I have a quick question as well.
I have an idea for smb3 which involves completing a "walkathon" tas of it. Would it be better to post my ideas and thoughts in here, or to make a new topic?
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
it would be best to post it here. but honestly, the SMB walkathon was posted by Bisqwit as a curiosity to see if it could be done. The only entertaining walkathon was the SMW one, and it was rejected.
I wouldn't even bother trying to make one.
No more walkathons plz, except for Castlevania (and maybe some other games) when Bisqwit did it was novel and had an understandable goal. Does not press the B button at any point. SMWs goals made far less sense. Does not exceed maximum possible walking speed, but uses glitches to exceed that speed and rules do not apply in water.
I'd like to see the "air force" auto scroller in world 8 done without pushing the b button... I think the only way to do it "without running" would be with raccoon/tanuki but you'd still need to flap your tail.
Also I think it was decided you can't walljump to get the whistle in the fortress, so the route would be substantially longer, even disregarding the fact that you'd be moving slower too :P
BUT i would watch a WIP if you made one, even if it were not accepted :)
it would be best to post it here. but honestly, the SMB walkathon was posted by Bisqwit as a curiosity to see if it could be done. The only entertaining walkathon was the SMW one, and it was rejected.
I wouldn't even bother trying to make one.
Thanks, Comicalflop, but I think I'm going to continue working on what I have so far, even if it isn't publish worthy. It'll help me get more experience when it comes to TASing in general.
Anyways, here is my idea. [it's a little descriptive, so beware :)]
Let me start by saying I have been a fan of tool-assited speedruns for a while now, and I've recently started practicing beating some of my favorite games using frame advance and save states. Overall I think I'm pretty decent, but there's always room for improvement.
I read a couple of topics here dealing with beating smb3 without pressing the b button and actually wondered myself if it was possible. After a bunch of testing, I found out, sadly, that it wasn't. The pyramid in World 2 isn't passable without either carrying and kicking beetle shells or attacking with your tail as raccoon mario. All 3 whistles that are obtainable in the game are also not possible to collect without pressing b.
World 1, Level 3: You have to press b to open the treasure chest containing the whistle.
World 1 Fortress: You have to fly in order to get to the bonus room where the whistle is located.
World 2 Fire Bros.: You have to use a hammer on the overworld in order to get to the Fire Bros.
So what is my idea, you ask? I was thinking that we could refer to it as a "walkathon" rather than a "no b run", since it would theoretically still be considered a walkathon. My plan is to complete smb3 using the b button a total of 4 times, with those 4 presses only being used to use items on the overworld in order to progress through the game. I discovered a route which is possible to do in this way.
-World 1
-World 2 (get the hammer from the hammer bros. and use it to reach the fire bros. that have the whistle, then use the whistle.) (2 presses)
-World 6 (acquire a Jugem's Cloud from the hammer bros., only reason World 6 is required)
-World 7 (Use a P-Wing in order to complete the 1st Fortress, and use the Jugem's Cloud from World 6 to skip 7-9.) (2 presses)
-World 8
Using this route, the run still could be considered a walkathon since the b button is never used in any of the individual levels.
I also created a WIP of the 1st World a while back. Here it is.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/8/29/1392707/Super%20Mario%20Bros%203b2.fcm
Basically I tried my best to be as entertaining as possible while also moving as fast as possible by hitting blocks, jumping on things, etc.
Individual level notes:
1-2: Who said you had to press b to go fast. :)
Fortress: I delayed a little bit when getting the "?" in order to manipulate the hammer bros.
1-5: Read 1-2's comment.
Castle: Jumped on the 1st frame when greeted by toad, collected 12 1-ups!
If there's any questions about anything, feel free to ask, but I believe that basically sums it up. Let me know what you think.
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
oh yeah... you flap your tail with A :P
Wouldn't it be much faster to get the whistle in 1-3 with b? That would still be 4 presses, albeit one "inside of a level."
But I guess if it's not being submitted it doesn't matter too much, only that you have fun doing it ;)
I will watch your movie when I have a chance, thanks for posting it.
Thanks for your feedback! :)
You're right, and it would be even faster to get the whistle from the 1st fortress as well and go straight to World 8. That would be 4 presses as well. (which one time the button would be held until I had a full p-meter)
But I think I want to avoid using b inside levels, even if it were to do things other than run. That would make it different from the SMW walkathon.
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
So has anyone watched my WIP yet? Even if walkathons are discouraged, I still want to get an idea of how I can improve when it comes to TASing in general. I believe this run does have some potential though.
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
I watched the WIP just now. Wasn't expecting to like it, but it was surprisingly good. The use of hills to gain speed and the fact that you'll have to find another way to warp to world 8 are kind of interesting.
I still want to get an idea of how I can improve when it comes to TASing in general.
