Paperboy TAS by Randil

Technical information:

  • Emulator used: FCE Ultra 0.98.16
  • Genre: Action.
  • Uses death as a shortcut.

The goals I had for this run:

Goal 1: Perform a "Perfect delivery" all seven days of the week, and on Sunday play the "Training course" flawlessly, thus hitting every object. Goal 2: Perform "Goal 1" as fast as possible. Goal 3: Have different subgoals each day. These subgoals may not interfer with goal 1 or 2. I will explain the subgoals for each day later on in these comments.
I chose to have sub-goals for each day in order to add some moe entertainment to the run.

Game description:

The goal in Paperboy is to deliver papers to subscribers. You start the game with 10 papers, and along the way you can get paper refills, giving you additional papers. Your job is to deliver at least one paper to each subscriber, that's the ones having white houses.
There are also some non-subscriber. Since these guys don't want your papers, you can be very mean to them. You can crash their windows and hit tumble their trash cans with your papers.
You get points for delivering papers and smashing stuff. If you destroy something for a subscriber, he will cancel his subscription, so that's why I don't destroy any windows on white houses.
After you've delivered papers, you can play a "training course" level if you want. I skip this in this run, except for sunday, because it wastes a lot of time playing it every day. I choose only to play it once, on Sunday.

Comments on the run:

First off, some general notes on the run:
  • The deaths in this run are intentional. I die at the end of each day to avoid playing the training course. Dying is the only way to avoid playing this training course, and this saves several seconds per day. Playing the training course all days would get repetitive after a while, since there's not much to change from one time to another.
  • Turning right or left does not affect time. So I can turn left or right as much as I want without loosing time.
  • You may notice that the wheels on the bike aren't turning. This is done by pressing up+down. This does not affect time, but is just a visual "glitch" I chose to go with throughout this run.
  • You can hit a target more than once. It's actually possible to hit the same target up to three times, getting points for each hit. This is used a lot in the run.
  • It's possible to hit people and other moving objects, but you don't get any points for these.
  • On frame 13561 in the run I throw a paper that disappears in mid-air. This paper was thrown just to show of this weird "bug", or whatever you want to call it.
Hit detection:
This game has really bad hit detection. You will notice this very soon in the run. I abuse this quite a lot, making this run more entertaining. I found memory addresses showing your position with the bike, so this was heavily abused.
Paper refills:
Manipulating paper refills is not possible without wasting time. The paper refills placement is decided the frame that you start the level. So in order to manipulate where they appear, I would need to waste frames to manipulate luck, opposing goal 2. Where paper refills appear don't save any time anyway.

Subgoals:

  • Monday: Crash more things than usual.
  • Tuesday: Crash more things than usual.
  • Wednesday: Crash more windows than usual.
  • Thursday: Crash more windows than usual.
  • Friday: Hit more moving objects than usual.
  • Saturday: Ride closer to objects than usual, playing daredevil.
  • Sunday: Playing as "lawful" as possible, thus not destroying anything for non-subscribers.

The making of this run:

This run was fun to make. I used the memory viewer quite a lot, and also the "auto-hold" button. I had up+down on auto-hold throughout the run, making this run a lot easier to make. One day usually took 1-2 hours of work, so this whole run took somewhere around 10-15 hours to create. Of course, tools such as frame-advance and savestates were used a lot in this run too.

Thanks to:

  • Everyone in the Paperboy Thread for encouragement, feedback and ideas. This wouldn't have been possible without you, so big thanks.
  • Everyone in IRC who encouraged me.
  • A huge thanks goes to Maximus for his TAS movie splicer. This turned really helpful when I once forgot to throw a paper, and didn't want to redo the whole day. Keep up the good work with this tool, Maximus! :)
Suggested screenshot: Frame 18990. This shows this game's really bad hit detection.
That should be all. I hope you enjoy this run!

