Hi all-- I think I will try to beat this Famtasia movie. The old submission is here http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1609
There are a few possibilities for modes This game can be run in PAL or NTSC. In fact, in PAL mode there is a black line on the bottom of the screen, which tells me it was designed to work in NTSC, even though it is european. Some timings are different between the modes, and I have verified that the game does run faster in NTSC. So I thought I would do NTSC to compete with the current run.
There are also different difficulty levels. It goes up to 4, but it's just extra enemy HP (I think). The last run played on difficulty 2. Should I up the difficulty?
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usually the higher difficulty is not chosen when it only affects enemy HP. If it changes the number of enemies or something that would change the gameplay then I could see the rational for the higher difficulty.
As far as PAL vs NTSC:
when competing with the precedent run, it will be judged by number of frames, so don't make NTSC just for that reason. On the other hand, NTSC is typically used unless there is a good reason to use PAL (like a glitch that can only be exploited in the PAL version). In this case it doesn't seem be a difference. Therefore I would reccomend difficulty 2, NTSC.
No clue why I'm posting in this topic. Oh well... I like doing bad stuff :P
So... offtopic: Where is my beloved Super Turrican... for SNES. It's a different game, and much better imo. Isn't it feasible? I tried doing the first level, but I gave up since I don't like making TAS's, and I'm lazy. Well, I do like playing the game... in slow motion as well... but frame advance, that's no fun at all.
Well, I've never actually seen Super Turrican for NES, I have no clue what it's like, I just know it's different from the SNES version.
I started a TAS on difficulty 2 in NTSC. I thought maybe I would try beating the first boss on difficulty 2 and 4, and see how it compares... but I've already invested a ton of work and still have a level left before the first boss! So I think I will just stick with the run I've started.
2 levels done, 4027 frames, ~281 frames saved. So I'm expecting 30 seconds or so improvement.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Jorf, are you the one who just got a run of this game published on SDA? That run looked pretty cool, and the 4-3 zip was incredible. (I had not been watching any works in progress on that run, but I am familiar with Luke's TAS.) It looks like the SDA run has a faster strategy on the final boss as well.
This game is definitely long overdue for an improvement. I think Bisqwit pointed out something major as well in the submission thread for the published movie.
Also, shoutouts to Manfred Trenz indeed.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
I decided to work on this game and Prince of Persia 2 at the same time, since Prince of Persia is way to boring alone. I noticed this game a while back and it looked fun to TAS, but I didn't get around to it.
As truncated pointed out in the submission text, you can run after leaving ball form, and this saves frames very early in the run, so I'll be starting from scratch.
There are some rules as far as I can tell. This only saves time if you have 5 frames of running in between leaving morph ball and jumping, otherwise you jump at walking speed, so it's not applicable in all circumstances, and also not applicable if you aren't on the ground to run.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Good luck! I don't know enough about the game to help out much, but I could be a WIP watcher. Looking forward to it!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/24862911971425429
Here is my first attempt at act 1, saved about 4 seconds. I plan on doing one act at a time.
This is definitely the type of game where having more sets of eyes look at it will lead to more improvements, so if anyone wants to work on this with me feel free.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Well, I don't know enough of the game mechanics too well to comment here. But things look pretty good. If there's a way to bounce less after some falls in ball form, that looks like it would save some time.
One thing that occurred to me was when you jump up platforms on the left side of stage 1-3. I was wondering if you could jump up fewer platforms and still get over to the right by rolling off, unmorphing, and jumping in midair. You currently seem like you go up more platforms than you need to.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Good thinking, you are right, I can get a bounce off of that platform and reach right side earlier saving about 15 frames.
I also realized I bumped into a wall towards the end costing me another 10 or so frames, oops.
^ nice! I thought that boss needed a second look.
I suppose it might be worth while to return to the question of difficulty level before getting too deep into the run.
I tried changing difficulty level to 4 and just running through the movie file, it didn't take long for it to de-sync.
Looks like the de-sync was caused by different enemy pattern. Enemies definitely have more HP so some tricks aren't possible and will make things slower.
Any thoughts on this?
