The barrels would probably help me out a bit, though I'm not sure how much of a difference it would've made anyway considering the sheer amount of enemies I'll be facing. It could very well make no difference at all short of visual effects, but do you feel it's unprofessional of me not to make use of every little timesaver? ...or actually it could even be faster to remove them since all elves are now nicely gathering around me for me to piledrive them, clearing up bigger groups much faster. I haven't tested with keeping the barrels around, though do you think it's worth trying? I might just end up saving time from minor optimization alone anyway.
Just so I'll know for sure, I've been intending to do the Secret Santa stage in order to get the best ending since I feel a difficulty like this deserves that kind of ending. So I wish to check if people would approve of this detour for the best ending category?
It's completely possible that not blowing up the barrels is slower for whatever reason. Enemies don't clump up as well, the barrels kill too few to make a difference since so many enemies die at once with the piledriver anyway, etc. I'm just throwing ideas out there. I won't think less of you if you decide they are not worth testing. :)
ReallyJoel's Mom wouldn't be pro if she didn't blow up the galaxy at the end! I complete agree with your decision to play the extra stage to get the best ending.
That was really fun to watch! Thanks for encoding it for us.
I think you should go for best ending too. It would only add to the impressiveness of the run to take on an additional stage at this difficulty.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
At nearly 4:25 you just destroy the barrels before the enemies come. Wouldn't it be faster to just kill the santas using them rather than burn them? Is it an entertainment trade-off?
These 2 levels were a blast! Yes for the best ending.
Truncated asked the same question a few posts earlier and I'm unsure whether it'd make any difference since enemies will continually spawn for 25 seconds in that room. So I'm afraid the few enemies I could kill with the barrels might do nothing in the long run, and thus I destroyed the barrels for some entertainment instead. And to make all of them group up around me much faster.
Glad you liked the run so far!
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Stage 3 finished! And off to Stage X I go.
At this stage I actually meet the most dangerous enemy so far into the run. That UFO is so nasty I have to use the Ice gun just to get rid of his projectiles, but at least I got rid of him quite quickly despite his 30 hp. Since he more or less tries to fly away from me, I can just twitch around on the same spot to make him indecisive where to go... until his friends arrive that is.
I must say I'm also quite surprised I managed to get as many hits on the boss as I did, since his larger shots really like to block my attacks. Thankfully TAS precision lets me narrowly dodge at the same time as I get those trick shots. For anyone who's curious, countering the big laser does 30 damage to the boss and it's technically possible to counter it a second time during the second phase. Not that he'd ever use it then, but if you time your last shot just before you counter the laser, he'll go into the second stage as you throw the laser back at him. Right now it'd take longer to wait for his second charge compared to just blasting him normally though.
The .WTF file for anyone who's interested in it:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11806529067455334
Encode here:
Link to video
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
At this stage I actually meet the most dangerous enemy so far into the run. That UFO is so nasty I have to use the Ice gun just to get rid of his projectiles, but at least I got rid of him quite quickly despite his 30 hp.
Rackarns alltså. That thing shoots way faster than the boss of this stage...
I looked over the maps a little. The alternative to the UFO room has those brown bubbles which take forever to spawn. But the bottom right path looks like it has fewer enemy spawners overall. The miniboss and the trains can all be piledriven. But maybe you test all rooms before you pick your path?
In any case, this is going to be a great TAS!
The bottom path is much slower (and wayyyy more boring) compared to the upper path by about by about half a minute or so, mostly due to the train in the fourth room which takes little more than one minute just to spawn the last part... So it seems it's always preferable to avoid rooms which has such trains in them. Unfortunately I won't be able to avoid them for stage x, so I'll have to choose the lesser of the two evils and hope it won't get too boring.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
mostly due to the train in the fourth room which takes little more than one minute just to spawn the last part...
Oh, THOSE trains. I meant the ones that are already out when you enter the room, moving back and forth. I didn't think about how slow the other trains were, but you seem to be on top of things anyway.
How is stage X coming?
