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#638604957802341133 - Dead Zone (English fan translation) TAS

Dead Zone T+Eng v1.0 Stardust Crusaders.fm2
In 11:57.67 (43131 frames), 1045 rerecords
Game: Dead Zone ( FDS, see all files )
24 downloads
Uploaded 8/29/2024 2:36 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638557507722280309 - TIC80 Miko Blade - first pass TAS

miko blade - TIC80 test.bk2
In 00:52.27 (3136 frames), 1738 rerecords
System: TIC-80
1 comment, 23 downloads
Uploaded 7/5/2024 4:32 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
The game is available here: https://tic80.com/play?cart=1097
If you do check out the developer's stuff, I gotta give a small NSFW warning on some of their works outside of the TIC-80 website.
I've had this completed but probably not refined TAS input file for around for about a year. I intended to come back to this to see if there's something I missed when it comes to finishing stages early. The air dash is fast but meter management is important to keep going fast. I just haven't had the drive to come back to this for a while. With some interest in TASing TIC-80 games right now, I might as well put this up for others to see if they can improve on it. I'll accept co-authorship if anyone does go through and improve things. The game is sync friendly so single stage improvements are easy to implement.

#638424460885615278 - Dragon Warrior III GBC - All gold medals route after fighting BossTroll

Dragon Warrior III GBC all medals.bk2
In 1:09:15.47 (248196 frames), 44503 rerecords
72 downloads
Uploaded 2/2/2024 4:48 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1, Gambatte core
Just a heads up, I do all the RNG manipulation without a bot. That doesn't excuse accidentally getting an extra PutrePup bronze medal pretty far back before beating the BossTroll, though fixing that would require redoing 2 days worth of heavy RNG manipulation. The worst part of the RNG manipulation so far has been the BossTroll fight as fire attacks have a 30% hit rate and I couldn't get RNG to behave well enough with manual checking to get a 2 round fight.
Despite that big gaffe with the extra medal, I will press on at a later time since as far as I know there's nobody who has had any progress for an all gold medals TAS that has gotten this far. For now I should focus on other things.
Current progress: 23/165 gold medals

#638420079399910632 - Dragon Warrior III GBC - RAM watch values for the battle counteron maps and some active character stats

Dragon Warrior III (USA).wch
56 downloads
Uploaded 1/28/2024 3:05 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
NOTE: This is for the Game Boy Color version of Dragon Warrior III only!
This isn't a super fancy RAM watch file as it doesn't have any specific RNG addresses. I don't know how I'd find them but changing inputs and/or delaying inputs works decently enough for figuring this stuff out. An important part for each active character slot is the partial values for stats. Due to an added check to the international versions of the game, these partial values are checked for the Pachisi bug. The important ones are what I assume to be the STR and AGI partial values as those are involved with triggering the level up bug part of the of Pachisi bug.

#638418373811187596 - Dragon Warrior III GBC - How bad could getting gold medals be? (terrible)

Dragon Warrior III GBC all medals.bk2
In 14:12.42 (50913 frames), 10220 rerecords
55 downloads
Uploaded 1/26/2024 3:43 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1, Gambatte core
I got frustrated with doing the RNG grind for this game in Retro Achievements for the moment. Like, frustrated enough to get the idea of seeing what a potential "all gold medals" TAS could be. Turns out a lot of waiting for RNG medal drops. As Silver medals require 2 Bronze medals and Gold medals require 2 Silver medals for each monster in the game, the actual odds for a Gold medal in a reasonable time is dire.
At least this proof of concept does have a certain party in mind to get through this. A Hero with a personality with a good strength, agility, and intelligence growth, and three mages with two of them having a personality for good agility and intelligence growth. I went with the sexy personality for the Hero as that provides great stat growths across the board and Smart for the two recruited mages for the agility and intelligence. The one already in the tavern is ordinary, which isn't the biggest dealbreaker since it's just base stat growth. Ultimately the plan is to do the Pachisi level up bug for all the main party members to 99 quickly. I might route in changing one of the mages into a sage for better weapon choices but that's definitely pending.

#638349186029646241 - Marble Madness II - 327 frames ahead after first level set

marbmd2 cluster 1 - 327 frames saved.bk2
In 01:30.50 (5423 frames), 2914 rerecords
Game: Marble Madness II ( Arcade, see all files )
73 downloads
Uploaded 11/7/2023 1:50 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638348938146881792 - Marble Madness II - SRAM setup to disable tutorial messages

marbmd2 - SRAM setup removint tutorial.bk2
In 00:13.52 (810 frames), 0 rerecords
Game: Marble Madness II ( Arcade, see all files )
93 downloads
Uploaded 11/6/2023 6:56 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
This is mainly for resyncing this submission so it starts from a verifiable SRAM rather than an unverifiable save state:

The purpose of this file

Due to how sync settings work, accessing the service menu and then continuing with the rest of the TAS in the MAMEHawk core isn't possible as DIP switch settings require core reboots. This input file instead generates a SRAM from a fresh boot with the Service Menu DIP switch ON. In the service menu the Game Settings are adjusted as such:
Game Difficulty3 - Medium (default)
Tries at King of the Mountain2 (default)
First-Time messagesNo
Reset High Score TableNo
Sounds in AttractYes (default)
Restore factory settingsNo
Once this is done by the input file, stop the input file playback. Then the Service Menu DIP switch should be set back to OFF and the core should be rebooted. If done correctly, the SRAM should save with the tutorial messages off when starting a credit from the beginning. It's now possible to make a new input file without any tutorial messages if one is done starting with the SRAM generated.

