Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Being a big fan of the series, I've decided to attack the first GBA game. For those who don't know, this game is a very solid 2d platformer with a simple movement set. The focus of the games is on puzzles rather than dexterity, though the stages EX-1 and EX-3 rely on superior acrobatics. Comments welcome! Technical Stuff ROM Klonoa - Empire of Dreams (U).gba WIP v19 Improvement Finished 2-1, 408(!) frames ahead Tricks Long Jumps Some jumps which the designers probably did not intend are possible with frame-by-frame precision. Quickfalling One frame of hovering applies maximum downwards velocity, at the cost of a few pixels of horizontal movement. Spawn Manipulation Portals take a number of frames to produce another enemy once you have destroyed the first one it provides. If the portal is still on screen (or very nearby) when the enemy is destroyed, it immediately starts to spawn another. This can be manipulated to provide enemies earlier or later. Ladder Exits Exits which are reached by climbing can be triggered earlier than usual by holding a sideways direction. Brick Grabbing Bricks are not meant to be grabbed through low ceilings (that you can't carry them under), but it is quite possible with frame advance or just lots of tries, unassisted. Embedding If you throw a brick and are still inside it when it begins to drop (after hitting a wall), you can still move around, occupying the same space as it. You are unable to shoot the wind ring but can still jump out. There are also some doors that let you stay inside them when they close, and still exit both ways. Damage Boosting Firing a wind bullet and turning just before you hit a moo sends you flying in the opposite direction slightly faster than if you had just walked it. It also pushes you upwards a little, useful for extra high jumps. Exact frame gain depends on the situation.
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Not half bad first attempt. :) Also, the game seems to lend itself fairly well to running. Platformers also tend to be rather popular. Anyway, looking forward to seeing more. For other stuff, flying horizantally seemed rather (read: extremely) slow compared to other moving, so I'm asking if the enemies can't be abused more to remove those parts totally?
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Yes, hovering/flying is very slow horizontally... In those two cases so far, it's probably worth it. When you jump off an enemy and throw it downwards, the game shifts you upwards a handful of pixels over 5 frames or so. However, during this time you can't control Klonoa, except for a slight bias on which side of him he throws the object. This is probably to prevent abuse from grabbing enemies right out of portals and using them twice. It's possible to fire the Wind Ring again as soon as you get the upwards speed, as shown near the end of 1-1. Haven't found another use for it so far, but I'm sure there will be later on. EX-3 requires you to use this maneuver in order to complete it. I think some of the Boarding stages need you to hover (at least to get 100%), but there it doesn't cost you as much/any speed.
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Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination
I love this game! A lot of it gets really tricky later, and seeing an effortless-looking 100% capture of the athletic levels would be really nice (even though you could skip them..)
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Hoe
Joined: 7/31/2004
Posts: 183
Location: USA
I am rather pleased to hear that some one is doing a Klonoa game. They are amoung my favorits :)
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Ok, I've also done Vision 1-3. Here is the new link. Also if you don't want to watch the first two levels again, here's a savestate.
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Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
I watched the first two levels again and saw too many mistakes; those have now been replaced by version 4, but I haven't redone 1-3 yet. I've discovered this game is fairly friendly to hex-editors, but edits of an odd number of frames desync. This is because Klonoa moves 1, then 2 frames at max speed... this annoyed me when I completed one room a frame faster, but the next room one slower. Alas! Quickfalling isn't always as useful as it seems, because it reduces you to hovering speed for one frame (loses ~2 frames of running). In tight hopping situations it has been implemented, such as when gems are in awkward formations. Look at first post for updates. Or just the TAS link in my signature. Enjoy!
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Joined: 1/23/2006
Posts: 352
Location: Germany
This uneven walk speed stuff sounds a bit like using a memory watcher might be useful.
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
I've been using the memory viewer since I did a bit of poking and found the values for position, etc:
Offset 0x03002920
0 short X position
2 short Y position
4 short X screen offset
6 short Y screen offset
8 byte  Invulnerability flicker
There are other values around there, but I haven't figured out what they mean yet. I've been doing the best I can to make sure my X position is always changing by the maximum possible amount, but because of Klonoa's very low speed (in terms of game characters) preserving momentum is less important in this game than many other platformers.
