Post subject: Temporal (2008) - WIP
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
Temporal is a puzzle platforming indie game from 2008. I mentioned this game in the Windows wishlist a long time ago but recently I came across with the executable on my PC and decided to give it a try at TASing it myself. Game trailer: Link to video Please note that my TASing experience is close to nothing. Also, the game tends to desync a lot in Hourglass, so making a TAS has been sloppy.
Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
I'd love to see a TAS of this great game that's basically fallen off of the face of the earth!
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
juef
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Player (155)
Joined: 1/29/2007
Posts: 208
Location: Québec, Canada
I am so glad to see this here! Here is the previous topic on this game (which it seems you started yourself :). I have since completed the game and of course would still be very happy to see it TASed.
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
I didn't even remember creating that topic xD. It's been a long time. I plan on TASing the story mode levels with zero paradoxes. I have so far completed the first 17 levels but the game has some serious sync issues with Hourglass :(. I have spent more time dealing with sync issues than TASing the game :(. As of now I've come up with a workaround to make the sync issues less time consuming, that should make the TASing a bit faster.
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
At episode 23 right now but damn! not only the game has the sync issues I mentioned earlier (the same Hourglass movie will play fine for a while but always ends desyncing at some point or another). Hourglass also refuses to record audio when generating an AVI, it seems, which kinda sucks since music is a nice part of the game. Not only the audio is an issue when generating an AVI; the game has this weird behavior where, while recording/playing a movie, at the end of all levels that you complete by flying off the screen (episodes X, XX and, I suppose the same will happen in XXIX), Hourglass will "hang" for about ~40 seconds before the game resumes its normal rate but when creating an AVI, at that point Hourglass hangs ~40 seconds at each frame!. Damn! It's like the game doesn't want to be TASed!. I just spent nearly 3 hours waiting for encoding of the last few frames of episode X. I'm posting here the resulting AVI displaying the first 10 episodes of the game. Keep in mind that the first levels are sloppy as I still wasn't familiar or comfortable with Hourglass' savestates and frame-stepping. Also there's little chance to do interesting things in the first levels, it's only in later levels, after time travel and time stopping are introduced, that a better understanding of Hourglass allows to do some interesting things in a TAS that are not possible otherwise (who'd think that you can complete episode XVIII using only 3 time travels?). I'm starting to think that it might be impossible to get a proper, acceptable for inclusion, WFT file for this game. Anyway, I'm posting the first 10 episodes WIP to hear your opinion. I suggest you play this video at 2x or 4x. https://mega.nz/#!9zI1EC6R!d904tYj9BMFrU3a9SL6S8q-7Y-aDV5E7DCrfzxmJCR4
juef
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Player (155)
Joined: 1/29/2007
Posts: 208
Location: Québec, Canada
Everything looks really good to me. Congrats on getting this far! I wish I knew how to help with your Hourglass problems...
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
Thanks. I've actually already completed the TAS but getting an AVI has been difficult. Here's part 2 (still no sound, though), will post part 3 soon. https://mega.nz/#!gmpCQKLa!K0ySDGrpKxb5VIw-FPGRFyO_hLYlX6_zrGORas2cB8k I guess my TASing improved over time, so these levels look better than the early ones, IMO. Let me know what you think.
juef
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Player (155)
Joined: 1/29/2007
Posts: 208
Location: Québec, Canada
While I haven't played the game in a while, I don't think I can spot improvements right now. Well done, I can't wait to see the rest!
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
Here's part 3 which completes the run of the story levels. https://mega.nz/#!VrwHUSrI!FFk09_K0Z25nT1qi_YQUmMY0sMA6Rvcmw_HXJprWy2I While I can't think of any obvious improvements either, it seems I haven't beat even one single record from the game leaderboard at the game's webpage. I got really close in a couple levels but in others there's a large gap even when I thought I had a near perfect run (particularly in the final levels).
Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
I tried looking around to see if there's any speedrun or IL footage of this game on youtube, but it's really hard to find footage for this game (it was popular too early to have a big youtube footprint, I guess - same for speedrun.com). Do you know of anything to watch and compare to?
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Joined: 11/14/2011
Posts: 18
The only videos I know are either normal gameplay or some crazy solutions for the challenge levels but no speedruns for the story levels.