#638301685773418952 - SMW Quest for Gaming checks with branches

Quest for gaming TAS - checking.tasproj
In 1:44:46.41 (377806 frames), 4183 rerecords
78 downloads
Uploaded 9/13/2023 2:22 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638290558426321775 - Arkanoid by Genisto - resynced to BizHawk 2.9.1

66M-genisto-arkanoid-resync.bk2
In 16:28.86 (59429 frames), 9329 rerecords
Game: Arkanoid ( NES, see all files )
81 downloads
Uploaded 8/31/2023 5:17 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1, NesHawk core
I was watching dwangoAC's stream working on verification tests for the Arkanoid TASes but this one didn't sync on stream. I got curious about how hard it would be to sync this on a modern NES emulator. With a minor modification adjusting the time when first input past the title screen starts, I got this old input file originally made in Famtasia to sync. This should in theory make this more likely to be console verifiable. I also edited the header to match the original rerecord count of the original publication.

#638274171696130186 - Power Strike II AKA GG Aleste II personal RAM watch

GG Aleste II (JE).wch
75 downloads
Uploaded 8/12/2023 6:06 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
Not sure if the final boss HP RAM watch is completely correct as that value is seemingly used for other variables as well but it was good enough to find the frame of death for RTA timing. Power chip watch is incomplete as there are 3 variables that track their own counts.

#638216822134656857 - Rockman Claw jump movement test - maximal jumps

rockmanclaw jump test - max jumps.bk2
In 00:20.90 (1256 frames), 563 rerecords
Game: Rockman Claw ( NES, see all files )
100 downloads
Uploaded 6/6/2023 9:03 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1, NESHawk core
This was done as a test for #8309: longbao's NES Rockman Claw in 19:11.40.
This test file checks a segment done with as much jumping as possible.
I accidentally uploaded an untrimmed file the last time.

#638216819467577430 - Rockman Claw jump movement test - minimal jumps

rockmanclaw jump test - min jumps.bk2
In 00:20.90 (1256 frames), 562 rerecords
Game: Rockman Claw ( NES, see all files )
85 downloads
Uploaded 6/6/2023 8:59 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638210771936783704 - Mikewillplays movie file fix

Scrolls 6 ver 1.1 fix.bk2
In 38:26.04 (137734 frames), 29690 rerecords
113 downloads
Uploaded 5/30/2023 8:59 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638169970616700723 - Double Dragon 3 (Arcade, US) - Enemy HP RAM watch

Double Dragon 3 - The Rosetta Stone (US).wch
90 downloads
Uploaded 4/13/2023 3:37 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9
Arcade game version: ddragon3
This is a simple but effective RAM watch sheet of enemy HP values. There are 4 addresses the game uses to track enemy HP.

#638157954547729465 - Show do Milhao Volume 2 - 21 frames ahead after question 5

Show do Milhao Volume 2 - faster loads.bk2
In 01:36.79 (5800 frames), 273 rerecords
94 downloads
Uploaded 3/30/2023 5:50 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)

#638131212640097050 - DuckTales 2 - Mu stage minus boss in 4305 frames

Duck Tales 2 (USA) - Mu test.bk2
In 01:27.38 (5228 frames), 1192 rerecords
Game: DuckTales 2 ( GB, see all files )
1 comment, 97 downloads
Uploaded 2/27/2023 7:01 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
131 frames faster moving through Mu compared to this submission:
I didn't do the boss fight since the boss RNG works differently from the NES version and doesn't seem to care about Scrooge's X-position.

#638125376207672593 - Delisoba Deluxe - unoptimized Coin Mode counterstop

Delisoba Deluxe - score attack.bk2
In 02:39.25 (9555 frames), 79 rerecords
Game: Delisoba Deluxe ( Saturn, see all files )
90 downloads
Uploaded 2/21/2023 12:53 AM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.8
Oops. By the way, even though this is a Saturn exclusive game I went by MARP rules where the settings have to be at whatever defaults are set upon loading the game. Thus there's no adjusting top speed. There are turns and tight maneuvers that require slowing down so adjusting top speed might actually be detrimental for maintaining a consistent coin chain.
Anyways I tried out the analog for this game and it works fine. Probably wouldn't need that for a TAS if all I'm going for is the fastest score counterstop. On the other hand, going for the largest bonus at the end (coins * time * 1000) would want finer adjustments. The problem is that I kinda forgot where that analog viewer lua file was so I just kinda manually did it with a controller. Thus the inputs are a terrible mess but this is a good baseline for both fastest coutnerstop and largest end bonus. I might get back to this later.

