User Files from moozooh

This script works with any NTSC SNES game natively running at a resolution of 256×224 when emulated in Bizhawk. Also works with any other system running at that resolution.

It overlays a grid of 16×14=224 rectangles over the game area, adapting to any emulator window scaling, aspect correction, pillarboxing, and letterboxing. Each rectangle represents a 16×16 pixel area of native SNES resolution, allowing to approximate distances and sizes of in-game objects at a glance, useful for when relevant RAM addresses are not available or not required to get the job done.

Rectangles are purple by default as it is a high-visibility color that is rarely used in SNES palettes, but I've also left in gallery white (visible on pure white backgrounds) as an option. Or you can add your own color.

To make the grid more coarse, try 8 columns and 7 rows instead: this will reduce grid resolution to 32×32 px rectangles.

The script is made to only run once and have the grid linger until the emulator window changes dimensions, so it has zero performance cost. However, this makes it not directly compatible with scripts that update GUI drawings every frame as they would likely erase the grid. If you want the grid to be visible together with other Lua drawings, feel free to incorporate it in your scripts as you see fit.

This is not a replacement for a proper hitbox/tile viewer, but it's better than nothing.

This is the final version of my submission to Super Metroid TAS Competition Round 4 hosted by UNHchabo over at Super Metroid Speedrunning Discord: https://discord.gg/rT2fWZt.

The goal of this competition round was to start the game pre-patched with a specific modification of the Map Randomizer ROM hack that spawns the player in the Wrecked Ship Energy Tank room, then go grab the item at the Gauntlet Energy Tank location.

Timing starts on power-on (frame 0) and ends when in-game timer (RAM address $1842) starts counting up after the item acquisition message is gone.

Total time from start to finish: 01:30.03.

Contest placement: 2nd. This time I'm the one who's 5 frames behind the #1. :D

The goal I set for myself after the preliminary route tests was getting under 5400 input frames. Would've loved to take it under 5400 total, but couldn't find any more improvements. Moonwalk wasn't used because I couldn't find any uses for it that justified the 62 frame upfront cost of enabling it.

Link to contest rules, hack patch, and chat log: https://discord.com/channels/98929157894836224/1186390481358311474/1225738197468708905

This movie is 8 frames faster than Induviel's userfile upload in pure input and 16 frames faster in reaching the goal thanks to better lag management and speed control—which are mostly the same thing in this "game" because it lags when you move slower or faster than it wants you to and is extremely picky about it.

It is further improvable if you find out a better lag management strategy and/or lengthen the input to make the character reach the goal sooner. I'm not going to submit this unless I solve the extra frames of lag in the last section or find a way to move at >10 px/f (which is technically possible) at will; feel free to use the movie as a reference for your own attempt. The horizontal subpixel speed address is $86F0. Sub-880 feels doable.

Another post-contest update to UNHchabo's Super Metroid TAS Competition Round 3.

Roughly a day after making this movie, I thoroughly studied sniq's submission that took a different route compared to mine and found improvements we've both missed, which resulted in this combined route that is, in all likelihood, the fastest way to do this room. It's a further 15 frames faster than Bonus v1 and 38 frames faster than my winning submission. I can't think of any other improvements, and so I won't touch this anymore. Bring on round 4!

Further details here.

Old untouched WIP from 2019, massively improved from the original, pre-TAStudio WIP from 2015. That one is just for reference.

There's one big goof in this WIP where it goes to the menu to switch the difficulty to Easy and then just exits it without actually making the change. However, since the difficulty doesn't actually affect anything relevant, this action is entirely moot and simply wastes 136 frames (though it's a trivial resync).

Uses grappling hook to save time at every opportunity (sadly, the game doesn't provide many of these).

I got stuck optimizing lag caused by the rollercoaster. The WIP is improvable elsewhere but still faster than anything publicly available by several seconds, last I checked.

Made on BizHawk 2.3 BSNES core but syncs on every newer version up through 2.9.1. I'll port it to v115 whenever I find the time and motivation to revisit it. Expect further improvements at that time, although I can't promise any big ones.

A quick and lazy movie that is 23 frames faster than my winning submission for UNHchabo's Super Metroid TAS Competition Round 3. Basically a victory lap. :D

Improved version here.

Further details here.

This is the final version of my submission to Super Metroid TAS Competition Round 3 hosted by UNHchabo over at Super Metroid Speedrunning Discord: https://discord.gg/rT2fWZt

The goal of this competition round was to start the game pre-patched with a provided modification of the Map Randomizer ROM hack that spawns the player in the Plasma Tutorial room, then go grab Plasma Beam, kill all space pirates in the room to unlock the door, and take damage from a puyo (one of the enemies in the Plasma Tutorial room).

Timing starts when game state (RAM address $0998) reads 8 and ends when Samus HP (RAM address $09C2) decrements as the result of contact with a tutorial room puyo.

Total time from start to finish: 1308 frames (21.45 seconds @ 60.988 fps).

Moonwalk wasn't used (even though it was free to turn on by the contest rules) because all the uses I've managed to find for it were nullified by things outside of my control. My goal was to make it under 2000 frames, and that goal has been achieved.

Contest placement: 1st.

Results presentation VOD:

Link to contest rules, hack patch, and chat log: https://discord.com/channels/98929157894836224/1186390481358311474/1210882848878366740

Post-contest movie that incorporates improvements from other submissions is available here.

Well, that was... embarrassing. :D

I realized I wasn't utilizing the new tech to its full potential on some of the jumps and falls, so I went through the entire segment and improved it further by 30 in-game frames. This also let me reduce some lag thanks to not picking up 1-up and the three unnecessary balls that were slower to skip otherwise, so now this WIP is 116 in-game frames and 64 realtime frames faster than andymac's.

It is probably still improvable by a few frames (one particular thing that stands out is the unfortunate frame of lag in the final room of 2-A), but at this point I'd like to move on.

Well, I made some relatively easy headway on this, so I guess this is a WIP now?

Anyway, 86 input frames saved vs. andymac's, 62 frames faster in realtime; all from better movement (speed control in particular).

Further progress will come slower because different routes will need to be tested (stage 3 in particular). The published TAS makes at least one poor choice in that regard, so I'm expecting at least half a minute to come from better routing alone.

Improved version here.

This movie improves upon andymac's level 1-A by 18 input frames (address $1C5D, 1u) and 2 realtime frames despite Snes9x's faster fadeouts/loads.

Leaving this here in case somebody else is already working on this game and/or I forget about its existence for an indefinite amount of time.

Requires BizHawk with BSNESv115+ but may sync on the regular BSNES core; I haven't tried.

Improved version here.