Hebereke's Popoon is a puzzle game developed and published by Sunsoft for the SNES, it was released in 1993 in Japan and in Europe the following year, the game never saw a release in the US.
This TAS uses BizHawk 2.4.2, It was the fastest possible, It took about a day to make this TAS.
Memory: Hello LucianoTheWindowsFan and welcome to TASVideos. Here on TASVideos we aim for perfect movies... or at the very least as close as one can get. While I think it's great you're trying to get into TASing, your submission has some major flaws that aren't acceptable given our standards. As has been brought up in the replies, there really isn't a reason to use default difficulty here. However, the bigger flaw here is your optimization. It is extremely likely this TAS would be a lot faster if you used combos. I recommend looking into this game some more and using userfiles for WIPs and gathering additional feedback on these WIPs by making a forum thread for this specific game. You said you completed this in a single day, but please take your time while making TASes.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
This is noticeably suboptimal in a lot of places, and I've only watched the first stage.
The rerecord count is ridiculously low for a game like this. Piece order can be manipulated before each stage, but not in the middle of a stage, so a TAS would want to at least make sure that the piece order is suitable for a fast stage completion.
Speaking of fast stage completions, this is a Puyo Puyo style game (not exactly the same, but similar enough), and yet combos aren't being used or even set up in this TAS. The game has them and accounts for them. Not only is it far more impressive to set up a massive chain in advance, but it should also be much, much faster than just going for 3-in-a-row clears over and over.
The input looks noticeably sloppy. Autofire looks like it's being used in places just to turn pieces, leading to situations where you use 5 B presses to turn a piece twice. At the beginning of the first stage, you turn and position pieces before you start fast dropping them, which loses time, and it looks like the only reason you stopped doing that is because you started holding Down for the entirety of the rest of the stage. It looks like you just did the entire run in "real time", but at a low speed, as opposed to using frame advance or TAStudio. The menuing at the beginning is optimal at least, but the random Start presses while waiting for "PRESS START!" to appear tell me that you didn't bother trying to correct them. It's only a minor nitpick, but it still leans into the sloppiness of the input. Nearly all of your text clearing input is overshot. The last actual input of the run happens at frame 142940, but the A button continues to be held for 5 more seconds after that, not to mention the almost 2 full minutes of blank frames at the very end.
This was done on the default difficulty (Monkey). Hardest difficulty should be used for a TAS like this, as it's much more impressive to see the domination of a difficult CPU opponent as opposed to an easy one. The faster drop speed on higher difficulties may even make the run shorter, since attack pieces don't drop in until a normal piece lands.
On that note, the most directly comparable RTA run I could find (there's a much faster one on speedrun.com but it's on a different version of the game (Arcade), and appears to be on a different mode altogether) is only a few minutes longer than this (after adjusting for the blank input). The RTA is done on the easiest difficulty, where the CPU takes nearly a full minute to drop its first two pieces (and thus it takes about 20-30 seconds between attack pieces dropping). With the CPU drop speed being that much slower on the easiest difficulty, a TAS on any other difficulty should be more than just a few minutes faster overall.
This is also a PAL game, running at 50 FPS, with an equivalent NTSC-J version. Is there a reason PAL was used here? The games appear to be identical apart from the FPS. In cases like these, NTSC is always preferred, regardless of language.
Between this and your SNES Test Program submission, you might have your submission privileges revoked if you submit another hastily done TAS. I highly recommend that for your next project, you look around the forums to see if anyone else has done any work on your chosen game, and if so, see what you can learn from them. There's no thread for this game, but you could start one in this subforum if you're interested in working on it further. Spend more than just a single day on a run, test everything you can, optimize your input, and come back with something great. Get involved with the community and ask around for advice, there's always someone who's willing to help.
Good luck!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto.
TAS i'm interested:
Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS?
i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 933
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
LucianoTheWindowsFan wrote:
LucianoTheWindowsFan wrote:
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
From movie rules:
Must be clearly definable as a game, which has achievable goals
Should of waited til 4/1.
Oh no, it is gonna be rejected, I'm gonna do a TAS of Hebereke's Popoitto.
Alright, So instead, I did a TAS of Hebereke's Popoon.
Are you telling me that you started this TAS on the 23rd (yesterday)?
Its been my experience, that TASes made so quickly will never get published. Samsara has outline a number of items that are clear red flags for optimization problems.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence.
----
SOYZA: Are you playing a game?
NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing.
SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real?
----
Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes?
Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :)
----
BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
nymx wrote:
Samsara has outline a number of items that are clear red flags for optimization problems.
Would you mind taking a look at the movie yourself and verifying them? I saw you in the chat for the RTA run I linked, so I'm assuming you know enough about the game and speedrunning it to be able to confidently confirm/deny my suspicions.
