Would dying and continuing be considered a different category? Because I just realized with the latest route that skipping the cloak is probably faster. It would mess with the inventory a little in that it'd be best to get the arrow after key 2 or the sling. (Probably open the book, open the passage, take key 2, get the sling, and go get the arrow on the way back via the mini-map.)
I'm sticking with the current route because deaths usually push things into a different category, and continues are kind of a gray area at SDA. That's probably why I didn't think of it sooner. Sorry about that.
One other thing to note if you test this is that you don't need to grab the wraith torch.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I'm confused (maybe because I just woke up), but if I don't pick up and put on the cloak I can't pass the fire room, so how can I skip the cloak and still pass this room? Can you give some details on what you mean?
If you go into the flame room you'll be automatically kicked out, but if you get killed right after that you'll restart in the flame room after you continue. Best way to do this is to use the hammer to break one of the other mirrors. Then you use the sphere and carry on.
I thought this was a fairly well known glitch and mentioned earlier in the thread. Not helpful normally because you need to get Humana, and the staff, but since we don't need those, this might actually save a bit of time.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Dear lord, this saved a lot of time - excluding the slightly worse inventory order (in particular the arrow), this is 1168 frames, 19.47 seconds, faster. Wow! I found the best way to kill myself to use the spear on myself. The new run in the making right now, it shouldn't take too long since this game is very edit friendly.
EDIT: I just finished the TAS. In total 1069 frames, 17.82 seconds, faster than the published run. The run now clocks in at just over 8 minutes. I should point out that in the flame room, right after I died, for some reason I couldn't USE sphere after the torch without going to USE again. It must be some bug related to that I just died. Anyway, please take a look at it and see if you can find any improvements:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1577350733/shadowgate_randil_zenicreverie_v2.fm2
That's strange. I noticed you have iron bars now in place of the fin. I wish there was a way we could manipulate the orb as well as the staff because that would be a big time saver.
Does getting the water after the flute still cause bad lightning in the last room?
Also, saving nearly 20 seconds... sorry I didn't mention this sooner.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Yeah, the items on the same page as the staff are a function of what actions I have performed, so the Fin turned into an Iron Bar perhaps because I didn't pick up the white torch or something like that.
As for the water after the flute, I totally forgot about that. I'll check it out.
As for getting the Orb in the same way as the staff, after some more research, it might actually be possible. The most promising way would be to set the 128-byte value of RAM address 04DD to 0, which in practice could mean that closing/opening a specific door somewhere might allow the orb to appear in the item list. I'll dig deeper into this...
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Thanks for the encode, antd.
Some more good news: I have gone through almost all actions in the game to find out what RAM addresses they affect, and calculated what byte changes are necessary in order to get different items (yes, this took some time). I have found out how to get the Blade to appear two inventory slots below the staff. You have to do this:
*In the dragon room, pick up both skulls and the torch.
*If you are using the secret passage in the arrow room, you have to go back and close it (it needs to be closed for the blade to appear), so there is some back tracking required here.
This, in addition to picking up the shield, hammer and spear, will set RAM address 04E0 to $48, which corresponds to the Blade when you reach it in the inventory. You will have to exit and re-enter in order to do this, as to not get killed by the flames. I have checked that this works. It should save some time, both in the TAS and in your console speedrun.
Still no luck with the Orb, but I'll keep looking. If it's possible to get the orb too, then the next version will be a whole lot faster.
EDIT: Ok, I think I have found a way to get the orb to appear two slots below the blade, but it requires a detour - you have to:
*take scroll 1 in epor-room
*make wizard appear, take the scroll (or read it, just make it disappear from screen)
*skip picking up the broom, use something else on the sphinx.
*take only the left-most torch in the mirror room. Leave the right torch alone.
I tested this now, and it works.
To sum things up, there are now two more alternatives to the current route:
If you get the blade this way:
Pros:
*You save a lot of inventory scrolling in the final room.
*You don't need the Arrow, and you won't have to visit the werewolf room.
Cons: There is some backtracking required because the secret door in the arrow room have to be closed for the Blade to appear. This will only be an issue if you want to get the orb this way, because then you will have to visit the epor room. If you're using the new "death shortcut" route, this won't be an issue.
