Hi there! I'm rythin, or Cassie, 20-something (let's be honest I'll forget to update this) girl who's into PC gaming and really not much else. I had a PS3 growing up but games for that were expensive and for PC they were free if you knew where to look, so that's where I spent most of my time.
I got interested in speedrunning back in 2013 after watching Breakdown's Super Meat Boy Speedrun at AGDQ 2013, but wouldn't actually pick up the hobby seriously until 2016, when I started running lesser known indie games as well as old PC shovelware. Though I don't do it as actively anymore I still try to keep up with the RTA communities for the games I love.
As for TASing, I feel like I've known about it since I've known about speedrunning, likely from one of the TASBot showcases at GDQ, but can't pinpoint which one. I've always loved the idea and wanted to do it myself, but with my gaming interests mostly being limited to PC, there wasn't much I could do until I found out about libTAS in 2021.
As for outside of speed-oriented gaming, I play a lot of modded minecraft. It usually comes in waves but when I get really into a world I'll play that pretty much exclusively for a week or two, to the dismay of my roommate, before being able to do much of anything else.
PC TASing is the main thing I intend to be doing, though I'm not opposed to checking out or doing some console TASes myself, though it will likely be limited to games that came out on PC in addition to consoles, rather than consoles exclusively.
Stuff I've done
| [4614] Linux Citadel of Celestial Cascades by rythin in 04:01.58 | |
|---|---|
 | CoCC is not the first game I've TASed, but it was the first I deemed submission worthy. The movement ended up being a lot more involved than I initially expected and then discovering the pause glitch opened up a whole new can of worms. Still, I think I've done a pretty good job optimizing what's there and it resulted in a pretty fun watch. |
| [4628] Flash Meat Boy by rythin in 02:51.10 | |
 | Having the first flash publication is pretty neat, but I don't really regard this run as super entertaining. I feel I could have done a better job optimizing but also the goal choice of standard completion isn't all that interesting. [4696] Flash Meat Boy "100%" by slamo in 08:05.73 is a much better watch. |
| [4633] Flash Portal: The Flash Version "no level skip" by rythin in 02:25.87 | |
 | In some ways I'm very proud of this run, in others I'm really frustrated with it. As mentioned in the submission text, the game has a strange glitch that I couldn't figure out that ended up losing me a lot of time on the resync. Despite that, I think it's a very entertaining little run and I'm proud of all I've managed to find and optimize. This is also the TAS that would get me interested in games where it's obvious that the play is superhuman and looks really flashy. |
| [4775] PICO8 Cyclo 8 by rythin in 01:40.10 | |
 | Cute little game, this was a one evening type of project that ended up taking quite a bit longer as I found more optimizations, especially the final climb in the last level. Overall not a super exciting TAS but I think it's short enough to end before it gets boring. |
| [4796] Linux Gateways by rythin & negative seven in 00:49.02 | |
 | My next adventure with 2D Portal inspired games, since last time it went quite well. This time, well, the gameplay is very fast but unfortunately it comes at the cost of watchability. Initially I was planning on making an inbounds TAS, only starting with the OoB one to get my feet wet and get familiar with the game, but after figuring out the object deload exploit I realised that no matter what kind of restriction you put on the game, other than "no deloading" I suppose, the run will pretty much just be every-frame portal spam to the end where the viewer has no idea what's going on. If anything, I think this TAS is very good for introducing someone to the concept of TAS in general, but maybe isn't so great for entertainment by itself. |
| [4984] MacOS Yo! Noid 2: Enter the Void by rythin in 07:59.83 | |
 | First MacOS publication (sorry iku!) and more importantly to me, the first game I speedrun RTA that's gotten a publication on the site. This was my first experience with 3D TASing and as such this run is far from optimized. In addition to that, this is done on the original release of the game, rather than the updated anniversary release that most speedrunning is done on. As such, I wasn't entirely motivated to optimize it more than just having a clean run with some cool tricks or movement that you wouldn't see RTA. It's still an enjoyable watch I think, and shatters the RTA record but not quite what I wanted to make. |
| [5006] Flash My Friend Pedro by rythin in 04:57.25 | |
 | I loved the full game when I played it around release and always thought it'd make for a really fun TAS. Unfortunately, the full game isn't quite TASable just yet, as far as I can tell, but the flash game is good to go! I'm happy I was able to find two skips that weren't known by the RTA community, as well as just some movement optimizations that aren't quite RTA viable. Overall it's nowhere near as crazy or technical as some of my previous submissions, but between the fun movement bits and perfect aim it's a pretty neat TAS. |
| [5033] Flash Dad 'n Me "glitchless" by rythin in 01:42.64 | |
 | Having made TASes for a whole bunch of relatively unknown games, I wanted to tackle a more recognisable title and ended up on this flash classic. It ended up getting far fewer youtube views than I was hoping for but, oh well. The run itself isn't anything special really. All it took was snagging the two combos used in RTA speedruns and lots of RNG manips to get good enemy movement patterns that allow clearing screens quickly. I went with the glitchless branch since that's the main category that's played RTA, so it would be the more useful/interesting comparsion for that community, but also I figured it'd be the more interesting playstyle to watch. I think it ended up being in the same boat as Cyclo 8, not super entertaining but short enough to not get boring. |
| #8001: rythin's Windows The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb "Sheol" in 01:50.67 | |
 | Another flash TAS partially motivated by potential views, though I would say for this one my love of the game was definitely the more relevant factor. I played hundreds if not thousands of hours of flash isaac back in the day and coming back to it once ruffle started supporting the game was as exciting as it was nostalgic. For my first TAS of it, I decided to go for the simplest goal to reach from a new save file, mainly to get something out there while learning how to TAS it efficiently. I believe to have figured out some very solid TAS routes and some of the RNG manipulation methods, which should help a good amount as I tackle more involved branches. As for the Sheol TAS itself, it's alright. As tends to be the case with roguelike TASes, a crazy strong build is obtained at the very start and the entire game is trivialised with it. I think it's a pretty interesting watch if you're familiar with the game, but probably not so much otherwise. |
I've made a few TASes that I didn't deem worthy of being submitted, but I still have Thoughts on them. This list is not exhaustive and only features runs I feel strongly enough about to actually write something.