Stage x is progressing nicely. I know which paths will take the shortest time, though I haven't had much time during this week since my studies started again. But I should finish the stage this weekend, so expect it sometime tomorrow.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
While training myself in War Queen difficulty (this TAS made me try the game), I noticed that Stage 1's map miss a row under the "boss row".
Here are the missing pics:
http://i.imgur.com/XP5bZoq.png => above the train
http://i.imgur.com/u3yEnUu.png => under the boss
(And yes it works on Wine! Sadly we can't say the same for Hourglass…)
Other maps seem okay.
Stage X's finished now. The most noticable thing on this stage are the introduction of the eyes on legs and my "excessive" use of Ice. An interesting thing about those enemies is that your shots can penetrate them. Ice is an exception though as it only does 0.5 damage, but Bricks can kill two enemies per shot (both two eyes or one eye and a spinner) while Rainbow can kill six of them, so I have to make sure not to waste any shots. This also gives an interesting challenge timewise due to how many enemies you can kill with Ice/Brick compared to if I piledrived them instead. A piledrive takes about 36 frames from execution to landing, frames where I can kill 21 eyes/Spinners with Ice or 18 eyes with Brick. So I have to decide when to stop piledriving everything and just shoot them normally, hence my excessive use of Ice (which I only have one shot left of).
Apart from that everything went smoothly. Piledriving as many eyes as I did kinda lagged the game for a moment though, all those itty bitty pieces flying everywhere. Also the Goddess of Destruction doesn't need to hear my wish to know what I want. :)
One stage left!
The .WTF file for those who wish to watch it:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11941637978266462
Encode here for the rest:
Link to video
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
While training myself in War Queen difficulty (this TAS made me try the game), I noticed that Stage 1's map miss a row under the "boss row".
Right you are, thanks for letting me know. I updated the map and the previous post, here is the new version:
http://postimg.org/image/48amtfmyr/
Looking forward to seeing how Mecha Santa can be tackled.
I just saw that killing the santa on the 1st boss's ship prevents the ship firing those green balls. To do that, you just walk straight up until the santa is on your right (you can't hit it with a diagonal shot) and fire at the right before the santa hides behind the cannon. You could get the same result by destroying the gray cannon on the ship, which is slower. Or you could just don't give a shit and avoid those balls, which is what should happen in TAS anyway.
This is possibly our first TAS for a game difficulty mode that's designed to be utterly impossible?
Just to show how ridiculous it gets - I'm pretty good at this game, and in RJM difficulty I can't even get past the second room... I dare anyone to try that in a non-TAS playthrough :D
This is possibly our first TAS for a game difficulty mode that's designed to be utterly impossible?
Just to show how ridiculous it gets - I'm pretty good at this game, and in RJM difficulty I can't even get past the second room... I dare anyone to try that in a non-TAS playthrough :D
If you meant for the site, then well...
Anyways, on the first page, Tseralith mentioned that this mode was close to impossible to finish outside of TAS. Makes me wonder does that mean someone has done it before. :o
Erm, no. I guess I picked the wrong words to describe it. It's surely impossible to finish it outside of TAS, though I just didn't want to underestimate a normal player's skills.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
This is possibly our first TAS for a game difficulty mode that's designed to be utterly impossible?
Adelikat did a TAS of Reallyjoel's Dad mode in Hero Core, which sticks you in a room with every single boss in the game active simultaneously. I don't think it got submitted for publication though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think i saw saw on Gamefaq that the game's author made it sure that the game is impossible to beat without TAS, and even started a TAS himself to show what reallyjoel's mom would be like if she was playing that game.
Iji from the same author seems impossible to do in reallyjoel's dad difficulty even in TAS.
http://www.remar.se/daniel/ijiguide_secrets.php
reallyjoel's dad difficulty
[…]
As for why it's impossible, at the end of Sector 1 is a forcefield that requires 100% kills to lower. But even if you would get 100% kills, which can't be done in two minutes, the forcefield doesn't lower.
So unless the project is slighly modified to honor the contract, that game is impossible to finish on hardest difficulty.
