Captain Viridian disappears from his ship, to which he then teleports back (kinda) and everybody is very happy to see him even though he was only gone for a few seconds.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Hourglass r81
  • Game version: VVVVVV 2.0
  • Aims for fastest credits
  • Uses death to save time

Comments

So Scepheo made a run of VVVVVV and Masterjun saw it and he was like "bro, do you even optimize?" and Scepheo was like "optimize it urself" and Masterjun was like "k" and Scepheo was like "cool story bro" and then this happened.
We started this TAS when Masterjun pointed out that some of the movement in the previous TAS wasn't really optimal. While he was fixing that, he found the address for the game state (which you can (almost) all find here). Using that, we discovered that the game can be broken even more than we thought possible.

Text storage explained

The only glitch still used in the run, text storage is what makes it all possible. The game does many transitions and events (teleporting, saving crew members, going back to the menu etcetera) by setting the game state to a given number. However, the game state is set (to, say, 10), a transition is started and some time later, the game state is read, used and set back to 0.
And during this transition is when the magic happens. If you exit to the menu while in a dialog, this "dialog state" (which you can discern by the "Press ACTION to advance text" message at the top of the screen) doesn't go away. This allows us to alter the game state during transitions.
The first transition occurs together with getting storage. As soon as the game enters the dialog state, we suicide and exit to the menu. During this transition, the game state becomes 80. Normally this just continues into the menu, but we increment it to 94, which is used to start the Space Station 2 time trial. As such, we're warped to the start of Space Station 2.
From here, we go to the two closest teleporters and get text storage from the terminal. We then teleport, which uses a variety of game states between 4000 and 4058. Which we then manipulate up to 4080, which triggers the ending sequence. Game completed.

Scepheo's comments

So I guess this is why you make WIPs? Masterjun managed to get better movement and found the game state address, which made a lot of the manipulation possible. Breaking the game even further was great fun though, and we discovered quite a few amazing, broken and hilarious things that you, unfortunately, don't see in the TAS. Thank you Masterjun for doing this with me, it was a pleasure.

Masterjun's comments

Hello! When I first saw that new VVVVVV submission which was under 1 minute I couldn't really believe it. But I soon realized that games can get veery confused when multiple things are happening at the same time. Scepheo and I played around with the game even more and he found faster and faster routes. I had a lot of fun working with you Scepheo and thanks for the submission text I didn't want to write xD.

feos: Accepting as a new branch and publishing...


