Post subject: your first tasing attempt
Reviewer, Active player (288)
Joined: 12/14/2006
Posts: 717
For the more established members: just for curiosity's sake, I was wondering what the first game you attempted to TAS was, and can we see the results? I think it would be interesting to see how some of you got started.
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland
It's too bad I don't have my very first version of the MM6 TAS any more. It would probably be hilarious (in a sad way) to watch it now. My second version is of course available here. The first version was over a minute slower than that first published version. Both versions were done on Famtasia WITHOUT the 60fps patch (it had been released about 2 weeks earlier but I had not updated my Famtasia) meaning that only 1/3 of the frames accepted input, which was quite painful. Of course there was no frame advance or such gadgets back then. If anyone still has my first version, feel free to post it here. It was finished on the 1st of May 2004 and never distributed widely (Microstorage didn't exist!), so I doubt anyone still has it.
Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
I went searching for the original Super Demo World topic started by my friend who I was co-working with. To my surprise, the wip we uploaded was still avaliable for download, so I uploaded it to microstorage. Here it is. It's the first 5 levels for a 15 exit Super Demo World run. Also, here's the thread with the relevant discussion. This was a couple months before the hopping glitch (a now standard and huge timesaver) became known. Plenty of other stuff is bad with the run too, of course. We did manage to get the title screen perfect though :) All in all it's roughly 4.25 seconds slower than JXQ's 15 exit run, which is pretty close to optimal. A few months after this movie was made I started (individually) on a 120 exit run of the game. Eventually JXQ joined the project, and that run of ours is still one of my favorite TASes and I think in the top10 of rated movies on the site. Wee nostalgia.
Zoey Ridin' High <Fabian_> I prett much never drunk
Skilled player (1410)
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821
The very first movie I recorded was published :) It was made with Famtasia (obviously), recording at 40% speed sometimes, and at 20% speed sometimes, which is a little fast for current standards :P. I did use 15000 rerecords (some people right now still could learn from this), and I am still very pleased with the movie (I did obsolete it later). Also read the awesome submission text :D
Experienced player (614)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 612
My first real TAS was published as well. It was Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania III) and it happened to be the Grant Version because I always wanted to see it done but it looked as though no one would be doing it. My first WIP was actually done for the US version of the game (I do not have it anymore) but little did I know was why the Japanese version was used instead (better sound). So, before I got the hang of TASing I started over a second time with the japanese version but gave up because I didn't feel that I could TAS prominently, to make a good enough TAS of CV3 (I didn't save states often enough). Finally, I was on vacation and had wanted to really get some progress done so I started from scratch and in a few hours I was done with half of the Clocktower (the going up part). I felt if I was going to finish the TAS I had to make it as though I had a following of people (small or big) and so I uploaded a WIP and it was on. Shortly after that (when the motivation to finish kicked into High gear) I was done after posting a few WIPs in This Thread (Page 2 and up) My actual first TAS (not knowing of the concept of a TAS or the name of Tool-Assisted Speedrun/Superplay) was that Gnat swatting game in Mario Paint in which I had slowed down the game with ZSNES and recorded a quick movie without Save States but with as quick reflexes as I had. Sorry, no WIPs, this was long ago, around 2001 maybe.
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
My first real TAS attempt was a certain part of NES Metroid 100% run WIP, that was put on hold by both me and Brushy. I managed to discover a strategy in the 3rd room that neither of the published runs use, but looking at it now, I know for sure that I could improve the entire WIP further with tools more up-to-date than simple frame counter + frame advance combo. My second serious attempt was Super Metroid: Redesign WIP where I decided to use everything available and strived for subpixel precision in all rooms starting from the room before the Brinstar elevator. I've decided that if I continue it, it will be restarted with much greater precision from the very beginning (so I went improving it and gained 12 more frames, haha).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
ventuz
He/Him
Player (126)
Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940
My first attempt was Mega Man 5 (SGB), I stopped working on it because many part of it; I wasn't trying hard enough and pass first 4 bosses were more frustrating (and needs more planning). I still have all the movies collected here.
Player (36)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 284
My first attempt was baisically trying to copy the SMB3 in 11 minutes, I had 11:45. My first TAS that was made all by me was a TAS of Kirby's Adventure where my main power was sword, and it was about an hour. Both files are long dead.
Banned User
Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850
I'm not really "established" here, but you can at least see mine (Pinball Quest, as usual). It's pretty crappy, but at least the next version was somewhat good...
Perma-banned
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Former player
Joined: 11/6/2004
Posts: 833
Mega Man X took a few attempts, mostly on the opening level. From slow-mo to frame advance to setting up on my gamepad until I was happy with it. Went to Storm Eagle twice. Went to Sigma 2 before I had to go on a major hexing spree as far back as Armored Armadillo. Redid most of that. Then I muscled my way through 8 boss fights in a night. And that was my first TAS attempt. I did well for my first try. All that hexing kinda hurt though.
Former player
Joined: 10/1/2006
Posts: 1102
Location: boot_camp
I believe snes chess was my first attempt, but that didn't go over so well.
