Welcome to TASVideos, a community dedicated to creating and publishing tool-assisted superplay (TAS) videos, which are gameplay demonstrations that are created with assistance from emulators and other tools in order for the demonstrations to resemble superhuman playing sessions.
Table of contents
Introduction
Using these tools, we overcome human limitations to complete games with extremely high precision, entertaining our viewers as our players tear through games at seemingly impossible speeds. The end result of this process is simply a series of key-presses which may be performed on the original hardware.
Many of the insights collected during the making of these runs is documented on our resource pages, allowing new players to quickly catch up to our experts. Some of these tricks we use make the games look broken. But we are not breaking the games, we are just breaking your notion on them.
You are invited to join the hundreds of players, thousands registered users, and about 100,000 monthly unique visitors that make up our community, share knowledge of games, provide feedback of TAS videos you have watched, or even make movies yourself.
Mission statement
TASVideos.org is committed to providing the best in tool-assisted speedruns and superhuman play. Our runs are held to high standards, and only high quality runs will be published on the site. We also prefer quality over quantity — a poor quality run will not be accepted whether it is a game new to the site or an improvement to a pre-existing run. Our runs may not be perfect (if that is even possible), but are still high quality and aim to be as entertaining as possible.
Why?
We make these movies because they are entertaining to watch, and because we are curious how far a game can be pushed. The process of creating them is also a form of problem-solving and challenge to our intellect and ingenuity.
If a child receives a box containing an expensive toy as a birthday present, it's possible that he'll enjoy the box more than the toy. This is creativity. We're doing the same for these games. Instead of walking on the paths created for us, we create our own paths, our own legs and so on. And we're not listening to people who say "you can't do that!". Just like children.
How?
The movies on TASVideos are created with the help of emulators that have the capability of recording sequences of key presses — it is the key presses that are recorded, and the video and audio resulting from the emulator playing this back is what can be seen through the videos provided on the site.
The emulators involved have been crafted to provide features specifically designed for optimal game play. The most common features are save states, allowing the author to return to an earlier point in the run (and thereby revert mistakes that are made), and the ability to play one frame at a time (known as frame advance), which removes the limitations of one's reflexes. Where even this isn't enough, some emulators allow for programming and 'bots' to further enhance the process.
More information
- Newcomer Corner
- List of players: list of everyone who has contributed a movie that has been accepted for publication.
- FAQ: answers to frequently asked questions.
- Glossary: specific words we often use here.
- BitTorrent: answers to common video downloading related questions.
- Movie Rules: runs submitted here normally conform to these rules.
- Guidelines: additional suggestions for creating runs which are likely to be well-received.
- Works In Progress: learn more about how runs are created by seeing them as they are worked on by our expert players.
- Downloads: collection of links to often needed programs and utilities, such as emulators, media players, codecs and BitTorrent clients.
- Applications: List of applications which support accessing TASVideos content from your home theater, cell phone, and more.
- Site History: history of this website.
Legal notice
TASVideos does not distribute games nor endorse software piracy.
Movies published on this site were created by and for this site.
Game playthroughs we create (emulator movies and their encodes) rely on the Fair Use doctrine when being distributed.
Movies published on this site were created by and for this site.
Game playthroughs we create (emulator movies and their encodes) rely on the Fair Use doctrine when being distributed.
Redistribution
Webmasters, please don't link directly to the files. You may link to any
Republication of movies from this site, that are all submitted under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license, is only allowed under the following conditions:
.html page freely.
Republication of movies from this site, that are all submitted under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license, is only allowed under the following conditions:
- Video and audio content must not be changed (including the pointers to this site).
- The movies must be labeled as tool-assisted speedruns beyond any chance of mistaking.
- The actual player(s) (always shown at this site) must be properly credited.
Do not label them with speculations. If unsure, ask the site staff for details.
Miscellaneous
For a well-written outside perspective on the TAS phenomenon, check out As Fast as Impossible: 10 Insanely Thrilling Tool-Assisted Speedruns. This article, written by John Teti, goes more in depth about what tool-assisted speedruns are, and which are the top 10 examples that best demonstrate what these runs are about. Anyone being introduced to these movies should enjoy reading this article, which teaches newcomers how the movies are made, and chooses which are the ideal first movies to watch to become exposed to these speedruns.
- Tool Assisted Speedrun Lecture: a lecture about the TAS where you'll find all the basis for a good understanding using concrete examples and videos.