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It all started with a simple question. "Do you think you could complete a Sonic game without collecting a single ring?"
Three years, two GMVs and one echidna later, the end result is here for all to see.
This run is performed on a hacked version of Sonic 1, allowing the player to play as Knuckles, which Sega should've been able to let you do back in 1994. The official thread for the game is here.

Run description

This run has three main goals. They're a bit like the three laws of robotics in that they're dependent on each other. They are:
  1. Avoid all rings, and any other items that would permit me to take damage (shield, invincibility)
  2. Don't fly over the top (or zip to the end) of the level because that would be boring (thanks CrazyTerabyte), except where not doing so would force you to collect rings
  3. Fastest time given the above two conditions
and other criteria:
  • Takes no damage (obviously)
  • Ignores delays caused by bonus effects
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Makes speed/entertainment tradeoffs
  • Is a concept demo
Given that the focus of the movie was already not going to be blindly speeding through the game, I felt the second point was necessary to make the best movie. Otherwise you'd just be climbing over the whole of Marble Zone which looks clever once, but boring after that.

Emulator information

Gens 9.5b was used to record this run. At times I also used Upthorn's hacked-specifically-for-Sonic-1 version, which proved intriguing without being essential.

Level times

Level times were as follows:
LevelTime
Green Hill 10:21
Green Hill 20:15
Green Hill 30:31
Marble 10:39
Marble 20:24
Marble 31:09
Spring Yard 10:20
Spring Yard 20:25
Spring Yard 31:04
Labyrinth 10:23
Labyrinth 20:26
Labyrinth 30:51
Star Light 10:19
Star Light 20:15
Star Light 30:40
Scrap Brain 10:27
Scrap Brain 20:32
Scrap Brain 30:13
Final Zone1:12
Total Game Time10:26
These times shouldn't be compared with JXQ's run for obvious reasons. There are a few levels in which he does not collect rings (of which the most comparable is Labyrinth 2) but I take different paths to him by choice (see the run's goals above).

Level notes

Green Hill 1 Nothing really special here. The first superglide gets used here - you're gonna see that a lot. My first attempt at this run picked up the shield, but I changed my goals to disallow this strategy.
Green Hill 2 I had to make a big choice at the start of this level. I initially wanted my first condition to be to ignore all items, but it lost so much time from the lack of speed shoes that it was no longer as entertaining, so I compromised. This level wouldn't be nearly as awesome under a no-item condition.
Green Hill 3 More speed shoe action. I don't consider the bouncing off the enemy skipping a large portion of the level, given it's only one enemy and Sonic can do it anyway. It must be said, though, that disallowing the invincibility renders the over-the-top boss strategy impossible, so I had to improvise a little. Oh, and the boss is totally awesome.
Marble 1 If you're wondering why I jumped over the rising/falling platform at about seven seconds, it was already out of position and I figured I may as well play around a bit. This level actually makes climbing up walls look interesting - no mean feat.
Marble 2 A forced skip here - if you take the regular path, you'll find a switch with two rings above the platform it lowers. You can't go past without tagging one of them. Oh, and the ending score here is just perfect.
Marble 3 At about five seconds, I need a perfectly timed five-tap spindash to just sneak under the purple block and also land on the next weight. Unfortunately, you can't skip the huge section of lava when you go this way. Around 43 seconds is where the real fun begins - three consecutive superglides, for height and then distance.
Spring Yard 1 Superglide off the speed shoe saves unnecessary, boring wall climbing. This is also a forced skip, taking the lower path forces you onto a spring which sends you into rings, with no opportunity to jump or significantly alter your trajectory. The section at 17 seconds, weaving in and out of rings, enemies, and that tricky little hole at the end, was all done in one take!
Spring Yard 2 Those bumpers are very annoying. When I went to redo this level (as the first attempt was slower than my old run), I ended up having to try and find the exact speed and timing to get through the second bumper a second time. This was a task I did not relish, so I found a different way through.
Spring Yard 3 I'll forgive you for skipping this one, it's pretty boring. Another forced skip means I have to climb up the wall for five seconds instead of just jumping up onto the angled platform at the top of the level. Another forced skip at the end led to using two superglides instead of just one, leaving the platform at the end perfectly positioned.
Labyrinth 1 Nothing to see here.
Labyrinth 2 Practically identical to JXQ (I tried to avoid this where possible). I think I was ahead before the skip but the door balances that out. I tried to link this skip with the Sonic skip, but using Upthorn's modified emulator I was able to see that that wouldn't work.
Labyrinth 3 The normal path on this level has no rings, so I tried to make it interesting. I think I did a reasonable job on the "boss".
Star Light 1 Pretty standard fare. However you can't seem to hit the 10k flag on this level (or SL2 for that matter). I would've thought they would adjust that for Knuckles, but whatever...
Star Light 2 Coming up with a good strategy for the sinewaves without being able to touch the rings was interesting. I eventually came up with holding left for a single frame so that I didn't hit the part of the curve that made you stop dead.
Star Light 3 Completely the opposite of the path you might expect, because every other path has a loop in it. At 27 seconds I make a jump which seems superfluous, but it sets me up to kill the orbinaut which otherwise would kill me.
Scrap Brain 1 Possibly my favourite trick in the whole run. All paths on this level require you to go through a tube with rings in it, and you can't climb over the top. So what do you do? Go through the rings, of course! Afterwards, I set up my spindash from the left side so that the flamethrowers play nice.
Scrap Brain 2 Surprisingly, nothing special here, except for the transition which I think I did quicker than anyone else has before.
Scrap Brain 3 At seven seconds I pass directly through a bullet. Yeah, I'm cool. (The hitbox is actually behind it!)
Final Zone Nothing to see here. I even ran out of tricks and started using them over. Input ends halfway up the jump to Robotnik's ship. I couldn't let him get away that easily :)

