Yeah, that's a good choice for TASing. Better than you'd expect from propagandaware, to be sure. ;)
•Is ZSNESw allowed? I think it's also known as ZSNES WIP or something. I presume it is, but it would be very embarrassing if I completed my run and found out it's illegal because I used the wrong emulator.
It'd be worse than 'embarrassing' I think. Make sure you let us know the exact version you're using- I don't keep up with ZSNES' development, but it should be version 1.50 or newer.
Is there a way to make a graphics layer translucent (i.e., semitransparent)? Spots are hidden behind all sorts of objects, but it just so happens that the layer they're hidden behind is also the layer for important things like the ground. I'd like to be able to see where I'm going while searching for spots (at least in my preliminary runs). Is there perhaps a way to force one layer to be displayed on top of the other instead of the default ordering?
IIRC, you can toggle layers using keys 1-6 by default. I think that's all you can do.
As for 'advice', I think you should just use snes9x 1.43 for production, and version 1.51 for finding more cheats- cheats like your lateral and vertical velocities. Knowing how fast your character is going at any given moment will make your life easier, especially TASing this particular game, methinks.
You'd probably be better off using SNES9x 1.43 v10 or SNES9x 1.51
It's more widely used on this site, you can find a copy to download somewhere in the emulator forum
I'm sciencing as fast as I can !
______________________________________
<adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining
<adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises
Damn, I did a forum search and a Google search but nothing turned up. Probably because that thread is so old. Thankfully, it looks like this game is still open. Already read the FAQs too.
In that first thread, he asks what kind of run he should do. Just to make it explicit in advance, I'd do a hardest difficulty, 100% run ("hard" mode requires you to collect 99 spots anyway, so it wouldn't be much work to find one more in most levels).
Dromiceius (and Deign) wrote:
As for 'advice', I think you should just use snes9x 1.43 for production, and version 1.51 for finding more cheats- cheats like your lateral and vertical velocities. Knowing how fast your character is going at any given moment will make your life easier, especially TASing this particular game, methinks.
Thanks! Already downloaded.
Questions I still need answered:
•Can I make a layer translucent? (Probably not)
•How should I route plan?
Joined: 12/27/2006
Posts: 532
Location: Göteborg, Sweden
Bobo the King wrote:
•How should I route plan?
http://tasvideos.org/RoutePlanning.html
Route planning is usually much easier if you know the game well. Do you? If not, you'll probably need to play through the game once without frame advance or slowdowns to familiarize yourself with it.
My published movies
[03:45:05] <Naohiro19> Soulrivers: ...
[03:45:19] <Soulrivers> ?
[03:46:35] <Naohiro19> <Soulrivers> No! <Naohiro19> So? <Soulrivers> Yes!
[03:46:48] <Naohiro19> joke
http://tasvideos.org/RoutePlanning.html
Route planning is usually much easier if you know the game well. Do you? If not, you'll probably need to play through the game once without frame advance or slowdowns to familiarize yourself with it.
To be honest, no, I don't know the game nearly as well as I should. I'm only considering this attempt because I played the game a lot about ten years ago and it strikes me as nearly perfect for a TAS. For one reason or another, I'll be playing through the game a few times before attempting the TAS. However, it would probably take weeks and lots of note-taking to find the same route that would take me less than an hour to find if I had a map of the level. So the question remains: how to I get/make maps?
I'll be fiddling around with the cheat finder and see if I can get a walk-through-walls cheat going. I don't think I could stand to make a map while dealing with the constraints of the level.
Questions I still need answered:
•Can I make a layer translucent? (Probably not)
•How should I route plan?
You can press the numbers 1 through 6 and it will turn certain background layers off.
Route planning can be done a number of different ways. Soulrivers mentioned the first two, by knowing the game really well and playing through the game. Also looking up FAQ's on gamefaqs is always a good option. This will often time reap the reward of showing you certain shortcuts you may not have known about before.
Possibly making maps or finding maps is also a good decision. Using actual maps can reveal the shortest past and thus (generally) the quickest route.
I'm sciencing as fast as I can !
______________________________________
<adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining
<adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises
Good luck with this. Here is a WIP I made long ago of the first level and bonus level on Hard (though I don't get all 100 spots in the first level, just 95, enough to go to the bonus level).
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
You were directed to the older topic and that means you should continue your discussion there.
Do I really have to use that topic? It's pretty old and the author has basically acknowledged he abandoned it. Plus, this topic is already available and a lot of people seem to be using it. (Do you want two front page "Cool Spot" topics?) If you insist that I bump that one and continue from there, I won't argue with you, but it looks like it would be an unpopular decision.
JXQ wrote:
Good luck with this. Here is a WIP I made long ago of the first level and bonus level on Hard (though I don't get all 100 spots in the first level, just 95, enough to go to the bonus level).
Great! I'll be sure to use this as a benchmark for my own run. Obviously there are going to be a few differences (I don't plan on death abuse if I can help it).
A Runnelid wrote:
It's been a long time since I've played the game, and this post is slightly off-topic, but isn't 75 spots enough to access the bonus levels?
Actually, it's 85 to get a bonus level, but you bring up a good point. I was wrong when I said you need 99 to beat a level on hard. You "only" need 90. I still would rather do a 100% run because I don't think it will take that much more time and I have a feeling that deciding which ten cool points to leave behind will take more time than finding the optimum route with all of them.
