I think a TAS of this game would be pretty entertaining.
I did a short sample of the first two levels:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/764/Tinstar.smv
The rom is Tinstar(U).
The game is interesting because there are three types of levels:
Semi-fixed time levels: There is an upper limit on how fast you can finish (hypothetically). Shooting enemies effects how fast or how slow time progresses (level 1 is of this type). These levels are side scrolling.
Fixed time levels: These levels have a set time limit. Killing enemies does not effect time, but if you leave them alive long enough you'll die. These levels bounce back and forth from left to right (level 2 is of this type).
Non-fixed "showdown" levels: These levels are not fixed time. The faster you can shoot your opponent, the faster the level is completed.
The variety of levels provides opportunity for both speed and entertainment. I'm not sure if I will make an "official" movie. At the moment I'm just fooling with a test run. If someone with more experience doesn't pick up the game, I might eventually try a quality TAS.
Getting 1,000,000 gets the best ending, which was quite a feat on a original SNES. Racking up points in the bonus stages is way easier in a TAS.
I'm proceeding to do a TAS of this game. I've encountered an interesting situation in my initial planning.
Tinstar was the first SNES game to allow the standard controller, mouse, or super scope to be used. In terms of cursor speed, the standard controller moves the slowest (even with the speed on highest). The mouse moves really fast, but unfortunately there is no way (or at least no easy/feasible way) to track its motion between frames. This makes it really difficult to see where you are aiming. The super scope is also incredibly fast since you can aim and shoot exactly where you want. However, there seems to be a snes9x bug with the super scope that has yet to be resolved. There is no pause button emulation. I read more about it here.
Using the SS might be a possibility, but I'd have to be able to test it.
I'm proceeding currently to use the standard controller, which although it is the slowest of the 3, still moves pretty darn quick using frame advance. In fact, at my current rate, it might be WAY too tedious to try to play using the SS or mouse for input.
Update!
Tinstar first 10 levels
Tinstar(U) Rom
Uses snex9xw-improvement9
Plays at hardest difficulty
Plays with standard controller at highest cursor speed
Takes no damage
Causes no damages
Wastes as few bullets as possible
Makes as much money as possible
The goal of this movie is entertainment. Since Tin Star is a
somewhat long game, adding entertainment is chosen over the
theoretical "fastest" route where it is not overly costly to do so.
Bonuses:
On many levels there are bonuses that you can shoot for extra cash.
These can slow you down a frame or two, but keep things much more
lively than simply waiting around for the next enemy. It also shows
off the various subtleties of the levels.
At the end of most levels is a chick with big boobs that needs
saved by shooting stars around her (go figure). The only way to
reach her is by NOT shooting health canteens during the level.
Since they are useless in a TAS anyway, this isn't a setback.
Notes on specific levels:
1-2:
I only shoot bonuses which do not incur damage charges at the end of
level.
1-3:
Hitting the boss counts as a bullet wasted, so there are 6 necessary
bullets wasted.
2-1:
Hitting the machine gun enemy for the last hit (3rd) counts as a
bullet wasted. Somehow, an enemy in the level counted for two hits,
so I ended up with only 1 bullet wasted. I could not recreate the
two hit enemy elsewhere.
4-2:
Shooting the dynamite in this stage counts as bullets wasted (unlike
all the levels so far). Shooting the Joe Twiddley (the bouncing
enemies) count for two hits, so I only ended up with 10 bullets
wasted instead of 12. I only shoot the dynamite which would damage
Tin Star.
This is really cool! I like this run and it's entertaining. You use good variety to keep it interesting, and it's fun to watch the hero be a super hero. Too bad the game forces you to 'waste bullets' even when you aren't.
Btw on the 3rd stage boss, what's up with his death? It just looks like he starts spinning and bam he's dead, I didn't even see the gun fire.
