Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I was pretty bored thie evening, so I put together a run of the first two stages of Spelunker. Here's the movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/487/Spelunker%20%28U%29%20%5B%21%5D.fcm
Personally, I think it turned out pretty nice. If there is any interest in this, I can see if I could finish it. For those who don't know, Spelunker is a short game, it only has 4 levels. Any comments on the movie?
I've never actually gotten very far in Spelunker since it's so amazingly difficult and frustrating, but I had fun watching your movie just to see the game explored. I think that games like Spelunker are actually among the most fun to see TAS'd -- games that most people give up on due to their being so incredibly difficult or frustrating. Maybe other people who've played Spelunker and given up on it will enjoy seeing the game explored and completed. I know I would, so I hope you'll complete the run! :)
Oh! I don't have much to say about the run technically since I don't know much about speedrunning, but I did like the way you bopped back and forth between the little brown gas-vents or whatever it is they're called while you were waiting for the steam to dissipate.
I've never played this game before so I have no idea what it's about. After watching your run, I still have no idea what it's about. I do like the run however, you play it very well. The music is nice too, has a good beat and doesn't get annoying. I'd like to see this game to the end, so yeah, keep going. It looks really good.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
That's interesting in itself that you can actually get somewhere in the game. Keep that up, man.
By the way, how did you keep the ghost from appearing? I can never seem to get it to stay away.
Never even heard of this game but it sure does make a nice TAS.
But I have one question, are you always as close to the bomb as you can when it explodes?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Thanks for all the feedback! And to answer all of your questions:
Tailz wrote:
I've never played this game before so I have no idea what it's about.
It's very simple really, you start off at point A and you are to get to point B. Like Super Mario, basically. There are rocks and stuff that blocks your way here however, so you have to use bombs to keep moving.
Rick wrote:
how did you keep the ghost from appearing? I can never seem to get it to stay away.
To be honest, I don't really know how I did that :) I know what you're talking about, and usually he turns up while getting the second blue key. I don't know what I did to stop him from disappearing, it could be that I do things really fast and that the ghost only turns up if you've played a certain amount of time. But I'm just guessing here ;)
Guybrush wrote:
But I have one question, are you always as close to the bomb as you can when it explodes?
Oh yes, of this I am 100% sure. You can see that I used a lot of rerecords, and most of this movie was made with frame advance. For each bomb I used at least 150 rerecords, just to keep moving as soon as possible. First of I try to be as close to the explosion as possible when it goes off, then I start running as soon as possible. I used frame advance for this.
It is extremely easy to die in this game. Take jumping and falling for example. You cannot fall more than like 2 inches in this game, otherwise you will die. Getting on the elevator is a pain too, you have jump when you get on and off, falling down ladders is simply not possible (you will die), and I can make this list a lot longer :) So this game might as well be called "Fragile Caveman" or something.
And since no one mentioned anything about the route, I'm guessing it's good. I'll continue this then, and post a new WIP once I got something done.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Bag of Magic Food
Oh, is it like Bomberman?
Well, you do have bombs in this game. :) But the goal in this game is just to make it to the end of the level withour dieing (which is a lot harder than it looks in the movie.) But yeah, there are some similarities with Bomberman, you place bombs and don't want to be close to them when they go off ;)
150 rerecords seems excessive just to find out how closely you can avoid a bomb, but that's more of an issue with how you made the tas. The movie itself is a lot of fun to watch. It's too bad you can't be closer to hazards or fall any great distance, but those are just things for you to work around.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Now that I think about it, I believe that I exaggerated when I said 150, it's probably more like 60-70 rerecords. And I agree that it's a shame that you die so easily in this game :( Anyway, I'm glad you liked the movie! :)
Isn't there already a submitted movie that runs through the whole game? It's probably still in the workbench forum, unless it got moved to the new rejects forums. I'm just wondering why nobody here has mentioned it.
I think if I remember right, the prior movie was just killed off pretty quickly due to it not being up to par with the standards. Of course, this is my memory we're talking about here. =P
But as for the ghost, it's funny because it seems like every few minutes that I play the game, that music cuts in and he slowly makes his ugly self appear. The ghost is killable, but I just hate the music that goes along with it, even though it's like, the first little bit of the Wizards and Warriors boss theme replayed over and over again with a long stop. (Yeah, I know that Spelunker came out first, but still. n_n;)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
nitsuja wrote:
Isn't there already a submitted movie that runs through the whole game? It's probably still in the workbench forum, unless it got moved to the new rejects forums. I'm just wondering why nobody here has mentioned it.
Yeah, I've watched that one. However, the only ROM I was able to replay that movie correctly with had really weird graphics, as well as somewhat different stage-layout. I don't know if anyone else has had problem with watching that movie with a good ROM.
But in terms of quality and gameplay, I think that run could be improved pretty much, that's what I'm trying to do with this, I try to optimize both the route of course, as well as all those small details.
