Descent To Kaylon (Compute's Gazette)

Gliding asteroids and a layer of clouds separate you from your supply base on Planet Kaylon. Yet...crusing over the planet, you spot a supply base below. But as soon as you send off a shuttle ship to the base, a cluster of asteroids sails across its path. Darting quickly through the asteroids and clouds, your shuttle narrowly escapes collision before touching down on Kaylon.
The article for this game can be found on page 66 of Compute's Gazette Issue 17 (November 1984)

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 62nd TAS from this series.
I have vague memories of this game. If it wasn't for "Bagdad", I think I would have eventually gotten to this. In fact, I don't think I played any of the other games until many years later. It probably happened when I finally got a Commodore 64 a number of years later.

Game Difficulty and Ending

There is no selection of difficulty. You start on the first level and proceed until the difficulty increases beyond a solvable situation. In this case, that situation occurs on Level 29. Why is this unsolvable? The way the physics work, you cannot fall fast enough to slip through a one block gap. You have to have a two block gap at minimum to continue on.

Effort In TASing (Not BOTed)

As with all B.A.S.I.C. written games, the speed of "interpreting" the language as it runs, has severe drawbacks on performance. So, to help out with speed...you cannot just hold a direction, as it will initiate the polling of the full joystick routine. If you were to analyze this movie's inputs, you'll find two and three frame inputs, surrounded by nothing. The difference in holding a direction can add a probably 30 frames per drop. So it is to your advantage to let off the direction until the polling comes around at the right time.
The amount of effort spent here, was around 6 weeks. I had originally thought of applying a seed RNG, by using the command "RND", but there is no way I'm going to run this full length TAS for every combintation...which can be hundreds.

Human Comparison

The only video that I could find, was the Vic-20 version.

ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: Un-claiming.

feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Accepting.

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8954: nymx's C64 Descent To Kaylon in 20:19.20
GJTASer2018
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Despite the space theming, this looks less "Lunar Lander" and more like "Frogger in Space". Also, do you have a userfile showing that Level 29 is indeed completely impossible to get through (as you claim in the description)?
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
nymx
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
Despite the space theming, this looks less "Lunar Lander" and more like "Frogger in Space". Also, do you have a userfile showing that Level 29 is indeed completely impossible to get through (as you claim in the description)?
I forgot to mention that. It does look like Frogger! I'm glad someone else is thinking the same thing. As for the 29th level, I figured that any judge could just let it continue to see that there are only 1 block gaps throughout the 4 layers of asteroids.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
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In a lot of places I see you wait for the hole to move closer towards you, but you don't also move closer to it to get down sooner. Does it never help in those cases?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
nymx
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feos wrote:
In a lot of places I see you wait for the hole to move closer towards you, but you don't also move closer to it to get down sooner. Does it never help in those cases?
Unfortunately, when I use the thrusters...it won't let me move left or right. If you choose to move then you loose an opportunity to brake. If you brake, then you lose a moment of mobility. It's one of those limited cases, because of polling, due to it being written in B.A.S.I.C.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5948] C64 Descent to Kaylon by nymx in 20:19.20