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This movie ends with this screen which you have to skip by pressing Start:
But the ending screen that should go next is this, and this movie can't reach it due to not being able to press Start, and #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 does reach it:
Aiming for shortest input in a game that requires input to show the ending, and making the movie so short that the required input is missing, is a situation that feels weird, especially when there's already a movie that does it properly.
Speaking of which, I have no idea why #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 has never been unrejected. But if it reaches the same ending as if it actually won the hockey game by playing hockey, I don't see anything additional to demand from it for being fastest completion of the Regular Game mode.
I personally think that (at least) this mode of this game makes more sense to aim for fastest ending, because apparently the time the game ends at is not the only difference. When it is, we let authors decide.
I would instead accept #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 and maybe send this submission to Playground if we can agree on the goal, which is still tricky because the game is not fully completed.
Opinions?
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.
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Does the RTA really not grab these 2 items and still gets 100%?
Are they not real items? Have they been collected in advance and I missed it? That area is the only place where RTA is seemingly ahead of the TAS.
EDIT:
Hmm, they look already collected judging by the in-game map?
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.
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Thanks for all the help, ViGadeomes!
All 3 movies have value. The GB version is the original most basic one, GBC has the shortest gameplay, and GBA is console verifiable.
Mode
Startup
Gameplay
Overall
GB
628
1049
1686
GBC
480
1018
1507
GBA
494
1065
1568
I personally lean towards preferring the console verification aspect.
EDIT:
If we're going to replace the movie with either resync, ViGadeomes's name may make sense to add to authors, due to research and work he contributed to this project. TaoTao, what do you think?
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.
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TLH wrote:
Thanks for answering! I have uploaded the main movie here. The two playthroughs are not in the movie, but I have redone them here starting from an empty save to roughly show what it looks like.
I should have time on this within a week.
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.
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.
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PearlASE wrote:
If I were to play for full speed, I wouldnt be able to manipulate the pieces I like, especially late game. The pieces are impossible to catch at max rank at high speeds, in which you see me not speeding up at all unless I use it to intentionally finish a tile wave.
Are there instances where the pieces could be sped up without compromising manipulation and ability to catch? Or places where manipulation is yielding a desired result and the rest could be sped up?
PearlASE wrote:
Also, I wish it gave notifications on the website for replies on this threads
It sends an email if you "ring the bell" on a thread.
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Sometimes you make the pieces slide down quickly, and sometimes you wait for them to arrive at normal speed. Why wait?
Also, how exactly do you manipulate luck?
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tom_mai78101 wrote:
What is considered as "doing the event"? What counts as "doing an event" and what doesn't count?
This is about "player prompts" when doing a "max events%" run. The game is River City Ransom EX. I'll be using game jargons from the GameFAQs guide when discussing about "events".
Guide: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/915026-river-city-ransom-ex/faqs/30625
It will be in the "Events" section.
When triggering an event, you will get an NPC to appear, and a text dialogue will show up. At the end of the dialogue, the game will ask the player (called player prompt) to choose these 4 options: YES, DON'T KNOW, NO, and NO REPLY. Selecting any one of the responses will give different outcomes, such as whether the NPC will choose to join your party, or give money. However, you can actually skip the event that is triggered by exiting the area. This action is the same as selecting NO as the response, and nothing will happen. There is a significant time-saving if we skip the events by leaving the area, however, the viewer will not be able to understand that the NPC showing up is what we use to count towards "triggering the event".
When we want to judge that "an event has been completed", I would like to ask if we should consider "choosing an answer from the player prompt", or "meeting the NPC character and skipping the events by exiting the current area" as the criteria to judge in a "max events%" run?
I still don't get how "an event" is even defined. The GameFAQs link says there are certain dialogs depending on reputation, and then there are certain events depending on reputation, but doesn't seem to explain what those events actually consist of, only their requirements.
If you define "an event" as an extra dialog, you obviously need to have that dialog displayed. If NPC appearance is "an event", then that's probably enough. But this is an Alternative-only category, so it should make the most sense to the viewers, because they decide whether it's published. So define events in a way that makes the run the most entertaining.
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.
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.
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OtakuTAS wrote:
Ahh. Only other thing I could think would be editing how many pixels Mario travels forward per frame.
Yeah that's called speed.
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The speed here is actually maximum. Go any further and you get an overflow, because the speed address is used a signed byte (sign bit meaning the direction). Same with various delays - they were all set to just 1 frame.
Here's info from Acmlm, edited by me to look like an RHDN submission, which they rejected because I'm not the author.
The framerule was changed from 21 frames to 1 frame, instant acceleration to 0x7F speed, various delays cut out or speed values increased, nearly instant level clear.
It's about as fast as acmlm could make it go, and was meant mostly for a silly TAS, but turns out to be actually beatable too!
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C99 wrote:
Hi my speedruning community and I have been attempting to TAS a Ds game, but we can't work out how to move the stylus with TAS Studio.
The tutorials I have been looking for didn't clarify it, and most of us are amateurs on TASing. Maybe we just missed the tutorial with said info clumsily, but anyhow, we haven't found it. How exactly can I move the Stylus? Beyond pressing the T, for Touch, we don't know how to move the stylus somewhere different than the center of the screen.
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OtakuTAS wrote:
Since no longer required, can I submit a run on easy for significant time save?
Already beat the record on hard which I will also attach since that surely matters and helps the cause.
Differences are minor and really only matters for ammo amount and avoiding picking up more ammo, boring stuff
Sounds like easy is totally fine.
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How did you figure out which address to patch?
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.
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.
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TLH wrote:
Hello everyone! I'm new to TASing and I have a question regarding the usage of SaveRAM and save states. I tried looking at some of the existing publications and used this website's search function, but I'm still not sure on how I should proceed in my case. Sorry if that has been answered before.
I'm using BizHawk 2.8 and TAStudio to make a TAS (a .tasproj file) of an N64 game. The TAS playthrough is done on the highest difficulty setting and unlocking this setting requires that the game is beaten twice beforehand. I've done the two playthroughs casually (by playing in the emulator without TAStudio) and after that, I created the TAS file using "Record Movie" -> "Record From: Now" (with "Now" being the title screen after turning on the console after the two playthroughs), which is based on the second method described in the two posts here: https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/13505?CurrentPage=1&Highlight=403768#403768
I'm about to finish the TAS, but now that I read the "movie rules" page, if I understood this correctly, this procedure has lead to a .tasproj file based on a save state which is not allowed here. Since I have done the two previous playthroughs casually, I don't have videos of them in the tasproj file from TAStudio.
Is there any way I can salvage this, or would I have to redo the two playthroughs and the TAS run from an empty save?
Please upload your double playthrough and the main movie to userfiles, I'll check what can be done.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
I have a question that kinda addresses that recent situation with SMB world selection.
Generic version:
Does a TAS violate the rules, if you complete half the game using a special glitch, then return back to Main Menu and continue a new game from the same level that you have just reached?
As a result, all the levels are completed, despite the fact that you technically selected "the world" in the Main Menu.
Specific version:
GBA version of Doom has a unique player state glitch that drastically changes the gameplay. Episodes 1 and 2 can be completed using it. When Episode 3 Map 1 starts, you cannot continue the speedrun due to the player state limitations which cannot be now circumvented. So, you have to go back to Main Menu and start Episode 3 Map 1 with your normal state, up until the end.
Thank you for your time!
Sounds okay, as long as you don't simply skip ahead.
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It sounds like Assist Mode is just a difficulty setting in those games where it's available in the menu. Unless it has unique content (levels, items, enemies), it will compete with the regular mode if aiming for the same Standard goals. The only guideline on selecting difficulty is that it should make sense. Otherwise it's up to the author.
And we can't consider something available in the game menu a cheat, because we don't rely on whether something is considered a cheat or not. In-game codes are allowed as a separate Standard goal, if they add gameplay. And they are allowed in Alternative if they result in an entertaining movie. Cheat or not.
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rythin wrote:
Hello, over the last couple months I've been planning out a couple of TASes for some roguelike games like Binding of Isaac or Risk of Rain, however I'm running into something that could be a potential issue.
As you probably know, roguelikes have some randomization to each run to make it unique. For the purposes of a TAS, obviously one would manipulate that randomness to get the best RNG and save time. My issue is any run that revolves around acquiring unlocks rather than just reaching the credits once. With libTAS's ability to change the system time mid-TAS, it's possible to restart the game and re-seed RNG to the same value it was at the start, meaning that you don't have to manipulate RNG again for another good start when the TAS has to do multiple playthroughs (runs) of the game. Of course, this might make the TAS quite repetitive to watch, always having the same start of the run and only potentially diverging somewhere in the middle (or potentially not at all, depending on the task at hand).
So I guess my question is, what do I do about it? Do you think it's fine to have repetitive segments like that, or should roguelikes TASes forgo re-seeding to the same seed and do even more RNG manipulation?
Since system time can be arbitrarily set by the user directly, you can set it however you like in/during your movie. And what you set it to is up to you, for example if you think your seed is the optimal one for speed, there's nothing wrong in repeating it. Or if you aim for an Alternative class goal, using a seed that's entertaining to watch also makes sense.
rythin wrote:
Another question, also related to roguelikes. As far as I can tell, TASVideos prefers TASes made from what's essentially a "fresh install" of the game with no or minimal previous data. This is usually fine as a "default run" of most games would start from a new game, fresh savefile etc. However in roguelikes, both in normal play and speedrunning, the "default run" tends to be done on an existing savefile, usually fully completed. This is reflected in RTA speedrunning communities who will tend to run on either fully or partially completed savefiles.
So with that in mind, would it still be preferred for roguelike submissions to include the "setup" section as part of the TAS (for example, unlocking the true final boss), or should it be in a separate verification movie and have the actual submission be more comparable to a normal run or an RTA speedrun?
Having completed parts of actual gameplay prior to starting the main movie, means it's a save anchored movie, which is now a separate Standard category (and needs a verification movie).
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tom_mai78101 wrote:
Suppose there is a game where it has a lottery system. It's very unlikely in a normal gameplay session to win the 1st prize. Extremely unlikely, and especially rare to get.
If you do win 1st prize, you will earn the prize, but it has no effect on the story plot progression, no NPC dialogue changes, and anything else. It may be an insignificant game event, but due to its rarity, it may have some significance in entertainment value.
When doing a "maximum event%" TAS, is it acceptable to try to win 1st prize as part of the run?
Not enough info about the suggested branch and what it would consist of.
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.
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.
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LogansGamingRoom wrote:
on second thought, this movie sucks.
now don’t get me wrong, the actual gameplay’s fantastic as usual, but if you want to skip to a future world, you should do that after you start the actual game. you’ve been tasing since 2008 so you should know this by now.
no vote for breaking an obvious rule. go improve the previous tas properly.
LogansGamingRoom wrote:
lee, for someone who’s known as a legendary taser, you’re behaving ridiculously rn. that’s like if i submitted a 10 minute glitchfest of super mario world and said it was better than the currently published one, which is nearly 3 hours fyi.
stop acting so bloody hostile towards everyone just because we pointed out a single rule that you don’t like. i’m afraid this tas is gonna get rejected and you’re just gonna have to deal with that.
LogansGamingRoom wrote:
the final world is not, i repeat, IS NOT, a harder difficulty, bonus content or a cosmetic improvement.
[...]
so please, will you stop wasting your time here and focus on a different tas project?
Your tone is extremely disrespectful. Please stop telling people what to do and wording it like you're speaking on behalf of the entire community.
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HappyLee wrote:
Here's a new argument, a relevant example that's maybe worth thinking and discussing about.
What if (hypothetically) Super Mario World is made this way, that every road on the map is already unlocked when you first enter the game, and you're allowed to walk everywhere or start at any level on the map?
Then it would be an open world game. Hypothetically, let's call it Super Mario Open World.
The any% run (no ACE) would be: walking to the last level on the map, beating Bowser, saving the princess, the end.
It's maybe a boring run compared to other categories like "all stages" and "all exits". Call it cheap or lame as you want, but that would be the fastest completion of Super Mario Open World, which certainly would be allowed as a speedrun category.
What I'm saying is this: if the game Super Mario Open World is made that way, then all of the other stages would be optional, at least for the fastest game completion.
This hack is a lot like Super Mario Open World. The hack creator allows player to start from 8-1 instead of 1-1, so why not do it when you want to save the princess as fast as possible?