If anyone wants to see the submitted run, here it is: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2895
EDIT: I've been thinking some of what the goals for this movie should be. One option is to go for a "fastest completion, don't get killed run", which I personally would find more interesting to watch. The other choise would be to get killed at certain places (this can save some time on some places, because when you die you are warped back to a certain point on the map)... The beauty of a "don't get killed" run for this game in particular, is that those who have played this knows how easy you get killed, and those for those I think this kind of run would be cooler.
If I choose a run where I get killed at certain places, the run would be somewhat faster, perhaps 10 to 15 seconds. What's everyone's opinion on this matter?
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
i personally think you should use death as a shortcut. in general "takes no damage" and "no deaths" arent very good goals for TAS's. lives and energy is just another limited resource with which to use & plan routes with. Its usually more interesting when using deaths because it shows additional planning, and more difficult & varied options to consider.
while it is hard to not die in this game it is not a inhuman accomplishment. Even in a difficult game, a TASer is expected to be able to avoid death if they so choose. To me it impressive enough to warrant extending the length of a run so much.
GO FOR SPEED MAN!
& good luck :)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I've decided to go with taking hits, since this turned out to save a lot more time than I first thought it would. You see, when you die you are respawned to the last item you picke up after getting off the elevator (I only figured this out recently), so this was abused quite heavily after getting the first blue key as you can see. :) Another change is that I pick up both bombs on the first floor, since I will need the second one later on.
Here's the movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/498/Spelunker%20%28U%29%20%5B%21%5D.fcm
It's 734 frames (12.23 seconds) faster than my previous run of level 1
All comments and questions are as always very welcome! :)
Looking good! My only advice would be to give levels three and four a cursory playthrough so you can make sure you have enough lives to spare for them, but I'm sure you already have :)
Stylewise, I liked the little hop you did about a second into the movie where you jump before reaching the elevator. I thought that the movie was out of sync when you first made that jump, since I was almost positive that would kill you. If it's possible for you to work some more obvious near deaths like that into the movie, I think it'd be really entertaining for those of us who know how unforgiving the game is.
Looking good!
But I noticed one small thing, after you die for the first time, you stop for a frame or two in front of that shiny little ball.
But keep up the good work!!
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I'm glad you liked it! And to Doropie: Allright, I'll try to do stuff like that as much as possible, if the audience like it ;) It neither wastes or saves any time, so why not.
And to Guybrush: Yes, that was in fact intentional to stop there for a few frames, I think it's 5 frames to be exact. You see, that ball gives you a random item, sometimes a bomb and sometimes a firework. I wanted it to give me an extra life since I will use that later on, and to manipulate it to give an extra life, I had to wait 5 frames. So don't worry about that :)
I'll do some more planning for level 2 now, I will try to have it done ASAP.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Allright, I have done level 2 now. Here's the movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/510/Spelunker%20%28U%29%20%5B%21%5D.fcm
And before you go throwing rocks at me for letting the ghost live, let me explain why I did that: As you can see, around frame 6300 I have to stop to kill the ghost. This wastes around 150 frames. On level 1, I was able to manipulate luck, to make the ghost not appear, by waiting several frames, around 20 frames to be exact.
This time however, the ghost really wanted to appear :( I had to wait around 280 frames to manipulate luck for him to not appear, therefor it was simply faster for me to let him appear and then kill him later on.
Besides this, there shouldn't be anything weird in the movie. The route I use is basically the same that Ginger used in his movie (the submitted one, that is), slightly modified. But due to more precise movement, this run is currently 942 frames (15.7 seconds) ahead. Enjoy the movie! :)
7 years old bump. I'm now working on improvement of my previous run.
This is a my WIP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86MoKIkwu2Yhttp://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1372957634/spelunker-wip.fm2
In the last section of this WIP, the explorer died. However, for the improvement, you need to improve 4 frames after Frame 7188 and take elevator.(The improvements before frame 7188 is meaningless due to various frame rules.)
I gave up improvements except for Ghost manipulation, but I need some help about luck manipulation or disassembling.
Would someone disaseemble how $0082-4 acts? Or would someone teach me how I should write lua scripts or make bots?
RAM addresses regarding Ghost manipulation.
$002B frame counter. this value is 0, RNG advances.
$0055-58 Ghost position
$0061 ghost appearance flag
$002A current RNG
$006D-E RNG address(ROM address)
$007C 0 or 4.
$0081 This value is copied to $0082-4
$0082-4 When these value are 0 and $007C=4, RNG advances
When low order byte of RNG is "A"(0A, 1A, 2A...), ghost appears. At that moment, RNG address advances, and this value is used to original Ghost Y position.
I dont' get how $0082-4 acts. These value sometimes remains 0, and sometimes become $0081 value, and decreased to 0.
It's very difficult for me to explain in English. Please let me know if you have any questions.