If you get the orb this way:
Pros:
*You can skip the Motari spell.
*You save some time at the end since you can go past the gargoyles directly instead of going up for the Orb.
Cons:
*Since you have to take the Epor-room-route, the death-shortcut probably won't save much time.
*Has to watch the blue wizard scene, which takes quite a lot of time.
It's not certain any one of these save time. Perhaps only getting the blade + death shortcut is the fastest strategy. I'll dig deeper into both these possibilities, but now we know that it can be done.
Since you have to back track if you glitch to get the orb and blade, then you don't need to learn epor (unless that's another requirement), which will save some time. Having the blade or orb on the last page with the staff will allow us to save the page flipping when using those on the staff. Skipping Motari also means we can skip using the glasses on our selves.
Anyway you can work your magic one last time Randil and make the Talisman appear out of thin air? Maybe on the next page? That would allow us to skip the sphinx and wyvern.
I'd love to see a TAS where you make the staff, blade, orb, talisman and horn appear by just grabbing a bunch of torches (in case using the glasses in a endless light room isn't an option) and the necessary items (scepter, ring, illumina, etc.).
This is getting pretty crazy, but I think you'll definitely get under 8 minutes with these new finds.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I now know how to get the horn to appear:
*close the skeleton in the first room after taking key1
*take right torch in second room
*burn the rug in the second room
This will make the horn appear two inventory slots above the staff. Another good thing is that those three steps aren't out of the way. Only the talisman left now! :)
EDIT: It doesn't seem like getting the talisman is possible. There are some close cases, but in the end, no series of actions will result in the talisman appearing.
EDIT2: I think I have found a way to circumvent getting the talisman - by picking up items up to a certain point, and then getting an item with an odd item number (such as the crest) to be placed on RAM address 04ED, the game thinks that the talisman has been placed in the slot, and you can open the last door with the horn. This is because the 1-byte of this RAM address tells the game if the talisman has been placed. This would mean that we have to take all those glasses somewhere between passing the skeleton throne and the final room, and after a certain point pick up an appropriate item, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Again, the Crest works, and probably other items as well.
So, we can now in theory get to the end of the game with the staff, blade, orb, horn, and indirectly talisman, without actually getting them! Nice! I will look into this more next week, I'm pretty sure it can potentially save a big chunk of time, both for the TAS and for the console speedrun.
That's pretty awesome. Let me know what you find. How many torches would it take to do the glasses trick? We have those four before the gargoyles.
Does the Motari room not work for infinite actions? You'd think the lava would provide enough light, but maybe it has to be rooms with fire.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
ZenicReverie wrote:
How many torches would it take to do the glasses trick?
I'm thinking that we could probably use one additional torch right before starting to take the glasses. That should be enough to last through the rest of the run. So all in all, probably 3 torches for the entire run. This shouldn't pose a big problem, as you said, there are 4 in the room before the gargoyles, and the right one in the corridor before the skeleton throne room is another candidate.
ZenicReverie wrote:
Does the Motari room not work for infinite actions?
Unfortunately no, the only six room where inifinite actions works are the ones I posted here. But it's weird that the motari room doesn't qualify.
I have more ideas I want to test, in particular if it's possible to change other game variables in the same way as with the talisman (maybe the skeleton throne can be opened this way). I'll look into this later today.
EDIT: I think it should be possible to have the ring be on screen as soon as you enter the garden. Similiar to the talisman, this requires that you place an item with a certain item ID, in this case one with byte 8 set to 1, on RAM address 04E6. This would allow us to skip the gauntlet and the flute.
EDIT2: Argh, even though I can get the blade in the inventory list, I can't take it - if I try to take it, I get killed by the wolf. The only way to get the blade is to first kill the wolf, so I will have to enter the tower and get the blade the normal way. Oh well. I also can't seem to reach the Horn in the inventory list because it's the first item in the list... damn, looks like a lot of these tricks won't work as easy as I had hoped. Back to the drawing board I guess! The good news is that all other things seemed to work.
EDIT3: After poking an item ID to the Horn and trying to take it, it seems that it suffers from the same situation as the Blade - I can't take the horn, because I will get killed by the Hell hound. So I guess both the Blade and the Horn have to be taken "the normal way". I could take the orb though, so no problems there.
