Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
CaneofPacci wrote:
I'm not sure what in this run really required tool assistance other than the luck.
I agree with this assessment, but the bigger objection I have is the use of Easy mode. If this was done on Hard mode this would be ten times more impressive than simply trying to manipulate the right drops to trigger big combos over and over again.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Patashu wrote:
but if everyone in the country gets it simultaneously, there'll be 10x (or more?) people badly sick then ventilators physically exist, so the death rate will rise in proportion to how fast people get sick.
This, sadly, seems to be what is happening in Italy now - people are dying by the hundreds each day because the rate of new infections have far outpaced the ability of their healthcare system to cope with the problem. :(
This is also the main justification for the draconian shutdown measures of restaurants and public places in certain areas of the U.S. - "leveling the curve" as they call it - so that the spread peaks at a level low enough for the system to manage it without breaking down. People will still get sick and die from COVID-19, but not nearly as many (hopefully) as elsewhere in the world.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Zinfidel wrote:
The only negative thing in the whole run is Tails' atrocious voice acting, not that the writing helped at all there.
Tails has had his fair share of bad voice actors, but the Heroes voice (by William Corkery) is by far the worst he's had in the video games proper. (And newsflash, it doesn't get any better with Cream or Charmy in the other teams!)
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
ViGadeomes wrote:
- Is it played in the hardest difficulty ? and if not, why ?
According to the game's manual, the only significant difference in difficulty is the "handicap", with the ball going much farther after being putted when the difficulty switch is set to A. You can debate whether this would make things harder or easier, but that's the only thing that could be changed to affect the difficulty.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Quick update on the project status:
I just tested my current 1st loop submission in the new BizHawk release (2.3.3), and just like I found with GameBreaker's submission in 2.3.2 I got a desync after a few jumps in Deadly Forest. This means I'm reasonably confident emulation differences are indeed the cause of the loss in that section.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
For reference, the Morimoto "time attack" video for Super Mario Bros 3 was archived on this site here. The "warps" run for that game by Lord Tom, Maru and Tompa is considered its current successor in terms of obsoletion.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Personman wrote:
Alternately, FractalFusion could just submit that run again, and that could be published.
The problem with that idea is that FractalFusion's run is from mid-2006 using a very old version of FCEUX (0.98.16). I highly doubt any judge is going to seriously consider any submission made on an emulator version from 13-14 years ago, and judging from the cancellation notes I don't think FractalFusion is likely to be persuaded to try to replicate the run in a more modern emulator version.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Alyosha wrote:
The key seems to be to delay when you press start.
For context, how long a delay in pressing start are we talking about here compared to, say, the game's current publication? It is even going to save time at all to try to get the values to line up the way Arc wants them to?
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
A name-based list would only make sense if a judge has ruled on a submission that "it doesn't seem an acceptable TAS could ever be made for this game". And it misses the point of what the list would be most useful for - a guide to help potential TASers pick a game to make a submission out of. Remember the cardinal rule of what a good submission is:
The game-play needs to standout from non-assisted play, and must not be seen as trivial.
Certain categories of game are just not likely to produce something that could fulfill that requirement - trying to list all games in those categories would be a lot of unnecessary work. Just giving out a category and a few examples in each category ought to be good enough for a competent submitter to figure out whether it is a good idea to pick a certain game or not.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
OK, since this appears to be your first submission here, I'll just quickly point out that you can use the video tag to directly embed your videos in the submission instead of linking to them, like so:
Link to video
This makes things a lot easier for other people to judge your submission. :)
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
EZGames69 wrote:
Rerecord counts do not always determine how optimized a run is.
There's also the fact that the submitter, Vynneve, appears to hold 1st place in the Normal and Zipless categories on the linked Speedrun.com board in the submission comments, so might simply be frame-optimizing realtime strats.
Vynneve is only 2nd on NMG though, and the one run ahead of him on the board is faster than this submission (about 1:49:12). This is not TAS timing because Speedrun.com starts their clock when you first gain control of the prince, however it's hard to tell whether that run would actually be faster adjusting for that because they don't start from power-on. Here's the YouTube video of the other run for comparison and analysis:
Link to video
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
link_7777 wrote:
I suppose if order were really intended it would be a numbered list and not a bulleted list.
If I'm reading things correctly, the bullet points are arranged in such a way as to emphasize the policy of "no significant new content at all to be discovered" first and foremost. If that's true, then the bullets should indeed be numbered.
Does a killscreen count as "significant new content"? I would say yes, minor though it might be, and that the run should go that killscreen. Entertainment won't matter much (if at all) in this case because the submission can just be put in the Vault - that's what it's there for. :)
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Very very Meh, very very Vault material. That's what I think of it.
