Topic by TheRandomPie_IV

Posted: 11/2/2008 9:06 AM
(Edited: 11/17/2008 10:54 PM)

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

eternaljwh wrote:

Just curious, how many frames faster than watching demorph animation is restarting round, since you use it?

It depends on the size of the level (larger levels take longer to reload) and on the helmet you have (for most helmets it's always slower). Also, on the levels you enter from teleports you get slightly different (usually better) starting positions after you restart. In Elsewhere 1 it saved 14 frames, in Pyramids of Peril it saved 5 and in Coral Blade grotto it saved 17 frames (the Iron Knight has to do the start bit slower to avoid destroying the floor.

Posted: 11/17/2008 9:28 PM

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Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Looks great! Curious about only one thing: why don't you use the samurai haze earlier when on top of the third head? As in, at once? Also, it looks like you can start a strike before the jump at 57258, but perhaps that doesn't help.

Posted: 11/19/2008 6:12 PM

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

The samurai haze slows the heads down but it doesn't change the frames when the heads change direction, so using it earlier would still result in the exact same vertical movement. Don't know what I was thinking with the jump slash though, it's definitely useful.

Posted: 12/16/2008 3:39 AM

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eternaljwh

Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA

Curious how it's coming, eager to see.

Posted: 12/19/2008 11:15 PM

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

Here you go.

Posted: 12/24/2008 8:25 PM

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eternaljwh

Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA

Nothing hits my eye as problematic (The apparent slowdown in Pyramids of Peril obviously has to wait for the platform), still looks quite good... Boomerang Bosses vs Samurai Haze = inconsistency. That murderwall speeding forward behind you in Forced Entry as you sat on the teleporter was a high point. BlizzardMountain->FrostyDoom->15->BloodySwamp planned?

Posted: 1/26/2009 6:08 PM

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

WIP through the Bagel Bros. There are a couple of places I'm still a little unsure about, but for the most part things turned out rather nicely.

Posted: 1/27/2009 10:21 AM

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eternaljwh

Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA

*watches* Indeed it is turning out nicely.

Posted: 1/27/2009 3:39 PM

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RT-55J

Player (147)

Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA

You're already 3/4 of the way through the game? I'm impressed. The farthest I've ever gotten was Skydragon Castle 1 (less than halfway). :P

Nach wrote:

I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.

Posted: 1/27/2009 5:21 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

There's a "rainbow warp" that lets you skip a bit under half the game.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 1/27/2009 9:27 PM

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RT-55J

Player (147)

Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA

I know about the 100K warp. I just don't feel like using it. And technically speaking, I've beaten the game, but I used the Plethora cheat so it doesn't actually count. :P

Nach wrote:

I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.

Posted: 1/27/2009 11:08 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I was more explaining how he's already so far into the game, than suggesting a way for you to make it further. :) I've only ever beaten the game with savestates. Made it to Final Marathon legitimately once, though.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 1/29/2009 8:53 PM

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Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Awesome WIP. Here are some thoughts: - On Frosty Doom, you land with Skycutter at 72364, but there is enough space to ride inverted the whole way up to the left edge. This would save a frame. (If you redo it, you can perhaps shoot icicles on the hand below for fun.) - On Bloody Swamp, you get stuck behind the moving platforms for some time. The starting position of these platforms is not static, it can be manipulated by delaying a few frames. They spawn a good deal outside the screen, so the delay has to come early. - The new Bagel Bros is fantastic. 5 seconds faster than my old movie! While we are on the topic of playing experiences, I played it a few months ago when I visited my parents, on the real console. I got through, but stopped counting how many times I died on final marathon after 11 or somewhere.

Posted: 1/31/2009 8:50 PM

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RT-55J

Player (147)

Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA

I've only legitimately played this game at my cousin's house on one of those "plug and play TV games" things. I think that I could've made it to the halfway point, but my cousin kept on nagging me because I was hogging the game, so I caved into his nagging and let him play. He couldn't even complete the level I was on. :P

Derakon wrote:

I was more explaining how he's already so far into the game, than suggesting a way for you to make it further. :)

The WIP I was referring to (TheRandomPie_IV's) did not take the 100K warp, which is why I was impressed by how far he was.

Nach wrote:

I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.

Posted: 5/9/2009 11:57 PM

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eternaljwh

Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA

Still interested in run, it's been a while since update (I'm not used to following TAS WIPs, so I may have erroneous standards on this). Things going well/okay/hung up/indefinitely delayed/stopped?

Posted: 5/10/2009 9:23 AM

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

Progress is being made, it's just that the latest progress is scattered in a bunch of route test files, some of which currently need a bit of manual ram poking to play back. It's unlikely I'll have anything in a convenient form for posting until right at the end. I'm up to Beneath the Twisted Hills at the moment, and I'd be very suprised if I didn't finish some time in the summer (though admittedly there was a time when I thought that about summer 2008..)

Posted: 5/11/2009 9:21 AM

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eternaljwh

Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA

Ah, well thanks for the update.