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
I disagree, there's lots of very boring PUBLISHED tas' already, and this one is actually pretty entertaining during the action, especially compared to some. Take for example Final Fantasy (nes). The tas is extremely boring except for a few parts. Practically every 10 steps you're forced to watch him run away, the entire 30+ minutes of the run, plus there's lots of backtracking and key-item hunting. The only good spots in the whole run are with the boss fights. But yet it's published. Just because a game has some forced slowdown doesn't make it a bad tas. It's very easy to fast-forward the movie (emulator or avi). Before you complain a tas is boring, check out some of the published movies :P
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
I think people are more tolerant of boring runs if they have played the game and can appreciate all the details. Less known games have to offer a lot more to the viewer simply because the viewer doesn't know what it looks like normally.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
While you do play the game well for what you're given, I think this is a classic case of 'blame the game, not the author.' There are simply too many parts in the run where nothing happens, and then anything that is left over is either terribly repetetive or it's over in a hurry.
I have no knowledge of how to emulate a game so I'll just spit this one out, Tin Star.
I was wondering if anybody has ever thought about tasing this game, if you don't know what it is, I got ya covered. It's quite simple actually, all you have to do is move the aim of the gun around the screen and shoot whatever enemy you see, you can't move your character.
If I remember correctly from this childhood game, there is a score system, so the movie doesn't have to be the fastest time, it could be aim for highest score.
I don't know if it will be an entertaining movie though, just something I thought I should brought up.
What you emulate is called a "video game system"; more generally, an emulator is a program that translates the instruction set of the target system into instructions on the host system, like Rosetta on the MacIntels, PearPC, or Snes9X. More sophisticated emulators may include compatibility layers (to translate calls to operating system APIs, as in Wine) or special versions of application frameworks (for example, Mono as a Linux version of the .NET Framework), but these are not by themselves emulators; this is why Wine stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator" even though from the standpoint of the end-user it is functionally equivalent to one, permitting programs for one type of system to run on a different one.
To emulate an SNES on a PC, download an emulator like Snes9X, ZSNES, or BSNES; to actually play a game you will need to download the ROM, and ROMs of copyrighted games for which the copyright holder has not granted permission to freely distribute are illegal to offer or download, though enforcement is extremely lax. Once you have downloaded the ROM, open your emulator, search for the ROM in the Open dialog, and start emulation.
The SNES has sufficiently little power compared to present-day and even rather old PCs to allow emulation at full speed without errors or distortion, though later systems like the PS2 are difficult for older machines to emulate.
For more information on emulators, along with advice relevant to TASVideos, look here: http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Homepages.html#Snes
Well, I suppose you downloaded Snes9x and loaded your ROM. After fiddling around with the input config, you started recording your gameplay to an smv file (from reset, of course). After closing this smv file (stop recording to do so), you can upload it to Microstorage in order for all of us to download your run and watch it.
Ok, I started my recording, but how do you upload it and where's the Microstorage, unless if its that link that you showed me ShinyDoofy.
Oh yeah, and how do you put a link on your post. (I'm not very good at this) =(
I read ideas and inputs from others about techniques of TAS'ing a video game - and I've mastered it since then. All I have to do now is understand every game I play and conserve as many frames as possible; that is my weakness AFAIK.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Movie-files for SNES9X are saved as .smv-files. So your movie-file is an .smv-file stored in your SNES9X folder. Here's how you upload your movie: Go to the microstorage page (the page that ShinyDoofy linked to). Now, on this page, click the "Browse" button and then select your movie-file. After doing this, click the "Upload" button. A link should appear at the bottom of this page now, leading to your movie file. Putting this link in a forum post will allow others to download your movie.
To put the link to the movie in a forum post, it's completely accepted just to copy the link and paste it in a forum post, like ShinyDoofy did with the link to the Microstorage site.
Are you guys having this problem? Whenever I try to get on the Tin Star forum, is says its on Debug Mode. Any of you having this problem? How could it be fixed?