Noxxa
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Patashu wrote:
<text> (yes, I'm expecting this to be spun off into its own thread ;) )
Thread #15203: "glitched" label vs. "no x glitch" label ;)
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Hmm... I think I can use this to drop the branch bomb by keeping only 3 (glitched/any%/100%).
The issue here is clarity. Let's take Crash Bandicoot 2 as an example. We have two runs on the site; one is the world speed record with no restrictions, and the other is a "minimum requirement" run which doesn't use the box glitch, and consequently is slower than the world speed record. This is immediately apparent from the current branch names. So I'm not following why you want to rename the branches to make this less clear. I don't see how that would help anyone.
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Radiant wrote:
Spikestuff wrote:
Hmm... I think I can use this to drop the branch bomb by keeping only 3 (glitched/any%/100%).
The issue here is clarity. Let's take Crash Bandicoot 2 as an example. We have two runs on the site; one is the world speed record with no restrictions, and the other is a "minimum requirement" run which doesn't use the box glitch, and consequently is slower than the world speed record. This is immediately apparent from the current branch names. So I'm not following why you want to rename the branches to make this less clear. I don't see how that would help anyone.
Blah, blah, blah, Page 3 (and my other one below it). (was waiting on a response, NIGHT)
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Noxxa
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Guys, could you bring your points over to this topic? This submission discussion topic is already derailed enough as it is.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Let me point this out. There had to be a description to point out what "no Esc" actually means. Yet neither this one or the one famously titled "no Esc" explains what the heck it does in the description.
Actually, when I added the branch name to the slower run – which was over 15 hours before you made this comment – I added this paragraph to the publication text:
This run avoids using glitches that require pressing the Escape key. There is also a run that uses these glitches to beat the game even faster.
If you think that should be expanded on, that's fine. But please don't claim there was nothing in either description explaining how the runs differ when there was.
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CoolKirby wrote:
If you think that should be expanded on, that's fine. But please don't claim there was nothing in either description explaining how the runs differ when there was.
Point to me. Point to me where it explains everything that is going on with this run. This is the thing that is pissing me off the most. There is no clear explanation on anything within this TAS.
This run avoids using glitches that require pressing the Escape key. There is also a run that uses these glitches to beat the game even faster.
I have read it already but and I will change what I just wrote above because that is the movie description field (also taking in account this Movie). What exactly does the Escape button DO? It's not explained properly HERE or HERE. Completing an endless circle of WTF. This is a clear issue that the Description cannot figure out what the Submission field is saying To sound like a broken record:
Spikestuff wrote:
"What the heck does "No Esc"ape really mean?" To the fool who doesn't own the game. Tell us the magical keyboard input, everyone lacks to perform these certain actions.
Spikestuff wrote:
I'm saying "why escape was used" you do mention text storage yet there is no explanation on how text storage works with the Escape key. Submission info or Movie info better mention an extra line or two actually explaining how important Escape is besides mentioning text storage.
How do you text storage. How do you get to this if I may "wrong warp". I have read the Submission field more times then anything else I have read in TASVideos. I want a clear answer. Let us ignore everything else (the branch and what not). What is the significance of the Text Storage with the Escape Button. Explain MORE in DEPTH. Edit: Oh, before anyone goes here and says the opposite of what I want. THIS and THIS work together (Even stating look at the previous TAS). Everything is explained correctly for that TAS. Edit 2: Better Example is the famous Kirby the Frame Wars. Explains the minimum in the second sentence and a quick little summary on how it works The movie given the branch "no stone glitch" (as much as I hate it) works, because it explains in the last line what it doesn't do.
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From what I understand, Esc is the button you press to bring up the menu to return to the main menu. The reason for returning to the main menu is explained in this submission text about text storage, which looks like a pretty in-depth explanation as-is. Esc isn't used in the submission text, but I suppose whoever wrote the movie description assumed Esc was obviously the way to get to the main menu. Calling the movie "No main menu" wouldn't be proper since you do use the main menu to start the game regardless, so "No Esc" was used instead. Maybe "No returning to main menu" would be better? Or maybe just say "The Esc button is used to return to the main menu." or something like that in the description.
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blahmoomoo wrote:
From what I understand, Esc is the button you press to bring up the menu to return to the main menu. The reason for returning to the main menu is explained in this submission text about text storage, which looks like a pretty in-depth explanation as-is. Esc isn't used in the submission text, but I suppose whoever wrote the movie description assumed Esc was obviously the way to get to the main menu. Calling the movie "No main menu" wouldn't be proper since you do use the main menu to start the game regardless, so "No Esc" was used instead. Maybe "No returning to main menu" would be better? Or maybe just say "The Esc button is used to return to the main menu." or something like that in the description.
"No Esc" is more accurate because it's not actually returning to the main menu that is needed for game-state manipulation with text storage, it's just a good way to get to a more favorable state (80) quickly. What's important is bringing up the prompt (Are you sure you want to quit?) with Esc. You could also manipulate the game state after selectin "No, continue playing", except the resulting game state (0) is a lot less favorable.
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Spikestuff, thank you for explaining what needed to be changed. I've updated the movie description with an explanation of the glitch and what function the Esc key serves. Let me know if it needs to be expanded on any further. Also, thank you Scepheo for your input, without which it would have been harder to explain the in-game function of the key.
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Why was it changed to "ESC gltich"? The glitch doesn't call game end? The glitch is too weird to have a common title? What if some run without ESC will be faster than this method? Will it be considered a cross-branch obsoletion? "11 exits" submission's lesson wasn't learned? :D
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Scepheo wrote:
There's nothing 'arbitrary' about this entire TAS. It's just sheer luck that it's possible to wrong warp from a teleport to the ending sequence. There's no memory corruption, code editing or code execution here. As such, the 'glitched' branch name would, according to your description, be wrong.
So was that intended by the devs or not? If not, it's a bug (glitch).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.