Topic by Spacecow

Posted: 10/29/2005 5:32 PM
(Edited: 11/6/2007 2:09 AM)

Post subject: Mischief Makers

Quote

Spacecow

He/Him

Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire

2D Treasure game = needs to be done! With the slide jump and boosting and all that fun stuff, this game has the potential to be done really really quickly. A lot faster than any other Treasure game I can think of off the top of my head, anyway. This is one of my favorite games for the N64 and I would very much like to see someone more knowledgeable in the game's mechanics and shortcuts than I take a stab at this. edit: comicalflop is working on it now. Hooray! Cheer him on and stuff!

Posted: 10/30/2005 12:45 AM

Post subject: Re: Mischief Makers

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Hmm, when I play this back, it always desyncs at the end of 1-5... I've tried adding/removing frames but you always boost jump into a spike ball and drop the kid. Could someone else see if they're able to watch this? I've been catching various bugs lately but none of them have been related to input synchronization since alpha 5. Besides that, this looks pretty good so far to me, although like you said it can probably be improved and would benefit from knowing or experimenting more with the game.

Posted: 10/30/2005 1:18 AM
(Edited: 2/22/2007 5:27 AM)

Post subject: Re: Mischief Makers

Quote

Spacecow

He/Him

Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire

nitsuja wrote:

Hmm, when I play this back, it always desyncs at the end of 1-5... I've tried adding/removing frames but you always boost jump into a spike ball and drop the kid. Could someone else see if they're able to watch this? I've been catching various bugs lately but none of them have been related to input synchronization since alpha 5. Besides that, this looks pretty good so far to me, although like you said it can probably be improved and would benefit from knowing or experimenting more with the game.

Yeah, I noticed that an hour or so ago when I tried to add some more levels onto the movie (ah, boredom). It's weird, after I finished recording it I watched it all the way through with no issues, but it's desyncing for me now at that same spot too. ...Oh, fucking hell. I recorded a new ending and a couple half-assed attempts on the next couple of levels (they were really bad, you're not missing anything), but now it's desyncing at the same spot it did last time! I'm 100% certain it didn't desync the first time I watched the movie, but now that I've closed and reopened Mupen it desyncs at the end of 1-5 again. How mysterious! I just noticed that I don't have the latest version, I think. It's "v3" and not alpha 5. Don't know if that makes any difference, but it's worth mentioning. [There was a link here. It's gone now.]

Posted: 10/30/2005 1:35 AM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Spacecow wrote:

I just noticed that I don't have the latest version, I think. It's "v3" and not alpha 5. Don't know if that makes any difference, but it's worth mentioning.

Ah, that would explain it. I fixed a bug sometime after v3 which was basically adding a small random number of frames to the start of the movie every time you record or playback.

Posted: 10/30/2005 12:55 PM

Quote

Spoony_Bard

Former player

Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377

While we're talking about Mischief Makers and the emulator, there's a big, or a glitch or something, in stage 4-1. In that stage there's a boulder that chases you down the level, but in Mupen 64 (and I've tried every video plugin at my disposal) the boulder is invisible. (Of course, I dunno if other emulators have this same error, Mupen64 is the only emulator I got up to that far in MM). I can provide the save ram if you want to have a look Nitsuja. It's possible that messing around with more video settings may make it visible. It's not teribly detrimental to play, I managed to complete the level AND get the Gold Gem playing in real time despite the boulder being invisible. But it would look weird if a movie were ever made of it, and as far as I know that's the only invisible object in the game I've encountered. As for the run itself, Mischief Makers could have two runs made for it, pure speed and 100%. There are 52 stages in the game, and 53 Gold Gems (the 53rd is gotten in the ending if you got the other gems and had an average of an A ranking on all the stages). Getting all 53 gems allows you to see the entire ending, plus the final scene of the ending differs depending on what you input as your age. I believe 00-15 gives you one ending, and 16+ gives you the other. The game shouldn't be too hard to TAS, at least compared to other N64 games that have 3D control, it plays much like a SNES or GBA game. But it would still be trickey to get perfect. A 100% run wouldn't be TOO much longer than a pure speed run, most of the Gold Gems aren't too far off the beaten path in most levels, some can be gotten along the way without losing time, and for the Stage Bosses you only need to defeat them without getting hit to get the Gem. But of course, another thing to consider is that if you're doing a pure speed run, it may be more beneficial to get few or NO gems, so that the ending is faster. In that case it may be worth it to take a hit fighting stage bosses as to not get their Gems. Pity that you'd have to skip all the cutscenes in either run, the game has a funny little storyline. Even in the 100% run you couldn't 'choose' to leave the cutscenes in, since you need to get an A rating average in all the levels, and the level timer keeps counting during cutscenes.

