Posted: 10/28/2014 10:46 PM
(Edited: 9/17/2015 12:46 AM)
Post subject: Mario 3: Around the World/Mario 4: Space Odyssey (Bootlegs)
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dekutony
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These are Mario Bootleg games for the MegaDrive/Genesis, and they just suck. (although the music is kinda really good...) I made a movie of this game right here: Link to video I'm not planning to do this... maybe, but I would love to see how someone can break these games.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Posted: 10/28/2014 11:00 PM
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Noxxa
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Incidentally, I was toying around with Mario 4 - Space Odyssey a couple days ago. These games could definitely make for a quirky run or two (though probably still Vault). Especially the music stands out (and the horrible physics, but you notice less of that when watching a TAS). (EDIT: and the comically horrible pre-level images, of course) I don't currently have intentions to run it, though. But it would be fun if anyone else might pick it up.
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.
Posted: 10/29/2014 12:04 AM
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WST
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Thanks for the suggestion; I might take it, but certainly not right now. Do you have the gmv for your testrun?
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 10/29/2014 12:16 AM
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dekutony
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Joined: 11/23/2013
Posts: 2243
Location: Guatemala
WST wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion; I might take it, but certainly not right now. Do you have the gmv for your testrun?
gmv..? Sorry I don't use Gens, I'm a BizHawk user, but I can give you my input file here: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18386233464973735
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Posted: 10/29/2014 12:23 AM
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WST
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Kurabupengin wrote:
gmv..? Sorry I don't use Gens, I'm a BizHawk user, but I can give you my input file here: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/18386233464973735
Thanks; it’s easy to convert it to gmv anyway (as I can’t use Bizhawk). But, again, even if I start working on it, it will not be any soon (have a lot of work and also have to finish Amy@S3K), so — if someone can do it faster, don’t hesitate :)
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 10/29/2014 2:35 PM
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fsvgm777
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There are difficulty settings in this game (Mario 3) (опции (options) -> сложность (difficulty)): легко (Easy), нормально (Normal) and тяжело (Hard). (it seems to be on Easy when you boot the game). It also has a dumb control scheme where the run and fire buttons aren't on the same button by default and the jump button is inbetween them (irrelevant in a TAS).
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
Posted: 10/30/2014 12:39 AM
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WST
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I don’t have much experience with RAM search, but I beleive I’ve found RAM addresses for X and Y pixel positions. I doubt this game has subpixels, but I may be wrong. This is a simple script I made for Qwerty (he may TAS this game). 
Language: Lua
gens.registerafter(function()
	local x_pixel = memory.readword(0xFFA060);
	local y_pixel = memory.readword(0xFF035A);
	local speed = memory.readbyte(0xFF5B5B);
	gui.text(10, 10, 'X pixel: ' .. tostring(x_pixel));
	gui.text(10, 20, 'Y pixel: ' .. tostring(y_pixel));
	gui.text(10, 30, 'Speed: ' .. tostring(speed) .. ' px/frame');
end);
The «speed» variable indicates current value added to X pixel position. It’s set not depending on if you are moving or not. When running, it’s always 3; when walking, it’s always 2. Also, normally jumping slightly drops the speed, but after running with the max speed for a while, it doen’t slow you down anymore. To kill an enemy, it’s not enough just to have positive vertical speed when touching it; it’s required to touch the enemy’s top, hence it’s much easier to get hit.
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 10/30/2014 2:36 AM
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WST
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Here is my quick testrun, just to see how it feels to TAS this game. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1641015447/Mario%203%20.gmv Link to video I wasn’t able to pass under the last goomba like you. I will investigate it tomorrow, now feeling really sleepy… I beleive this is because I changed the route a bit. Amyway I will see how to pass that enemy faster. (upd) for some unknown reason, my gmv randomly desyncs, I have no idea why… On the frame 39, I press [S¹]. If I press [S²] on the frame 40, it works fine only when I’m recording from scratch. I try to press [S¹] on frame 41 instead, and it seems to be fine, but only until I restart Gens and play that gmv; now I’m completely unsure what the hell is going on. Does this mean that I caught a Gens emulation bug? (upd2) it’s certainly an emulation bug — and this randomness in the game’s behavior can not let me TAS it. I’ll consider trying Bizhawk soon.
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 10/30/2014 10:15 AM
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r57shell
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try gens11a instead of new one.
Posted: 10/30/2014 10:17 PM
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fsvgm777
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I've decided myself to make a test run of the first level. Link to video However, since I used BizHawk and WST used Gens, I don't know if it's faster or slower than WST's testrun.
