I regret that my current routine kept me from doing any further. But since the schedule on this weekend is empty, I'll be digging it hard.
Not sure if I can post something any soon, sorry about that.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Odongdong wrote:
I regret that my current routine kept me from doing any further. But since the schedule on this weekend is empty, I'll be digging it hard.
Not sure if I can post something any soon, sorry about that.
No problems, I was just checking if you had any intention to continue.
I started to lose track of what I'm doing, so I take some memo here.
Test:
Fire 7 - Taking a stop on second rotation made Alex reach the goal a bit late, but because I take 1000 damage here, it ends up saving 4 frames.
Water 3 - Sadly, what you suggested didn't work the way it should be. Though I tried to make some tweaks, it only saved 8 frames - which is slower than the route I found later (128 frames).
Water 14 - I did it because if I take first gem, the rock on the top-right side will block me. I made a test run which remove the rock by kicking, but it was still slower than current route.
TODO:
Apparent improvement on Water 5
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Looked over your new WIPs now (almost missed them thanks to you not linking here)
Fire 7: I meant to flip the world twice at the very start when I suggested this route, or was it that that failed? (This way diamonds should start falling into you as you walk up and collect them)
Otherwise I really liked the improvements, looking real smooth now.
Fire 7: I meant to flip the world twice at the very start when I suggested this route, or was it that that failed? (This way diamonds should start falling into you as you walk up and collect them)
Gems doesn't fall when the player collects them upward. Besides, if rotating twice at the beginning, the rock can't be put away.
Just tried out your route. Though it ends up with full hp (which made it to took extra 20 frames on loading screen), it saved 51 frames! I appreciate your help, thommy3.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Odongdong wrote:
Warepire wrote:
Fire 7: I meant to flip the world twice at the very start when I suggested this route, or was it that that failed? (This way diamonds should start falling into you as you walk up and collect them)
Gems doesn't fall when the player collects them upward. Besides, if rotating twice at the beginning, the rock can't be put away.
The game designers thought about everything to make my ideas useless :(
Just finished World 5.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/10846718548906473
There were many tough levels in this world, so I decided to make a little rough testrun. TAS will be redone after some research.
Among the levels, level 10 & 12 was the hardest. In level 10, there're four bears who'll kill me in two hits and avoiding or trapping them is very difficult. Level 12 has a puzzling level design for me.
I'll be back when encode's ready.
Edit:
Link to video
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Looking good, I cannot think of any better routes. Just a few questions:
Ice 4: Delaying a few frames at the bottom before going to the next "stairs" to have rocks fall on your head, will the rocks do enough damage so that it could that save time at the tally screen?
Ice 5: Same question as Ice 4, but only for the last turn of the game world.
Ice 7: Again same idea.
Ice 9: Same idea again, in the next to last section where that rock is chasing you for a long drop.
Rocks don't have a fall damage. Unfortunately they'll crush the player to death, so you can take damage only by kicking.
Here's a map of Ice world with exit, by the way.
In Ice 4 i'd guess it is faster to skip one of the top-most diamonds (though not the one right at the start) and instead take an additional right at the end. The one that's falling in the video.
edit: And Ice 1: Would going 1 step left instead of 2 at the beginning suffice for the walrus? might be enough time then to kick the wall one time to lose a little health.
In Ice 4 i'd guess it is faster to skip one of the top-most diamonds (though not the one right at the start) and instead take an additional right at the end. The one that's falling in the video.
edit: And Ice 1: Would going 1 step left instead of 2 at the beginning suffice for the walrus? might be enough time then to kick the wall one time to lose a little health.
Ice 4: Yes, that saves 2 unnecessary moves (32 frames). Thanks for pointing it out.
Ice 1: I think taking 2 steps is unavoidable because I have to remove the stone blocking me. You can only kick the stone, by the way.
Anyway, I just finished doing World 5 again. This time, I found lots of improments:
Ice 2: Waiting first gem of 2nd row is faster than collecting it. 20 frames saved.
Ice 3: I restructured entire method. Thanks to new route, 300 frames was saved here.
Ice 4: Followed thommy3's idea. 32 frames saved.
Ice 5: I made a little route tweak between 2nd and 3rd rotating. 44 frames saved.
Ice 9: I found a way to get to upper room. 116 frames saved.
Ice 10: It's possible to make 4 bears alive till the end. This avoids activating card collection sequence, which saves 142 frames.
Ice 13: 4 frames was lost, because I had to delay locating a bomb for bear shouldn't be dead.
Ice 15: A little improvement here. 4 frames was gained again.
Total improvement - 664 frames.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11160382560276316
Now I'm going to work on World 6, the final world.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I am not sure I spotted all the improvements, but it looked great!
Something I didn't think of before but spotted now: In Ice 15, is it possible to early grab a bomb and place it somewhere so it will explode near you as you collect the gems and take some damage? Or does the penguin damage you too much for it to be possible?
The HP draining after stage clear works like this: The player can finish the level with at most 10000 hp, and the draining stops 4 frames earlier per 200 hp. But under the 6200 hp, there's no time merit on draining - which means you can decrease the length by at most 4*3800/200=76 frames (there's a chance several lag frames inserted in the process).