EDIT:
KusogeMan wrote:
welcome back samsara!
Thank you!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 933
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
Samsara wrote:
nymx wrote:
Samsara has outline a number of items that are clear red flags for optimization problems.
Would you mind taking a look at the movie yourself and verifying them? I saw you in the chat for the RTA run I linked, so I'm assuming you know enough about the game and speedrunning it to be able to confidently confirm/deny my suspicions.
Sure. I'll try and have a response by tomorrow.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence.
----
SOYZA: Are you playing a game?
NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing.
SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real?
----
Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes?
Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :)
----
BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 933
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
Hey Samsara. I actually was able to give this a small amount of time. Figured to get it out before I head to bed.
Samsara wrote:
This is noticeably suboptimal in a lot of places, and I've only watched the first stage.
The rerecord count is ridiculously low for a game like this. Piece order can be manipulated before each stage, but not in the middle of a stage, so a TAS would want to at least make sure that the piece order is suitable for a fast stage completion.
This part I completely agree with.
As for piece manipulation, its unfortunate...but I think a plan would mitigate the lack of manipulation of drops for a faster run.
Samsara wrote:
[*] Speaking of fast stage completions, this is a Puyo Puyo style game (not exactly the same, but similar enough), and yet combos aren't being used or even set up in this TAS. The game has them and accounts for them. Not only is it far more impressive to set up a massive chain in advance, but it should also be much, much faster than just going for 3-in-a-row clears over and over.
This is probably the biggest concern as well; however, there are some things that I have noticed that might keep combinations from happening so quickly. (Of course, this would probably take a number of days for me to prove, by experimenting myself on the inputs)
1. Is the TAS trying to avoid getting "bombed" by the opponent? If that is the case, then clearing 3 at a time seems to be somewhat appropriate, yet still I believe some work can help to get around this.
2. If #1 is not the case, then another speed technique would be to build up a center platform (Like the Tetris TASes do) and perform the clearing near the top of the screen.
3. My first thought that this game is a combination of Kirby's Avalanche and Tetris Attack. :)
Samsara wrote:
[*] The input looks noticeably sloppy. Autofire looks like it's being used in places just to turn pieces, leading to situations where you use 5 B presses to turn a piece twice. At the beginning of the first stage, you turn and position pieces before you start fast dropping them, which loses time, and it looks like the only reason you stopped doing that is because you started holding Down for the entirety of the rest of the stage. It looks like you just did the entire run in "real time", but at a low speed, as opposed to using frame advance or TAStudio. The menuing at the beginning is optimal at least, but the random Start presses while waiting for "PRESS START!" to appear tell me that you didn't bother trying to correct them. It's only a minor nitpick, but it still leans into the sloppiness of the input. Nearly all of your text clearing input is overshot. The last actual input of the run happens at frame 142940, but the A button continues to be held for 5 more seconds after that, not to mention the almost 2 full minutes of blank frames at the very end.
I share the same appraisal on the menuing...couldn't find a spot that made it faster. The random "Start" presses confuses me as well.
As for multiple B presses, I didn't really observe that. A and B seem to be used appropriately to rotate a piece into place. If B or A were over used, where time it takes to place the piece wasn't inhibited...then I see no problem.
Samsara wrote:
[*] This was done on the default difficulty (Monkey). Hardest difficulty should be used for a TAS like this, as it's much more impressive to see the domination of a difficult CPU opponent as opposed to an easy one. The faster drop speed on higher difficulties may even make the run shorter, since attack pieces don't drop in until a normal piece lands.
Right on! Always use Hardest level. It shows off the game with more dazzle.
Samsara wrote:
[*] On that note, the most directly comparable RTA run I could find (there's a much faster one on speedrun.com but it's on a different version of the game (Arcade), and appears to be on a different mode altogether)
I compared the TAS with this run and a unique situation occurs for the runner, as he states "I'll take that!". What happened was the run of luck of the way pieces fell on the opponent to the point where the CPU's drop couldn't advance. There was plenty of room, probably about 1/4 of the screen left. Even those this is not controllable by the player, it certainly can be done with the TAS on every round.
To sum up, going for optimization in this game seems to be a little odd...depending on what needs to occur to wipe out the opponent. The biggest issue that I see is a lack of executing a plan, which the current plan is just taking on the computer by thinking one move ahead, rather than accounting for situations to avoid opponent obstacles, setting up for combinations, and trying to push the opponent off the screen early by noting the CPU's position and circumstance. On the first round here...the strategy used push the CPU to the very last space possible, which takes a longer time...especially for the cut scene of removing all the drops.
I can only see that massive amounts of time can be cut from this...yet I see that the task to perform this would take months and months to accomplish, maybe even a year, of hard hard work.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence.
