Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully we can find some way to skip some more of them though :-) Like how the creator of the game didn't want it to be possible to fly up to the secret exit in castle #1.
Speaking of that secret exit, I've just finished it. I finally got through Misty Isle 4, largely by watching jxq's moves. Thanks, I'll be sure to mention you in my thanks to-section ;)
In the end I didn't feel like doing any more work on Misty Isle 4 ever ever ever again so I settled for being something like 20 frames slower than jxq there. I make up for some of it in the castle though, saving 5 frames in the second room and 1 frame in the third. (I did these comparisons really quickly so if I'm off on these numbers I apologise). If I knew how to upload the .smv I would.
Now it's time to start on the unexplored stuff, everything up to this point has been done before (Misty Isle 4b was finished by Gorling, Stefan and me when we were working on the 15 exit run, before we had noticed flying to Castle #1b was possible). I most likely won't do more than one exit at a time, so everytime I write "next up is X" It'd be great if you could post suggestions for that level. Anything from ideas on how to entertain to important time savers I might overlook to crazy ideas that probably will be useless. Anything. The more farfetched it is, the better :-) I'm sure most of you are more creative than me.
So, next up is Castle #1, normal exit.
Alright, sorry for the double post, but thanks to Dacicus I have the .smv up for download.
Super Demo World up to Castle #1 normal exit
I'd like to make some comments about it. You'll notice I grab a shell in both Misty Isle 1 and 3, losing a few frames. I feel the loss of a few frames here and there is very worth it to keep the movie entertaining. If I find spots where I can do something that has never been shown in a SMW speedrun, I might very well do it even if it costs time. This absolutely doesn't mean I'll get sloppy and won't care if I don't do something as quickly as possible. After I'd done the last room of Castle #1b as fast as jxq, I experimented 10 more minutes, and in the end that gained me a frame. Which I was very happy about :-)
It's difficult to know what to prioritize. When I saw the first SMW speedrun, I felt that the order of importance was this: frame > extra life > yoshi coin > killing enemy > coin, and if you had to choose between two of them you'd choose the one with highest priority. Now I've changed opinion about this, for example I only end up with 4 yoshi coins in Misty Isle 1 because instead of taking the second I kill the chuck and take the item box with a star. I miss out on an extra life, but we've seen Viper7 take billions of yoshi coins, netting him billions of extra lives, right? At least that's how I feel about it.
Alright I'm done ranting now. I hope you enjoy the movie.
Maybe the subject of this thread should be changed to just "Super Demo World: The Legend Continues." I don't mind having both runs discussed here, as I'm sure we could probably accomplish more by bouncing ideas off each other. After all, the two runs have a little bit in common.
Fabian wrote:
I'd like to make some comments about it. You'll notice I grab a shell in both Misty Isle 1 and 3, losing a few frames. I feel the loss of a few frames here and there is very worth it to keep the movie entertaining.
I agree. I think it's good that it was noticed so early that this movie is going to need some extra entertainment injected into it at the expense of minimal frames. I like what you did with the shells.
Fabian wrote:
After I'd done the last room of Castle #1b as fast as jxq, I experimented 10 more minutes, and in the end that gained me a frame.
Alright! Frames gained are good. Coincidentally, I was watching your first SDW-15 run and noticed that you played that room differently than I did (you didn't let go of A during the flight), and so I messed around with that strategy and also gained that same frame before knowing you did the same. I'm keeping a log of ideas for my next SDW-15 run on a little web page I made here, for anyone who is interested.
Fabian wrote:
I miss out on an extra life, but we've seen Viper7 take billions of yoshi coins, netting him billions of extra life, right?
Good point. I've never been too big on coins or score as much as surprising maneuvers, myself.
Fabian wrote:
I didn't feel like doing any more work on Misty Isle 4 ever ever ever again
I'll take a look at that level to see if I can figure out what's causing the delay. If I can find it and fix it, I'll put up a run for it. If that works, I'll also try to hex-edit in your work on the #1 Castle, although who knows if I can get that to work.
On that note, warning to anyone planning on hex-editing. Make tons of backups. Make a new backup after each level, and make copies of runs before hex-editing them. When all done, replay your movie from the start to make sure there are no desyncs. Once the run worked / didn't, I deleted my savestates and re-saved things from the new movie I was using (whether it was the original or the hex-edited). But maybe I'm just paranoid.
I also put together some information about an overworld map route, which can be found here. I'd post it on the forum, but it's just a long text file. Let me know if there are any questions about it, or anything else.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
I haven't watched it yet, and I won't until tomorrow morning, but I find your comments interesting.
I think that overall in a super-long run like this it may be okay to sacrifice a few frames here or there for the sake of entertainment, but I don't think it should be done every level... say 10 or 20 frames a world or so, that way too much time isn't lost.
