This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1969: Baxter's NES Adventures of Lolo in 22:37.07

yes vote, cause i saw it before Baxter did =D

hahaha, it also defeats Defender of the Crown?! THIS I gotta see! Not that Lolo love isn't amazing as well, of course.

Whoa, who could expect an unassisted speedrun to provide better strategy for such polished TAS.

14 frames is it? Unless this game is in the frame wars, I don't think it should be published. But seeing as how I don't know if it is or not, I'm not gonna vote. Just wanted to mention that.

Unless this game is in the frame wars, I don't think it should be published. But seeing as how I don't know if it is or not, I'm not gonna vote.

Well, educate yourself then.

I don't get it. What am I looking at?

Oh my, that .jpg looks like Turok. >_< PNG is better at that, believe me.

Oh my, that .jpg looks like Turok. >_< PNG is better at that, believe me.

I think the graininess adds to the charm!

NOW it looks like Turok. I haven't watched the Defenders of the Crown half of it yet, but thumbs up on the Lolo.

I only watched Defender of the Crown and that was quite funny by itself.

Not sure if this was already posted, but the rom used wasn't: Adventures of Lolo (U) [!] It's using: Adventures of Lolo (U) [b1] I think b1 means bad dump I may be wrong. Don't remember rules on TAS but isn't this considered a bad rom to use? Not trying to rain on your parade, I enjoyed the movie.

The DotC TAS was amazing, my world has been thoroughly rocked With this in tow, feel free to improve Lolo all you like!

Even though this isn't accepted yet, I'm trying to encode this as my first encoding. I don't know how good it will be in the end but I just want a chance at least... :) Nice run btw, the music is making me insane after awhile though.

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1131] NES Adventures of Lolo by Baxter in 22:37.07

Thanks Baxter. Its funny no one PMd me or mentioned this at the SDA forum. I just happened to find this about a week ago by chance. I remember finding this solution and thinking "now I'm sure this is faster than the TAS". After I timed it I was stupified that it was approx a 1/2 second longer. Obviously my timing wasnt very accurate plus I noticed from your vid I pause too long at the top of the island. As for being surprised this came from a non TASer, thanks, but it really makes sense. Personally I think more about a game away from it than playing it, so it doesnt really matter that its in "real time". I think thats true of many TASers Finally, its too bad you didn't wait for my speedrun before updating yours. I still have at least one more improvement :)

Well, if you know a possible improvement to this run, feel free to tell it.

Well I'm a bit torn. Not because I don't want to tell you, but because I was hoping these solutions would give me incentive to finish my run quicker. I'll give the you the concrete one. As for the questionable ones I'll consider. 9-3 dont dance around with Lolo but wait half out into madussa's path. As the sleeper comes up the middle it "commits" itself the moment it turns left. You can use this to start moving up and right before it reaches you straight on. Saves maybe a step.

Well, you should actually TAS it in order to know for sure if it saves time. I've TASed that level many times, and I'm don't think 9-3 can be improved. Please make a movie (fcm) and time how many frames it takes you to complete, and compare it to my movie. I don't believe that level at my TAS can be improved. If you just made the suggestion from looking at the level, or playing it yourself in realtime, then don't bother making an fcm... then I know for sure it's not an improvement. Edit: Ok, I'll explain the level a bit. The waiting for the entire level is due to the second leaper turning right when reaching the rocks (when lolo stands in the sand). I can move through the sand a lot earlier, but then the leaper turns left, goes through the arrow tile and kills me. I continue walking through the sand the first place possible so that the leaper turns right and doesn't kill me. So yes, I could reach the sand probably faster (also note the extra tile I walk at the top right)... but there is a wait needed for the second leaper's movement anyway... so your suggestion is not an improvement (or I completely missed something, and feel free to make an fcm and prove me wrong if that is the case).

Hmm maybe I started on the wrong foot here? I dont know how to TAS or how to make an fcm recording to compare frame counts. I do count steps. As you well know all the enemies in the game travel the same speed as lolo, so I use this often to gage how long I pause in reference to lolo steps. This is a snapshot from my FCE ultra (yes i've played in real time) This is your TAS As you can see your sleeper has taken one extra step while we are at the same point. Hence youve taken a step longer. Also, perhaps this is the reason why the sleeper NEVER follows me up the middle. Maybe because I'm further right sooner? He stays across the bottom and goes up the far right. I also dont need to take your timing step. (which of course I realized it was a timing step) So it looks like a two step improvement.

the sleeper NEVER follows me up the middle

Ah, well... this explains a lot, since this is the actual improvement. The first explanation and even the pics in this post didn't really point this out. I knew I could have gotten faster there, and I could have sworn I had already tested what you suggested, and sofar that lower leaper always went up the middle. So I thought you were only suggesting how to get to the top faster, but I already knew that was possible. The essential part of the level was waiting for that second leaper, and going by your first post, I thought you didn't know this. This is why I was kinda annoyed by the fact that you had already claimed to know an improvement while it actually didn't seem like an improvement at all. Now that you mentioned that this influences the second leapers movement, I tested it and you are indeed correct! This should save about 19 frames roughly. I'm still puzzled as to why I never noticed it before though, as I'm somewhat certain I tested this before. So nice find, and good job on finding it! I won't be doing the improvement anytime soon though, as more might be found. Good luck with your speedrun too.