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Posted: 10/30/2014 11:04 PM
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WST
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It should be a bit faster, as you seem to land sooner after hitting the goomba near the end. As marzojr says — there is a high possibility that something which breaks determinism has been introduced in Gens between Gens 11a and Gens 11b. So, if I continue working on this, I will probably be using Gens 11a. I failed to run BizHawk under all of these: wine, mono, VirtualBox + Windows XP, VirtualBox + Windows 7. Important question: do you guys know if there are any teleporters / wraps / any significant shortcuts other than tubes?
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 10/30/2014 11:22 PM
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Noxxa
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fsvgm777 wrote:
I've decided myself to make a test run of the first level.
This is minor, but my right ear would consider it a viable speed-entertainment tradeoff to delay a few frames before entering a new area if it avoids getting a music track that only plays on one stereo channel. Just throwing that out there :)
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.
Posted: 10/30/2014 11:54 PM
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WST
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Mothrayas wrote:
This is minor, but my right ear would consider it a viable speed-entertainment tradeoff to delay a few frames before entering a new area if it avoids getting a music track that only plays on one stereo channel. Just throwing that out there :)
Then it makes sense not to take mushroom even if it saves time — because breaking the ceiling block also breaks the music as a bonus =P
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Posted: 11/1/2014 3:12 PM
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fsvgm777
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So here's something weird I noticed about this game: Apparently, the stage music changes depending on the input you make before entering it. Here's a movie with the exact frame count, but different input before Stage 1 (I got rid of a few Right + A inputs before entering Stage 1) Suddenly, the music is different than what's in the test run I posted a few days ago. On that note: This song is surprisingly awesome. (FLAC format)
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Posted: 4/25/2016 12:19 PM
Post subject: Testruns! With video!
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Noxxa
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I ran some full game testruns for both games. Of course, being testruns, they are not quite optimized, the main menus aren't even TASed or done fast at all, and I do some other things that lose time now and then. I set the difficulty to 'hard' for both games. Link to video Link to video Mario 3 .bk2 Mario 4 .bk2 Oddly enough, Mario 4 resets after stage 20, although there should still be a final boss and credit sequence after that. I don't know why it's resetting the way it is - I think it's a game crash, perhaps caused by an emulation error. Some other notes:
  • Getting a fire flower quickly is really convenient to dispose of enemies that get in your way. Enemies sometimes are really hard if not impossible to dodge without losing a ton of time. However, mushroom/fire flower blocks also tend to be quite out of the way (usually costing several seconds at least), so finding good locations to pick up fire flowers can be tricky.
  • About half the stages have one pipe that leads to a bonus area. Sometimes they're faster to take them, but more often than not, they progress you less forward than the time you spend walking in the bonus area itself.
  • It's very important to keep up momentum without having to bump into walls. Stopping or turning around will kill horizontal speed while jumping until you've run for a certain amount of time again.
  • Lag optimization is also pretty important in some stages with many enemies (such as the fire levels in Mario 4). Note that the internal lag counter doesn't catch this.
  • Music is randomized during the black screen before every stage or screen transition, and can be influenced with random input.
  • Surprisingly, given the games' bootleg status, they have tons of little secrets like invisible blocks, off-screen mushroom blocks and aforementioned pipes.
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.
Posted: 4/26/2016 7:07 AM
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WST
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Very nice runs, Mothrayas! I apologize for not working on this, as I was going to TAS Mario 3 myself. The reason is that the game is simply not TASable on Gens. It causes random desyncs and crashes when trying to replay it, and it happens for me with any version of Gens. As I use Linux, I cannot try Bizhawk, and I have no time and mood to TAS on a Windows machine, because I prefer to TAS in a comfortable environment where I can chat with friends, listen to the music, write code & so on, at the same time while TASing. This was my last testrun of this game. Link to video I cannot provide a bkm file yet, because it’s stored on a Windows computer, which is far away from me right now, also I think it’s quite improveable, mainly because I didn’t get flower item… Though I think in some places it’s faster than your attempt, but I may be wrong.
Mothrayas wrote:
Lag optimization is also pretty important in some stages with many enemies
Yeah, compared to Sonic games, which I usually TAS, this game is incredibly laggy, and often killing enemies is faster than leaving them alive (which you would probably expect to be faster, because you land earlier and can run again earlier). I found it to be quite hard to figure out the best trajectory and which enemies to kill / coins to collect.
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2 my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)