Posted: 10/31/2005 1:28 PM

Quote

StrangenessDSS

Joined: 10/21/2005
Posts: 11

I must congratulate you - you beat the console record for 1-1 by one frame. I didn't expect you to do so well this soon. Your other levels are still slower, though, and you do some very silly things. But I'm not going to say what - I can't just give you all the answers. It's too much fun watching people try to figure this game out. Unfortunately, these demos are real annoying to watch. My computer is old, so the emulator slows down to around 25fps whenever anything is happening. And I can't just skip to the parts I want to see. By the way, will you be aiming for in-game time or real time? Parts of The Day Of will be done differently depending on which you choose. In-game time would make for a more interesting video.

Posted: 10/31/2005 1:36 PM

Quote

TNSe

Emulator Coder

Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway

Heh, I think we have to congratulate you instead, of making a run that is so accurate and perfect that frame advance can only beat it by 1 frame...

Posted: 10/31/2005 1:43 PM

Quote

Baxter

Skilled player (1402)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

I don't know the game, and haven't watched the movie... so maybe I can't judge it, but I'm sure frame advance can beat it by more than a frame.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 10/31/2005 3:49 PM

Quote

ventuz

He/Him

Player (123)

Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940

StrangenessDSS wrote:

Unfortunately, these demos are real annoying to watch. My computer is old, so the emulator slows down to around 25fps whenever anything is happening. And I can't just skip to the parts I want to see.

to my finding, glN64 plugin ran this game at awful fps (but good picture), but jabo direct3d8 1.6 ran it smooth (but giving yellow outlines at intro, clancer eyes doesnt glow, etc..) btw good run, but i couldnt watch any farther after frame 11500's because of desync. If i could redownload v3...

Posted: 10/31/2005 3:57 PM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

ventuz wrote:

to my finding, glN64 plugin ran this game at awful fps (but good picture), but jabo direct3d8 1.6 ran it smooth (but giving yellow outlines at intro, clancer eyes doesnt glow, etc..)

You can enable "force alpha blending" to make the outlines not quite so horrible in Jabo's plugins (although it's still much worse visually than glN64 for this game).

ventuz wrote:

btw good run, but i couldnt watch any farther after frame 11500's because of desync. If i could redownload v3...

I'm pretty sure the run can be converted to work with v6 with a little easy hex editing at the start of the movie...

Posted: 10/31/2005 8:45 PM

Quote

Spacecow

He/Him

Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire

StrangenessDSS wrote:

I must congratulate you - you beat the console record for 1-1 by one frame. I didn't expect you to do so well this soon. Your other levels are still slower, though, and you do some very silly things. But I'm not going to say what - I can't just give you all the answers. It's too much fun watching people try to figure this game out.

Eugh, I had a big long reply typed out, but I accidentally deleted it. Here's the condensed version: I realize my other levels are slower and have goofy strategies, but this movie was only intended as a proof of concept; a demo video to show how fast the pace of the game can go and all that. Aside from 1-1 I wasn't too worried about ironing everything out (and I only spent a while on 1-1 because I couldn't make that big jump for the life of me until I found the (or at least, a) right variation after at least an hour or two of tinerking, at which point I promptly moved on), so I'm extremely confident that everything can be improved upon. By someone else, of course. I don't have the knowledge, time, or skillz to find the best ways to do everything -- sorry to deprive you of the entertainment of watching me stumble around :) On another note, I've gotten the best results playing this game with the Rice plugin that came with v3 (Daedalus?), though I may not have noticed graphical glitches, just that there was very little slowdown. Finally, if you're planning on doing any hex editing, I'd adivse you A) not to waste your time, and B) please don't touch 1-7crap... it's very embarrassing :)

Posted: 11/2/2005 3:35 AM
(Edited: 7/26/2006 11:32 PM)

