This is an improved run of Deadly Towers. This beats the previous Famtasia run by approximately 3:26. This game is somewhat Zelda-like, but notoriously difficult and considered poorly designed. However it makes for an interesting TAS.
To obtain this improvement, I revised the route. Right away, I build up enough gold (actually called Ludder in this game) to purchase two Orange Scrolls, which teleport you back to the Holy Flame. I then do two towers, picking up the Dragon Sword (for increased damage) and the Cup (worth 250 gold). The Orange Scrolls let me skip coming back down the towers, a huge timesaver. Then, I go back to the dungeon and purchase 5 more orange scrolls. I finish the 5 remaining towers, again using the scrolls to skip the walk down the towers. The only other item I get is the Gauntlet, which increases the speed of your knives. This makes it much easier to kill enemies quickly, and is especially helpful in boss fights, where long-distance shots are necessary.
Minor improvements include better health management, frame optimizations, and cutting corners closer (especially on ladders). There is a tremendous amount of luck manipulation in this game. Enemy movement and their drops are random, and randomness is affected by what buttons you push and when you push them. If you see me hesitate or miss with a knife, it is because I am manipulating luck. I tried to avoid missing with knives since it looks bad, but sometimes this was the only reasonable way to manipulate luck as needed.
I anticipate up to 30 seconds of improvement is possible by being more aggressive about grabbing gold early in the game, and buying the hyper boots at the beginning. I might attempt to make another run at some point in the future.
  • FCEU 0.98.13 nitsuja
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Uses death as a shortcut
  • Manipulates luck

Truncated: The powers that be seems to have agreed that in this case, accepting a submission which has known improvements is okay since
  1. it's a big improvement, and
  2. it obsoletes a Famtasia run.
Therefore, accepting this submission and putting it in queue for encoding.

adelikat
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Blublu wrote:
I'm sure it's a nice movie, and without question better than the existing one, but I don't know... 10-30 seconds is quite significant. If I were the author, I would want to improve this before someone else does.
ditto In fact I have been in the same situation. I made a big improvement in cobra triange. after submitting I found a way to improve it another 10 seconds so I canceled the first one and began the improved one.
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JXQ
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Posts: 3132
All this talk is doing is making people think twice before being honest in their submissions. 1) Old run is Famtasia 2) This run in an improvement of 3:26, which is an extremely significant improvement If we waited for absolute perfection at all times, nothing would get published. I'm personally surprised at Adelikat's opinion, as he is fronting the Famtasia improvement, and this is exactly the type of run that is fit for it. For me this is a no-brainer publish ASAP.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
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You could accept the movie, but give it less priority for encoding than other movies in queue. Isn't there a status for that?
No.
adelikat
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JXQ wrote:
All this talk is doing is making people think twice before being honest in their submissions. 1) Old run is Famtasia 2) This run in an improvement of 3:26, which is an extremely significant improvement If we waited for absolute perfection at all times, nothing would get published. I'm personally surprised at Adelikat's opinion, as he is fronting the Famtasia improvement, and this is exactly the type of run that is fit for it. For me this is a no-brainer publish ASAP.
I voted "yes" for it to be published. And the fact that it could be improved is probably not affecting the publication of this movie. There are a lot of submissions in que. As far as improvements go, keeping them to yourself isn't the best Idea, but perhaps it is more important to post those on the forums.
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Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [503] NES Deadly Towers (USA) by Luke in 15:20.27
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Have see now this movie. Never hear or see this game before. Wonder me about the missing knife throws, but this was explained in the discribtion. Only one other question. Can't you carry so much Ludder? One time after you buy more Orange Scrolls you go back to the enemie where you fight for Ludder and then go back again to buy something (I think another Orange Scrolls) in the shop. But looks great at all and interesting.
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
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I think i'm the only person in the world who actually likes this game
Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I played through it legitimately some years back. I don't know if this can be called "liking the game", as I think I did it moreso just to be able to say I had done it, but still.
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Memory
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[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero