Nanashi no Game (Namless Game or ナナシ ノ ゲエム) is a first person survival horror game where you play as a jaded university student who goes on a fetch quest to stop a cursed game from game overing him in real life after 7 days. Despite all the encounters with the supernatural, the player never even bothers to run at all, preferring to casually stroll for justice instead.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: DeSmuME_0.9.10_x86
- Any%
- Very minor speed/entertainment tradeoff
- Minor glitch usage
Comments
I started TASing this game after stumbling a lets play of it. I kinda quit for a bit after I realized a number of improvements, but then I discovered a new glitch involving day 3 and decided to fix the WIP and finish it.
Day by day comments
Day 1
Gender doesn't seem to have any actual effect outside player sprite for the cursed game and certain dialogue. I changed my name to "!" becuase even though it takes more frames, the screen transition imediately afterwards lags less with this name.
When you first start, you are forced to walk until the third message box, and the ability to move the camera faster is disabled. While I can't seem to be able to bypass the last message box, I cannot confidentally say it's impossible, so that's a potential improvement.
At the apartment hall, I moved oddly even though it saves and wastes no time to manipulate the lag that occurs 2 rooms later. While lag is reduced when the camera moves far up/down, it appears what you do before would cause more or less lag to appear during the transition. As far as I can tell, this is the only place this occurs for reasons beyond me. Same with the last hallway where tapping certain parts of the screen eliminates lag.
Day 2
Despite being the shortest and most straight forward day, it was rather annoying due to the immense amount of lag present; even though you move at the same speed as before, it appears as if you're slower due to said lag.
An interesting note is that the regret at the end exists, but cannot kill you even if you edit it's position to be next to you. Also at the very last cabin despite having no regrets there (check via RAM Watch), opening the TS will give static as if one is close by.
Day 3
This day takes place in a closed down hospital with 6 otherworldy encounters; 4 of which are potentially fatal.
The 1st one appears after a cutscene and simply walks down the hallway you're in. While leaving and reentering the hall causes it to vanish, for the purpose of the TAS this isn't done, and the corridor is treated the same as any other.
The 2nd occurance is a story related one; you're supposed to trigger it, walk back to the nursery, then play through the cursed game. Since stories aren't relevant to speedruns, it is skipped by using the check door animation to allow the ghost to safely walk pass you. In case anyone is curious what happens if you try this trick after you retreated to the previoius room, you get stuck since the room after the hall requires checking your TS to exit any door, which you are unable since you broke your TS.
Oh, on a minor related note: since the regret moves at a constant speed, the only way to improve it further is to either trigger it earlier, or optimize the turn from the door skip. As much as I tried to achieve the former, it seems there's a 4 frame rule regarding the trigger, so good luck to anyone who wants to try.
I also believe several rooms such as the spiral stairs can be improved, but this is the best I could do for now.
The next 2 regrets are just cheap jump scares, so no need to elaborate further.
The final encounter before the chase is a bit odd. While turning left (pressing "UP") is faster than turning right (I made a table of this on the thread just to prove it as well) I turned right because looking downwards right makes the door visible sooner. I had to waste 2 frames at the first turn just to activate the zombie to get up and appear at the previous room, so turning left/right wouldn't make a difference.
The cutscene at the start of the chase begins earlier in DeSmuME_0.9.10 than in previous versions. Good thing is that this game is very hexedit friendly, so if later versions exhibit different amounts of lag, it can be ignored for this one part.
The chase gives you a 4 second head start before your GF spawns and walks towards you on a set path. I tried my best optmizing the parts, but I still have a feeling that it's improveable despite unable to do so. In case anyone wonders what happens if you wait too long and the zombie reaches the end, it'll stay there and block the exit. You cannot backtrack and reenter the previous room as well, so you would be stuck.
Day 4
While the left path contains a bit of lag, it was still faster to use it due to closer to the exit. Going through that path was oddly more "revision"-friendly than going to the escalavator in terms of lag. One odd consequence was that while I didn't changed the beginning input at all, it somehow managed to get on the escalator faster.
Last time I mentioned I wasn't able to break this floor. Well, I made an embarrassing mistake on the 2nd floor of day 4 where I assumed I had to wait all the way for the crawler to vanish. Turns out you could use one of the doors to make it vanish after it's triggered. :P While it sucks I still have to at least trigger the regret before it'll vanish, at least I don't need to wait, saving 1400 frames. Btw if anyone wanders what it in the room in the darker door, it leads to a balcony showing the first floor with the red lady waving at you. It's also laggier to enter there as well.
For the store section, I found out the regret here has a very small hitbox in comparison, so rather than waiting, I snuck past it.
The 4th floor hall contains the same regret placed in 2 different positions. Despite the input for the office and subsequent stroll to the elavator being mostly unchanged from last submission, somehow it lagged less and I saved several frames. Oh, and for the office, the game trigger will remain even if you used cheats and warped past it. So if anyone finds a way to skip it, you must do it again to leave the room.
The camera angle for the basement floor was done to eliminate lag when going up the stairs at the very end. While it looks bad, it saves 179 frames, so sorry about that. Also, while fixing some earlier part, this section suddenly lagged 1 frame less. I got a feeling what you do before affects this, but I don't know exactly what.
Day 5
Most of this day is pretty fine, but there's a few things address. The first game update appears potentially skippable, but no matter what I tried I can't seem to bypass it. If anyone can, it would make this one of the shortest levels. The stairs drove me nuts optimizing, and I'm pretty sure it may be possible to squeeze another frame or so, but for now that eludes me.
Finally, during the dream/flashback, if you tried to backtrack, the murder won't be in the previous room anymore. However he would still be in the room you progressed in. He talks a bit too, so if anyone's curious, go to the stairs and listen to him ramble; he would just stand there rather than attack as well (still instant death if you touch him though).
Day 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hGS0-YQY58
The first 2 areas were one of the most boring parts of the game I've done. The gradual turns were really annoying, and even now I'm still convinced there's potential frames to be saved, but this is my best attempt for now.
I wasn't able to bypass the hanging ghost without waiting, so I did what anyone would do when they encounter the supernatural - go and stare back.
There's another boring gradual turn area, so I tried to have some variety by purposely triggering a chase. It didn't do much in terms of entertainment.
The 2nd room of the hotel, while not particulary interesting, has a door in front that if you check, makes you stuck forever until reset. :P
The 5th room (the bathroom) has a potential 800 frame timesaver that I wasn't able to accomplish. If you could somehow move fast enough, you could skip waiting for the red lady. I managed to be 2 frames away from accomplishing such but I was ultimately unable to skip waiting. If anyone wants to try, the red lady only spawns once you past a certain trigger point, so turn a bit more before heading to that point to get a slight headstart. Oh, and for this room alone, it seems you can't just exit and reenter the room to get rid of the lady in red. :/
The red lady heading towards you will actually pause and do nothing if you wait long enough. The door is also locked, so the one way is forward.
For the game section, I would just like to note that this and the one in day 5 lags somewhat differently everytime I improve something, and since the input takes lag into account, these should not be casually spliced without checking whether lag is at the same places. This also happens in the game in day 3 ;)
For the 2nd floor hall to the stairs, I'm technically supposed to hide in one of the rooms, but I discovered that the regret ahead of me has a longer timer than the one behind me (it runs out by the time I opened the door :P), allowing me to sneak past it.
For the last room before the dining room, the door will be unclickable for 2637 frames, so I mess around with the patroller to my right. Btw Happy Hallowe'en. ;)
Grabbing the journal was tricking; If I moved a bit closer, the journal seems harder to click on. I suspect it may be partly because of the angle I'm viewing, but I'm forced to use this view in order to even see the page.