Post subject: Re: Mischief Makers

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Here's something: (WIP: http://www.filespace.org/nitsuja/mismakwip.zip)

stage -  wr-time    my time
1-1   -    06.90      06.37
1-2   -    14.43      13.22 
1-3   -    22.43      15.45 
1-4   -    05.97      05.22 
1-5   -    25.85      19.12
1-6   -    34.83      30.82 
1-7   -    20.22      19.05  <- needs redo (< 18.60)
1-8   -    40.22      39.77
1-9   -    22.00      18.13
1-10  -    10.52      10.08

2-1   -    30.40      24.80
2-2   -    14.78      09.95
2-3   -    09.12      08.67
2-4   -    35.67      33.08
2-5   -    09.12      06.13
2-6   -    25.70      24.63
2-7   -    26.00      16.23
2-8   -    21.22      19.83
2-9   -    13.47      10.18
2-10  -    19.73      13.00
2-11  -  1:39.18    1:37.47

out of date:
3-1   -    27.93      19.10  <- needs redo (< 13.95)
3-2   -    26.80      25.48
3-3   -    27.87      23.83
3-4   -    18.97      17.47  <- needs redo (< 14.37)
3-5   -    52.80      54.10  <- needs redo (< 52.80)
3-6   -    20.35      19.22
3-7   -    49.70      24.20
3-8   -    14.32 
3-9   -    34.90 
3-10  -  2:34.38 
3-11  -    09.90 
3-12  -    59.75 

4-1   -    26.15 
4-2   -    26.08 
4-3   -  4:44.10 
4-4   -    40.50 
4-5   -    28.97 
4-6   -    14.97 
4-7   -  1:09.37 
4-8   -    37.65 
4-9   -    35.38 
4-10  -    29.98 
4-11  -    57.07 

5-1   -  1:25.98 
5-2   -    27.43 
5-3   -  1:04.53 
5-4   -    16.87 
5-5   -  1:18.23 
5-6   -    52.27 
5-7   -  1:10.62 
5-8   -  1:20.87

"wr-time" means the best human speedrun times I've found, which I got from the list at the Treasure Fanpage. "my time" means the best time I've gotten so far on emulator. I'm not very far yet, but hopefully the later levels will be better for getting impressive times compared to what's possible on console... Ugh, I just realized you can cancel the end-of-level tune, so I'll have to hex that into the previous levels if it's possible.

Posted: 11/2/2005 12:41 PM

Quote

Spoony_Bard

Former player

Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377

Nice work so far. I especially liked jumping up to the top platform from behind at the start of 3 Clancer Kids. One question though, are you shooting for fastest overall movie time, or fastest overall level time? It hasn't come up yet, but if you want the fastest overall movie time, don't forget to bypass all the Gold Gems to make the ending virtually non-existant. There might be at least one or two in the way that you might have to spend half a second avoiding. And also, the boss battles award gold gems when you beat them without taking a hit, so you'll have to sneak a hit in there somewhere without losing time. (For the record, the stage bosses which do this are 2-11, 3-12, 4-11, 5-5 and 5-7) Though you may not be able to get much more improvement in the battles with Lunar (3-5), Tarus (4-7), and Merco (5-3) since as I understand it those times were gotten after a lot of replaying, trying to get the right conditions. Merco in particular, according to the S-Ranking FAQ, needed everything to happen just right, so there may not be much to shave off in that already long battle.

Posted: 11/2/2005 4:37 PM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

I was thinking that shortest in-game level times would be best, since doing otherwise is sort of like waiting to avoid the time bonus in Sonic games. It's probably more impressive to have the individual levels done faster (and not get hit, if possible) than it is to have more of the ending missing.

Posted: 11/2/2005 5:24 PM

Quote

StrangenessDSS

Joined: 10/21/2005
Posts: 11

Those times are actually a bit out of date. There was a lot of competition over the last couple months, which was also plagued with forum problems... when the new times were finally added to the list, the forum went down again and lost all the new posts. Some of the new times trashed these old records. I'll tell you when I get them gathered up again. I believe picking up the gold gem on the major bosses costs a second, while the in-game timer is still running. But I haven't ever tested it... since you can only get each gold gem once, it's not an issue for console time attacks. As I mentioned before, the largest difference between in-game time and real-time will be on The Day Of, mostly in the long jump event. For the best in-game time, you'll want to max it at 999, at a cost of 5-10 seconds real-time. For the fastest real time, you'll want to get either 0 or 1, which translates to losing ~16.7 seconds of in-game time. I predict that the part which will be fastest compared to playing normally will be the Mathfun event on The Day Of... knowing what questions will be asked ahead of time will give you a large advantage, and is quite impossible on a console without time travel.