You didn't mention why you chose the NES port though link_7777, as there were a few different reasonable choices for this game, some with different mechanics than the NES port:
* Arcade original (it was long thought that this had a killscreen but this isn't actually true)
* The very good Colecovision port (playable in BizHawk)
* The very good Intellivision port (also playable in BizHawk)
The only port that should be avoided is the Atari 2600 version (mostly because of the god-awful graphics it had!)
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Not really a new discussion topic, but more to announce my current TAS attempt at the A2600 port of the arcade game, which is more than 28 seconds faster than GameBreaker64's woefully unoptimized second submission for the game.
Userfile: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/59062312797578783
Video Encode:
Link to video
This was performed on BizHawk 2.3.2 using the default game start and settings, with the final input being on frame 7,273 (2:01.37), a full 1,713 frames (or 28.59 seconds) faster than GameBreaker64! Note that despite the amount of savings I have found here, I do not believe this effort is submission-worthy yet because A2600 Jungle Hunt appears to mimic the original arcade game in the difficulty increasing up to the fourth loop.
While continuing my efforts to get through the full four loops of the game for a proper submission, I will invite anyone to give their feedback and possible improvements to the current 1st-loop userfile in this topic.
--------------------------------------------
Individual Section Comments:
* Deadly Forest: After finishing this section, I was surprised to find it was actually ~32 frames slower than GameBreaker64's time! I tried introducing deliberate delays at various points, but nothing seemed to allow me to catch an earlier vine cycle down the line. I then tried playing back GameBreaker64's inputs back to see what was going on, but that resulted in a desync after a few jumps. When I tried resyncing the inputs, I found the exact same jump pattern I had already come up with, so I'm convinced the loss in this section is the result of changes to AtariHawk in 2.3.2 (either a slower scrolling speed or a different vine pattern than the one GameBreaker had in 2.3.1), but I would like someone to prove me wrong.
* Reptile River: As feos pointed out in the discussion topic for GameBreaker64's second submission, it is much faster to kill all the crocs rather than letting some go past you. I was able to improve this section by roughly the same amount feos had.
* Boulder Field: Standard "run left and jump as needed" affair, but it turns out the collision detection on the larger boulders isn't great - when in mid-air, you can clip anything from your leading foot downward through the boulder without triggering a death! This means stopping to duck boulders is completely unnecessary - all you need is a correctly timed jump.
* Cannibal Camp: After jumping each cannibal and continuing left, the game will normally stop you against an invisible wall briefly before unlocking the screen scrolling to let you continue on. Constantly jumping after clearing the cannibal allows bypassing this invisible wall (or shortening your time behind it), allowing you to get closer to the left side of the screen before the controls lock during the screen scroll. (This works for all three transitions - I think this is the same as the "double jump" strat Spikestuff found, but that only was applied for one of the transitions.)
-------------------------
Potential Improvements:
* If someone found a way to match GameBreaker's strat for Deadly Forest in 2.3.2, then the ~32 frames lost there could be recovered.
* Skipping the transitions completely in Cannibal Camp could lead to a sub-2:00 time - I can get close with jumps, but it seems the controls completely lock as soon as the next sprite in the sequence appears on screen.
* In theory, you could jump right up to the cannibals in Cannibal Camp to save time, but I believe it would require extensive manipulation of their behavior to be useful (usually the cannibal just runs right into you if you try). In the absence of any evidence for a potential benefit, I will leave that to someone else who believes such a benefit can potentially be found.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Late to the party much?
That said, no idea about the possibility of a true 100% submission - that would depend on whether a bugfixed ROM (that fixes the uncollectable trophy bug mentioned in earlier posts) would be legal for submission or not.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Based on the experience of feos and reading LizStar's spreadsheet, I have conjectured that something happens regularly every 5 or 6 frames that can affect the timing of other events in the game. The only culprits that make sense are the music and score display - perhaps there's something similar going on to the effect music and score value have on lag in Super Mario Bros. 3 that was discovered during the warps run last year?
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Is there a reason for selecting particular characters for particular worlds beyond entertainment value (i.e. does the character you play as make a difference)?
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
I'm going to take a guess that this has a similar cause to the Controller 2 effects seen in Mega Man 3. Both games were developed by Capcom around the same time, so it would make sense to assume the same root cause.
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
(crushed by wall of pictures and text)
Aran, could you PLEASE make an offsite link to that gallery? I don't think the mods are going to like the amount of pictures you've got up there...
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...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 264
Location: Stafford, NY
Kage, do you have a memory address for Felix's horizontal on-screen position? I think it would help whoever is judging this decide how optimized it is, as well as give insight into why the glitch happens in the first place.
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...
