Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
I've just started working on this game, hard mode. I'm doing a preliminary run to work out the game dynamics and routes, and I'm about half-way trough. After that I will make the real run. The main idea will probably be to use the spin constantly, where possible. You can do a very small jump with the spin, which helps to jump over some gaps without stopping the spin and doing an ordinary jump. The ice level can be done in a very fun way with this trick. In the first factory level there is a shortcut through the floor after the ovens. On the second one I will take damage instead of using the levers on line 1 (taz blinks long enough to go trough 2 also) and 4. I'm not sure if skipping 3 instead of 4 is faster. There might be some trick with the turkeys too which could give enough health to skip all lines. Another thing I will do is to shortcut up the tree by stomping the little rats (?). If anyone knows some way of getting past the first rat without getting hit I'm listening eagerly. Any ideas, known bugs or tips are very welcome.
Former player
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 375
All I can say is, when I played this years ago, the minecart level was EVIL and it will be a great joy to watch you speed through it as fast as possible. (100 post! Woot!)
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
The minecart is evil, but the second floating logs level is EVILER, because in hard you die directly when you fall into the water. :( In easy you can speed trough the level by jumping into the water and bouncing up all the time. Needless to say, I never got any further than that on hard... Anyway, on to the time attack (and beyond).
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Progress: After beating that irritating second water level in a fairly slow and unimpressive way (will have to be improved) I at least found a way to continually stomp on the giant plant, which looks cool. I also found a way to skip a few jumps by bouncing on two bats in the first ruins. They were unexpectedly hard to pull off, requiring me to play at 6% speed (basically frame by frame). Anyway, the best thing is that in the second ruin stage I found a killer glitch which lets me travel trough a wall and skip most of the first part. I have no idea how it works, but if you hold right and press spin exactly when the level starts (which is before the screen fades in) you are hurt (by the flame above?), the screen flickers, and seconds later you appear to the right of the first building. It's almost Rockmanish. Research will follow, rest assured. Anyone who knows anything about this is most welcome to share. It's just another ruin stage (with taz clone boss) and the final boss after this, I think. The final boss will probably be difficult to do fast, since he's outside the screen most of the time. xou, are you still around? Would you be willing to put up the preliminary run so everybody can give critizism? I'll e-mail you.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Okay, this will be my third post in a row (no one seems to care a lot) but anyway here goes: I finished the preliminary yesterday with a time of 10:31. This is improvable by a lot. Anyone interested can mail me to see it, con_carnage at hotmail dot com. If someone's feeling like providing webspace that would be great. Anyway, the rest of the run: I didn't succeed in performing the teleport-through-wall bug in the third ruin stage, no matter how I tried. The level starts exactly the same as the first ruin stage but has a different ending, so I don't know why. It could be that the flame above isn't all the way out when the level starts. (can this be manipulated in some way? Don't know yet.) I managed to skip most of the second half of the level, and go directly to the boss, by bouncing off a bat. Clone taz was easy. Perhaps this trick works in the first version off this level too, I will see in the complete run. It depends a bit on the behaviour of the end sign. The last boss fight turns out (as I expected) to be a sleeping pill since the boss bird can only be hurt at certain (very long) intervals. Still, it can be speeded up a little by hurting him as quick as possible every time he comes onto the screen. I didn't do this now, but I might have an idea on how to do it. Over and out.
xou
Joined: 4/26/2004
Posts: 118
Location: france
bah.. you know my mail address and you know I can host it Just send it to me !
hello world !
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Bah yourself, I already did, just after I wrote that. :P Didn't the email get trough?
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
I guess this was not yet posted anywhere, so here is the latest WIP for a new Taz TAS: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/299180713/taz-mania-WIP-May2010.gmv Most of this was recorded by me, but Truncated kindly beat down the second boss and Sonikkustar rode the mine cart. The run is progressing slowly, because the next mine level is not enjoyable to do.
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks for posting this! It's ridiculous how much more of the game you've been able to skip. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of some entertainment (for instance, you didn't get to eat a bomb). I guess the tradeoff is worth it though.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Hi, dudes! I edited in a little improvement: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/873543223/TAZ-JUNE18.gmv Saved 12 frames in the second jungle level, by pressing down while jumping to fall faster to the exit.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Hi dudes! I continued recording a few more frames up to the hard part (the rubber elevator). I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out, the falling elevators + rats was not trivial. It is possible to go through the wall/corners if you rev up the spin a bit. Here is the movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1392928503/TAZ-JUNE19%20-%20edit.gmv I suggest we all make a try each at the elevator, and improve on each other's movies. Here is a script which shows the elevator position, speed and acceleration: http://pastebin.com/aR8CzBz7
Skilled player (1326)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
If I remember, my segment at the first rubber elevator was improvable. Everything after that was good. I'll try to improve that rubber elevator & see what I get. EDIT: Now 1 frame faster. (Was 3 frames but lost 2 due to bad platform positioning.
