Hi! As you all may know, I'm working on a DKC3 GBA any% TAS. I know I could've posted this in the thread in the GBA forum for this game, but I am asking here about issues specific to TASing itself.
Right now I'm at the level "Belcha's Barn", the first boss battle in the game. Now to tell you the truth, this boss is probably the easiest boss level to do when you're not TASing. But as I TAS it, I find the level extremely difficult. When I TAS, I always have the frame counter and the input display turned on. I make savestates and use frame counter to find out what is the fastest frame to do some specific task, like when is the fastest frame to turn around and jump, to hang on to the lever and to get off of it, when to press a button, etc., and input display helps a lot with that.
Unfortunately I'm in a twisted situation right now in my TAS, where instead of having a level where the goal is "get to the end of the level as quickly as possible", the goal is "defeat the tedious boss battle as quickly as possible". There are more than 4 factors I have to calculate; 1. when to jump, 2. when to hit the barrel, 3. when to grab the bug, 4. if I even have enough time to grab the bug and jump before the Belcha hits me and knocks the bug out of my hands, 5. If I ever have a successful jump away from Belcha (this is the first frame I have to calculate, is when is the fastest frame that can jump away from Belcha without getting hit by him), then I must find the fastest frame to throw the bug into his mouth. If I don't have a good enough frame to throw the bug in his mouth, or if I can't throw it in in time, then I have to do another wacky procedure like this.
This entire thing is something that many of you guys probably can't understand, and to be honest, I can't pick up this whole thing either. My mind alone may not be able to calculate all that garbage on its own I'm afraid. It's really making me angry and I've been pulling my hair out for hours trying to find a solution, trying over and over again to see what ways I can hit the barrel, if I can jump away from Belcha, etc., and it's hurting my brain and I am getting very angry.
To be honest, the funny thing is, this may actually be the easiest boss battle of the game, yet the hardest part of the entire TAS itself!
So, experienced TASers out there, I need to ask you: how do you usually complete a task like this in your TASes? Where there is more than one frame-wise thing that you have to calculate in order to complete one specific 10 second task (especially for a tedious boss battle)? Do you have any ideas?
(It would be especially helpful if someone who created the SNES TAS of this game would answer with the method they used to calculate for this same boss battle, since they did pretty much the same things here)
