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So this game has some glitch that makes it so you can skip to the end by pausing the game, pressing up, then unpausing. Wait, there's already a published TAS of this. You might think that optimizing this further is impossible, but nope. The previous movie actually missed the first input boundary, so they just lost 4 frames from that (the game runs at a pseudo 15 FPS). That's the only real improvement in this movie; the other difference is simply using CGB/GBA mode, which has a fake improvement of a shorter BIOS. Nonetheless, there is 4 frames of actual improvement, so this movie should be able to obsolete the previous movie, and should be able to be console verified!
As an aside, I am wondering how the previous movie not rejected for sub-optimallity, this input boundary was blatantly apparent by opening up the movie in TAStudio.
Why I'm canning this: Forum/Posts/498660


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EZGames69
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As an aside, I am wondering how the previous movie not rejected for sub-optimallity, this input boundary was blatantly apparent by opening up the movie in TAStudio.
I looked at that movie previously in TAStudio but did not see anything that could be improved. It wasn’t an obvious improvement.
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EZGames69 wrote:
As an aside, I am wondering how the previous movie not rejected for sub-optimallity, this input boundary was blatantly apparent by opening up the movie in TAStudio.
I looked at that movie previously in TAStudio but did not see anything that could be improved. It wasn’t an obvious improvement.
I think the improvement was just not obvious just due to a misunderstanding of the "glitch." Essentially, I believe that this is not an actual glitch, but rather a debugging feature. Dying actually has no relation to this trick. The only thing needed is to pause, then press Up, then unpause. And guess what, spamming up will go to other stages. It isn't some overflow from dying, it's just the game letting you select the stages. That said, I believe the currently published TAS should be obsoleted by the previous TAS, as the TAS was simply not legitimate in the first place (and this explanation should probably be mentioned in the movie description). I'll be looking into this game, as it does seem to be a nice game to TAS, but gonna can this sub.
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That's a shame. Why isn't it legit?
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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That's still legit.
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DJ Incendration wrote:
That's still legit.
Cheats, debugging codes, and arcade continues are not allowed
It's not. The movie rules do not allow them (with some exceptions, none of which apply to this movie).
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DJ Incendration wrote:
That's still legit.
I literally linked the clause in the rules that says it's not legit. It's explicitly a level select that was left in as a debugging feature in this prototype ROM. Other officially released games by the same developer have the exact same style of level select hidden behind cheats or passwords, most notably the game that this prototype ended up becoming.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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Oh, sorry. What's the code for the game this became?
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TCRF wrote:
Enter the password "PQLLQ" ("pollo" is Spanish for "chicken") to enable the in-game stage select mode. During the game, press Start to pause it, then press Up or Down to change the level number. A level number will be displayed at the upper right corner of the screen. Unpause the game to jump to the selected level. Level 130 is the final entry and ends up with the credits roll.
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 Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.