----
SOYZA: Are you playing a game?
NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing.
SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real?
----
Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes?
Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :)
----
BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Excellent breakdown, thank you!
To sum up, going for optimization in this game seems to be a little odd...depending on what needs to occur to wipe out the opponent. The biggest issue that I see is a lack of executing a plan, which the current plan is just taking on the computer by thinking one move ahead, rather than accounting for situations to avoid opponent obstacles, setting up for combinations, and trying to push the opponent off the screen early by noting the CPU's position and circumstance. On the first round here...the strategy used push the CPU to the very last space possible, which takes a longer time...especially for the cut scene of removing all the drops.
This is the main thing, the lack of plan, and you expanded upon it better than I did.
I had a very similar case a few years back where a TAS struck me as just being reactionary, i.e not having a plan and just going with what was given. For a puzzle game in particular, especially one where you're facing a CPU, a lack of plan is a death sentence for the optimization of a run. Every variable needs to be accounted for: Piece order, combo potential, garbage blocks sent to the opponent, the CPU's drop speed, the CPU's own attacks towards you... As a quick example, our currently published Puyo Puyo 2 run is 36 minutes shorter than this (with overshot input/blank frames removed), but it uses about 6x the number of rerecords. It also has one less variable to account for compared to this game: The CPU's blocks don't disappear individually after a battle so it doesn't matter how many they have on screen.
This is definitely a publishable game, but as nymx said, it needs a lot of work and planning to really optimize it to its fullest.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Hello and welcome to TASVideos! I appreciate the efforts went into the movie. A good tool assisted speedrun or superplay can take a lot of time to create.
So first, I got rid of one of the 5 Start button presses at frame 528 in TAStudio (my very first time using it! It really comes in handy!). When I did delete that Start press, it seemed to affect the piece RNG and caused the movie to desync earlier. So theoretically you can shuffle the piece RNG with different inputs to get the most desirable piece orders possible.
Is there any particular reason the default difficulty setting (おさる/Monkey) was used over たつじん/Expert in a TAS? Most Puyo Puyo-like puzzle games I know increase the drop speed in addition to higher A.I. levels.
At the first round, it looked like you built a few stairs (placing columns of the same color). Couldn't you setup chains from those stairs?
The SFC port of Puyo Puyo 2 was the best version to use (in my opinion), due to the added ability to skip the opponents' defeat "animation".
I would like to see this falling piece puzzle game get optimized further. Popoon could end up at Vault tier, as with Wrecking Crew '98.
As a quick example, our currently published Puyo Puyo 2 run is 36 minutes shorter than this (with overshot input/blank frames removed), but it uses about 6x the number of rerecords. It also has one less variable to account for compared to this game: The CPU's blocks don't disappear individually after a battle so it doesn't matter how many they have on screen.
On a related note, I wonder why Super Puyo Puyo 2 was allowed to obsolete Kirby's Avalanche, even though KA was not a re-skin of SPP2: KA was a re-skin of the first Super Puyo Puyo.
It's probably because in Puyo Puyo 2, you can have fewer opponents to fight against (8 as opposed to the 13 in the first Puyo Puyo game/Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine/Kirby's Avalanche), provided that you earn enough experience points from each of the first 5 opponents to advance a tier in the game's tower.
Since you fight fewer opponents, the movie is shorter.
On the other hand, in PP2, the first two floors use only 4 piece colors, while every stage in PP1 use 5 colors.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Hello and welcome to TASVideos! I appreciate the efforts went into the movie. A good tool assisted speedrun or superplay can take a lot of time to create.
So first, I got rid of one of the 5 Start button presses at frame 528 in TAStudio (my very first time using it! It really comes in handy!). When I did delete that Start press, it seemed to affect the piece RNG and caused the movie to desync earlier. So theoretically you can shuffle the piece RNG with different inputs to get the most desirable piece orders possible.
Is there any particular reason the default difficulty setting (おさる/Monkey) was used over たつじん/Expert in a TAS? Most Puyo Puyo-like puzzle games I know increase the drop speed in addition to higher A.I. levels.
At the first round, it looked like you built a few stairs (placing columns of the same color). Couldn't you setup chains from those stairs?
The SFC port of Puyo Puyo 2 was the best version to use (in my opinion), due to the added ability to skip the opponents' defeat "animation".
I would like to see this falling piece puzzle game get optimized further. Popoon could end up at Vault tier, as with Wrecking Crew '98.
So I think "100%" should be changed to "Monkey", right?
What makes the category "100%"? The difficulty setting doesn't have any bearing on the percentage. % in the category name is mostly used for RTA runs where no other suitable category name can be used.
Since Story mode is the only mode in the game with an ending (correct me if I'm wrong), I would just remove the category name.