I think I'll begin my own run of this before long.
Maybe the subject of this thread should be changed to just "Super Demo World: The Legend Continues." I don't mind having both runs discussed here, as I'm sure we could probably accomplish more by bouncing ideas off each other. After all, the two runs have a little bit in common.
I agree with this. I think it's good to keep all ideas and discussions in one place.
jxq2000 wrote:
Fabian wrote:
After I'd done the last room of Castle #1b as fast as jxq, I experimented 10 more minutes, and in the end that gained me a frame.
Alright! Frames gained are good. Coincidentally, I was watching your first SDW-15 run and noticed that you played that room differently than I did (you didn't let go of A during the flight), and so I messed around with that strategy and also gained that same frame before knowing you did the same. I'm keeping a log of ideas for my next SDW-15 run on a little web page I made here, for anyone who is interested.
In our original run, I had nothing to do with the castle. After I saw it, me and Gorling did some quick experimentation on console and noticed it was easily improvable, but the project died around that time so it didn't matter.
Very nice webpage, the overworld map route page should be especially helpful to me. Thanks!
GWing_02 wrote:
I think that overall in a super-long run like this it may be okay to sacrifice a few frames here or there for the sake of entertainment, but I don't think it should be done every level... say 10 or 20 frames a world or so, that way too much time isn't lost.
I realise this is a highly subjective topic, and I understand that many will disagree with me. My own opinion is that the 11 exit run for SMW and 15 exit run for SDW:TLC should aim for absolute speed. No frames whatsoever should be wasted, they should defeat Bowser at the earliest possible frame (or possibly end input at earliest possible frame, though I'm in the first camp on this issue).
However, when doing the full runs, I think entertainment becomes more important than pure speed. If someone watched this movie who didn't know I would stop to pick up a shell, he wouldn't notice a time loss. The only thing he would notice is that "wow, he kills all those Chucks and takes every coin by the water, that's neat" or "wow I haven't seen anyone duckjump holding a shell, kicking it and jumping off of it instead of falling into that hole before". Not that these are absolutely stunning moves or anything, but without originality this movie will be long and boring for most non-SMW-enthusiasts. I watched the "full amazing runthrough of SMB3" in the NES forum a few weeks ago, and that might be the single movie I've been most entertained by on this site, because it does what I like most about tool-assisted speedruns: It shows off the tricks and cool stunts in the game.
In the end, I can only do what I think will produce the best end result, and losing frames you won't notice without close observation to produce cool moves will always be worth it for me in runs like these.
Hey it worked! New run is here. Puts the key in #1 Misty Castle at frame 15290, which is 24 frames earlier.
I'll explain how I did what I did tomorrow, too tired now.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Excellent! My Misty Isle 4 was exactly 24 frames slower than yours, thank you very much for correcting it. I did feel a little bad for saying "This absolutely doesn't mean I'll get sloppy and won't care if I don't do something as quickly as possible" while just wasting 24 frames like that, but I decided that would be an exception because I was so sick of the level :-)
Thanks again.
Edit: I finished most of Castle 1a before going to bed now. The last room before Iggy, and Iggy himself, is left to do.
Since this was my first level where I used B-flying, I'd like to describe how I did it so someone can correct me if I did it wrong:
1. I pressed B (for one frame) the first possible frame Mario had running speed. (While holding right and Y of course)
2. I waited for the first possible frame I could press left without Mario turning around and flying left. I started holding left and made a savestate
3. I went back and waited for the second possible frame I could press left without Mario turning around. I started holding left and made a savestate
4-6. See above, third, fourth, fifth
7. I flew until I hit a wall with all five savestates, noting the frame Mario hit the wall in each state.
8. I loaded the fastest one and carried on with the level.
It's mainly somewhere around point 2 I imagine I might have screwed up. If this is not how you guys do it, please let me know so I don't continue to make this mistake. It actually was less complicated than I feared it would be, so that was a relief.
Bedtime for me now. Finishing the castle tomorrow.
Oh and also, still about B-flying. In the passage with the climbing koopas, I held right for 20 frames before holding left again. If I understand your description correctly, this didn't cause me to lose any speed, right?
Since this was my first level where I used B-flying, I'd like to describe how I did it so someone can correct me if I did it wrong:
This seems like it works. The only thing you didn't mention (but that you must have done, otherwise you wouldn't have noticed a difference in each savestate) is that make sure to hold -> until the (first-fifth) frame Mario can press left.
Another thing to note is that you don't have to let go of -> within the first five frames. The process is cyclic, so if holding -> a little longer helps out your flight situation, you won't lose speed, as long as after you hold it for a bit, you then do the same process to see which of five frames you should let it go. This works because holding -> is not what slows you down, rather, letting go of it on the "wrong" frame does.
