Posted: 8/11/2009 9:01 AM
(Edited: 8/12/2009 3:51 AM)
Post subject: Tails' Sky Patrol
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
For reasons not immediately apparent to myself, I decided to add one more thing to my long list of things to do and make a TAS of Tails' Sky Patrol. (I wanted to play Tails Adventure, but I do not think I have enough time for it right now.) In Tails' Sky Patrol, Tails must fly through five stages to save an island (does it have a name?) from Wendy Witchcart and her minions. For some reason, he cannot stop flying and he will lose a life if he touches the ground. Or the walls. Or a ceiling. But not enemies, because he always has a Ring with him! I made a test run of the first stage. Here is the movie file. I, um, forgot to get the latest version of Dega before I started recording, and I will have to start over because it desyncs on the newer version. Notes and observations:
  • Tails's Ring will automatically grab crystals and objects that it can latch on to unless it is being spun or thrown.
  • Spinning the Ring will slow Tails down a very small amount.
  • You can grab then release certain objects (such as minecarts) to boost Tails forward a few pixels.
  • The spinning yellow walls can only be passed when they are parallel or perpendicular to the screen. Tails will lose a life if he hits them at any other angle.
  • Tails's hitbox is really small, but I am not sure what its exact size is. I am almost certain that it is only 1 pixel tall.
  • However, it seems that any part of Tails's sprite can collect candy, extra lives, and invincibility panels.
  • I lost a few frames by collecting the crystals. I am not sure if they do anything besides give you points, and I will ignore them next time if I should.
Posted: 8/11/2009 6:45 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Hi Kumquat, welcome to the forums! You should definitely use the most recent version of dega as it correctly identifies gg games in the movie files. I'm not entirely sure if gg is officially accepted yet either... Your movie looks decently optimized at first glance, but I think a lot of people will compare this to an autoscroller. Hopefully later levels will have more opportunities for entertainment. Anyways, good luck and I look forward to seeing more from you...
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 8/11/2009 11:27 PM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
Thank you, Alden! I will certainly be using the latest version of Dega, because it also plays the game at its proper speed. (I made another test run with Dega 1.16 (MAME core), and it was about 13.5 seconds faster without being optimized.) I also retested a few things:
  • Spinning the Ring does not slow Tails down.
  • Flying diagonally does not slow Tails down.
  • All items are collected with the Ring, not just crystals.
Do you think I should collect all of the crystals? Some of them will take a few seconds to collect in later stages, and I am still not sure if collecting all of them does anything.
Posted: 8/11/2009 11:43 PM
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N._Harmonik
She/Her
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 502
Location: Canada
All that the crystals do are give you 1000 points each at the end-of-level tally...although, maybe the tally can be skipped somehow.
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:30 AM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Does collecting the crystals require anything more interesting than going through the levels would otherwise allow for? Or is it just a more "complete" run? Usually TASes try to avoid bonus-giving items if they have the option.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 8/12/2009 4:04 AM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
Some of the crystals are on slower paths, but I am not sure if it would be more entertaining to collect them. For now, I am going to avoid every crystal. The new movie file is here, and you can watch it on YouTube here.
Posted: 8/12/2009 6:49 AM
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Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Hmm... That was more fun to watch than I thought it would have been. (this was the game that finally convinced me that there are no good games on the Master System/Game Gear) Crap, my left hand is killing me from too much keyboard use. :(
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:07 PM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
Crap, my left hand is killing me from too much keyboard use. :([/quote] Keyboard use... riiiight ;) I don't know if I ever got past the first level, so I was entertained by the run. I would say skip the crystals. My reasoning is arbitrary.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Posted: 8/12/2009 5:26 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Nice, the second one looked much cleaner/faster. Hopefully with more complicated levels this will keep getting better. How are you capturing for youtube, by the way? Also, I agree with avoiding crystals.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 8/12/2009 11:42 PM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
I am glad all of you are enjoying it! I will finish the second stage as soon as I can, but I have no idea when that will be. Alden, I recorded the videos with CamStudio. Also, if I use the level select code (Up, 2, and Start on the title screen) to select the first stage, it is 120 frames faster than starting normally. Am I allowed to use it?
