This is a any% run of a game called VVVVVV. I used version 2.0 because in the latest version (2.1) you can't commit suicide by pressing R. The ingame time of this run is 12:33 which is 45 seconds faster than the current toolless run (13:18), which also uses version 2.0.
Game objectives
Emulator used: Hourglass r81 (Multithreading and Wait Sync: Allow)
Aims for the fastest completion
Skips Gravitron
Uses death to save time
Comments
The physics of this game are strange, that's why I found it hard to optimize this. In this game you basically only have 5 keys. < and > to move the guy around. Action to flip and to talk. Enter to warp from a teleporter and R to commit suicide.
Death saved time in the tower because the screen will scroll to a specific position based on the checkpoint when you respawn. If you die and the checkpoint is at the top of the screen, it will scroll down and save time.
Glitches
Dying in the intro
I think the game gets confused if you die in the intro where you shouldn't supposed to die so it brings you back to your starting position. It skips a few scenes but the biggest save is that you can skip Gravitron because saving Violet doesn't lead you to the grey rooms.
Going through "Inversion Planes"
Inversion Planes or bounce lines can be skipped if they are near the floor. You press up then release it one frame then press up again. This is possible without tools if you try a bit :)
Other Comments
I guess this game can have different branches. There are twenty Shiny Trinkets around the game which could make a 100% run interesting. It is also possible to create a movie without dying, which wouldn't skip Gravitron for example. There is a No Death Mode which can be unlocked and you can skip cutscenes with it.
By the way, I'm a big fan of this game, and I'd like to make an 100% (all Shiny Trinkets) run this year if no one else wants to do it. One of the things that stopped me last year is the version issue. Using suicide in 2.0 can save plenty of time in the 100% run, but I'm not sure if anyone would like to see it happens.
Won't that be a non-issue if you just make it a 100% run in no-death mode, with the current movie as a verification movie?
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6449
Location: The land down under.
HappyLee wrote:
By the way, I'm a big fan of this game, and I'd like to make an 100% (all Shiny Trinkets) run this year if no one else wants to do it. One of the things that stopped me last year is the version issue. Using suicide in 2.0 can save plenty of time in the 100% run, but I'm not sure if anyone would like to see it happens. As for me, I'm with the use of 2.0 for both any% and 100% run, and I'd like to hear from others' opinions.
- any% large skip glitches
- 100% large skip glitches
- Glitchless 100%?
(Sarcasm) Totally not taking the idea off any metroid run that exists in tasvideos.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Perhaps I'm the odd one out this time around, but I'm feeling pretty "meh" about this run. I think the sequence break in this situation actually cuts entertainment value despite saving a lot of time. It's fine for raw speed, but I'd say a 100% no death run would be far more interesting. The only thing that run would miss is that Prize for the Reckless is a fun one to watch people get, but No Death mode makes it far easier to get since obtaining it normally actually requires one death.
It's not a bad run. I just think it really skips some of the best parts of the game.
I just think it really skips some of the best parts of the game.
To be fair, this run only skips Gravitron (and some dialogues and the trinkets and some rooms at the start but they are not that "best part of the game"-ish)
I'm voting for a 100% no-death run on version 2.0.
Version 2.0 because:
Blazephlozard wrote:
1. VVVVVV 2.0 is the first version of the C++ port, so in many ways it's like a 1.0 release.
2. Being "2.0", obviously it is a stable release, not an intermediate patch
3. The version of the game you download from Steam is still 2.0, so the 2.1 linked on the distractionware forums is not even the main commercial version.
I would also start the 100% from an empty save, because you can unlock the no-death mode in the menu.
I'm working on another TAS at the moment so I guess HappyLee can do the 100%.
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
I'm voting for a 100% no-death run on version 2.0.
...
I would also start the 100% from an empty save, because you can unlock the no-death mode in the menu.
Sounds like a good choice. I would probably start this project next month. Best wishes to you and your projects. (BTW, should the 100% run include the secret lab? Otherwise it wouldn't technically be called "100%"... just saying...)