To address Deign's comment and give an overall status update, I've scraped together quite a few resources in a day. This FAQ has more information in it than I thought at first glance. Specifically it lists every cool point in each level, which means I don't have to stagger blindly for a few days while I try to map things. Speaking of, even though I have that FAQ, I'd still like to make a layer translucent, just so I have an explicit map of where all the cool points are. I found a workaround. Pressing and releasing 1 (the foreground layer) is too tedious, but I can record a video, then hold 1. This causes it to flicker, allowing me to see where all the cool points are hiding.
For hex editing, I've come up with some cheats for gathering information. For archival purposes, here they are in PAR form:
Infinite time-- 7E00CE3C and 7E00CF00 (freezes clock at 1:00)
Infinite lives-- 7E11CE03 and 7E00D403 (first code is just cosmetic, second is effective)
Infinite health-- 7E00D007
I also found an "auto-walk" cheat. Not very useful, but mildly neat.
I also found the addresses for the x and y coordinates, measured from the top-left corner. The x axis is stored in three bytes at 7E083B and the y axis is stored at 7E0843. Actually, there are about five different coordinates listed (a hitbox?) but I chose the ones that were roughly centered. To give a sense of scale, the first level is about 1,000,000 units (pixels?) by 200,000 units. From this I was able to determine that Spot can jump about 37,000 units high. Not sure if I'll explicitly use that info later on, but it could prove useful.
As for my mapmaking skills, that's going to be the most time consuming part of this run. I shied away from making a digital map with screenshots because I thought it would take too much time and effort. Instead, I tried to make a hand-drawn map of the first level by going to key points in the terrain, finding their coordinates, then sketching in the rest. It took about two hours just to get the sand and the balloons in the first level. What I have so far looks very sexy, but I plan on adding enemies and spots, which would take at least another hour or two. One of the things that kind of sucks about this game is that it often requires "leaps of faith" where you're jumping to something offscreen. This makes compiling a map rather difficult. (Actually, what am I talking about? I can use the coordinates I have to help place things.) I'm going to try using screenshots for my map of level 2 to compare how quickly I can produce it.
I think both the most challenging and fun task of this speedrun will be working on the bonus stages, which have lots of routes to choose from. I plan on uploading maps of them so we can work on them collectively. Bonus stages automatically end if you collect all the points within the time limit, so there's a significant time bonus if I can finish them fast enough.
Aside from mapping and route planning, there are a few simple questions I have about the mechanics of the game that I'll want to check first:
What angle does Spot fall at?
How is firing handled? You can fire shots in more than eight directions which is actually more of a pain than a benefit for now. My guess is that it has to do with how long you hold down one direction versus another. Much testing is needed.
What's the best way to climb ropes? You can jump while climbing, gaining a lot of speed.
What is the best way to defeat/dodge each enemy? Dodging enemies is a really bad idea in this game because Spot's not all that nimble. If you don't hold left or right while jumping, Spot instantly loses his lateral momentum when he lands. Shooting enemies is a much better strategy because Spot can walk and fire simultaneously. Playing "Off the Wall" on hard is giving me the chills just thinking about it.
That's it for now! Thanks for all the attention!
I actually have this game on my SNES. It was a surprisingly good game coming straight from an advertising company. It was quite difficult for me at some points.
I found the controls pretty crazy at times, like trying to fire diagnoally while walking into a stupid crab...
I dunno how much help I can be with this game, as I haven't played it for at least a decade, if not more. But definitely would like to see this game tased. :)
You were directed to the older topic and that means you should continue your discussion there.
Do I really have to use that topic? It's pretty old and the author has basically acknowledged he abandoned it. Plus, this topic is already available and a lot of people seem to be using it. (Do you want two front page "Cool Spot" topics?) If you insist that I bump that one and continue from there, I won't argue with you, but it looks like it would be an unpopular decision.
Yes. I believe there is actually a rule on this forum that if there is an old thread on the subject, you should post there instead of making a new one.
Usually what happens when that rule gets violated is that the new thread is merged into the old one, and the user is directed to the old thread.
The point of this is to keep all discussion on a subject in one place, so that, for instance, someone who wants to look through discussion for all TAS tricks in a game will only have to read one thread, rather than 3 or more.
edit:
http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html wrote:
Resurrecting threads
We prefer having one thread per game, so that relevant information is kept in one place. It is preferred to reply to an old thread about a game (use the search function to see if there are any) instead of starting a new thread.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Hi all, KnucklesMaster here.
After having VS. SMB pretty much done, I decided to go and work on this.
In order to show the limits of this game, I will list the time of seconds left at the end of each level in the WR, or the best that I have seen (easy any%).
Shell Shock: 5:34 (26 game seconds)
Pier Pressure: 7:20 (40 game seconds)
Off da Wall: 7:10 (50 game seconds)
Wading Around: 7:41 (19 game seconds)
Toying Around: 7:19 (41 game seconds)
Radical Rails: 5:44 (16 game seconds)
Wound Up: 7:25 (35 game seconds)
Loco Motive: 7:22 (38 game seconds)
Back to the Wall: 7:13 (47 game seconds)
Dock and Roll: 7:22 (38 game seconds)
Surf Patrol: 5:30 (30 game seconds)
These IL times need to be beat or tied in order to even have a submitted TAS.
I'll do a completed TAS, upload it to userfiles and go from there.
If a map had all the information, it would look like this: (shows black construction paper)
"Now that's a map!'
XD
Link to video
The first stage needs some work however I think we have a pretty good stage 2
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