Posted: 12/29/2005 6:47 PM

Quote

Spacecow

He/Him

Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire

Just thought I'd mention that there's an SDA topic on this game now, and that I'm hosting some of StrangenessDSS's videos here. :)

Posted: 5/9/2006 10:40 PM

Quote

IMPblackbelt

Joined: 6/19/2005
Posts: 180

I can't play this game on Mupen without it going VERY slowly. Now, I'm a noob to the plugins and things, so anybody out there think they can help me out real quick? If there's more than one Clancer on the screen, the framerate just plummits. If there's NO action on the screen, I'll be lucky to hit 60 FPS. One Clancer (and maybe Marina) will get me about 40 FPS. :( I'd really like to see your WIP, I'm sure I'm going to be impressed. Edit: Nevermind, it's working a bit better. It's slowing down a lot less, but now it has those ugly yellow lines in the background. :( I'm watching the thing now. Edit Edit: Ok, most of the problem is fixed, and the vid looks good. Desyncs in 3 Clancer Kids, but looks very good (I didn't know you could catch them that fast. x_x;).

Posted: 5/10/2006 6:05 PM

Quote

Shadow_Byrn

Joined: 3/16/2006
Posts: 289

The big quesiton is: Has this one been abondoned too? That'd be really sad......

I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.

Posted: 5/12/2006 3:15 AM

Quote

IMPblackbelt

Joined: 6/19/2005
Posts: 180

Yeah, it seems like the threads I post in like to die... am I the thread killer?! :o Zomg, slap the cuffs on me now, I'm a serial killer! ;.; Anyway, quick note. A friend of mine somehow managed to beat Tarus (just the one in the cave where you chuck rocks at him) by running up to him and slamming him on the ground. One shot, one kill. He got a yellow crystal and a S rank from it, and has not since been able to replicate it. Can anyone confirm this as a usable glitch? I hope so, and I hope someone can actually do it... I'd like to see this.

Posted: 5/12/2006 6:53 AM

Quote

Shadow_Byrn

Joined: 3/16/2006
Posts: 289

O.o? OHKO on THAT dude? I've done him fast acidentally, but not that fast!

I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.

Posted: 5/13/2006 10:48 PM

Quote

IMPblackbelt

Joined: 6/19/2005
Posts: 180

Yeah, a one-hit KO on Tarus. I was surprised when I heard it, too. Can someone verify this? Please? I'd like to know how it was done.

Posted: 5/14/2006 8:12 AM

Quote

Shadow_Byrn

Joined: 3/16/2006
Posts: 289

Do you know any of the details of the OHKO? A certain attack that was grabbed at a certain moment or things like that? I would test it myself, but I'm so busy with work that even posting here is hard to do!

I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.

Posted: 5/16/2006 3:57 AM

Quote

IMPblackbelt

Joined: 6/19/2005
Posts: 180

The guy simply said he ran up, grabbed the guy, tossed him down, and got an S rank. 3 seconds, or thereabouts. If I can, I'll get more info on it ASAP, but please try testing and stuff. ;-;

Posted: 5/21/2006 4:35 AM

Quote

nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1300)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

I was thinking about this, but a forum page I found on the Treasure Fanpage makes it pretty much impossible to continue a run of this game until someone can figure out what they're talking about. (Link) They claim to have found something called a "boost grab", which allows for an extra-high jump at slide-dash speed or faster. Supposedly it goes high enough to fly over those blocks at the top of 3-1, which, being 2 screenfuls high, are pretty difficult to get on top of. Anyone have any ideas what this "boost grab" could be, or has anyone else encountered it before?

Posted: 5/21/2006 3:25 PM

Quote

Spacecow

He/Him

Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 247
Location: New Hampshire

My only guess at the moment is it could be some variant of the trick used to gain height in Strangeness' Jump video. http://wheat.cupofdirt.net/mischief/MischiefMakers-310-Jump-999.avi It seems that just the act of grabbing at something (without actually grabbing anything) can influence boosting. It might be worthwhile to just experiment with dash jumps and grabbing like a maniac for a start... unless someone wants to just ask Vigama what he means. :P