#638117409522911950 - Mega Man Zero 3 - post credits save for proof and Hard mode SRAM

MMZ3 buster max score post credits proof.bk2
In 1:07:09.94 (240698 frames), 61549 rerecords
135 downloads
Uploaded 2/11/2023 7:35 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9 release candidate 2
This is an input file that saves after the credits as it shows that the regular S rank, buster only S rank, and maximum mission score unlocks are obtained. This also saves so if nothing else this serves as a verification movie for anyone who wants to do a Hard mode TAS of Zero 3 if they're so inclined.

#638114942205017629 - Zippy the Porcupine - basic RAM Watch file

Zippy V2 FINAL NTSC.wch
123 downloads
Uploaded 2/8/2023 11:03 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
This has very little info but it has two incredibly important watches: Zippy's speed and the boss's X-position during boss fights.
The main trick to preserving speed is to not be rolling on the ground.

#638114940436284980 - Zippy the Porcupine - test TAS

Zippy V2 FINAL NTSC.bas.bk2
In 14:51.50 (53421 frames), 4633 rerecords
110 downloads
Uploaded 2/8/2023 11:00 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.8
This is a preliminary TAS to see how long a Zippy TAS could take. One thing I noticed is that only 10 levels out of 16 are needed to be played to reach the ending. The boss locations are also determined by the frame the title screen is cleared. This run does it on the first frame which leads the the tremendous problem of playing all of the very laggy Aqua Zone levels. There might be some optimizations per level but I think that the levels themselves are sync friendly.
The boss fights are influenced by player input so some of that will be needed in a more refined pass of this game. This is especially important since this affects how long each cycle takes between hits by about a range of 100-200 frames.

#638100084868122059 - Somari speed and positioning RAM watch

Somari (SOMARI-W) (Unl) [!].wch
Game: Somari ( NES, see all files )
88 downloads
Uploaded 1/22/2023 6:21 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
A simple RAM watch that has Somari's screen position, map position, horizontal and vertical speed, and a boolean check for ascending state. Things of note is that just running is faster than using the spin dash, and that jumping in the air loses horizontal speed.
This one made for despoa.

#638092392213478137 - The Divide: Enemies Within - initial test run to Ice Caverns

The Divide PSX test.bk2
In 13:22.89 (48181 frames), 6148 rerecords
81 downloads
Uploaded 1/13/2023 8:40 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9 rc2
This is an unfinished WIP. Initially I couldn't get the tutorial skip of activating the right elevator early in my test runs, but later real time testing managed to get that happening sometimes. If someone can get it to trigger early then maybe I'll get back to this sooner rather than later.
Also worth noting that the RTA PC record now goes back through the boss arena after getting jump. I can do that and maybe cut out the machine gun ammo upgrade. If I do skip out on the ammo, then I'd have to work out a better boss 2 fight that involves manipulating ammo drops for more mines and maybe eitehr machine gun or rocket ammo. I'm not quite satisfied with that fight in any case.
YouTube encode available over here.

#638083776152792211 - Double Dragon 3 (Arcade, US) - Mission 1 initial tests

ddragon3 bad ideas.bk2
In 01:35.66 (5495 frames), 4364 rerecords
82 downloads
Uploaded 1/3/2023 9:20 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9 release candidate 2
ROM name: ddragon3
I mostly did this as kind of a goof. it's definitely not refined considering that I'm roughly 8 seconds behind this speed run by Janet before entering the door to the boss arena. Enemies have more health on Hardest but considering that the boss only has about 1 jump & stomp more health between Normal and Hardest, I'd definitely have to work on understanding getting damage before knockdowns better since it's not an enemy HP problem.

#638082783134001606 - Big Bucks maximum score

Big Bucks.bk2
In 03:01.88 (11023 frames), 731 rerecords
Game: Big Bucks ( Arcade, see all files )
75 downloads
Uploaded 1/2/2023 5:45 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9 release candidate 2
I didn't stutter when I said I'd do quiz games. However this input file was doing a max score run. The thing about that is moving the joystick at certain frames changes where the icon goes for the multiplier and I haven't quite found an ideal one for one of the questions. Getting that manipulated right would save a second or two. If I didn't give a damn about score this would be completely trivial.

#638078671425645124 - Space Invaders (U) Super Game Boy - 9 wave clear for loop

Space Invaders SGB arcade - 9 waves by Darkman425.bk2
In 05:32.07 (19957 frames), 5644 rerecords
88 downloads
Uploaded 12/28/2022 11:32 PM by Darkman425 (see all 49)