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Post subject: Bomberman 64
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Here is a game that I've been discussing mostly on IRC, but I think it should get a topic now. This game has a lot of gold cards for you to collect, and you have to collect all 100 in the first five worlds to reach the special sixth world which has 20 more gold cards. In the levels, there are three cards hidden somewhere, plus one for the 30th enemy you beat and one for finishing the level under a target time (which usually has to be done on a separate run from the others because they waste too much time). In the boss fights, four of the gold cards are awarded for attacking in certain ways or attacking certain weak spots, and then the fifth is the target time card again. But for a tool-assisted time-attack, I figure just getting the gold cards isn't enough. There are also costume pieces hidden in all the levels that you can use to dress up Bomberman in multiplayer if you have a Controller Pak. It would be crazy to try to get all those in a run if you are also trying to get 120 cards in 3 hours for the best costumes, but that's what I want to do here! Also, I'm playing on the Hard difficulty, which you normally want to earn the Full Power cheat in Normal mode for to make it easier, but no cheats for this movie! It should be pretty outrageous if it's completed. I had made some test runs of Green Garden 1, but now I think Blue Resort is better to start with because I can get the bomb upgrades I need without so much delay. I don't think I'll need more than two extra for a while, and radius upgrades are probably also unnecessary and could even be a hindrance; plus, the remote detonator and the powerful red bombs don't transfer across levels. So here is a run of the first two levels, where I coincidentally got a heart: http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip The first time through, I tried to use some creative camera angles to make it look nicer. The second time through, going for the four other cards, I realized that the zoomed-out camera was causing too much lag, so I zoomed in and left it alone the whole time. I should probably decide whether I'm going for real time or "game time" (which probably corresponds better to input length) for the final movie, since that determines whether or not I'm supposed to care about lag. There are probably also some small mistakes, like pulling out bombs too early and lagging the game, or minor movement errors around corners or in bomb jumps, or choosing the wrong set of enemies for the 30. It would also be nice if I could manage to blast Artemis with the first bomb rather than settling on the second. Well, if anyone wants to try to help out, go ahead.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/15/2004
Posts: 9
it desync for me... is there different version of the rom? do u mind give me crc?
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Um, I think I just used the main USA version, with CRC 1ED568F5... But shouldn't Mupen 64 have told you that? And did you remember to check your plugin and input settings?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/15/2004
Posts: 9
I probably haven't check carefully with mupen, i'll have another go when i get home. Will video and input plugins have an effect on the video?
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Well, Spezzafer's Super Mario 64 movie desynched for me when I used the wrong RSP plugin, so you'd better at least have that the same. Feel free to try a different video plugin that works for you, though, since Jabo's has some flaws. Hmm, I just realized that if I'm going for game time, I should aim for the nearest corner of a switch to stop time earlier, while if I'm going for real time, I should try to hit the switch dead center to save on Bomberman's slow step-on time. Oh well, I can decide for sure after the test run's done.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 2/16/2005
Posts: 462
Bomberman 64 was one of my favorite games for the N64 :-) Its just something about building stairs of bombs that was really appealing. I am really looking forward to this run BMF:-)
This signature is much better than its previous version.
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Okay, great, here's the time card for the next level: http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip I would put in savestates to skip stuff, but Filespace is pretty slow and savestates are pretty big, so I hope no one minds having to make their own. (JUST DON'T FORGET TO HIT READ-ONLY YOU)
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/15/2004
Posts: 9
Ok i got it working, I didnt' realise there was a page showing all the information after I load the movie. The problem was I had a memory pack in controller 1
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Hm, that's interesting. I just tried that myself to see what happened. It seems the memory pack didn't affect the input timing but did affect the randomness. That was apparent when a fire item showed up in place of a bomb item in the first run of 2-1. But it didn't become a problem until the second screen of the second run, where enemy spawning was different. Bomberman kicked and threw bombs at several imaginary enemies but still progressed through the level okay until he couldn't detonate a bomb early because he barely missed the remote bomb item. I wasn't sure whether or not to start the run with a memory pack in the first place, since it seems like an arbitrary choice if the game doesn't have to load or save to it sometime during play. I just picked no pack for this run, so I'll stick with it until I decide to start a new run. By the way, does "Disconnected with memory pack" mean anything at all?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 6/15/2004
Posts: 9
My guess is that if you had a memory card in the control pad, it would make the process of "save and continue" a bit longer, thous the timing is changed which caused enemy spawning at different places. And if thats the case, maybe everygame should play without a memory card so it will save few frames. Back to topic, are you gonna try to get all the cosumes? It would be interesting to see, since some of these requires complicated positioning of bomb, which i never figured out when i played that game on N64.
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Sarmu wrote:
And if thats the case, maybe everygame should play without a memory card so it will save few frames.
Well, some games say "Warning: No memory card!" wasting maybe 5-10 seconds at startup if you don't have a memory card, so it depends on the game.