I decided to give you everything Ive got :) A total of five improvements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj2idT37LfM 3-1: There are two faster ways to the chest than the current TAS 103 steps and 101 steps. of course the trick is getting the skeleton to follow you without pause. I happened to find it on the 101 step solution so I didnt have to bother looking at the other. I think I use the shot better ;) current TAS 105 steps to chest this is 102 1/4 -2 3/4 steps 3-2: HA! well at least I can say I found this one for certain on my own! The steps are saved because I dont have to go around the skeleton and I dont wait for the egg to float were you need it. Current TAS 61 steps to chest this 58 -3 steps 8-4: An intesting surprise, I loved this TAS solution but while trying to optimize the begining found this. Instead of going right twice(in upper left quadrant) I do it only once on the second pass and get the heart. Current TAS 117 steps to chest this is 116 -1 steps 8-5: THIS is my baby. considering how much time Ive spent on this level I am so pleased to have found this solution. There is a clip at the end that shows my original effort. What I found is a very good way to syncronize the knife men without losing time. Ultimately I realized I was spending longer timing my trips down on the rest of the level than it was worth. Consider you dont push either of the men down, negate them use your fastest solution you'll gain 12 steps. However in my solution without pushing them down I was using like 7-8 in timing. Granted it was faster than regular just seemed improve able. (not mention extremely difficult realtime) So It occured to me if i DO push one down maybe I wont need the have the timig issues. PRESTO I give away 5 steps and end up getting 7 theoretically. Well actually, because my result is an almost 4 step improvement! Current TAS is 177+ steps to chest this is 173+ -3 3/4 steps 9-3: You've seen this improvement in the previous posts. Unfortunately I dont think it will make it into my speed run :( I'm sick of restarting after I die here. I put my alternate solution as the final clip. Funny enough its the same steps as the current TAS Not exactly sure of steps but deduced it was -2 -2 steps Approx -12 1/2 steps A second note to 8-5: I'm certain the TAS can be improved beyond mine at least 1 step. Its likely that the solution doesn't involve syncronizing the medussas. Oh, and sorry about the video quality. Its what I got. CHEERS! Zugzwang Edits are in RED. I added so that you know what I was looking at in comparison

Wow, these improvements are great! Especially since you found them in real time, and because quite a lot of people already looked at improvements for this game many times. The improvement on 3-1 is awesome. The different placement of the bridge is very nice and inventive. I was always bothered by 3-2... I always disliked that level since there didn't seem to be a very intuitive way to complete it. Your new route is still someone intuitive, but a nice improvement :) 8-4 was an interesting surprise indeed. Nice work on this... I think I remember hanzou saying he was surprised at me improving this level some time in the past, since there is no enemy interaction in this level. 8-5 is probably one of the hardest levels to perfect. I also spent quite some time on it, as well as BoMF. At the first versions, the enemies didn't move parallel, so it's not like I only focussed on getting them to line up... but there are many possibilities at this level. I'm very impressed you improved it in realtime :o 9-3, as already mentioned, I'm surprised this was missed somehow, nice find though :) Five improvements is a LOT, especially for this game. I'm glad a next submission of this TAS won't just have a single level improved! I'll try to find if I can get some improvement of my own in there as well, but that will probably be very hard. All of these Lolo improvements surely are taking this TAS closer and closer to perfection... but it might also cause a feeling that this will never be perfect... It is particularly peculiar, since this can be considered by far the easiest Lolo game. Anyway, great job Zugzwang!

Thanks Baxter its nice to know you appreciate my effort. Oops, so I was looking for a level that you could probably improve and I found another myself! 6-1: I dont have time to post a vid, but perhaps you can find it yourself. It is less intuative than your solution is now, so im sure thats why it hadn't been found earlier. You dont get the lower middle heart first. Current TAS is 95 steps to the chest, this is 94 Anyway 1-3: I looked for a long time for a way to get the skeleton to go back down once he reached the top left corner to no avail. There is a vid on you tube where a guy made it go back down. Unfortunatelyit looks like it requires the upper heart to be taken first. This is a bummer because I believe there is about 14 steps of waiting in this level. 3-5: I found a completely different solution that happens to have the exact same number of steps grrr. 5-4: I use a sight variation just for fun with a bridge in the lower left corner. Should be the same unless theres a difference at a frame level. 7-3: Question, with perfect accuracy is it possbly to: get left heart go up middle get right heart shoot upper right fire guy shoot block madussa shoot upper left fire guy AND get chest before upper right hatches I know I cant do it realtime but its frame close 8-5: you shoud improve just buy using your stratagy for first 30 steps (which I cant do) but dont push the left emerald down at all. Then use my strat for the rest. Remember the timing is much easier the second half. 10-1: This is one level I didnt try to improve. The way I go is again a variation but the same number of steps. The solution is so good it would seem..... I think 8-5 is the best canidate.