I fire a few stray shots (accidentally didn't re-record over them, I guess), but hopefully it gets across that this game can be played with more precision than you'd think and maybe illustrates some tricks with the controls.
It's not letting me download it. It loads this page with a bunch of funny symbols on it and no download window appears.
EDIT:
Nevermind, I got it. It worked when I went to the link in IE. Wow, I see what you mean, that was really nice. Much cleaner than mine. I should have a WIP posted soon. I want to practice with the controls some more and familiarize myself with the enemy spawn locations. Thanks for the help nitsuja.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Well, it's been a while but I took nitsuja's advice and redid the first world of the run. He was quite right; with the cursor trick he showed me I was able to clean up the run quite a bit.
You can see it here: http://impact.megarpg.net/cabaltest.fcm
You may notice grenades fly everywhere. This is a problem I'm looking into but am having no avail with. For some reason when I press the fire button (A button) he throws a grenade, then fires his gun. According to the game controls and www.gamefaqs.com, you throw a grenade by pressing Up+A at the same time. However, he throws a grenade when I just press A. I think this has something to do with the speed of the game, since I'm playing at 25% normal speed. I left it alone for now, but I'll be sure to fix it before the new run is done.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Good going there, Tailz. That looked really neat. :) Just wondering, how many levels are there in the game? I'm looking forward to your next WIP!
And about the grenade throwing, I remember from playing the game, that you throw grenades automatically sometimes when you press A, if I remember correctly. It would of course be nice to get it fixed for the final version, as you said.
Thanks for the compliment. There are 5 worlds in the game, each with 4 levels each. So that makes a total of 20 levels in the game.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
You may notice grenades fly everywhere. This is a problem I'm looking into but am having no avail with. For some reason when I press the fire button (A button) he throws a grenade, then fires his gun.
The grenade is thrown depending on how long you hold the A button before releasing it. You have to hold it for some minimum number of frames (until exactly 1 gunshot happens, I think) to avoid the grenade. Conversely, try using autofire (A, release, A, release...) and you'll spam grenades at an insane rate.
EDIT: Just watched your WIP. It is a lot better than before, but (besides the grenade thing) it is still played sloppier than the final version should be, and you should do more variety of things to keep it more interesting. Also, shouldn't a run of this game be made 2-player? I would think that would be faster and more fun, unless it causes lots of extra lag (which I don't think it does in this game).
Ahhhh, so that's how it works. Come to think of it, I did notice that he would throw a grenade depending on how I pressed the button, but I didn't think to look into it further. That should clear things up. By the way, what speed did you do your test run at nitsuja?
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
What speed did I record at? I left it paused and only used frame advance (besides unpausing during the waits). That's pretty much necessary for this game.
BTW, you can get a newer version of FCEU for recording this here. It fixes autofire and improves frame advance and some other stuff. I tested that it emulates this game exactly the same as 0.98.12 and it does, so you might as well switch to it for this.
I downloaded it and it works nicely. It's going to take some getting used to, but I like using Frame Advance instead of playing at a slower speed. Still having trouble with the grenade thing, I've held the button and skipped 1 frame and he still threw it, then did the same with 2, 3, and 4, and he still threw the damn thing. I watched 2-3 shots fire and got the same result. Maybe my rom is screwy. I'll download a different one and try that.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Still having trouble with the grenade thing, I've held the button and skipped 1 frame and he still threw it, then did the same with 2, 3, and 4, and he still threw the damn thing. I watched 2-3 shots fire and got the same result.
It's a lot more than 4 frames. It's at least 12, I think, but you can keep doing other stuff during that time so it's not like you just have to wait 12 frames every time you fire.
Press , (the comma key) and play my test movie using frame advance to see what buttons I push to pull it off. I think it has to do with holding B after the 1st shot to cancel later shots while still holding A long enough to cancel the grenade.
Also, what do you think about using 2 players? Is there any reason not to do it besides it being harder to record? One player could destroy all the buildings while the other player kills the necessary number of bad guys, or they could take turns (or maybe both concentrate fire on heavier targets if the game counts it as doing damage faster).
It's a lot more than 4 frames. It's at least 12, I think, but you can keep doing other stuff during that time so it's not like you just have to wait 12 frames every time you fire.
Press , (the comma key) and play my test movie using frame advance to see what buttons I push to pull it off. I think it has to do with holding B after the 1st shot to cancel later shots while still holding A long enough to cancel the grenade.
Ok, I'll give that a try.
nitsuja wrote:
Also, what do you think about using 2 players? Is there any reason not to do it besides it being harder to record? One player could destroy all the buildings while the other player kills the necessary number of bad guys, or they could take turns (or maybe both concentrate fire on heavier targets if the game counts it as doing damage faster).
A 2-player run, now that would be spectacular. For me, it would be improbable. With enough practice I could probably do it the way you first suggested-- one guy destroys the buildings and the other takes out the guys. My problem would be controlling both people. I've never been too good with controling two people at once. What's the trick? Is there a certain way to control both people acurately at the same time?
