User Files from dwangoAC

I'm at it again... Here's a WIP completing the first wave of Joust. One minor downside - this is from the (aging) FCEUX 2.1.4a because that's all I had installed on the laptop we took on a long car ride. More to come, possibly in BizHawk...

Just.wch 

3
00000	101E	b	u	0	Player height
00001	1054	b	u	0	Player position
00002	001A	b	u	0	Player flapping


A.C.
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This completes Wolfenstein 3D E1L1 and represents a significant improvement over my previous WIP. The lurch in the first prison cell combined with improved enemy AI manipulation resulted in a faster completion time with no lost health. I'm not precisely certain how much faster this is as I let the movie run a bit longer the first time after pulling the elevator switch but it's definitely faster.

I'm very satisfied with this work and I do not currently have any plans to re-do E1L1. Anyone want to help with E1L2? :)

A.C.
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This is another complete restart, this time with better movement in the first prison cell and more precise angles to ensure maximum speed. It also changes to using right angles in the first brown room you need to turn in; I am not yet sure if this is the fastest possible completion of this room.

One note about the first room: At timetick 11102 as the first prison cell fades into view I send dy=70 (mouse force maximum to direction +y/east), then let go around timetick 11144; at 11230 the player's speed reaches value 45054, then on 11244 speed is 0, then 11258 speed is 14999 until I hit the door at timetick 11344. During the time the speed goes to 45054 and back to 0, the player seems to lurch forward in the room. This is significantly faster than the previous WIP, and appears to be a bug in how the mouse movement is interpreted when the fade-in happens.

A.C.
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This completes Wolfenstein 3D Episode 1 Level 1 in 16 in-game seconds. The current SDA record is 20 seconds so this represents a respectable improvement. This run takes damage to save time and focuses on strafing and running at the same time for maximum speed. There are still some interesting oddities here - for instance, it's possible to shoot through doors - specifically, look for a muzzle flash happening before the door opens and a guard death animation already playing out as the door opens in at least a couple of places in the run. Also note that delaying pushing against a door that is opening can significantly impact where a guard will attempt to walk to; this can be seen in the largest gray room as delaying walking against the door causes a guard who opens the door at the far end to walk into the room for easier disposal.

I'm very happy with this first level. If someone could make a WIP encode I'd greatly appreciate it (so far all of my efforts have had audio sync issues and have not played back at full speed). Thanks!

A.C.
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I didn't intend this to be a pacifist run, but so far I haven't actually killed anyone... This represents a restart from the fist prison cell and has a bit more emphasis on being at the exact angles 45, 135, 225, and 315 and turning while waiting for doors to open. I frequently move in slightly bizarre ways to ensure shots from guards miss but as far as I can tell none of the movement has affected speed as it's all been done while waiting for doors to open.

I have not had any luck making encodes at full speed and with sound in sync. This WIP is still a bit short but hopefully the next one I post will finish the first level and a proper encode can be made for it.

Enjoy,

A.C.
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This is still somewhat unsuitable for human consumption but at least it's getting closer. This uses an improved script from Ilari for using an Xbox controller to create mouse events and send them to jpc-rr. Ilari discovered there were several movement values that couldn't be exceeded and that the maximum in-game speed could be achieved with the mouse alone without even using the run button. I took that and.. er.. ran with it. Unfortunately, I encountered a desync right after the point that this WIP cuts off.

I've created a very badly done WIP encode and uploaded it to:

http://sonic.net/~ac/tas/Wolf3DLevel1Partial.mkv

I had problems with audio sync but the video is intact, although I'm not convinced it's the right speed.

Feedback is welcome in the Wolfenstein 3D forum thread.

Thanks!

A.C.
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This is an attempt at a Wolfenstein 3D run. It uses a very unusual mouse and keyboard combination, driven by an Xbox controller (thanks to an initial script created by Ilari). This is not yet suitable for human consumption.

A.C.
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So after completely failing to get the Mednafen emulator to behave long enough to make meaningful progress on the Lynx Joust WIP I started a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try my hand at the Atari 7800 port of the game which is widely regarded as a fairly faithful port of the arcade original. The results so far are good - I think this will make a reasonably entertaining movie. The physics are drastically different than the Lynx version - notably, slamming into the ceiling does not produce a corresponding ricochet effect as was the case in the Lynx version, so dropping quickly is far more diffiult. Oddly, the Atari 7800 version has the same flap for two frames, rest for two frames pattern as the Lynx version; luckily, BizHawk's autofire support can set the number of frames on / number of frames off so this was far more pleasant to work with this time around.

I'll eventually get around to starting a forum post for comments, but feel free to create one of your own if you'd like. :) Enjoy,

A.C.
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Greetings,

This WIP completes the first wave of the Atari Lynx port of the classic arcade game Joust. The flight mechanics of Joust have always been a bit difficult to master, but with the aid of TAS tools the flight mechanics become eas... who am I fooling, it makes them even more challenging to master with any adeptness, albeit a lot more fun. It's possible to flap two frames and pause two frames to get significant lift, but the only way to go fast down is to hit your head hard going up and the mechanics of doing that can be incredibly difficult to get right. In the end, the result is something that is impossible in real life and in my opinion makes it look like the flight controls are top-notch.

After setting the difficulty to skill 9 (whatever that means - I did not see any apparent change in my testing), I start by demonstrating how fast the mount can get from the bottom to the screen to the top, subsequently demonstrating that both mount and rider must be helmed as they crash into the top of the playfield with enough speed to ricochet to the bottom in time for the first enemy to appear. Getting the timing right to be above the enemy on the first frame it could be killed was incredibly challenging as the enemy spawn code seems to have been written to avoid placing them in your flight path. I spent literally hours on this before finding a decent solution.