IMO, your aesthetic choices were impeccable, and the movie looked flawless to my un-expert eyes, but this is because the "walkathon" gives you less to work with than a normal speedrun.
If you want to improve your skills at TASing, I'd recommend improving an existing run that's been around for a few years. Faxanadu for example is known to be improvable, IIRC.
PS:
If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?
Thanks for the comments, guys.
I've decided it would probably be better to make a new topic rather than keep on posting in this one. I don't want to stop the other discussions on smb3 TASing (I noticed you guys just found shortcuts for the warpless run).
Caturday. ;)
Heh, Exately what I guess when I first came across it. Look at it more carefully. ;)
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
Cobra, I don't think you're far short of producing a half-decent run. It just needs a bit of fine-tuning. I actually didn't think a 'no b' run would be very entertaining, but my opinion is open to change. :)
Oh, and...
Kingcobra52 wrote:
If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?
Kingcobra52 wrote:
If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?
Actually, it isn't Saturday. I'm sure you already replaced "three days after Saturday" with Tuesday, so I'll reword it here.
If the day before the day before yesterday is Tuesday, what day is today?
Now you have to ask yourself "On what day would you say that the day before the day before yesterday is Tuesday?" It's probably easy from there. :)
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
Technically, no, since my P-bar never actually fills up, but on the levels in which I slide in order to gain speed, I'm actually going above full running speed most of the time.
I spent time watching my horizontal speed with the memory watch tool. Here's what I found.
Maximum running speed: 38
Maximum sliding speed (using the hill in 5-1): 3F (I peak at 3C on level 1-2)
Sadly, however, even if I jump at the 1st possible frame, I still lose 1 point of speed with each jump. (In 1-2, I went from 3C to 3B, then to 3A, etc. until I finished the level with a speed of 37). On 1 jump near the end, however, I didn't lose any speed for some reason. (possibly because it was 38, the max running speed, but I'd have to do more testing to be sure. I'm confident that I'm jumping at the 1st possible frame each time)
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
Hey! I remember reading your topic while searching to see if anyone else has discussed a b-less smb3 run. It's great to see that you're still here. Back when I first started TASing the run, I didn't know it was possible to keep mario's speed while sliding down hills until I saw your WIP.
One thing I'll have to figure out next is how to manipulate the hammer bros in World 2. Since they're on the side you can't see, how do you know which direction they go when you beat a level? I noticed that JXQ was able to do it in the warpless run several times. Did he go through the levels and restart if they weren't in the right place, or is there a place in memory where the hammer bros. positions are stored?
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
I suspect you'll just have to track down their locations in memory. Alternatively, every time you end a level you could cheat yourself over to the other side of the map to see where they are, but I suspect that'd rapidly become too annoying to be worth doing, assuming you need to manipulate them.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Hello, I have a couple answers for you.
1) Every 8 frames, you get a "freebie" frame where you can touch the ground without losing speed. So trial and error with different frames of touching the ground can help you keep your speed in levels that you jump through, such as 1-2, as long as the level layout will allow the correct jumping.
2) In the warpless run, I checked where the hammer brothers went by using a game genie code to turn on the cloud after I beat the level, and walked over to see where they were. I've since lost the code, but you can get a similar effect by poking memory location 03F3 to a value of 7.
Good luck!
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Whoops, I went back and checked and I noticed you did the warpless run, JXQ, not Genisto. (though he did do the warps run) To avoid confusion, I edited my previous post.
And thanks for the tips Derakon and JXQ. As soon as I find time, I'll experiment with keeping my speed in 1-2 and 1-5, then work on World 2.
Btw, poking the memory won't have an effect on the recording will it, as long as I load the previous state?
<i>If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?</i>
Watched your wip finally, good stuff. Some levels were kind of vanilla but as stated before the hilly levels are cool... perhaps as the levels get harder we'll get to see more creative solutions :)
I was surprised that datacrystal.org did not have info on hammer bros locations, so I decided to dig in myself for fun.
For reference, Mario's map positions:
X: 79
Y: 75
Page: 77 (when x gets > 256 this goes from 0 to 1, then 1 to 2, etc)
Hammer Bros 1:
X: 7EFB
Y: 7EED
Page: 7F09
Hammer Bros 2:
X: 7EFC
Y: 7EEE
Page: 7F0A
I didn't test above 2, but for each additional hammer bros, presumably just add 1 to each address? Hope it helps, and I hope to see more work forthcoming (I should talk...)
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1941
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
It's going to be interesting how you've planned to get through the pyramid in world 2. Could maybe be possible to go through the wall using the speed from the slope, but I doubt it.
Also, you shall be aware of THISThis was found by, I think, Genisto. It makes the autoscrolling levels faster in the end. But it also makes them a bit boring maybe.