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
Alyosha, according to the TASing guidelines, it is preferred for games to be played on the highest difficulty (for more interesting gameplay), unless the only difference between difficulty levels is enemy/boss hit points.
Are the enemy's AI patterns more wild/complex? If more HP is the only real difference, then you guys should be good to go on continuing on the current difficulty :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
The currently published run used 2 as well for the same reason.
Luke's submission text wrote:
There are 4 difficulty settings. However they only affect enemy HP and don't change the run at all, other than making boss fights a little longer. So I elected to use the default difficulty of 2, as the Famtasia run did.
Should be fine (as well as easier to compare).
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Sounds good to me, although Luke's quote there isn't quite right, as it certainly will change the run in other ways besides bosses.
I did a bit of testing and it seems that a level 4 run will just be me moving back and forth in ball mode at various spots to kill enemies with more HP, something neither interesting nor fast.
So, continuing onwards!
EDIT: implemented all improvements and improved the boss fight again (currently at 144 frames , Arc's fight was 163, from when the Boss's HP appears until it hits zero.)
Act 1 currently ends at frame 5539, Luke's run was at 5853, so a bit over 5 seconds ahead.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/24992745444023405
Made it through act 2.
I also went back and saved some more frames in act 1.
There weren't as many savings to be had in act 2 but I still saved frames in every level. The biggest savings was beating the second boss in one jump.
Luke's act 3 start: 11170
My act 3 start: 10653
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Nice fixup of Stage 1. The rolling looks more fluid. I'm glad my route suggestion worked out well; it looks slick. That boss fight is great too.
With Stage 2 area 1, there's one fall where you catch a ledge on the left side, only to bounce off of it and swing down into the left side of a pit. (I don't have a good timestamp for where that occurs, sorry.) Why do you do that? Does it give you back a midair jump that you need?
The bouncing in ball form seems like it slows you down a lot more in Stage 2 area 3, but I doubt there's much you can do about that. That boss fight is amazing though. Good job!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
After you fall a certain distance you lose horizontal momentum. So that ledge is needed to be able to fall to the left fast enough to catch the platform below you.
I am almost on Act 3 boss, not quite sure how to set up the skip yet but hope to have it done soon.
EDIT: ok, got the boss skip working. Here is the set up.
You need to get an item to spawn in the first slot and fly out of the item block to the farthest right possible. To do this, first you need to kill one of the lasers which ordinarily spawns there. It also helps to kill the second higher laser so a laser shot doesn't take this spot, then its just a matter of getting an item to spawn where you want it. So it doesn't require 5 slots to be filled as in the explanation video, only one, but that script sure did come in handy!
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/25023081448658793
Act 3 done. I saved more time on 3-2 then I expected to which was nice.
The Boss skip was not so easy to get working, the result is better then I expected but not terribly fast. The good news is that its not as complicated as originally thought, might even be practical real time but some pretty good luck would be required.
About 1000 frames ahead at this point.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
I can't watch the Act 3 WIP yet, but in the meantime, I have a question: is anything about that boss skip specific to Boss 3? It sounds like you may be able to abuse item slots on other bosses too.
EDIT: I just watched the WIP. It seems good. With part 1 of stage 3, I feel like you catch some platforms at lower spots than for other platforms, but I didn't verify this for sure. The stage is just a little more boring overall. I would definitely be interested in seeing if a faster boss skip is possible... that's a pretty good WTF moment.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
What is specific about it is the proximity of the item box to the boss room.
In most other areas, there is something of a dead zone between then last object and the boss room. Presumably this is done on purpose to clear out all objects before the boss spawns. In this case however the item can fly just far enough to still be spawned when the boss is supposed to appear.
Done with a rough draft of act 4 and almost 1500 frames ahead. Sub 8 minutes may be possible.
EDIT: powered through the rest of the game, the 5-2 boss skip was pretty easy. The final boss is significantly faster.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/25041199123772823
New discovery (for me at least)
It seems even morph ball mode has 'running' speed.
You can activate it by unmorphing and remorphing while holding down B.
It is subject to the same 6 frame rule as running. you have to hold down B for at least 6 frames before remorphing again.
This will save significant time. Let's go fast!
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Oh wow. Does this mean a redo? That sounds like a really significant improvement.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