Bisqwit: Accepting for its humor relief value and overall good quality.
Bisqwit: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1380: Randil's NES Paperboy in 11:30.78
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
The training course was awsome. Definately worth adding into the run. I think you did a good job adding variety & action into this game. Enough to make me vote yes :)
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Active player, Editor (296)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7468
Location: Arzareth
You really should have submitted this last (or next) April fools day instead. This is a funny movie. It totally surprised me. I only expected a nostalgic movie of a game I haven't seen for a long time, but you biking through those flowerbeds, destroying half of the windows on your route and still getting the customers to thank you of perfect service, this movie was ridiculously funny. Even Mr. Death got a paper. Voting yes, despite that the movie exhausts its funniness at the halfway. "MYSTERIOUS VANDALISM BAFFLES POLICE". No kidding.
Experienced player (611)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 612
Glad to see it done in such a great way. I watched every WIP so I already knew what to expect. This is very well planned, the way you used your papers and until you needed a refill. The ending was unexpected, for some reason I expected the training course to be a little empty but man that was a nice surprise. My Yes vote is your yes vote.
Morrison
He/Him
Joined: 8/2/2006
Posts: 195
Location: USA
This was a movie I looked for when I first stumbled onto the site. I'm glad we have one now, and I hope it gets published. Quite entertaining.
twitch.tv/Retrogaming2084
Active player (432)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3516
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Sorry but I have to vote meh. The game looked like a Atari game and unforunately, it was repetitive and did not kept my interest.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Player (78)
Joined: 2/8/2005
Posts: 130
Nice tornado dodging! I think you did a good job of adding more variety towards the end, and my favorite days were friday and saturday i think when you were more frantic.
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5769
Location: Away
The prime example of a game so bad that it's good. While not perfect illustration of TAS, this movie was highly entertaining for me, up to the point of hysterical laughter at the breakdancing dude and the "psycho bitch who chases the paperboy with a knife in her hand" (© Morrison). Yes vote!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
I have to agree with Angerfist about the game's repetitiveness, but I like how you have done something different on all the different days to attempt to eliminate that as much as possible. I particularly liked how much you abused the collision detection :)
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Twisted_Eye
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Active player (332)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
I played this exact game too much as a kid, but it was great to see all these things you can do in a TAS as well as seeing the game beat, which I've only ever done maybe once. Screwing with the hit detention was fun to watch, and you did a pretty good job keeping each day unique.
Joined: 9/7/2005
Posts: 143
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
The two things that get me are: 1) As Bisqwit said, you totally smash the windows of every non-subscriber, but one of them buys a subscription every day, and 2) the fact that, in order to show you they're a subscriber, they've repainted their house. I never completed this game as a kid. Glad to see it's got the trademark nonexistant NES game ending. Voting yes.
This guy are sick.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 563
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Also never completed this game when i was a kid (or for that matter, my actual paper route ... which explains why they fired me :P) Nice work.
Joined: 9/20/2006
Posts: 287
Location: Singapore
Hmmm, interesting run, pretty funny at the start, but by day 5 I got pretty bored of it :S It just didn't appeal to me, MEH vote
Truncated wrote:
Truncated is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man. -- xoinx
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 81
Location: Finland
Congratulations ! You made it complete and got even accepted while I was elsewhere =) This is still a great game =)
Joe
Joined: 6/10/2006
Posts: 152
Location: Wisconsin
repetitive, yet fun for a while. Gets a bit boring near the end, but makes up for it in the training course. Yes vote
Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587
It was kinda fun to watch and everyone got their paper, even if they didn't ask for it. Voting yes.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
This makes me the happiest person in my house. Thanks for making this dream come true, Randil.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
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. ---- [749] NES Paperboy by Randil in 11:30.78
Skilled player (1882)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
The name of this torrent should probably be changed - right now it says "paperboy-playaround-paperboy", it should be "paperboy-playaround-randil" or somthing like that. Just a detail.
Joined: 12/25/2006
Posts: 1
Location: Amsterdam, NL
Thanks for the movie, Randil. Paperboy is both a fun and extremely frustrating game exactly because of the hopeless hit detection, but I liked it a lot when I played it a _long_ time ago. Seeing how broken it really was sort of makes up for all the times I crashed into something invisible. One thing though, I had the C64 version and it runs circles around the NES version in terms of production quality (I just tried it now on an emu to confirm). Especially the music is so much better than the muted bleeps of the NES version, but even the visuals are better. Also, the C64 version had a separate point system for papers used for destruction of windows, etc. which determined the bonus at the end of the track. It really seems like the NES version was thrown together in a day while the C64 version was created with a lot more care. Anyone know how this came about?
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
Paper round Protection racket This movie did make me snigger :)
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Joined: 6/4/2004
Posts: 284
Randil wrote:
The name of this torrent should probably be changed - right now it says "paperboy-playaround-paperboy", it should be "paperboy-playaround-randil" or somthing like that. Just a detail.
I'm not sure if this is related, but the .torrent shows up as eternally "Queued" instead of downloading, with Azureus.
Joined: 8/15/2004
Posts: 422
Location: Minnesota
The .fcm in the published movie description doesn't work for me so I had to download the file in the submission.
Active player, Editor (296)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7468
Location: Arzareth
Ouzo wrote:
The .fcm in the published movie description doesn't work for me so I had to download the file in the submission.
I'll look into that problem and fix the AVI name problem. Oops. Edit: Oh, I see. The fcm published is actually a zip. A zip inside a zip. This problem reaches to megaman zero 2 and lolo as well, then. Edit2: Allright, fixed. Thanks for reporting, Ouzo and Randil.
Player (29)
Joined: 9/23/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Moreno Valley, California
I never knew you didn't get penalized for wrecking non-subscriber's houses. Yes vote, mostly for the "whack everything" day.
"The way to move out of judgment is to move into gratitude." — Neale Donald Walsch DannyLilithborne on IRC