I haven't played many games myself, so I can't think of better examples. If you know a game like this, please help comment.
There is notable difference in your example. SMW has an overworld which is an explicit part of its gameplay, and you choose how you route your session. We've mentioned several times that we only have a problem with non-gameplay level select, be it a menu, a password, or a button combination. If primary gameplay consisted of menus, then menu would maybe have been considered a gameplay level select, and allowed.
Also if all you can do is start at a certain level, there's nothing to route, because you can't select level order, and you only see the ending after the one final level.
Bottomline: non-gameplay level select is not a sensible way to reach the ending sooner... literally because there's zero gameplay in it, so there's nothing to feature as a separate goal.
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HappyLee wrote:
Maybe so. But a skipped TAS won't be accepted here mostly because it would be too much like the published TAS (with only about 21% difference), not because the level skip itself is banned by the movie rules.
If the movie difference is greater than 50%, then I'd support setting a different category here as well, similar to speedrun.com.
50% difference means one is taking a different route, showcasing unique gameplay in both cases. If 50% of gameplay are just missing, that's not 50% difference.
Lobsterzelda wrote:
Movies which use level-select codes or passwords are more the exception than the norm when it comes to TASes on this site. In other words, there needs to be a good reason why the level-select/password should be allowed to be used, as opposed to it being OK by default. This applies to all movies which use passwords (which are few and far between to begin with, since it doesn't make sense to use passwords for TASes of most games).
We do have movies that use a code to access some level, but that's for levels that you have to unlock, and there's unique gameplay in those levels. It's never a code to simply start at a later level.
HappyLee wrote:
I'm not saying that rules can't be changed. Like feos said: "changing a policy only happens when there's a common agreement". That I fully agree.
But in this case, movie rules were changed before deeper discussions even took place, and the person who changed it happened to be the judge of this submission, and the new rule change happened to lead to rejection of this submission.
In my opinion, a judge should make judgements based on current existing rules, instead of judging while making & changing rules.
Or at least, there should be further discussions and community consensus, before change of rules took place.
The consensus is already there. The community did not split in 2 halves, one arguing that single-button level select is okay, and another arguing that it's not okay. The spirit of the rule is clear to the people posting in this thread, which is why nobody else thinks that the rules have changed.
The deeper level is that when the policy is worded poorly or even wrongly, community members will be pointing it out, saying that there's a loophole. But if it's worded in a comprehensive way, just not perfectly, the community will agree with it from all angles, like we're seeing in this thread.
Additionally, Samsara is an expert judge who has the required skills to determine which policies make sense and why, and skills to assess whether or not it makes sense to fix the big trends. If that was not the case, it would be easy to find loopholes in her reasoning against level select.
Please pay attention to my thought here.
It doesn't make sense to target someone with truth, right? Especially when that truth is confirmed by the entire community, both users and staff members.
If someone is targeting someone else, they don't care about truth and logic, they simply ignore those.
And when that happens, there is broken logic in the reasoning, because logic was not the goal.
Relying on facts and logic is morally good, because there's no other way to reach a solution when several parties have contradicting stances, and there needs to be some compromise.
Accepting someone's stance without sufficient logic and facts is morally bad, because it may hurt other parties in the long run.
For example, by making it impossible for them to comprehend what we expect from their work, since that expectation chaotic.
I keep digging deep into this talk, and I do not notice any problems in what Samsara has been arguing the whole time. Therefore it can't be considered a personal attack on you.
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I'll reply to posts as I read them, just to not leave things unanswered.
HappyLee wrote:
Well said, but in this case, the rules are changed by the judge Samsara before community consensus was reached. My TAS was targeted by the new rule change, so I'm not satisfied, and then I got threatened and the topic got locked.
You keep claiming it to be a new rule that never existed before, but you didn't provide a list of examples where submissions doing exactly the same thing have been accepted. If it's a new rule, then it's different from the policies we used to have. If we used to have different policies, then we were judging identical cases differently. Examples please?
HappyLee wrote:
feos wrote:
There's also a point that pressing B is not a password. But is it any different in what it does, compared to level passwords in other games?
What they do are the same: skipping some levels. But so does a Warp Zone. So the discussion needs to go deeper than that.