Posted: 8/17/2009 8:08 AM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
I finished the second level. Here are the movie file and YouTube video. I was also able to improve the first stage by 19 frames by avoiding the weight at the beginning, getting better boosts from minecarts, and avoiding lag. I decided to err on the side of caution and not use the level select code to skip the title screen. I am certain that I can improve the boss fight, but I am not sure how. The first boss is consistantly defeated by either 20 hits from Tails's Ring or being thrown into a wall 5 times. In my current video, I defeat him with 4 throws and 4 hits, but I was able to defeat him with 4 throws and 3 hits in my test runs. I suspect that throws do varying damage, but I am not sure how to manipulate them. Edit: Okay, I figured it out. I was hitting him too soon with the Ring, so he was stunned without taking any damage. (I have no idea why that happens.) I should be able to beat him with 2 hits and 4 throws. Based on these numbers, I assume that he has 40 health, and he takes 2 damage from being hit by the Ring and 9 damage from being thrown into a wall.
Posted: 8/17/2009 4:04 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Nice! I liked the taking damage to go through walls trick; is that useful in the first level at all? I guess not. I would suggest looking into the memory watch feature of dega. Let me know if you need any help... it can be quite useful. Oh, and I suppose the level select code would be making the game faster with an undocumented code so it wouldn't be allowed.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 8/17/2009 9:53 PM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1365
Location: Minnesota
alden wrote:
Nice! I liked the taking damage to go through walls trick
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Posted: 8/18/2009 3:12 AM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
The only things in the first level that Tails can recover from are the spiked ball near the beginning and the blue and yellow blocks, so no, it is not useful. I did not know that Dega had a memory watch feature. How do I open it?
Posted: 8/18/2009 3:26 AM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Not sure about the new new new version, but in previous versions you have to install Python (version 2.4 I think?). It should be documented somewhere. It's a little janky, but it does the job.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 8/18/2009 3:42 PM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
Could you please explain exactly what I need to do? No matter what I try, I cannot get it to work. In other news, I redid the boss fight without the unnecessary hits. It was faster until the last hit, which was slower because the boss was immune to damage for a much longer time for some reason. I have no idea why, so I will not be able to continue until I can use memory watch to figure out how his health works.
Posted: 8/18/2009 4:09 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
I haven't checked 1.16 but for previous versions you had to install this version of Python: http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.4.4/ And a menu would magically appear inside dega with memory watch.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 8/18/2009 4:26 PM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
It does not show up in either version of 1.16, but I just checked 1.15 and it does show up! So... I guess I have to test everything in the old laggy version, but it is much better than nothing. Thank you very much, Alden!
Posted: 9/18/2009 7:52 PM
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Kumquat
Player (122)
Joined: 8/11/2009
Posts: 73
Location: Texas
Well, that took longer than I thought it would! I redid the first stage and saved 83 frames over the YouTube video. Most of the time saved came from better manipulation of the Ring to grab things faster, which allowed me to save time by grabbing the blue poles. I also redid the second stage and saved 226 frames over the YouTube video. Most of the time saved came from having a better understanding of how damage works — it turns out that the Ring does more damage if you spin it for a while before you throw it.
  • If it does not make a full revolution, it does 1 damage.
  • If it makes one or two full revolutions, it does 3 damage.
  • If it makes three or more full revolutions, it does 5 damage.
  • Each revolution takes about 32 frames.
Fockewulf has 20 HP, and his bombs do 8 damage if you throw them back at him. Finally, I completed the third stage (YouTube). Bearenger has 26 HP, but he does not have any attacks that you can use against him. I have one other strategy to test against him before I move on to Metal Island. One other thing I noticed is that there are some frames when your input does not do anything, but the game is not lagging. I pseudorandomly pressed buttons during several of those frames near the beginning of the first stage before I got tired of looking for them.