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 69
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Haha.. The gordian knot room was amazing (8m40s). There is another older no death mode all trinkets TAS run on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apwA8UQ_xeE But it misses some of the neater time saving stuff you do Masterjun. The amount of discussion over version number is pretty funny too - not what I expected would be in here. I personally like it because I didn't know that bug existed and the random suicide stuff is interesting. Brilliant work on the Tower as well - I would always cling to all the time I had in that room, but your abuse of it was great. :)
Edit: Finished watching that link and now I get the death for a trinket (even though I have done it before..). I like how the hardest room with no deaths is Welcome Aboard :P
What the heck is with the constant no-death 100% suggestion? Does it come from those who haven't played the game, or am I just missing a big bug or something? (It's impossible. One of the trinkets requires a death)
What the heck is with the constant no-death 100% suggestion? Does it come from those who haven't played the game, or am I just missing a big bug or something? (It's impossible. One of the trinkets requires a death)
It's not impossible. That trinket works differently in no-deaths mode (also in time-trial mode).
The whole issue of 2.0 vs. 2.1 here is very important to the future of PC (and newer consoles) TAS I think, as brought up before.
Why? There's no restrictions for any other supported system. People TAS various versions of NES/SNES games all the time. Hell, the current Zelda 64: OOT TASes (both!) use the japanese 1.0 release, which is the first of eight versions (3 JP, 2 EU, 3 US).
Blazephlozard wrote:
But, I think it's important to think about the rules on what version numbers of a frequently-patched game are allowed. And in the case of consoles, could you even get the in-between versions? I know on 360 you can play the version on the disc, or patch it to the current version. It's not like every version of a patched game is stored somewhere. It's different than, "This cartridge I'm holding is 1.0. This other cartridge is 1.1." Patches overwrite the old game.
I don't know. It's something to think about, because I think PC TAS has a bright future. Hopefully this isn't gibberish.
Last I checked you can't TAS the 360. :P TASes are created with emulators and game images, where it's no problem to feed the emulator a specific image. Even when game images can't be played on an emulator, they're still dumped almost as soon as they come out or update (see the 360 scene releases), and even when there's no way to play them people are dumping them (see the 3DS releases).
Playing games on an actual SNES it's hard to get a specific version just like it is on a 360. But with emulation and game images, it's no longer an issue for anything.
EDIT: Fixed spacing.
This is the one game I've been waiting to see a TAS of since I saw that TASVideos started doing Windows TASes. Definite yes vote. That was as entertaining as could be expected from a non-trinket gathering run.
Why? There's no restrictions for any other supported system. People TAS various versions of NES/SNES games all the time. Hell, the current Zelda 64: OOT TASes (both!) use the japanese 1.0 release, which is the first of eight versions (3 JP, 2 EU, 3 US).
Having eight versions (quite a few of them identical gameplay-wise) is nothing compared to the typical PC game. And, like I said, the huge issue I see is using one specific release, besides the first release, because it has the most bugs. They use 1.0 in OOT because it has the most glitches, as expected. When it's a glitch not in the previous version, and not in the next version, it's a lot different, kind of like you're playing a broken version of the game, a mistake. It should be in a category of its own. TAS is about breaking a game, not playing an already broken game, yeah? And this is an issue that's really only come up in this era of rapid patching. None of it really applies to this run, but, I think these questions are going to have to be answered for the future of Windows TAS, and I don't think the answer should be allowing any version at all.
Rydian wrote:
Last I checked you can't TAS the 360. :P TASes are created with emulators and game images, where it's no problem to feed the emulator a specific image. Even when game images can't be played on an emulator, they're still dumped almost as soon as they come out or update (see the 360 scene releases), and even when there's no way to play them people are dumping them (see the 3DS releases).
Obviously you can't, but I'd hope in 10 years you can! TAS can't be about N64 and below forever! If every version/image of 360 games are being dumped somewhere, that's great for the future. I was worried they weren't, and there'd be no way to get them anymore.