Skilled player (1326)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Heres my first attempt at the elevator. It cuts 1 full set of jumps from the published movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/661066431/TAZ-JUNE19.gmv
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Good job from both of you! I was able to improve the batjump, but then I lost most of the gain: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/576547380/taz-batjump-improvement.gmv Taz touches the next elevator switch at frame 11648 instead of 11649, so 1 frame was saved, but it caused desynch at the next enemy. I had 12 frames of lag at that point, while the previous version had only 11.
Post subject: wip: youtube + encode
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Thanks antd for the encode, but the credits are wrong as seen on the youtube comment page. I managed to cut out 13 frames on the elevator. I started from Sonikku's attempt and removed the down-jumps at the bottom which weren't adding that much depth. Because of this the jumps at the apex are higher, but it pays off. I used x>=2126 as the comparison point, this works reasonably well. Here is the movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/542523587/TAZ-JUNE21%20new%20elevator.gmv
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Oh, the developers overlooked the possibility that you can get out of the elevator and fall below it. There is no death trap, so you fall through the level. Not useful, though, because it takes too long to fall down from y = 65536. I'm glad the level got pwned, though.
Skilled player (1326)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
I suppose that this is the final version for the big rubber elevator? Because if it is, then i'll just finish up this mine level & save us some stress.
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Sonikkustar wrote:
I suppose that this is the final version for the big rubber elevator?
I don't know about Truncated, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to improve it. I tested throwing an item to the elevator and it works pretty well, but there are no items close by, so it takes too long to carry an item there. Otherwise it might save time. I also tested semi-optimizing the alternative route by jumping down to the elevator shaft, but it was about 2000 frames slower. So, if you want to, please go ahead and finish the level, because it always helps. The mine level can be edited anytime, anyway, so it would be fun to proceed to the next levels.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Hi, i have improved the elevator by another couple of frames. I am traveling at the moment so i cannot access the movie. I will upload it tomorrow afternoon swedish time.
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Good job, Truncated. I hope your trip is/was nice! Meanwhile, I confirmed that the evil twin boss level can be started exactly on top of the boss, so it will be a very easy level to do. I guess the TAS will be finished someday, afterall.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Here is the improved movie. It gets to x>=2126 at frame 13696. The previous one was 13719, so 23 frames improvement. I started with redoing the last set of jumps and got some improvement, tried redoing the last two and got this, so I'm thinking I'll try to redo the whole three sets. The comparison method I used was to check the bottom-most position and time (lower and earlier is better). Link: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/907049741/TAZ-JUNE21%20new%20elevator%2013696.gmv
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Here is the last rubber elevator version. EVER. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/967020031/TAZ-JUNE21%20new%20elevator%2013683%20with%20ending.gmv It is 13 frames improved over the previous one and everything including how to enter the elevator is remade. (If someone makes an improvement, that someone should figure out how to bot it. There are too many combinations to test all of them manually.) I added on the ending. I remember that the warp position in the next level depends heavily on the y position in the previous level. So the last elevator can be saved to reach many different y positions. Or it can be spin-jumped to reach the end sooner if that isn't necessary. Testing that will take some Aqfaqing, I think. Go go go!
Post subject: A Fine Day to Exit
Editor, Expert player (2478)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Here's how I think the remaining level exits should be done: In the current level, just hug the wall as far right as possible. The next level, the river, has exit at x = 6364. Best starting x-position I was able to get is 3190 by hugging the right wall. But y-position is leathal due to the deadly river. With the elevators, we can get lower y-position, but not higher. Getting low enough allows going below the river and avoiding death. However, it takes too long to fall through the whole level. Luckily, Taz can start from where he dies on the river, so it seems that dying here once is necessary. Strangely, visiting the continue screen allows glitching the river, so that it won't kill Taz: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/522648644/TAZ-river-testing.gmv Even stranger: the effect is permanent, so that the deadly pit in the next level stops working too. I was not able to replicate it in other levels. Anyway, dying three times takes a long time and spinning through the glitched river takes even longer, so the glitch can't be shown in the TAS. Oh well, at least we skip about a half of the river level. For the plant boss level, it looks like starting from the normal position is the best alternative. The second best solution is going as far to the left as possible and stand on a log. I was able to get x = 5950, but it is way too far to the right, because: Normally, the plant boss level begins at x = 114. And the boss x-position is about 1750. So, it is only a short distance. The rest should be easy: After plant boss dies, we want to go as far to the right as possible. After the first temple level ends, we want to move as far to the left as possible, because in the next level we are forced to start too far to the right. (We could also fall through the second temple, but it seems slow.) At the second temple (which mostly needs to be played normally), we end so that we start on top of evil taz twin. After evil taz dies, we want to go as far left as possible, which means hugging the left wall of the boss room. This way we can start near the final boss. (Most of these are shown in the river glitching GMV linked above.)
Skilled player (1326)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Shazoo. Heres my attempt at the river level. I couldnt jump on the logs all that much because it would force me to go the opposite direction when jumping.