Borg Collective wrote:
Negotiation is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (247)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
IIRC, this was my first one: "NES "1p warpless" Battletoads (USA) in 27:33.38" (2004-05-20) I submitted it by e-mailing the file to bisqwit. Movie description: "This is a 1-player warpless Battletoads timeattack on this hard game." heh, I wonder what it would be if it weren't a "battletoads" timeattack on the battletoads game. Could it be a ninja gaiden timeattack of this hard game? :P
Player (81)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
My first actual tas was Jurassic Park, which was published. I was lucky nobody noticed the SDA version, which had an improvement. I could probably shave a couple seconds off it now. My very first attempt was with Smart Ball, which Nitusja ended up publishing. He did better than I would have.
ideamagnate| .seen aqfaq <nothing happens> DK64_MASTER| .seen nesvideoagent * DK64_MASTER slaps forehead
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
My first Super Mario Bros TAS. http://tasvideos.org/movies/fmv/bisqwit-smb.zip Playing time: 0:05:06.75 Rerecord count: 629 Date: Dec 6 2003
Skilled player (1606)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
This is how it started for me. Well, after a few failed test runs, of course.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
My first attempt was a practice run at Super Smash TV, and it kept desyncing. I later learned that there was an emulation sync setting that made desyncs pretty common in that game, but at the time it discouraged me for a while. My first submission a few months later was Skate or Die 2. It was published 15 months later! \o/
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Player (206)
Joined: 2/18/2005
Posts: 1451
OK, here my history of emulator movies and gaming: I discovered the emulation scene in around April 2000 with the ZSNES emulator. Around 1 year later after experimenting with the movie recording feature, I started to record my first small movies of all kind of shit. My first ever uploaded game run on the net, way before my TAS era here, was Super Metroid any% in 1:00, recorded in April 10th, 2002 on a DOS version of ZSNES 0.989c (my most favourite emulator that time). Till 2004 followed more zmvs of playthroughs on games I enjoyed very much in the past. My latest and by far best run on this old emulator was an improvement of Chrono Trigger 100%, recorded in January 2005, which didn't make it to zophar anymore though. However it's available on my site in the ZSNES section with all later runs Zophar didn't put up anymore. Then I found this site, and my first TAS, which in fact isn't even one :-P because I didn't know the rerecording/slowdown functions to that time, was Sim City recorded in February 16th , 2005 with a rerecord count of "0" (which the submission system didn't even recognize and put "unknown" instead :-P). 2 days later, after reading around on this site I finally found a (to me amazing and new) way to do rerecords and slowdowns. And I immediately tested it out by recording my first official TAS in just 2 hours of work, Super Street Fighter 2 - Super Battle with Feilong by just using savestates and almost no slowdown at all (I learned Frame Advance only around 3 days later). It went so fast and I fully learned TASing within 1 week after that. Great time to remember.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Hehe, I still remember how I came across an archive with some of your ZSNES movies on ed2k in 2004 or so (named "SNES zmv movie-walktroughs for smc roms Chrono Trigger Final Fantasy Terranigma Secret Of Evermore Super Metroid and emulator by Saturn.rar"). :D I was young and stupid back then, so I didn't manage to get them to sync. I still have that archive, though.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Player (206)
Joined: 2/18/2005
Posts: 1451
Haha, moozooh! I wonder how one can't get this movies to sync when everything you need (including the right emulator through which all movies stay in sync) is in the archive package already...
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Well, I did manage to watch them when I learned more about emulation and sync settings and stuff, but that was already in 2006, so…
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Player (86)
Joined: 3/8/2005
Posts: 973
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
hehe. Some people may remember this. I had some troubles with my first TAS. Battletoads in Battlemaniacs. I had 2 rerecords played at 100% speed. I didn't realize what a TAS was. I thought it was speedrunning. http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1901&start=0
Editor, Expert player (2080)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3284
My first TASing attempt: SNES Strike Gunner (US). Like many on their first attempt, I made many newbie mistakes when making the run: - I did not use Snes9x improvement. - As a result, I did not use frame advance. - I TASed almost exclusively on 25% speed. - I had no eye for entertainment. - Apart from my goal, I had no determination. - Strike Gunner is an autoscroller. My goal (good in concept, bad in entertainment) was to dodge enemies without death on the hardest difficulty (enemies shoot very fast) while shooting as few as possible. Imagine the lag. The lag was so bad in the 6th and 7th levels that the player's ship became invisible and I had to destroy enemies that weren't minibosses or bosses. My run ended when the 7th boss glitched and didn't show up. At least the first 2 minutes looked interesting enough to me. 1-minute clip of the beginning in AVI: http://files.filefront.com/stg1avi/;7039474;;/fileinfo.html It took the 3rd TASing attempt before I broke onto the scene.
Editor, Experienced player (735)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
My first TAS attempt was published, but I had to restart the whole run 7 times.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Joined: 4/30/2006
Posts: 480
Location: the secret cow level
The first game I ever tried to TAS was Roadblasters, and I got through one level before deciding a speedrun would be boring as hell.
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
First TAS I made was Addams Family for NES. Took me several replays to get an enough decent version and a few spam mail to get Bisqwit to accept it. The currently published run is about my 10th run of that game, and even though it might not be the bestest of games I for some reason love it!
/Walker Boh