My perspective on the whole version thing:
With a (not-current-gen) console game, releasing a new version is expensive. You do your best to try to fix the most visible and game-breaking bugs in v1.0, because if you need to distribute a patch to your players, that means recalling the old disks/carts and sending out new ones. That's not something you do lightly! Of course bugs still slip through, so when you do a new "print run" of the game (e.g. when releasing to a new country), you take the opportunity to fix what you can. But the release cycle is slow, and there's typically going to be only one or maybe two versions for any given locale. As a player, you can be pretty confident that any bugs that slip through were either deemed "not worthy of fixing", or else managed to sneak past a fairly rigorous QA process.
In contrast, with modern games and especially with indie games, there often is no rigorous QA process. The expectation is "release early, release often, players will play the most recent release." Sure, you fix bugs when you find out about them, but you don't sweat it too much if you find out about them due to player reports rather than from your own bugtesting, because the cost of pushing a patch out to your players is small. Thus there are lots of versions of any given game out there, and many of them have bugs that, in the old days, would never have made it to production.
In short, we have a qualitative difference in the bugginess of new vs. old games -- new games are a lot more likely to have versions with "simple oversight" bugs that are rapidly patched with a new version release.
I have to admit that to me, it seems a bit like cheating to use a version that was only the official release version for maybe a week. The version of the game you are playing is not the version that anyone realistically played for any significant length of time -- it was "retracted" by the developers, except of course that once you put something on the Internet it cannot be truly retracted.
Imagine a hypothetical game in which a version is released that has not removed debugging shortcuts -- when you start up the game, there's a teleporter that will take you straight to the final level. You don't have to enter a cheat code or perform an obscure action or anything like that, the game just straight-up gives you a free pass to the endgame. A couple of hours after release, the devs realize what they did and release a patch that changes 1 bit in the executable so that the teleporter isn't generated. Should all the speedruns use the version of the game that provides the teleporter? (EDIT: what if it takes a week for the devs to release the patch? A month?)
The problem we get into here is that at some point, a given version of the game has been released for long enough that it does qualify as an "official version in good standing" even though it has these bugs. Instead of being retracted by the developers, they just have to deal with that blot on their history and release the next official version. But there's no real way to quantify when that change in the nature of a release happens.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 6/5/2006
Posts: 188
Location: Malmö, Sweden
Derakon wrote:
Imagine a hypothetical game in which a version is released that has not removed debugging shortcuts -- when you start up the game, there's a teleporter that will take you straight to the final level. You don't have to enter a cheat code or perform an obscure action or anything like that, the game just straight-up gives you a free pass to the endgame. A couple of hours after release, the devs realize what they did and release a patch that changes 1 bit in the executable so that the teleporter isn't generated. Should all the speedruns use the version of the game that provides the teleporter? (EDIT: what if it takes a week for the devs to release the patch? A month?)
Something similar to this actually happened not too long ago.
Dead Island's first release on Steam was a developer build with options such as no clip available to the player. Granted, using these tools would probably count as cheating, included by accident or not.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
@Derakon: IMO, in your situation, a TAS that used the teleporter would be acceptable, but a different category from one that didn't. (And quite possibly, the first would be vaulted, and the second mooned; I think technically both could be vaulted, though, because the vault doesn't have a rule against running inferior versions of a game.)
Imagine a hypothetical game in which a version is released that has not removed debugging shortcuts -- when you start up the game, there's a teleporter that will take you straight to the final level. You don't have to enter a cheat code or perform an obscure action or anything like that, the game just straight-up gives you a free pass to the endgame. A couple of hours after release, the devs realize what they did and release a patch that changes 1 bit in the executable so that the teleporter isn't generated. Should all the speedruns use the version of the game that provides the teleporter? (EDIT: what if it takes a week for the devs to release the patch? A month?)
Let's not.
See, the problem with hypotheticals is that you can think of a bizarre or convoluted situation that the rules d/on't technically cover. But the point is that such situations do not occur in reality.