Special thanks

I always used to know when you were near the end of the credits because you saw "special thanks". Rest assured, there's not too far to go.
  • Upthorn - for being a source of ideas, providing me with the Sonic 1 modified Gens (twice!) and generally helping me keep my head on straight
  • JXQ - for the excellent Knuckles TAS that preceded this, and in doing so finding the Labyrinth 2 skip (the last piece in the puzzle for a no-ring completion at the time)
  • MK - the original inspiration for the run, we ran through levels in real time for days testing the feasibility of such a run on an "official" release. However no official releases permitted such a condition, which is why the run is on this game
  • Everyone who watched my WIPs, you know who you are
  • The folks over at The Sonic Center for all the awesome strategies, and all the great times I've had
Enjoy!

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried Sonic The Hedgehog with Knuckles (S1 Hack).gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.

Bisqwit: NVA's guess was wrong, so I undid its screenshot list.

Truncated: I will reject this due to the somewhat arbitrary rules and not all too positive feedback. See mmbossman's and others replies in the thread.

TASVideoAgent
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I've been waiting for this :). Gonna watch it now, EDIT: Or later when I get to a comp with the hack. EDIT2: Yes, vote, I found it to be entertaining.
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arflech
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I gave a "yes" vote, but here's a good question: Is it impossible for Sonic to avoid coins and shields?
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I voted no, I found the whole thing too arbitrary. First you set a fairly arbitrary goal, then you use a hack that vastly increases the character's abilities, then you add this weird "uses normal route except where that would collect rings" goal.
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Before I vote, mike89, I would like an explanation on why you decided to collect rings during the credits. Clearly breaking your goals. On a more serious note, that was fucking awesome! Good work, mike! Yes Your next mission, if you choose to accept it, is a no rings, all emeralds run. GO! ;-)
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Joined: 10/20/2006
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I voted meh because your second rule gives you the freedom to take a slower route whenever you consider it not normal. There is no clear definition of a normal route. The run was still entertaining to me though.
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arflech wrote:
I gave a "yes" vote, but here's a good question: Is it impossible for Sonic to avoid rings and shields?
Were it possible, I would've done it with Sonic. Specifically, Sonic can not avoid: * 3 rings in Marble 2 (probably more) * A few rings in Spring Yard 3 * 10 rings in Labyrinth 2 * 5 rings in Scrap Brain 1 (without a spindash Sonic can't perform the skip that I did with Knuckles) In fact, I tested all the official releases and none of them proved completable under this condition. This hack, however, was.
Sir_VG
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stickyman05 wrote:
Before I vote, mike89, I would like an explanation on why you decided to collect rings during the credits. Clearly breaking your goals. On a more serious note, that was fucking awesome! Good work, mike! Yes Your next mission, if you choose to accept it, is a no rings, all emeralds run. GO! ;-)
I don't care to sit though 7 resets just so they can use the stage select code to do the special stage over and over again. Besides, can Gens here record soft resets?
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Sir VG wrote:
I don't care to sit though 7 resets just so they can use the stage select code to do the special stage over and over again. Besides, can Gens here record soft resets?
It can't do soft resets, and the only reason I said all emeralds was because you need 50 rings to get the big ring, which is impossible in a no ring run. Irony and bad jokes abound!
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Sir_VG
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Yeah, but stage select code allows you to do special stage, avoiding that conundrum. But not if soft resets aren't supported. And technically, I meant 6. I forgot that Sonic 1 only had 6 emeralds. The 7th was added to avoid the complaint gamers would have later "WHY CAN'T I BE SUPER SONIC IN SONIC 1 IT WOULD BE SO COOOOOL!" Too bad.