This is the same reason that holding -> for 20 frames shouldn't cause any loss of speed - although occasionally when testing, if I held -> for something like 50 frames (not all at once, but in multiples of five), I would be two frames behind by the time I reached my marker. I could hold -> for 30 or 35 frames without a delay, though. This should probably be tested a bit more.
With the run I posted last night, what I did was make a savestate at your run after getting the feather (and after Mario "reappeared"), holding ->, Y, and B. Then I advanced one frame, still holding ->, Y, and B, and saved state in a different slot. Then I advanced another frame, still holding ->, Y, B, saved a third slot, etc. In this way, your five saves hold -> for five different amounts, each increasing by one before it. Then I would load each state, not holding ->, and fly to the end of the level. Once I found which frame worked best (it was the fifth), then I watched your run to see what enemies you hit, and did my best to duplicate it. I found the frame to press B to enter the castle, and stopped the movie on that frame.
Then I took a hex editor and copied from your original run the press of B which enters the castle (these are usually easy to find if you only press B once, rather than pushing A and B repeatedly on alternate frames) until the end of the file, and I pasted this over the last frame of the new movie, so the presses of B lined up, and it worked on the first try. However, this doesn't always work as easily, because the amount of fade-out between levels has a random factor to it, and can throw off button presses.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Well techincally you could hit B five frames before you hit running speed because B jumps take 5 frames to start and A jumps take 3-4 (in general). Also, you should be holding right during the downdraft of the cycle.
Yes, good point. It should also be noted that running speed is acheived a few frames before Mario sticks his arms out, although I don't know the exact number.
EDIT: Found a better, more direct route as far as the world map goes, especially if the key idea isn't being used (it didn't look like it was going to save enough time to be worth it anyway). I put it here, same place as the other maproute text file I made.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
As far as worldmap moves goes note that some moves take longer than others (the longer you go the more time it takes). So you know, when you get to the water world just check which order you take the levels as there's a few frames of overworld movement that can be avoided that way. Should be pretty obvious which route is the right one, but i'm just saying it so that you keep it in mind.
(Btw, i changed the name of the topic)
I think a 100% run would be more interesting than just a run without going to star road because I remember there are a lot of interesting secret exits in this game. Also I should point out that you might end up needing to change your route, because if I remember correctly, there are some secret exits where you'll need to go back and get an item from a toad house.
Btw, as I was skimming through this topic and saw "Oh, one thing... do we have to technically enter and exit each Top Secret Area to "complete" them besides the one hidden in Water TSA?", for a second I thought to myself "I don't remember going into a Zelda topic". Then I realized it stood for top secret area. :) [/random comment]
The problem with Super Demo World is the lags. Especially the crystal and snow levels tend to slow down the game enormously.
In the original Super Mario World, the only time where I noticed a lag was in the Sunken Ghost Ship, and I think I reduced it to a minimum.
But in this game you have lag in almost every level, and now the problem is: Should one try to avoid the lag (at the cost of entertainment? e.g. flying over the level instead of killing enemies), or simply not care about it and only go for the fastest level completion counter (as the lag doesn't count for the ingame time)? I would vote for the second, although that makes it hard to compare two movies timewise...
I've now finished the first castle, and will soon take on Salty Isle.
Being the great planner I am, I just realized that I'll need a fireflower very soon (Desert Pyramid b), and have no plan on where to pick one up. Now that I wrote this, I randomly thought of what must be the best fireflower to get, the one where you get the "first" P-switch in the Desert Pyramid. However, if someone can think of another fireflower they think would be faster, please let me know.
There should be no problems in Salty Isle. I'll try to get all five yoshi coins here, and killing of various enemies and picking up as many coins as possible. At the very beginning, you must run around on the platform a bit to reach running speed, but other than that it should just be straight flying to the exit.
Viper7: I've thought about the lag in Crystal and Ice World, and while I do want this to be as entertaining as possible, if it lags too much it's not very entertaining. That means if I have a choice between flying over a level or killing enemies/causing lag, I'll probably choose the first. I'll make a judgment on each individual level what the best course of action is. Most likely there will be a mix of the two choices.
As for lag: the more I think about it the more I worry about this movie in terms of comparison/competition.
The problem is when things come like Fabian here where on one hand he's sacrificing frames on some levels for entertainment but then when lag comes he will fly above levels. Maybe we should all agree before we rush into something? (Personally lag CAN be cool... think Matrix. =P)
Michael: Haha I was half-smiling as I wrote TSA and realized how it could be taken and I was like "well I could type it out but I want to see if anyone gets confused, heh" =) [/reply to random comment]
there are some secret exits where you'll need to go back and get an item from a toad house
From what I remember, the item you need is usually in the mushroom house in that same world. For example, the water world has the message box, which gets rid of the water in the castle, considerably speeding up that portion (as long as you have a cape). The pipe world has the vine to eat through the goomba blocks, etc. although there may be an exception I'm not remembering.