Since the penguin damages 5500 hp, one hit taken by the penguin will result in having 4500 hp, reducing frames as much as possible from HP draining.
Hope it was explained well.
Link to video
Finally, the last world, yet it's the most hard world in entire game. The maps are often large, gems are dispersed everywhere, have to do with limited movement...
In short, this is so true:
Warepire wrote:
There's always something blocking my ideas. :(
Movie fileWorld 6 level maps
I'll optimize the movie in several days. Then I can edit the movie to apply the improvements in past levels. Then I can submit it on the site!
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Nice! A few questions which you probably already tested.
In level 3, is it possible to grab the bottom gem in the right column and skip an additional gem at the top of the left column to save time?
In level 6, can you work in several columns at the same time from the start of the big bottom section so that you can get hit in the head by more gems without losing time collecting them?
In level 8, can you reverse the route to possibly save a square or so of travel? Or will those purple cat-looking things become a problem?
In level 10, what happens if you skip the first four gems in the bottom row instead?
In level 14, if you put the bomb below the exit, will that cause you to miss the RNG cycle for the speed-mushroom?
It does feel like there should be a better route in here which includes the gems that surround the exit instead of some on the right part, but no matter what path I test it ends up needing more steps or taking additional gems before getting the speed-mushroom, neither which are favorable.
In level 15, would it have been faster to collecting the "escaping" gem rather than the last one you took?
Level 2: At 36s in the Video, can't you take the diamond right at the knight without getting hit? You should save steps taking that one and not the last one you actually took.
Level 4: At 1:54 you wait a little for the top diamond to drop, if that is faster than going up there, you should also do so at 1:17. It's the same diamond/rock positioning. Or is that because of taking some damage to save time later on?
Level 8: It may be faster to start at the top left enemy group. And then going clockwise if thats possible with subsequent enemy movement.
Thanks for feedback, guys! I improved my WIP in a number of place.
Evil 1
Same as previous WIP. I think this is the fastest route in this level.
Evil 2thommy3 wrote:
Level 2: At 36s in the Video, can't you take the diamond right at the knight without getting hit? You should save steps taking that one and not the last one you actually took.
Unlike its look, the knight will turn immadiately and do damage the player. Thus, I had to empty its ground to make him stop.
Contrary to assumption that I did this level poorly, I couldn't find any faster way than original route. Current WIP is different from previous route, but it takes same time to clear the level anyway.
Evil 3Warepire wrote:
In level 3, is it possible to grab the bottom gem in the right column and skip an additional gem at the top of the left column to save time?
I tried it, but it's the same as original.
Rather, I tried taking damage by top-left gem. Surprisingly, it saved more than 28 frames.
Evil 4thommy3 wrote:
Level 4: At 1:54 you wait a little for the top diamond to drop, if that is faster than going up there, you should also do so at 1:17. It's the same diamond/rock positioning. Or is that because of taking some damage to save time later on?
Yeah, I did make a mistake. Caused by load-save confusion, I think.
I took gems on the top-left differently, which saved 104 frames.
Evil 5
Same as the previous, but 1 frame was mysteriously lost. Don't know why.
Evil 6Warepire wrote:
In level 6, can you work in several columns at the same time from the start of the big bottom section so that you can get hit in the head by more gems without losing time collecting them?
Since 6200 hp is enough to prevent the loading delay, the goal is to take hit more than 4. However, my best try was 3 hit. I'll try again later, though.
With some tweak of route, I saved 78 frames.
Evil 7
16 frames was saved here by route change.
Evil 8Warepire wrote:
In level 8, can you reverse the route to possibly save a square or so of travel? Or will those purple cat-looking things become a problem?
Yes, those are annoyingly fast that I always got caught by them.
thommy3 wrote:
Level 8: It may be faster to start at the top left enemy group. And then going clockwise if thats possible with subsequent enemy movement.
This solve the problem. I successfully avoid enemies and saved 128 frames.
Evil 9
Nothing changed here.
Evil 10
I find that exploding the rocks in the bottom is much faster way. 232 frames was saved.
Evil 11
Found better way to push the rock, which saved 16 frames. This also means I have to redo World 5-2.
Evil 12
Basically followed the original WIP. 4 frames was saved anyway.
Evil 13
Nothing changed.
Evil 14Warepire wrote:
In level 14, if you put the bomb below the exit, will that cause you to miss the RNG cycle for the speed-mushroom?
It does feel like there should be a better route in here which includes the gems that surround the exit instead of some on the right part, but no matter what path I test it ends up needing more steps or taking additional gems before getting the speed-mushroom, neither which are favorable.
Well, I tried bombing under the exit, and it turned out it's 36 frames faster.
Evil 15Warepire wrote:
In level 15, would it have been faster to collecting the "escaping" gem rather than the last one you took?
That gem was too fast to catch up within reasonable time. Besides, I didn't like the previous route so I decided to make up the new one. Well, now it's 160 frames faster. I suspect I can save more.
In total, 946 frames was saved. Once again, thanks for the assistance.
Here's the new WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11558760354624568
Now I'm going to check out whole run one more time.