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stickyman05 wrote:
It can't do soft resets, and the only reason I said all emeralds was because you need 50 rings to get the big ring, which is impossible in a no ring run. Irony and bad jokes abound!
For bonus points, try getting the first emerald without collecting any rings!
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Sir VG wrote:
Yeah, but stage select code allows you to do special stage, avoiding that conundrum.
VG - Is there some obscure way of doing this? I tried enabling the code, collecting the emerald, Reset 68000, re-enabling the code and selecting special level... but it only took me back to the first special level. :(
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
upthorn
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stickyman05 wrote:
Sir VG wrote:
Yeah, but stage select code allows you to do special stage, avoiding that conundrum.
VG - Is there some obscure way of doing this? I tried enabling the code, collecting the emerald, Reset 68000, re-enabling the code and selecting special level... but it only took me back to the first special level. :(
Gens doesn't properly emulate soft resets yet.
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Dont mean to be a pain or anything, but the link the the description should be reviewed by an admin for possible linkage against the rules of the site. Nice run though, weak yes vote for weird rules.
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CrazyTerabyte
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The movie looks good and is entertaining. My opinion is Yes. I think the goal 2 (Take the "normal" path through the level, except where doing so would force you to collect rings) is not allowed by the guidelines. Maybe it should just be rephrased. Maybe should be "Avoid skipping the levels from above, because that would be just plain boring." In my opinion, this qualifies as "contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs" and would be ok. I would like to cite the Air 2 rejected submission: Not all movies here aim for fastest time. The air 2 publication is one such example. It intentionally avoids shortcuts that were deemed uninteresting to watch. And also this post: Hmm, HappyLee this is one of the times where speed doesn't beat entertainment. While your run is faster, it's much less entertaining to watch because you run over all of the levels. This movie seems very well played. I loved what you've done in Scrap Brain, skipping the rings and passing really close to those flame-throwers. Maybe this movie can be improved. Maybe it would be possible to remove a few frames from every level. Personally I feel the boss battles could be done better (but, hey, I'm just a watcher here, maybe I'm wrong). In special, I think the final battle would have been slightly better if you've hit Robotnik at the earliest or latest frames of his attacks. For me it seems that sometimes it was hit in the "middle frames". Again, I'm not a TASer, I might be wrong. Finally, we already have two no-kills Contra run, a no-run Mario run, why not a no-rings Sonic/Knuckles run? This movie does the unexpected, is surprising, is fast, is well-played. I think it meets the conditions of a TAS.
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stickyman05 wrote:
Sir VG wrote:
Yeah, but stage select code allows you to do special stage, avoiding that conundrum.
VG - Is there some obscure way of doing this? I tried enabling the code, collecting the emerald, Reset 68000, re-enabling the code and selecting special level... but it only took me back to the first special level. :(
It's probably as stated below your post. I remember it working on the real system. Sonic 2 also can be done that way as well.
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stickyman05 wrote:
VG - Is there some obscure way of doing this? I tried enabling the code, collecting the emerald, Reset 68000, re-enabling the code and selecting special level... but it only took me back to the first special level. :(
If you enter the debug mode cheat first you can use start+a to reset.
Mitjitsu
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I'm voting no for two reasons 1. Even with all the goals taken into account it doesn't seem very optimal. 2. Far too many mixed goals which would make such a run confusing to obselete in future.