This means that it might not be faster to get the orb either - this will force us to take the epor-room-route instead of the new death-shortcut-route, including having to watch the blue wizard scene, which in total should make this new route roughly 30 seconds slower.
This might also negate the savings from this new talisman trick. since getting the talisman the normal way isn't much out of the way now since we're already going for the Horn.
Basically, I'm no longer sure any of these new findings will save any time now (maybe the ring trick, but I'm not sure). Too bad. I'll still look deeper into this, maybe some of it can be used.
Getting the orb this way might still save some time I'd think. There are a couple animations in the orb room and motari that are a pain to sit through.
You've already been look at having certain items at memory locations to trigger events. Is there no way you've found yet to trigger the death of the werewolf or hellhound? Can you post a sample of how that works?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Unfortunately, the deaths of the werewolf and hellhound are stored outside the range of RAM addresses that I can affect with the glasses trick.
EDIT: I looked into whether or not getting the orb with the glasses trick is actually faster. Here are some (rough) approximations of how many frames are gained on the different steps (negative numbers are frame losses):
*Skipping the orb section of the cavern: 1400
*Using the route before the death shortcut: -1100
*Having to watch the blue wizard scene: -800
*Avoiding less inventory page flipping because orb is at the end of the list: 400
*Avoid learning Motari: 400
*Having to take scroll 1: -50
*Having to take the left torch in mirror room instead of the right: -80
For the TAS, this pretty much evens out; these approximations show a net loss of 50 frames, which is close enough that I will need to TAS this route and see if it's faster. For the console speedrun, since the "death shortcut" loss can be ignored, this should definitely save some time, my guess is anywhere between 10 and 20 seconds.
Probably not worthwhile because you need to close the arrow room secret door, but if you killed the werewolf and left the blade to appear in your inventory later, would that save time?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I considered this, but the things you need to do to get the blade to appear at the end of your inventory take too long (all those items are in the dragon room, and cause that flame animation).
While I'm already writing here, I might as well give a general update:
I've been working hard to completely understand the potential power of the glasses trick. I've mapped out every optional action in the game and wrote a program that looped through all permutations of these actions and printed what item I would get in the end, so unless I missed an optional action somewhere I now know all the items I can get with the glasses trick, and how to get them. I got some interesting results: You can for example get the Staff on three other memory locations by doing completely other things that getting the stones. Here is what my program told me I had to do:
80 - Staff
DO NOT opening secret door in arrow room
take northmost skull in dragon room
DO NOT take westmost skull in dragon room
take bone in dragon room
take torch in dragon room
80 - Staff
take rightmost bottle 2 in water room
DO NOT take leftmost bottle 2 in water room
take horseshoe
DO NOT take test tube
take cup in globe room
DO NOT light the fire in the globe room
I also had a completely new route idea that involved performing the glasses trick in the hellhound room, which would make the skeleton throne be open without having to use the scepter or ring. However, this failed because the glasses that I picked up changed the game state so that several sprites were gone when I was about to pick them up.
The program also told me that:
*There is only one way to get the orb, the one I posted earlier in this thread.
*There is no way to get the talisman.
Right now I'm looking into making the coins appear, saving us the visit to the balcony. According to my program, here's how you can make them appear.
102 - GoldCoin
take sword in weapon room
take sling in weapon room
DO NOT take right torch in book room
DO NOT take left torch (white torch) in book room
15 - GoldCoin
take helmet in dragon room
DO NOT take left torch in get sphere room
DO NOT take right torch in get sphere room
101 - Big coin
take bellows
DO NOT take poker
take skull in library
Learn motari from book
DO NOT take map
take torch in red carpet hall
16 - GoldCoin
take rightmost bottle 2 in water room
take leftmost bottle 2 in water room
take horseshoe
DO NOT take test tube
take cup in globe room
DO NOT light the fire in the globe room
This gives us several possibilities on how to make them appear, but of course it will require that we do the glasses trick in the well room, after using Illumina.
Speaking of which, it's possible to get Illumina as an "item" with the glasses trick, by doing this:
227 - (blank)
DO NOT take bottle 1 in rope room
DO NOT take rightmost torch in mirror room
DO NOT take leftmost torch in mirror room
take broom
DO NOT scroll 2 (wizard room) on screen
DO NOT placed blue gem in stone
DO NOT take torch in rope room
DO NOT take scroll 1 in rope room
basically just take no torch and the broom from the mirror room.