I already explained the difference between warps and level selects. If you disagree, quote me and disprove.
HappyLee wrote:
As stated before, I'm totally in favour of the rule banning passwords or in-game cheat codes (at least for most of the cases), because they are considered cheating. And the previous MovieRules are very clear about this one.
I also explained that we don't rely on the definition of "cheating". We rely on whether something adds gameplay or removes it, and whether it's entertaining enough for Alternative class (formerly Moons).
HappyLee wrote:
The world selection feature I used is very different from using passwords or in-game cheat codes.
It's not, and I explained why. Did you even read my post?
HappyLee wrote:
What we really should be discussing is: should we ban non-gameplay level selection, just like banning passwords and in-game cheat codes.
It's what we usually do, until personal accusations become the only subject of the thread. The point you refuse to recognize is that the spirit of the rules has never allowed this, and single-button level select was simply never brought up until now.
HappyLee wrote:
It would be great if people can provide convincing examples, like explaining what damage it could cause if we allowed non-gameplay level selection, but so far I haven't seen any example similar as this case.
It feels disappointing and anticlimactic when majority of the game is skipped before the game has even started, just to call it "fastest completion". Doing this via glitches is fine, because it's unintentional, so you have to discover and implement such an exploit. If you select the last level from the get go, there's zero challenge in that, so people simply don't like seeing that, traditionally.
HappyLee wrote:
Samsara posted two examples, but they only completes a task or a branch of a game. My TAS completes the game and got the true ending. Noxxa and LogansGamingRoom posted an example which includes a faulty ROM (or bad version of a game), but I didn't use a faulty ROM.
Those examples were posted to show that we don't have a precedent proving this has always been allowed.
HappyLee wrote:
I'm not familiar with many games, but I posted an example of the "both quests" RTA category. It uses world selection to start the second quest in World 8 in the title screen, just like in this TAS. I don't see anyone complaining about this usage of this non-gameplay level selection. This RTA category is popular among top speedrunners. For example, Niftski (current SMB RTA WR holder) did it in his 4:54.798 World Record run.
If people can accept using non-gameplay level selection in that case, so why not in this run? The only difference is, in this hack, world selection is allowed before seeing the Princess.
The difference is that we can't blindly copypaste RTA rules, because they are written by people who happen to be mods for a given game, and their rules only apply per-game.
Also people in this thread mentioned that hitting B only takes you to world 8 after you've already completed the game normally. So it's similar to newgame+ content and abilities.
Even then, we can't mindread why RTA people allow this, someone would have to ask them. But when I spoke to the Spyro community, they told me they allow certain things just for convenience, regardless of how tasvideos threats them. And indeed we can't dictate how the outside world plays games.
HappyLee wrote:
What if the missing gameplay is optional? Since world selection is allowed by the hack creator, Worlds 1-7 are not required for saving the princess and getting the true ending. My TAS aims for the fastest completion, so natually I don't have to play every level if they are optional.
Of course it's optional if the game has a way to skip it. Passwords in other games also make some levels optional. And passwords in other games are also allowed by game creators, sometimes showing you the true ending after password usage.
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.
But the ending screen that should go next is this, and this movie can't reach it due to not being able to press Start, and #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 does reach it:
Aiming for shortest input in a game that requires input to show the ending, and making the movie so short that the required input is missing, is a situation that feels weird, especially when there's already a movie that does it properly.
Speaking of which, I have no idea why #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 has never been unrejected. But if it reaches the same ending as if it actually won the hockey game by playing hockey, I don't see anything additional to demand from it for being fastest completion of the Regular Game mode.
I personally think that (at least) this mode of this game makes more sense to aim for fastest ending, because apparently the time the game ends at is not the only difference. When it is, we let authors decide.
I would instead accept #3192: Aqfaq's Genesis Mutant League Hockey "Regular Game, 2 players" in 00:42.20 and maybe send this submission to Playground if we can agree on the goal, which is still tricky because the game is not fully completed.
Opinions?
Are they not real items? Have they been collected in advance and I missed it? That area is the only place where RTA is seemingly ahead of the TAS.
EDIT:
Hmm, they look already collected judging by the in-game map?