Winning in combat is a matter of being higher vertically than your opponent at the moment of impact at which point an egg is dropped, the enemy rider disappears, and their mount flies off. The egg must be collected to continue on to the next wave which means 6 things must be hit in the first wave (3 riders, 3 eggs). For this WIP I collect both rider and egg in the same pass. The first rider's egg takes an unfavorable bounce but is collected quickly. The second enemy at the top of the screen was hit twice with a ricochet to retain maximum speed and the third rider was hit at just the right angle to also pick up the egg (this is not always possible; I couldn't get it to happen with the first or second rider). I ended up killing the first rider in the second wave by smashing him at very high velocity after being at a virtual standstill a second before, just for the fun of it.

The number of rerecords in this WIP doesn't include the couple thousand attempts I made in other files to get to this point. I had a significant challenge with Mednafen as the order that must be used to get the emulator to not destroy your movie file is a bit specific. This WIP should be in good shape to play back on either Mednafen on Windows version 1.1 or on Linux revision r144. Thanks for any thoughts you have,

A.C.
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There has been a fair bit of discussion about what the best ending would be for this game. One suggestion that came up was to complete the first level in which the high score occurred. This WIP is a few seconds longer than my previous submission but completes all of stage 4 instead of stopping immediately after the high score is obtained. An encode of this file can be downloaded here. Feedback on this goal choice would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy,

A.C.

Sega Galaga for the SG-1000 obtaining the High Score as fast as possible

This is the final file for the submission of this game. The submission form will not accept this file format, likely because no one else has tried submitting an SG-1000 platform game. In order to get past the parser, I've changed the line that reads Platform SG to read Platform A78. You'll need to change the second line back to "Platform SG" to use this movie file.

A.C.
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I have no idea if this kind of file can be uploaded or not, but here's a BizHawk address set for SG-1000 Sega Galaga. In case the file can't be parsed but this text ends up somewhere anyway, here's the contents of the file:

Domain Main RAM
SystemID SMS
0016	b	u	0	Main RAM	Ship position
035A	b	u	0	Main RAM	251=move left,  247=move right
0338	b	u	0	Main RAM	Fire button down
02B2	b	u	0	Main RAM	Shot 1: 1=firing, 4=in flight
02C2	b	u	0	Main RAM	Shot 2: 1=firing, 4=in flight

This is an 11 frame improvement to my previous submission file. This was all caused by having one shot not hit an enemy; the most recent file I posted (to http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/4013434434096596) to be off by 11 frames.

Judges: My apologies for doing this *again*, but please replace the submission file for http://tasvideos.org/3830S.html with this one. Thanks for your patience!

A.C.

The previous WIPs all contained "calibration" shots prior to the first wave to demonstrate how quickly shots could be fired and how three shots could be displayed on the screen at once. This caused the hits % that appears after the game over screen to show a 94% hit rate. This updated file removes these calibration shots as well as an errant shot I found in the last wave and moves the ship a bit more toward the center of the playfield prior to the final frame of input.

The movie length is unchanged and this file can be considered a direct replacement of the previous movie. Thanks,

A.C.

This is the final WIP which completes the first challenge mode. If someone wants to make an encode of this file that'd be helpful. As before, the game details are currently at: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/3960028627150833

Thanks!

A.C.
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A follow-up to http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/3960028627150833 - this new WIP also completes the first wave of the challenge stage. It isn't much of a difference but I figured I'd upload it anyway. See the earlier WIP for game details.

A.C.
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This completes the Atari 7800 first stage in expert mode. Note that this is effectively a completely different game than the MSX version of Galaga, with unique sound and different enemy patterns (although the same basic concept).

Two shots can be fired at once with a minimum of 5 frames between shots. Shots stop being counted (are returned for use) before they reach the top of the screen and immediately on impact with an enemy. Shooting causes the shot to be registered immediately by the game then two frames later the firing animation occurs.

There are 152 possible horizontal positions with 0 being the far left and 152 being the far right as tracked by the memory addresses below. Note that the first address updates the frame after input and the current ship position updates two frames later. The ship position value jumps by two when moving quickly, but only updates every other frame.

Domain RAM1
SystemID A78
065A	b	u	0	RAM1	Next ship pos.
048F	b	u	0	RAM1	Current ship pos.
060B	b	u	0	RAM1	Shot 1 fired
060C	b	u	0	RAM1	Shot 2 fired

The selection of Expert mode happens as soon as possible (in fact, the word Expert does not get a chance to be displayed). There is a "frame rule" of sorts where the next wave of enemies happens at a set time, even if you eliminated the previous wave long ago. This leads to pauses where nothing happens for a few seconds seconds. I shoot all of the enemy ships at the earliest possible frame anyway, although given the amount of time to play around there's plenty of opportunity for trick shots to mix things up. I'm somewhat concerned that I don't move around enough between waves to keep things entertaining, but there's really only three things you can do: Go left, go right, or stay put. And maybe shoot at thin air.

While it might sound like this is horribly boring, I spent hours playing Galaga on the family Atari 7800 as a kid and making this WIP brought back fond memories. I'm looking forward to doing the rest of the challenge stage sometime soon so I can do a few trick shots and make the run a bit more entertaining. Enjoy and let me know what you think,

A.C.
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