I get that most people here are primarily console players, but there is no reason to treat Windows games any differently from console games. Any non-beta published version should qualify. And really, it is absolutely not true that the typical PC game has more than eight non-beta published versions.
Imagine a hypothetical game in which a version is released that has not removed debugging shortcuts -- when you start up the game, there's a teleporter that will take you straight to the final level. You don't have to enter a cheat code or perform an obscure action or anything like that, the game just straight-up gives you a free pass to the endgame. A couple of hours after release, the devs realize what they did and release a patch that changes 1 bit in the executable so that the teleporter isn't generated. Should all the speedruns use the version of the game that provides the teleporter? (EDIT: what if it takes a week for the devs to release the patch? A month?)
Your hypothetical is dumb.
Wouldn't matter which version they use, they wouldn't use the teleporter if they're going for entertainment value. See: Kid Chameleon (hint--it has a teleporter to the final boss in the second level)
Having eight versions (quite a few of them identical gameplay-wise) is nothing compared to the typical PC game.
What typical PC game? The majority out there get few, if any, re-releases. There are some games that are patched constantly, but those tend to be MMOs and (multi-machine) multiplayer games, which are outside the scope of a TAS (multi-machine TASes do exist, but there is no data link between them, let alone any client-server architecture, they just run different games starting at the same moment).
Even now with being able to TAS some windows games, this is the only time people have brought up opposition, and it's not even due to the number of updates, but due to picking one in the middle.
Some console games that are TASed quite often here have far more updates and re-releases than your average PC game. The whole concept of fixing bugs and releasing an updated edition didn't start with modern PC gaming, and TASvideos has dealt with it just fine.
Blazephlozard wrote:
And, like I said, the huge issue I see is using one specific release, besides the first release, because it has the most bugs. They use 1.0 in OOT because it has the most glitches, as expected.
IIRC they use JP because it has the quickest text, seeing as Japanese uses a phonetabet (or whatever the right word is) instead of an alphabet. This isn't where the concerned timing improvements come from, but it contributes to the overall shortness of the video (ease of watching) which is why it's the version people are running and beating (instead of going back to U).
Blazephlozard wrote:
When it's a glitch not in the previous version, and not in the next version, it's a lot different
Twilight Princess for the Wii includes a picture with the magic meter on the back of the box, and there's one area in the game where you can let a blue chu chu and yellow chu chu mix to make a green chuchu, kill it, and get the magic potion (complete with missing description text since it was dummied out early).
That's a mistake in that version, and that does not exist in the GC version (which spawns a purple chu chu instead). So Twilight Princess for the Wii should not be TASed, and the Gamecube version should be used instead because it's the one that has the proper intended behavior? After all they're the same game (minus the maps being flipped to account for holding the wiimote in your left hand).
A bug doesn't have to be introduced after the initial release in order to be considered a bug. Ports and localizations often have fixed bugs because of the extra time taken, but they can introduce bugs as well. What if U version 1.0 of a game had a bug that U 1.1 fixed, but was not in J x.x and U was a localization after J? I'm willing to bet we can find some games like that that are already on TASvideos...
Blazephlozard wrote:
kind of like you're playing a broken version of the game, a mistake.
Oh, hey, what about Zelda: Link's Awakening? The B/W version has a bug that can break the game so bad, somebody made a "playaround" video (yes, of a Zelda RPG), and it got accepted (star tier, no less). So this was the mistake version and the color version should be used instead?
If TASvideos was only limited to the "non-mistake" versions, a hell of a lot of TASes would have to be trimmed from the site. :P
Blazephlozard wrote:
It should be in a category of its own.
Eh, debatable, but no input from me right now.
Blazephlozard wrote:
TAS is about breaking a game, not playing an already broken game, yeah?
What? TASers are encouraged to do research and find all the tricks and bugs that they can and learn how to exploit them. It's the entire reason there's "game resource" pages, and some even include animated GIFs (or video clips) on how to cause various bugs.
Blazephlozard wrote:
And this is an issue that's really only come up in this era of rapid patching. None of it really applies to this run, but, I think these questions are going to have to be answered for the future of Windows TAS, and I don't think the answer should be allowing any version at all.