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Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Cut off another 14 frames from 1-2. I now think I'm ready to tackle 1-3 once more. On the side, to help me with editing rooms I've already done before, I've made a sort of 'movie library' program which can slice up and stick together movies much like you can do manually in a hex editor. It's nice telling it 'Create Movie' and 'All Latest Versions' and seeing your work pop out. :) It doesn't create the VBM header though, so I copy that back in afterwards, which also acts to preserve the re-record count. Happy am I. Edit: Vision 1-3 redone with a massive improvement, almost 3 seconds in total, thanks to some enemy spawning manipulation in the second room. Also a silly dance. :) Edit: And now Vision 1-4 is done. It's almost auto-scrolling, but preserving momentum is much more important here.
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Excellent. It keeps getting better and better as the stages get harder. Keep it up. :)
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Joined: 7/31/2005
Posts: 128
Location: Virginia
Looks good! I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
Working on a mod of an old favorite in my spare time. PM for updates!
Former player
Joined: 5/24/2005
Posts: 405
Location: France
Good, I was planning to try a run for the second opus, Dream Champ Tournament... I love this game and you seem to be handling it quite well good luck
Not dead yet... still very busy... damn...
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Yay, encouragement! 1-5 is now finished. This level annoyed me intensely! At least the next one will be 'easy', it's an autoscroller... Edit: Oh crap, I just realised I made a REALLY stupid route decision on 1-3 in the triangle key room. Edit 2: I might be able to grab a bit more momentum on 1-4 also. Grr! Edit 3: Fixed the mistake on 1-3, haven't uploaded a new video yet though. It's 96 frames improvement, haha... next update will be 1-6 done and 1-4 improved a bit too. Edit 4: I haven't given up. There's version 11. 1-7 and the first boss to come soonish.
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Watched the newest wip, still excellent. :) Keep up the good work!
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Well, then you'll have to watch the newest newest wip too! I just finished 1-7, the next level is the boss; should be beatable in about 25 seconds. Also I found an odd bug while playing 1-7; this might improve a few earlier levels. Enjoy.
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Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Yeah, double posting and all that. I've done a major overhaul of the first 4 levels; every level is faster and there's 352 frames saved in total. This is due to a couple of new tricks, some new memory locations (I love you Cheat Search) and general better tactics. I now have a very thorough understanding of the board level, which is why it's much much faster this time around. Enjoy!
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Nice that you discovered these tricks before you were too far in the run. Anyway, good job as usual, keep it up. :)
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
The game's fairly simplistic, but neat nonetheless. I have watched only v7 and v13, and I like it so far. I also hope the game won't be too long (or at least too simple) to become repetitive. :)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Sorry for the long delay. After a thorough slogging I've got through 1-5, which is a huge pain of a level. I'm now on version 14, and I saved ~4.7 seconds on this one alone. I've also tacked on the 1-6 and 1-7 solutions from previous versions -- mainly because I don't expect them to change much, maybe maximum of one second can be saved on 1-7, but I doubt it. Enjoy. :) Edit: Finished 1-8 and 2-1 and added them to the current wip, v15.
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Still nice. That sidescroller stage is still a bit painful due to it being long, but rest of the stuff is nice as usual. Bossfight was nice and fast, though that damage you took distracted me a bit but I guess it was necessary for the fastest completion. All in all, good work.
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Joined: 4/11/2006
Posts: 487
Location: North of Russia :[
Progress on this run? yay! Dowloading right now~
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Tombad wrote:
All in all, good work.
And also nice!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Yeah, sorry guys, I've restarted again. There's a major reason though... Damage Boosting!!! It's a pain to calculate, and because you only have 3 hearts, decisions need to be made about which boosts are better... for a preview of what's to come, click the link in my first post again. It only finishes 1-1, but it's another 82 frames faster, nothing to sniff at, considering all the revisions I've done already. This should help speed up levels that have lots of heart pickups in. :)
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Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Alright, now pokemon green is 'out of the way', I've got back to working on this one! I've run up to the end of the first world again, improving by 161 frames thanks to damage boosts, and some occasional minor changes.
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