| Legend of Xenia | |
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| video | LoX was the first TAS I've made. The RTA community was very much fighting for single frames to shave off which in my mind made the game a clear target for a TAS. For my first time TASing, it wasn't great! The linux port of the game is Not Good and kept crashing or having other issues. Regardless, I think it was overall a good experience being able to optimize everything and even find some new tech that sped up the run significantly and ended up being applied to a lesser extent in RTA aswell! |
| Super Blue Boy Planet | |
| video | SBBP is a game I randomly stumbled upon when browsing steam free to play games when I was younger. I speedran the game a bit RTA and when I learned of porting GMS games to linux, it was the first one I thought to try out. The process of TASing this one was extremely nice. No new threads being created, good performance, no weird crashes or errors. The game itself is pretty mediocre but from a speedplay standpoint I think it's quite interesting. Between cloning the character to skip bosses and optimize puzzles to chaining glides off enemy stomps and general movement optimization, I think it's a pretty fun watch. There's a pretty underexplored glitch allowing for faster movement, but it's not very feasible to get even in a TAS setting without modding the game to see more of what's going on, which is something I'd like to do eventually but it's not exactly a priority. I've also made a no duo TAS of the game which doesn't utilise the character cloning, instead having to come up with other ways to deal with some of the obstacles. |
| [RESPAWN] | |
| video | A flash game I was introduced to some years ago, I liked the smooth platforming and the zips, but never got good enough at it to competently speedrun it RTA. Ruffle has some issues with the game, namely buttons stop working when being moved in the wrong way, which causes a fair bit of timeloss through unoptimal movement or needing to use alternative routes for levels. Other than that though, I think it's a really cool run and I would like to resync and submit it once ruffle improves. |
| Stranded Isle | |
| video | A PICO8 game with a surprisingly big runner base. I ended up finding an item duplication exploit for the game and wanted to use it to it's full potential, hence this. I'm not sure why I didn't submit this one honestly, might still do at some point, maybe find an improvement first? |
| Magicite | |
| video | Magicite is another roguelike I really enjoy and wanted to TAS. I ended up figuring out a strange multi-hit glitch that I noticed happened sometimes in real time play and found a way to really abuse it to the extreme. Unfortunately, because of the kind of TAS this is (current patch, fresh file) it's not really comparable to any RTA speedruns, and the run itself doesn't have all that much going on, other than some decently speedy movement and the aforementioned glitch. The route I took ends up losing a bit of time from grabbing a damage ring that doesn't end up doing anything as well as generally not ideal RNG, but I wasn't too concerned with optimizing the run a crazy amount. It was more of a test to see if the game would be interesting TASed, and how fast it could be completed. I would like to tackle another branch and submit it eventually but it's not a priority. |
| Vinekid | |
| video | Grappling hook games good. This game is very grappling hook. I didn't end up submitting it mainly because of the godot sound bug, as well as the dev updating the game which broke sync. There aren't any crazy glitches or skips but the extremely fast grapple movement alone makes this a very cool TAS I think. Maybe I'll resync and submit some day. |
Big ol' list of To Dos
| Game | Platform | Progress | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia | Linux | WIP | First 3 levels done |
| Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 | GC | On Hold | Need to reroute everything, 3D is pain |
| Yo! Noid 2: Game of a Year Edition (100%) | Linux | On Hold | 2 levels done, unity desync hell |
| Mable and the Wood | Linux | On Hold | 1st boss done, has annoying savefile issues |
| Jak 3 Journey Back | Flash | On Hold | Wasn't able to match RTA in the car race, ruffle issue maybe? |
| Binding of Isaac: WotL (Platinum God) | Flash | On Hold | Finished the first of many runthroughs and now attempting to deal with rng desyncs |
| Spelunky | Windows | To Do | Found an improvement to the current publication |
| Risk of Rain (100%) | Linux | To Do | Got a rough sketch of a route |
| Magicite (100%) | Linux | To Do | Doesn't work in the most recent versions of libTAS |
| Terra | PICO8 | To Do | Hoping for libTAS to support mousewheel input before starting on this |
| Codename Gordon | Flash | To Do | I've made a TAS already, but there's lots of improvements to be made before submitting |
| The Last Stand: Union City | Flash | Can't do yet | Works in ruffle now, but my current setup seems to have rng desync issues in ruffle in general |
| Swords and Sandals 2 | Flash | Can't do yet | Game-breaking emulation bug in Ruffle |
| Salt and Sanctuary | Linux | Can't do yet | Performance in libTAS is too bad to TAS efficiently |
| Transistor | Linux | Can't do yet | Performance in libTAS is too bad to TAS efficiently |
Tools
TextToInput - a Windows app for converting a text string into libTAS input, helpful for TASing typing games