I fail to see how this is a "windows TAS" issue. Zelda: OOT alone has more versions than most Windows games that are TAS-able (in general, not referring to Hourglass's progress).
Assassin's Creed? 1.0.2.
Assassin's Creed 2? 1.01.
Bastion? 1.0.
Eufloria? 2.0.
Limbo? 1.0.0.1.
Plants Versus Zombies? 1.2.
Shadowgrounds? 1.0.0.1.
Space Pirates And Zombies? 1.5.
Super Crate Box? 1.0.
Those are some of my games on Steam, which I have set to automatically update (the rest either aren't suited for a TAS, or give no version info in their manifest). The majority of them have less releases (note that not every version is a release) than Zelda 64.
Yes, there are some binaries that get updated to like version 3.21.42.24 and junk, but like I said those tend to be MMOs. Single-player games with a multiplayer aspect get relatively more updates as well, but they tend to middle-ground it (like Borderlands 2 is 1.3.1, Diablo II is 1.13d, Terraria ia 1.1.2) and aren't as unmanageable.
Blazephlozard wrote:
Obviously you can't, but I'd hope in 10 years you can! TAS can't be about N64 and below forever!
Well there are DS and Wii(ware) TASes already, but yeah, emulation as a form of preservation is important.
EDIT: Typo fixed.
I just think it really skips some of the best parts of the game.
To be fair, this run only skips Gravitron (and some dialogues and the trinkets and some rooms at the start but they are not that "best part of the game"-ish)
Gravitron. Best part.
Seriously though, I do appreciate what went into this and how well it plays out. The biggest reason I advocate Gravitron is not even one of version but one of appearing superhuman as possible. Even the best No Death Mode runs end in the graveyard that is the Gravitron. Still, speed is speed after all.
As for my distinguishing between no death and No Death Mode, that was worded pretty poorly. A regular no death run without No Death Mode would naturally require missing Prize For the Reckless, while a regular one-death run would be able to get all 100% permitting that single act. No Death Mode means 100% is quite possible with exactly no deaths due to the trinket relocation. It's more a question of whether the entertainment of Prize For the Reckless is worth it. I'd personally lean towards the one death run, but either path would be an excellent show.
I'd prefer "no death mode" because it's always annoying to see a run be played "perfectly" for 15 minutes, then suddenly take damage at just one part. It looks flawed.
Zelda: OOT alone has more versions than most Windows games that are TAS-able (in general, not referring to Hourglass's progress).
There are always outliers, especially if you're going to pick from the very top of the pile in terms of re-releases and ports, but if you want to compare number of updates from that area for top games, then Civ 2, a game that came out two years earlier than OoT has had literally over a hundred. Starcraft, a fellow 1998 game, has around 30. Also, if we are counting ports as different versions, V*6 has at least 7 so far.
PC development follows a very different course for this kind of thing than console and I think should be treated differently due to that. I wouldn't mind if it were either the first version or the most recent, but updating to a specific short lived intermediary version rubs me the wrong way.
/$.02
Zelda: OOT alone has more versions than most Windows games that are TAS-able (in general, not referring to Hourglass's progress).
There are always outliers, especially if you're going to pick from the very top of the pile in terms of re-releases and ports, but if you want to compare number of updates from that area for top games, then Civ 2, a game that came out two years earlier than OoT has had literally over a hundred. Starcraft, a fellow 1998 game, has around 30. Also, if we are counting ports as different versions, V*6 has at least 7 so far.
PC development follows a very different course for this kind of thing than console and I think should be treated differently due to that. I wouldn't mind if it were either the first version or the most recent, but updating to a specific short lived intermediary version rubs me the wrong way.
/$.02
So it would have been ok if this TAS was submitted when the version it used was the current version? If VVVVVV then got updated, would the TAS be automatically obsolete?
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
My only issue with this is that it seems rather sketchy to use what appears to be a debug feature that was accidentally left in. Merely a stylistic concern.
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.