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I like the idea, but I agree that the goals are somewhat (unfortunately) vague. "Normal" route doesn't seem to be well defined, and the skip in Marble Zone 2 just seems... unfortunate, I guess. I actually have a larger problem with the "don't zip to the end of a level", because you used a small zip Labyrinth Zone 2(?), which seems to go against the spirit of your run. This is one of the few submissions that I would vote "yes" on, when asked if I enjoyed the movie, and "no" when asked if the movie should be published.
AKA wrote:
1. Even with all the goals taken into account it doesn't seem very optimal.
I don't entirely disagree with this, as it's the first run of it's kind, and the author didn't have *a lot* to compare it to. However, instead of a blanket statement, would you please provide some examples of suboptimal technique for future consideration? As for my vote, I guess the enjoyment based "yes" and the publish-worthy "no" meld into a meh.
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Sir_VG
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Now that I've actually watched this, I can comment. I have to agree in a sense with CrazyTerabyte's post. I like that the game tries to follow the "intended route" instead of always just climbing to the roof and flying though. It gives more of a sense of "we could do it if we tried hard enough" feel to it. However, while we have done pacifist Contra, "coinless-capless-cannonless" SM64 didn't make it though the ringer. Some of the things in this video were quite interesting in order to skip rings (Scrap Brain 1 especially) but I'm a bit unsure still on whether it should be published. But, considering that this goal is likely impossible to do via normal game play (which seems to be the reason why CCC SM64 was rejected), I guess it probably is worthy.
While "CCC" may be a common unassisted playing goal, it fails to be an impressive TAS goal. If anything, because the goal itself is doable unassisted. "Extra" (runs other than any%, low%, 100%, or perhaps pacifist?) of games tend to have goals that would be thought impossible or at least impossible by human standards to achieve. Such as SMW's small only run, Metroid's no mini-boss run, or Nightmare on Elm Street's 4 player run.
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Sir VG wrote:
"Extra" (runs other than any%, low%, 100%, or perhaps pacifist?) of games tend to have goals that would be thought impossible or at least impossible by human standards to achieve. Such as SMW's small only run, Metroid's no mini-boss run, or Nightmare on Elm Street's 4 player run.
I guess a ring-less sonic can fit into 0% category. BTW, this is a sonic TAS without sonic and without rings. Very uncommon, very unique.
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0% only means something if getting stuff makes you stronger. Not being able to take damage to save time (which doesn't happen very often in Sonic anyway) isn't really a big difference. I think if there was no hack needed or the normal route had been taken without exceptions I might accept it but as it is you pretty much have to tack on two extra rules just to fulfill the ring-less goal. Also for practical purposes, what if someone found a way to go the normal route in places you skipped? He'd get a worse time, should we obsolete runs based on whether they manage to take more of the normal route? I hold the "without Sonic" part AGAINST it because Knuckles is just so much better than Sonic, the levels were not designed to deal with climbing and the spin dash was not available in STH1 (Sonic can do it in the later games, evening it out but here it's a huge advantage). What if there was a Metroid hack that let you glitch into Tourian and survive the brain laser without needing items to do so, would the resulting 0% run be interesting or would people say that using a hack to get increased powers is really not what a TAS is about?
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I found this run very entertaining despite my usual scorn for arbitrarily restricted TASes. Well done. :) I can see where the other posters in this thread are coming from, but I think entertainment somewhat trumps it. For me at least.
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voting thingy wrote:
Vote: Did you like watching this movie? (Vote after watching!)
emphasis added. I've always been under the impression that it's up to Judges to work out whether the run follows the rules of the site, and the public to tell the judges if the run was enjoyable or not. While a fair few people have said they enjoyed the run, they either water it down to a meh or go as far as no as if they're saying "its a good run but keep it off my internetz!". Seriously, you either enjoyed it or you didn't..
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