Posted: 10/3/2014 9:39 PM

Post subject: tas kid chameleon no warp

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gamerretro2

Player (23)

Joined: 9/17/2014
Posts: 368
Location: France

hello i search help for my tas of kid chameleon no warp

Posted: 3/13/2016 10:38 AM

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rhebus

Joined: 2/19/2010
Posts: 248

I'm trying to learn how to make a TAS with this game. I've been playing around on the first level and found some places where I might temporarily get a pixel or so ahead of TheRandomPie's movie but I'm stuck at a point where I lose a frame and I can't see why. Here's my attempt: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/651150305/kidc2.gmv On frame 856, I have exactly the same X and Y position and speed as therandompie, and I enter exactly the same input for the next frame, but therandompie immediately bounces off the rubber block while I have to wait an extra frame to bounce. I don't understand why this is happening. Any ideas? I thought it might be camera position but that seems to be the same in each movie too. The only other thing I can think of is if the dragon later in the level is spawning at different times and causing the game to take longer to process other interactions. Another theory I have is RNG, but I can't see why rubber blocks would depend on RNG.

Posted: 3/13/2016 11:27 PM

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TheRandomPie_IV

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Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

From what I remember the dragons spawn when you get within a certain distance of the point they spawn at, so it may be that one of the points where you temporarily gain a pixel or two are causing it to spawn one frame earlier and somehow cause some lag. I noticed that sometimes the game would seem to not fully lag but would appear to do some of the subpixel updates a frame late, leaving you a pixel off where you 'should' be temporarily until it catches up a frame later, but I never really looked at the details of what was going on. I am pretty confident that it is not RNG though, in making my runs I hexedited in sections and changes quite a few times and never found any changes to the rubber blocks. The only things that seemed to be effected by the RNG were certain enemies (mostly the aliens and tornadoes, but there may be few others as well). Good luck at finding the problem, I'm interested to see what you can come up with. Just ask if you have any more questions, though I can't promise that I'll remember everything correctly.

Posted: 3/14/2016 7:55 AM

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rhebus

Joined: 2/19/2010
Posts: 248

Thanks for your input! Also thanks for your previous movie, I've already learned a huge amount studying it.

TheRandomPie_IV wrote:

I noticed that sometimes the game would seem to not fully lag but would appear to do some of the subpixel updates a frame late, leaving you a pixel off where you 'should' be temporarily until it catches up a frame later, but I never really looked at the details of what was going on.

This seems to be consistent with what I'm seeing. On frame 858, my X speed just gets ignored completely and X pos stays constant, like the game forgot to update it. I'll try to do RAM search to find when the dragon gets spawned and see if there's any differences. I might even try splicing your input and my input together in various combinations to see which versions cause the pseudolag and which don't.

Posted: 3/19/2016 7:30 PM

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Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

rhebus wrote:

I'm trying to learn how to make a TAS with this game.

Nice. Can never have too many Kid Chameleon TASes. Looking forward to the rest of your movie.

TheRandomPie_IV wrote:

Good luck at finding the problem, I'm interested to see what you can come up with. Just ask if you have any more questions, though I can't promise that I'll remember everything correctly.

Hey, cool to see you're still around, like five years after you last posted. :) About forgetting useful info for this game: the Kid Chameleon game resources page could really use some updates by an expert, i.e. you. It hasn't been updated with the stuff you found when you made your latest movie, and no-one else knows it like you.

Posted: 7/21/2016 4:36 AM

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Winslinator

Experienced player (715)

Joined: 7/18/2016
Posts: 78
Location: United States

Hey everyone, The past few days I've been working on a TAS of this game using the Plethora Cheat. I wanted to do this so that I could bring down my RTA Any% WR below 1:35 (it's currently 1:35.5, and I think I've discovered enough RTA-viable microstrats to do this). Currently, the TAS ends at 1:27.9 from power on. I have pretty significant knowledge on this game, but this is my first TAS, so I'm very new to the concept. Looking at the first two levels of RandomPie's TAS, I have no idea why but I believe I'm barely behind in some places. I know you guys have talked about analyzing subpixel positions and ROM data earlier on this thread, neither of which I have any idea how to incorporate. I'm hoping you guys could take a look and provide an expert opinion on this :) TAS was done in Bizhawk 1.11.6, Accuracy Core: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5wBv6IivLIOQVNFUllYdDc3U28/view?usp=sharing I also had lots of trouble ending the TAS. As you'll see, the input string continues over a second after Plethora is defeated. I'm anxious to improve this part as well, as there's a lot of potential frames to save here. So yeah, let me know what you all think! =D

Posted: 7/23/2016 8:50 PM

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TheRandomPie_IV

Active player (482)

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 114

I'll take a look at it, but I don't have Bizhawk set up at the moment, so it might be a few days. For TAS pointers I'll try and post something helpful once I've had a look over what you've got. For now I don't believe many of the subpixel tricks will be useful in realtime play (though I'm pretty bad at realtime play, so maybe don't take my word on this). The only exception to that comes to mind offhand is that when jumping or flying with cyclone, once you've hit the normal full speed horizontally you will go slightly faster if you don't hold the run button (or do hold it if using auto run..).

Posted: 7/25/2016 3:23 AM

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Winslinator

Experienced player (715)

Joined: 7/18/2016
Posts: 78
Location: United States

If you don't have bizhawk set up, this makes me wonder why the transitions between levels in your tas are much shorter than mine. Which emulator and what settings did you use for it, if you remember? Another thing that is rta viable is that letting go of R and A at the first incline in blw1 allows you to run up it without deceleration. That plus the last rubber block jump in blw1 and a more optimized plethora can definitely save at least half a second. And your cyclone information is very interesting as I never would have thought of that. Definitely a good rta strategy, but for a different category. Thanks man! I have saved about 10 additional frames since my first post, including better turnaround before collecting the first diamond, hitting blw2 shooter blocks better, and more efficient jumping methods. Really looking forward to what other optimizations could be done :)