GWing_02 wrote:
he's sacrificing frames on some levels for entertainment but then when lag comes he will fly above levels.
Well, the difference is the amount of lag in this game is off the charts. For example, I lost 90 frames in two different levels on my 15-exit run due to lag at the expense of entertainment. That's three seconds, which is tougher to ignore than five or so frames lost in order to pick up a shell from a stomped koopa.
Fabian wrote:
I just realized that I'll need a fireflower very soon (Desert Pyramid b)
The level is beatable without firepower, but I don't know if it's faster or not. Also, you will probably need firepower soon enough anyway. However, I was bored and motivated, so I have a run for you to check out here. It completes Desert Pyramid secret exit without firepower, by carrying a P-switch and the key at the same time. It also uses another neat trick I discovered with the key that may come in useful elsewhere. I optimized everything except the flying speed, but there isn't much of that to worry about. So, I'd suggest that you try the level with firepower and compare the two to see which is faster.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
The firepower-less desert pyramid is nice, I think it's faster than the time it takes to navigate the lava pit for the actual second switch, too. Of course, people who haven't played the game won't get that a second P-switch even exists... :P
As for the lag: yeah you have a point.
Well, the difference is the amount of lag in this game is off the charts. For example, I lost 90 frames in two different levels on my 15-exit run due to lag at the expense of entertainment. That's three seconds, which is tougher to ignore than five or so frames lost in order to pick up a shell from a stomped koopa.
I disagree strongly. When you lose 3 seconds because of lag, assuming the viewer can see no obvious reason for the lag, such as 20 enemies on the screen, it's easy to ignore. There is no "mistake" to see. However, when you waste 5 frames to pick up a shell for no reason at all, people can see the pause, and will ask questions about it. When you paused to pick up the shell I instantly thought "Why does he need that?". When the time came when you used the shell to jump over the pit, when you clearly didn't need to I thought "So he wasted time to pick up a shell, for no reason?". Sure you killed a few koopas with it, but you could do the exact same with the spin jump. This 'mistake' stood out way more than the 'entertainment' gained by killing a few more koopas.
Wait, BoltR, are you referring to the run JXQ submitted?
Because the shell to get over the pit there was to avoid the springboard, which instantly stops all horizontal velocity.
This 'mistake' stood out way more than the 'entertainment' gained by killing a few more koopas.
I guess I was looking at a final time standpoint instead of a video-watching standpoint. Your argument is convincing, but so was Fabian's, saying that we've all seen the same thing on previous Mario runs, and I still think that this game is so long and un-timeattack-friendly that it may need some more entertainment force-fed into it.
I honestly don't know how I feel about it now.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
GWing: To me comparing/competing isn't very important. If you make your own version and feel yours needs to be "better" than mine, and if you feel speed is the way to accomplish this, that's fine by me. If people prefer your run, yours is the one that will be published (unless they both would be), and vice versa. Either way, I want to make mine as entertaining as I can. We "create art", to quote the guidelines, and sometimes I feel the hunt for frames becomes too important, especially in movies like these. I've already stated what I think in earlier posts. Not that these "mistakes", as BoltR puts it, will be that common either. After you've picked up the cape there's not much room for picking up shells and playing around with them.
I've finished Salty Isle now. I spent almost 2 hours by the second (edit: third to be picky) water passage, trying to take the "lower" route (which means the screen won't scroll up when you ascend later) and still getting past the three koopas and various blocks that follows after the water. That was extremely difficult. Because of that, I couldn't kill as many koopas I'd have liked to there, but at last I found a way past those damn blocks, and even managed to take the third yoshi coin (something I thought would be nearly impossible from down there).
Unfortunately, after I had passed that horrible spot, I flew to the exit to see if I had lost any time, and to my huge disappointment I had. And quite a lot too, almost 100 frames. I finished the level quickly anyway, and to my surprise, this time when I reached the goal post I was only 30 something frames behind! I wasn't going to keep the level at first, but now I'm thinking about it because I really liked how it turned out, and I spent a lot of time to get it right.
The lost time obviously came from pressing -> for some reason, although I only did it 5 frames at a time. In the second half of the level, I used the "get into swoop animation quickly" glitch twice, and for some reason it seems that made up for most of the lost time. Flying is weird.
Edit: Oh and I forgot: Very nice pyramid jxq! Although you take away all my fun with the levels by doing them yourself :-) Just kidding of course. After you take the key, is it regular wall jumps you do?
Yeah personally I'd rather not "compare" runs either, but only one run can be on the site... =/
We could always revolt and create our own site =P
edit: when he's ascending the pit I don't think they're walljumps, they're just state-reset glitching with the key.He does perform one walljump though, but at a different point.