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Well, the memory cart only serves a purpose in multiplayer. I figure its effect on my singleplayer game is like the 3-buttons versus 6-buttons issue on Sega Genesis, where the system does some extra little operation to check how the controller is that affects things later on.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Okay, I updated with the other cards of 2-3: http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip It took a long time to make because I had to fight a lot of randomness. It's interesting that I came pretty close to the target time with that one. If I could shave off about five seconds somehow, I'd only need one trip, and that would save a ton of time. I also wonder if getting a second fire powerup was a mistake. Well, I'll just see how it affects later levels. I think it could have been a mistake to bomb that first cannon in 2-1, too, since it turns out cannons don't count as enemies.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
All right, I beat the giant anglerfish thingy! http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip I think I minimized its phases pretty well. Well, time to study up on Red Mountain.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Hmm, it might be possible to speed that fight up a little by killing the fishy while it's in the bubble phase. But that means throwing four pumped bombs at it with only one log on which to move around, and I didn't want to strain my brain too much on this test run, so I went ahead and got two cards on 3-1. http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I got those other three cards. http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip But there are probably ways to improve it by killing enemies so that I'm not waiting for bombs as often.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Now I've added a pretty nice battle with Orion. http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland
Wow! It looks just amazing. And you say it's just a testrun? I can't imagine how good the actual run will turn out. Especially the battles with Artemis and Orion got me stunned. They were done so fast and yet very entertaining. And all the explosions of the bombs. You were so close to the explosions that I was almost sure at some points that you were going to get killed. Althou' I do have few questions / things to point out: 1) Are you absolutely sure that you can't get every gold card in any level with one try (meaning without having to enter the level twice)? 2) First pumped bomb in the first volcano stage. Could it have been pumped/picked up later? Since doesn't it decrease the walkingspeed when you are carrying a bomb? 3) There seamed to be some lagging in the first volcano level. I wonder if this could be reduced or even eliminated completely somehow.
Which run should I encode next? :)
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Carrying bombs doesn't slow you down, although they can cause lag, so getting out the bomb early may have been a mistake if I was going for real time. (I was more concerned about using the time during which Bomberman stands around after falling a large distance to get out the bomb.) And I'm not sure that I couldn't have gotten 2-3's gold cards in one go, since I was very close to the target time at the end, but I don't feel like trying for it until the final run. There should be at least one other level where I can do that, though, since Marshmallow got all 5 cards in 6-3 in one pass just playing normally...
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
I tried playing some Bomberman 64 with the keyboard and mouse in tandem, but it just made Bomberman really wobbly. Is there a way to make it so you don't have to keep pushing the mouse to move in a certain direction? Like, just hold it over a zone to choose the direction or something like that?
This is exactly what setting the mouse input mode to "absolute" does in the NRage input plugins. (One of them also has an absolute mode for the keyboard.) It's actually a little bit relative because the center region dynamically adjusts to where on the screen you're moving the mouse, but it lets you put the mouse at some direction (and magnitude) and leave it there. It's extremely frustrating to use for normal playing (except in certain games that require holding in one direction a lot), but for a TAS it can give better control, if you're willing to deal with a little trial-and-error to get the directions you want.
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I finally managed to set it up right, but yeah, trial-and-error isn't very fun. You have to quickly shove the mouse over, immediately hit the frame advance key, then see if you got the right direction. I would prefer just having a couple of boxes in the main window where I could type in the X and Y coordinates to set them for frame advance, but that's probably never been done because it'd be a little impractical in real time. Oh, and I can't use the mouse for anything else once it's used for the controller. That's very annoying.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 12/12/2004
Posts: 158
I think that you go to the Shortcuts tab in the Input configuration window and can choose a key to press to change whether the mouse is used for input or like a normal mouse. Or at least that's what I'm guessing that's what the option is for. I tried messing around with the mouse thing a bit with Starcraft, but it was really uncomfortable. The N64 really needs a controller. . . . Or some other method of input. I think that if you were to have it so that you click and hold a mouse button then it acts like the analog stick, and there's some sort of visual, like a circle in that octagon to represent the N64 controller, and when you let go of the mouse button it reset to the neutral position, I think it would work pretty well for real time play. And when doing frame advance work, maybe holding down the mouse button wouldn't be so good, but having that onscreen visual would help so much, and a key for centering would be great too. But anyway, that's just wishful thinking.
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip I got all the gold cards there! I got one during a cutscene even! I had time to bomb another minecart guy though, which means I should have skipped another enemy. Oh well. I'll fix it next time. I just went with the obvious path this time because I didn't feel like trying out my crazy sequence break ideas that probably won't work anyway.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (207)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Here's the robot fight. http://www.filespace.org/BagOfMagicFood/BOMBERMAN64U_USA.zip Faster than I expected.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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