TASVideos proudly presents King's Bounty in less than 10 seconds. It is a heroic tale of treachery, starring Mad Moham the Barbarian and his faithful horse.
Like before, the epic journey begins as the hero leaves the castle to recover The Sceptre of Order from a location revealed only by completing various adventurous deeds and fighting against hordes of fierce monsters and... What the... Really? The Sceptre is already found? Oh well, just roll the ending cinematics then. *sigh*
The input is 14 frames faster compared to the previous movie. The improvement would not have been feasible without gia's bot, which was used to test a lot of different luck-manipulation patterns automatically.
If you want to learn more about the bot or maybe use it check this topic:
Forum/Topics/6886
Explanations
Instead of some random explanations, here is the whole controller input explained frame by frame.
Frame number
Input
Input Function
0-62
Not applicable
63
Start
Fade logo.
64-231
N/A
232-233
idle
2 frames of luck-manipulation. (Inserted by the bot.)
234
Start
Fade logo.
235-284
N/A
285
Start
Fade title screen.
286-340
N/A
341
Start
Begin character selection.
342
idle
To register previous input.
343-347
idle-Left-idle-Left-idle
5 frames of luck-manipulation. As a side effect, switches character. (Inserted by the bot.)
348
Start
Confirm character selection: Mad Moham the Barbarian
349
idle
To register previous input.
350
idle
Loading the difficulty selection screen.
351
Down
Luck-manipulation. As a side effect, switches difficulty to Hard. (Inserted by the bot.)
352
idle
To register previous input.
353
Start
To confirm the selected difficulty and begin the game.
354-580
idle
Waiting 226 frames for the game to start.
Now the gameplay begins (and lasts for 16 frames):
Frame number
Input
Input Function
581
A
Summon action menu.
582
idle
To register previous input.
583
Up
Switch action.
584
idle
To register previous input.
585
Up
Switch action.
586
idle
To register previous input.
587
Up
Switch action.
588
idle
To register previous input.
589
Up
Switch action.
590
idle
To register previous input.
591
A
To select action: Search.
592
idle
To register previous input.
593
idle
Loading the search confirmation screen.
594
Up
To switch "No" to "Yes".
595
idle
To register previous input.
596
A
Confirm search.
Input ends here. The search was successful and the sceptre was "recovered from the clutches of the evil Master Villains." (Critical note: The king himself is possibly one of those Master Villains too, but he is not depicted angry (which would prove that he is evil), because the player is on his side.)
Here are some interesting parts after the input has ended:
Frame number
Interesting notes
598
This frame lags. Thus, the ending cinematics take 1 frame longer than in the previous publication.
1060-1062
Garbled graphics are displayed in the lower part of the screen.
1063
Colors a skeleton!
1064
Congratulation message is displayed.
Add your own favorite frames here!
: )
Game objectives
Aims for fastest time
Manipulates luck
Genre: RPG
Genre: Strategy
Also:
Uses any skill level for luck-manipulation purposes
Colors a skeleton
Pacifist
Used about 2 million bot rerecords (most of them after the fastest movie was already found)
Epilogue
Thanks a lot to everyone who supported the project and offered help! A more detailed discussion on how this movie was achieved can be found here: Forum/Posts/165570
Is there something else you would like to know? Feel free to ask anything.
Enjoy!
adelikat: Accepting an as improvement to the published movie.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I never watched the previous run of this, but this is pretty amazing.
I like to think about what the programmers would think if they saw runs like this.
I loled, so yes vote.
I've never seen such a small number of saved frames count for so much.
I had to watch it twice to see the spots where I blinked my eyes.
Yes vote because I enjoyed the first one, and because of the 2 million bot attempts. 14 frames doesn't look like much until you realize where most of them were removed from compared to the old run.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
gia wrote:
Rerecords says 58, should edit that xD
Yeah, heh. I can't tell where that figure comes from exactly, but I suppose it is the number of rerecords I used to create the optimal base input file for the bot plus the rerecords wasted on the 16 gameplay frames. It could be edited to include the bot rerecords, but I suppose it would disturb the movie statistics page quite a bit and... uh, I don't even know what the exact number of bot rerecords is. I suppose the rerecord count for this movie is doomed to be inaccurate, even though the movie itself is more or less very accurate.
[The rerecord count] could be edited to include the bot rerecords, but I suppose it would disturb the movie statistics page quite a bit and... uh, I don't even know what the exact number of bot rerecords is.
Also, there's precedent for discounting bot-made rerecords. None of the bisqbotted megaman TASes have rerecord counts in the millions.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I think what we have here is another case where pushing a game too far as obliterated the concepts of style and class. The previous run had an optimum blance of speed and entertainment, and this run goes and destroys that with this boring frame whoring.
but seriously, I vote yes, and lol.
Also we have a new record in terms of submission text length vs movie run length. I've never seen 10 seconds of TAS so well documented ;P
MUGG wrote:
I look forward to another avi that says "this was a tool assisted recording"
lol
I predicted 10.09 and I was wrong by 0.16 seconds... not too damn bad for a guess. :)
And a DAMN fine improvement! I wonder if this will be improved once more yet with a few months bot running...
Otherwise? YES ALL THE WAY!
And still brings the quote below even more into amusement. ^^
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Just another random gamer
----
<OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
I was looking forward to thism unfortunately I cannot watch it, it's not like I don't know what happens though. ;)
Awesome job guys. It's just too funny that this game can be beaten like this.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Hard is the 2nd most difficult. It also has an "Impossible" setting.
Settings only affect the number of days you have to find the sceptor and final score, IIRC.
And of course in this TAS, effect nothing since he plays all of ~16 frames :P
I had to register just for this. :D About time I do so too.
Am I the only one who finds the fact that NVA has a black screen as a screenshot hilarious?
If I could vote, yes would be the answer.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
TRON wrote:
I had to register just for this. :D About time I do so too.
Am I the only one who finds the fact that NVA has a black screen as a screenshot hilarious?
If I could vote, yes would be the answer.
For this run, I like to think of the King as being a forgetful, paranoid, senile old fart.
'Evil Wizards have stolen my scepter!'
'No, actually, you dropped it outside, on your last walk. Here you go.'
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
DarkKobold wrote:
For this run, I like to think of the King as being a forgetful, paranoid, senile old fart.
'Evil Wizards have stolen my scepter!'
'No, actually, you dropped it outside, on your last walk. Here you go.'
Heh, good one. It is always hilarious when a TAS gets to a point where a viewer needs to explicate the events like that. This movie indeed looks really strange, when you consider the plot of the game, so some speculations on "what really happened" are reasonable.
Oh, by the way: It takes 10 days to search for the sceptre, so one square might represent a quite a large area in reality. The sceptre seems to be close to the castle, but it might actually be miles away from it. The concept of distance is usually one of the most poorly constructed elements in most fantasy worlds anyway.
Oh, by the way: It takes 10 days to search for the sceptre, so ....
Clearly, you don't know much about ye olde government work. It takes at least 3 forms (scrolls in days of yonder) to get permission to search for the scepter, which you can clearly see sticking out of the bush. Once you 'search' the area, and by search, I mean point out the considerably obvious observation that it is, in fact, sticking out of said bush, you need to call the ye olde union.... God knows you can't let non-union workers do the job of card holding union member scepter carriers. However, since vacation days comprise at least 90% of all days of the year, you have to wait 4 days for the scepter carriers to get back to work. Then, you yourself need your vacation days, so that takes the remaining 3 before the scepter can be moved 100 feet in to the castle. This is how good gov't work gets done.
I really prefer the silly explanation to this movie then anything serious.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