I think that's about it. As you see, this has mostly boiled down to going through the program's output to see what items could be worth getting. Any thoughts about the coins or illumina? I could post the entire program output if you're interested.
Have you been able to make objects appear like the werewolf, behemoth, or hellhound appear as an inventory item? Behemoth would obviously be most beneficial, and make for the best ending. Have you been able to make the game think we've sounded the horn, given the gold coin to the ferryman, or used Illumina on the gargoyles without needing to?
The best gold coin is probably taking the sword without touching the torches in the book room, but a close second is taking the helmet without touching the torches in the sphere room.
Getting Illumina means we couldn't get the orb. I'm pretty sure the orb will save more time than using Illumina without learning it. Does anything odd happen to the memory addresses if you start doing weird actions (use self, use torch on self once, actions on blank spaces or odd items like the fin, dropping certain items to get rid of them, like in the fountain, lake, or oil)?
P.S. Even if there were a way to get the talisman to appear, we'd have the same problem as the blade. As a guarded item, we can't take it unless the flag that says the guard is dead.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
ZenicReverie wrote:
Have you been able to make objects appear like the werewolf, behemoth, or hellhound appear as an inventory item?
Yes, I've been able to get a few sprites as items, for example:
*Rug (from banquet hall)
*Rock (from cave)
*Bridge (to staff room)
*Mummy
*Wraith
*Rope
*Werewolf
*Snake
*Ferryman
The werewolf item cannot be killed with the arrow, but attacks and kills me instead. I can interact with most of these objects, but it does no good - I can for example give gold coin to the "Ferryman" item, but since the boat isn't present I can't board it. However, once I reach the ferryman room, he should already have been paid. I can also burn the mummy item, but no scepter appears. I haven't found any use of getting a sprite as item (yet).
ZenicReverie wrote:
Does anything odd happen to the memory addresses if you start doing weird actions (use self, use torch on self once, actions on blank spaces or odd items like the fin, dropping certain items to get rid of them, like in the fountain, lake, or oil)?
It shouldn't affect the memory addresses we can reach with glasses trick. All these addresses in some way stand for object or sprite status - if an item has been taken from picture or not, if the bucket is in the high or low position, etc. Since none of those actions affect any sprites, it shouldn't have an effect on the glasses trick, but I can look into this some more, maybe there's some other hidden glitch. Speaking of weird actions, I'm wondering if anything weird happens if you try to use items you're not supposed to have on certain objects, such as using the spear on the werewolf. I think I'll look into all this.
I've looked into performing actions on blank spaces that appear from the glasses trick, and most of these crash the game. Some perform the sphinx teleport on you, some will make the intro text loop indefinitely, and other strange stuff. I haven't found anything useful from these items.
ZenicReverie wrote:
P.S. Even if there were a way to get the talisman to appear, we'd have the same problem as the blade. As a guarded item, we can't take it unless the flag that says the guard is dead.
Hmm, yeah. It's too bad that the game works like this. They didn't give any consideration to us decent folk who try to abuse memory corruption glitches!
EDIT: Interesting, I missed some details on RAM address 04E6 and it turns out you can get both coins from it:
101 - Big coin
take mirror in banquet hall
DO NOT carpet burn in banquet hall
take flute
take ring
Open tree by using flute
take bottle 4 in water room
DO NOT take bottle 3 in water room
102 - GoldCoin
take mirror in banquet hall
DO NOT carpet burn in banquet hall
take flute
take ring
Open tree by using flute
DO NOT take bottle 4 in water room
take bottle 3 in water room
The only additional action to get the gold coin on this memory location is to take the mirror in the banquet hall. Now there are plenty of ways to get the coins, which is nice.