The next several areas messed me with a lot. Not only was the hitbox odd, but I still can't seem to find out whether or not some parts of it is faster turning gradually or using several straight lines. Worse of all, this also applies with this segment a while back; an example of what I mean is like during ~111774 the turn may seem really bad, but oddly I have a hard time actually improving it. :|
Last thing for this place is that several of the cursed game sections can potentially be improved starting from the one on Day 3 and afterwards by manipulating the "glitched" particles to lag the game less. I only managed to do so by delaying frames, so if someone wants to improve this TAS, they can look into this.
Day 7
The minute long stairs was an interesting experience. I initially had trouble with it, so I just decided to hold down the same direction the entire time. After trying to optimizing leaving the tower, I realized turning similar to the stairwell in Day 3 would save over 10 seconds compared to holding, I redid the entire stairs twice since the girl doesn't appear when going back down.
Oh, and for the girl, I managed to skip 5 out of 7 appearances, but I have a feeling another can potentially be skipped. Guess which one. :P
For the last part, you can't speed up the dialogue at all unless it's from the overworld. :/
Before anyone asks why I sat through the credits, that's because there's still one last screen that needs input before the game ends.
After the credits, I demonstrate both a bug of the emulator where the firmware settings of the movie doesn't get set with the TAS. It's hard to show this if I used a single character name, so I purposely used the default name from the emulator to give the viewers a "gift".
For the last input, saving is faster than not saving.
Tricks and glitches:
Interaction during transitions
Doors can be opened 2 frames before you are able to move. This also apples exiting from the TS, so checking the mail in front of the doors is faster than checking it as soon as you recieve one. This also allows me to skip a dialogue box during Day 5.
Checking door immunity
After clicking on a door, while you are moving to it, you are immune to all attacks, and regrets won't notice you. This is useful especially in Day 3 where a patrolling regret that's normally unpassable becomes skipped. It is also used in other places where the regret is near an exit, such as the beginning of Day 4 and during the 2nd floor of Day 6.
Pauses
By pausing the game before certain cutscenes, such as the one on the first and last day, the game wil crash. By opening the TS or pausing before a dialogue box, the option to pause/check TS becomes disabled and the screen remains grey/dark until you leave the area.
Potential improvements:
Every room that involves a turn may potentially be improvable, since this is my first serious attempt at a 3D game. Mainly more thorough checking of angles, and not just using the extremities for the camera movements. Also a better way to go up/down the stairwells.
If anyone manages to figure out how the glitched particles are generated, and how to manipulate, then lag can be potentially eliminated during the cursed game sections starting on day 3.
Skipping the first cutscene may be possible if only there's a way to enter the bathroom door without triggering said scene.
Skipping the 5th day's first cursed game section may be possible if there's a way to open the door to the right without trigger.
Skipping the waiting on day 6 shower room as explained above.
Skipping the first girl encounter in the lighthouse that wasn't skipped here.
Further lag reduction at the last door of the mall.
I found out a bit too late into the TAS that sometimes, holding a direction using the touchscreen even before you are able to move can occasionally allow you to turn faster since it seems it registers the stylus earlier than the Dpad. I fixed several spots where this happens, but I may have missed some.
Other comments
Since this game requires holding the DS sideways, to save encoders trouble here's a list of frames displaying upright:
0 - 493 9560 - 11763 15225 - 15619 25568 - 26215 29591 - 29849 33736 - 34119 41464 - 41675 43067 - 43261 49773 - 50108 69325 - 69552 70352 - 74555 81435 - 81646 82407 - 86171 89517 - 92281 121254 - 122432 131955 - 132686 134907 - 135100 139449 - 139642 140667 - 140860 143102 - 149079 152130 - 152324 166969 - 167148 168861 - 168972 170710 - 170835 172686 - 172800 173416 - 173524 175441 - 175548 176882 - 177030 177630 - 182896 183349 - 183930 184106 - 184669 184920 - 195041
Last screen fades away at 195330
Note: This is the first lag frame that transits to a vertical display to the first lag frame that transits to a horizontal.
Suggested screenshot
Frame 39772
Addresses
feos: JUDGING!!!
feos: Vaulting...