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
About 2 player runs:
One important thing, if you're playing using a keyboard, is to configure your keys such that the keys you need to be able to press at the same time all register even when also holding the frame advance key. The input display feature (,) will again help with determining this. The max I've been able to get on my keyboard is 8 different game buttons at once plus frame advance (not using ctrl/shift/alt as apparently they don't work too well), which is probably plenty for a game like this.
I would say to use auto-hold keys to make that a lot easier, but FCEU doesn't have those yet (although it's in VBA and Snes9x and probably is easy to hack into FCEU).
Besides that, the other trick is to just use frame advance. It's not much of a problem controlling 2 people since no matter how much extra thinking you need to do the game won't go forward without you telling it to, and if you mess up 1 of the players then you have save states for that. Also, sometimes it's easiest to play one player for a short segment, load, play the other player for that segment, load, then remember what buttons you hit for each player and combine them.
As relates to this run:
If you don't think you're up to making the run 2-player, I don't think it would be rejected just because of that if you can make it good enough on its own, but it won't end up being as good as it could be and would probably be obsoleted if somebody every tries a 2-player run of it.
I'll practice with the 2 player run thing and see if I get good enough with it to try. In the meantime, I'll continue with this 1 player version and see how that goes. Who knows, I might even obsolete my own run if I get good enough at 2 players.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
OK, but I wouldn't continue from your current WIP of your 1-player run if you intend to submit it - what I saw of it wasn't good enough for submitting, despite being an improvement over before.
Yeah, I need to get a better handle on the grenades, then it would work right?
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Yeah, I need to get a better handle on the grenades, then it would work right?
Besides that, there were too many times where you weren't shooting anything and there were still guys left alive onscreen (the faster you kill them the faster new ones spawn, so you should move the cursor to where they're going to be and kill them on the 1st frame they appear, which is usually before you can even see them). Also, on some levels you missed a disintegrating piece or two. And, you spent a lot of the time huddled in the left corner of the screen, which is a little boring to see.
Not to be discouraging, but I think you should start over, really take your time on one level, and post a WIP here of it when you're done with it, so suggestions can be offered on how it might be improved before you spend any effort on the levels after it.
I'm redoing the run, going through frame by frame to make sure everything is perfect. However I did leave the very first stage alone because I liked the way it ends. Everything else is being redone. You can get the new WIP from the same link as the previous one. I stopped about halfway through 1-3 because I'm unsure of what to do about the problem I describe below.
Starting on the third stage of world one (1-3), the White Soldier is introduced. This soldier is a pain in the ass. He runs back and forth across the screen shooting at you and when you shot at him he rolls out of the way. The only way to kill him is to follow him with the cursor continuously shooting him until he dies. The time it takes to kill him allows multiple units to appear on screen and makes the run look sloppy. Should I just ignore the white soldier and go on with the level, or try to kill him?
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
However I did leave the very first stage alone because I liked the way it ends.
Eh, I think the first stage also needs redoing, mainly because it took longer to fill up the level meter than necessary (there were several soldiers alive onscreen for much of it).
About the white soldier, maybe there's some trick to them, such as they're invincible to damage after being shot, in which case you could just shoot them occasionally in-between killing other guys, instead of having to concentrate fire on them for an extended time. You might want to check if grenades do more damage to them than a gunshot, also.
I haven't watched your WIP yet, I'll do that...
i am exited to see this run. I did attempt a two-player run of it while back. The grenade this is emulated differently from 3 roms that i had of this game. I cannot remember the difference, but i do remeber there was one. (had to do with the grenades and weapon drops)
I'd post my WIP, but i lost it to a hd crash :(
The grenade problem has been fixed. As nitsuja said, after pressing A to fire, I simply had to press and hold B and A for 12 frames, then release. Not sure why, but it kept him from throwing a grenade.
I've done some experimenting with the White Soldier, and they seem to be invincible until they stop to shoot at you. The thing is, they in the same frame they stop, so they are going to get a shot off no matter what I do. Not to mention it takes about 6-10 frames for them to stop walking and shoot, and sometimes they walk back and forth before stopping, which takes more frames.
I would go with shooting them in-between killing other guys, but since I'm also destroying the scenery to make the levels end faster, it becomes difficult to find time to hit them and then get the cursor back to the next enemy spawn location before he spawns.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
I finished 1-3 today, you can get it here: http://impact.megarpg.net/cabaltest.fcm
I chose to ignore the White Soldier this time. It seems enemies take longer to spawn if I leave the White Soldiers alone, so I'm currently working on a strategy to beat them. A new WIP will be posted when I do. Although, if it is decided that this version is ok, I'll leave it the way it is. It's up to you guys. It looks fine IMHO, the only problem is time. Many frames are wasted waiting for Green Soldiers to spawn. Watch and see.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