EDIT2: Seems I'm in more luck - I fixed another mistake I had made on another RAM address, ran the program again, and found that I can get bag3 by:
132 - Bag3
DO NOT take bottle 1 in rope room
take bottle 2 in rope room
take right torch in wraith room
take left torch in wraith room
take cloak
This would put bag 3 right above the orb in the inventory list - i.e. the staff on slot 3, the bag3 on slot 6, and orb on slot 7. Skipping the balcony should make up for these extra actions. I guess the main question is if it's faster to get both coins individually or get the bag3 with this method. I think it's faster to get bag3, because if we decide to get the coins individually, they'll end up on the inventory page after the staff, forcing us to take more glasses, and they'll require about as many extra actions to get. The fact that the inventory will scroll back to the start when opening bag3 won't be a problem since we can take that opportunity to use the blade on staff. Any thoughts on this?
EDIT3: I've recorded a run (in real time) that gets both orb and bag3 using the glasses trick. It went very well, and I think it will save time even over the death-shortcut route. We just need to tweak some details, when to use the gauntlet, torches, etc. The bad thing about this route is that you can't use the broom trick, so you need to pick up another item (making the console speedrun luck dependant again). I chose the horse shoe, I think that's the best one. Movie file: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/31501193/shadowgate_randil_zenicreverie_orb.fm2
*I pick up two gold coins because the glasses I pick up after having used the blade overwrites the first one for some reason.
*For some reason the items on the inventory list become invisible after having used big coin. The list is still on the last page with the staff etc., even though you can't see them, so you'll have to remember the placement of those items.
Any ideas/suggestions for route changes are welcome!
EDIT4: It seems the reason why the gold coin gets overwritten by the glasses is because I have just used the glasses, making the game think I now have one less item, which in turn places the glasses one step up, overwriting my last picked up item. The cure for this would be to use up the two coins before using the blade on staff.
EDIT5: I just made the first version of the TAS with this route. Very ironically, it turned out 1069 frames faster than the published run, i.e. EXACTLY as fast as the death shortcut route. I would bet my money on this route though, since there are some stuff that I think I can improve. Here's the movie file:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/230822325/shadowgate_output.fm2
*For some reason, I had to use glasses on me in the last room, otherwise the glasses I pick up here overwrites the staff item... RAM address 0506 seems to be in play here, I'll look into this some more.
*I ended the movie after selecting the staff, since the input is identical to all other routes at this after this point.
Thoughts on the route?
x.x;;
I thought poor Rockman was getting raped.. but no.. this is fast redefining the definition of game rape in horrific manner. A pair of spectacles make a spectacle of a spectacular run.
x.x;;
And to think once upon a time I actually was hoping to improve my own speedrun of this...
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.
To think that this game allowed for such an improvement was probably not even in our most wet TAS-dreams. This is best suited in a new category, namely "Completely raped games".
I also suggest a new trophy category: Le moste reyped gayme of tha yeer.
:)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
And to think once upon a time I actually was hoping to improve my own speedrun of this...
Although all these glitches seem chaotic, they are very predictable, and not random in any way (the only random elements in this run are the sphinx question and the number of lightnings at the warlock). The TAS I just posted can definitely be pulled off on console, you'll get the same result if you copy the route in this TAS.
PS: The fastest "non-glasses" run is the one I uploaded here.
EDIT: In other news, it seems like the reason why I have to pick up two gold coins is because of this wretched RAM address 0506. Somehow this RAM address controls if your last item gets overwritten or not. I need to dig deeper into this...
EDIT2: 153 frames saved by using the blade later. Now 20.42 sec faster than published run: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1064589623/shadowgate_output.fm2
EDIT3: Great news! I found that I can get the ring using the glasses trick, saving me the visit to the garden as well as getting the gauntlet. The new movie is 2115 frames, or 35.25 seconds faster than the published run. This means that the TAS clocks in at 07:49, well under 8 minutes. Awesome! It's possible that I can improve it even further by planning page changes better. Anyway, here's the new movie (including ending):
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1772060465/shadowgate_output3.fm2
EDIT4. Good news again - I forgot to use the talisman trick I mentioned in the EDIT2 of this post. This saved 400 frames and made the run more entertaining (it appears that some other hero got to the end before me and took a bunch of torches and placed the talisman in the slot). 42.92 sec faster than the published run. New movie:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1635954919/shadowgate_output6.fm2
I realize that most of the run is very confusing by now. I will add subtitles to the .fm2 before submitting anything, explaining why I do things I do, and don't do things I should do.
