I'm trying a speedrun for this game; I think it looks pretty good so far. Here's a WIP that finishes the first world:
http://rapidshare.de/files/16993467/LavosBoulderDashEX.zip.html
You may notice that I take a lot of damage delibirately - this is because after each level, there is a wait for the life bar to drain. I take the amount of damage that I do to shorten the wait.
Why won't you use DeHackEd's Micro-uploader? Rapidshare is a bitch for a routed internet access, I can't even touch the file until someone from my LAN finishes downloading.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I'm currently scanning this game. It's a remake or Boulder Dash for Arcade(& NES). It became more like Supaplex.
This is my testrun, completing first area(1-1~10). I'll post an encode later when I do serious TAS.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
This reminds me of an old java game I used to play in Elementary school, possibly took inspiration from the original version of this game.
Very nice WIP, don't have any ideas for improvements, good luck with the rest of the game!
This reminds me of an old java game I used to play in Elementary school, possibly took inspiration from the original version of this game.
Very nice WIP, don't have any ideas for improvements, good luck with the rest of the game!
I also remember a game very similar to this, I played it on our old Macintosh computer about 10 years back. I can't for the life of me remember the name though, I didn't play it too much.
Anyway, the run is looking pretty good, I believe you used the best routes possible so it seems very optimized.
Thanks for showing interests, guys. World 1 might be easiest part of game for planning, though it still required numerous trials and errors.
Working on World 2, it's quite unattainable for me to test every route, case by case. So I going to try simplifying cases by sorting it, while depending on abrupt intuition. I hope I can show next WIP in a week.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
At the end of level 7 you seemed to hesitate for a brief moment without good reason, why was that? (Around 2:36-2:39 in the encode)
I am not sure about the route in level 8, the 2 final jewels especially, is it possible to collect them more "on route" if you collect them earlier?
Otherwise it looks really good!
At the end of level 7 you seemed to hesitate for a brief moment without good reason, why was that? (Around 2:36-2:39 in the encode)
That short stop was on purpose. In this game, Alex(the protagonist) has a health of 10000. The bird hurts the player by 4000, thus I can't survive more than 2 hits. If I didn't take little pause, those 2 birds would hit me twice, resulting in death. I failed to avoid 1st hit without costing too much time, so I rather chose to hesitate a bit at the end.
By the way, RAM address of player's health is 0201A1AA & 0201A1AC(2 bytes, unsigned).
Warepire wrote:
I am not sure about the route in level 8, the 2 final jewels especially, is it possible to collect them more "on route" if you collect them earlier?
You're right, that level looks like having potential improvement.
Since the level has only clockwise-rotating items and it requires to collect 34 jewels, it looks collecting the one in box is inevitable.('☆' mark is exit) I think I should test something different, like collecting jewels on outside in contrary way.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I'm following the encodes and not the VBMs right now, might follow the VBMs later for the sake of RAM watch.
When I see the level layout, I am thinking something like this:
Where the blue trail ends on the green-colored square, that is when you turn the level, and then complete it. I am not sure if it could be faster or not, it looks like it would be on paper. If it's not faster, perhaps it can at least help you find a faster route. My route also assumes that the first boxed diamond will fall to the right of the stone.
Guess what, I just applied your suggestion to the movie and it's 64 frames faster than mine! Thanks a lot for sharing idea. I also found a trivial systemic error relating to cards, which save just a frame, so it beats my previous WIP by 65 frames.
WIP file is here : http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/7938566982556379
I couldn't find any improvement in other levels, so I'm going to work on World 3.
(By the way, I slightly modified your route because it doesn't collect first boxed jewel. Besides, as far as I know, falling objects always descend to left side of the object.)
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
If you have maps with the exit marked I can probably help you with route ideas (I don't have enough free time to play through the game to find the exits myself).
Hopefully I will have time to look at World 3 and 4 tonight.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
So, I've gone through your 3rd WIP now (finally!).
Fire 1: Why did you rotate the game world a 2nd time? I cannot see a direct reason to why it was done.
Fire 7: If you collect all the CCW rotates, instead of 2 CCW and 1 CW rotate, and begin with the right side you should be able to speed up the gem collecting a bit by making the 2nd rotation of the game world earlier as the gems will fall into you.
Water 1: I guess you don't have enough health to take a hit from both a squid and the shark?
Water 3: Will this save additional frames over your improvement, this is the shortest path that I can find (with reservation for some falling behavior being misunderstood): (Sorry for the mess, if you zoom in it will be easier to understand it I think...)
Water 14: Consider the gems from left to right numbered 1-7, wouldn't it be faster to collect gems 1-6 instead of 2-7? Overall you should save a few squares of walking.
So, I've gone through your 3rd WIP now (finally!).
I finally got time to reply your comment as well. There were a number of things to do recently.
Fire 1: After collecting first three gems, two stones will fall upon an exit and I can't remove those without rotating. I have no idea if I can put away those stones in shorter time.
Fire 7: That's... what I never came up with. I'll definitely check it right away. Thanks.
Water 1: Shark damages me by 6000 hp, and squid by 4000 hp. I get 10000 hp, so I won't survive if I hurt by any of squids.
Water 3&14: I'll return with results later.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Odongdong wrote:
Fire 1: After collecting first three gems, two stones will fall upon an exit and I can't remove those without rotating. I have no idea if I can put away those stones in shorter time.
Didn't think of that, then I have no ideas for that level.
Odongdong wrote:
Water 1: Shark damages me by 6000 hp, and squid by 4000 hp. I get 10000 hp, so I won't survive if I hurt by any of squids.
That's too bad.
Odongdong wrote:
Water 3: I'll return with results later.
I feel that botting this level would be the best way to solve it, but I am terrible at writing bots, the only one I ever wrote did everything opposite from the rules without a clear reason to why.
Since the level has only clockwise-rotating items and it requires to collect 34 jewels, it looks collecting the one in box is inevitable.('☆' mark is exit) I think I should test something different, like collecting jewels on outside in contrary way.
Where the blue trail ends on the green-colored square, that is when you turn the level, and then complete it. I am not sure if it could be faster or not, it looks like it would be on paper. If it's not faster, perhaps it can at least help you find a faster route. My route also assumes that the first boxed diamond will fall to the right of the stone.
(Sorry for the mess, if you zoom in it will be easier to understand it I think...)
Water 14: Consider the gems from left to right numbered 1-7, wouldn't it be faster to collect gems 1-6 instead of 2-7? Overall you should save a few squares of walking.
