Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
(sorry for lateness)
Advanced won't happen due to its sheet complexity which would take way too long to work on (he spent thousands of hours thus far on the first 48 levels). He might do a few levels, but otherwise nah.
The bloopers video does have at the end a Battlements run, so that one is done. It was also stupid because the fans and trapdoors are nopeville.
https://youtu.be/9g2tb9dG0q0
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
Marble Blast Gold is an easy game to pick up but difficult to master! The community has done fantastic work over the last 18 years, pushing this game to its limits. The TAS adds new routes or improves over current ones to sometimes barely squeeze by WRs and sometimes completely obliterate them.
Personally having put tens of thousands of hours into this game I can attest to how good this TAS really is!
Additional TAS information:
- While all recordings will play in a vanilla Marble Blast Gold, all of these were recorded on the community used Framerate Unlocker modification by Derpking (which lets the game run at 1000fps), and I (Matan) created for this TAS a small mod to the game to show the game's third decimal place.
- Minimum allowed FPS is 30 and used in Space Slide. This is a community accepted minimum.
- All techniques (except banned glitches such as Screenshot Glitch) that are used can be found at: https://marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/general-mb-discussion/7818-advanced-techniques-in-marble-blast
- You can find Dom's comments & .rec files to download at: https://marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/general-mb-discussion/10705-dom-s-scripted-tases
- Dom made an in-depth analysis video about the Intermediate levels TAS. Check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVh-4XVt4w
Special Thanks:
IsraeliRD, HiGuy, Xelna, HappyTreeX1, Cobalt, Mazik, Blasted, Nockess, DKman00 & Anson.
Enjoy!
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
An incredible Tool Assisted compilation by DomTurchi, who hails us with years of experience from Zelda: A Link to the Past as a theory TASer.
DomTurchi blasts his way through all 24 beginner levels, using specialized scripts to execute frame perfect camera angles and marble inputs and create insane records that we can only dream on ever reaching.
Special Thanks:
HiGuy, IsraeliRD (Matan), Xelna, Nature Freak, Cobalt, DKman00, Anson & Mazik.
Additional TAS information:
- While all recordings will play in a vanilla Marble Blast Gold, all of these were recorded on the community used Framerate Unlocker modification by Derpking (which lets the game run at 1000fps), and I (Matan) created for this TAS a small mod to the game to show the game's third decimal place.
- Minimum allowed FPS is 30 and used in Marble Materials Lab. This is a community accepted minimum.
- All techniques (except banned glitches such as Screenshot Glitch) that are used can be found at: https://marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/general-mb-discussion/7818-advanced-techniques-in-marble-blast
Enjoy!
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
An update of the sorts. As you might've noticed I indefinitely suspended this project mainly due to loss of motivation, and lots of things happened in the last couple of years and it's about to get even more hectic.
I've uploaded the video for 3-3 & 3-4 which I've done 2.5 years ago, as well as the in-progress TASes:
HP Episode 3
- Now at the third crystal. Need to manipulate the skeletons, ghosts and bats to get either no damage or one damage. I managed to do one damage only but accidentally overwrote the save file. Lots of enemies to kill here.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/14110894922976285
HP Episode 1 100%
- Level two at the hidden massive treasure location. Finish the current area and continue normally with enemy manipulations. At current damage you can finish the level if you do this smart. Manipulation of disappearing blocks went very well imo and while improvable, it's not something I want to grind and the current loss is very minimal.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/14110896982220651
If I ever get back to this I'd like to redo episodes 1+2, complete episodes 3+4 and finish episode 1 100%.
Might not happen for at least a year or so at least. If anyone wants to pick it up, go for it.
If you want to continue where I stopped, feel free to. I did an update last year to the resources page of it to include all information I know of.
http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/DOS/HocusPocus.html
Further info (episode 3):
Once you finish level 5, level 6 should be a breeze. Level 7 I had a lot of the times both keys appearing if I went left at the start and got the weapon upgrade. If you can manipulate it you save a lot of time, but there are tons of enemies here though.
Level 8 should be alright and 9 will be interesting as to whether any dragon bosses can be skipped.
World 4 I had little research on. Level 4-1 however you have no potions to heal you so that level is gonna be annoying. If you can manipulate the laser shots to randomly appear as a bonus you can destroy the 4-9 boss on the spot and be done.
If you require my submission info comments or anything else, feel free to shoot me a PM/e-mail.
Link to video
Notes:
-> 3-3: You get introduced to the "smart bombs" which are a new type of enemy. Destroy them (only takes one shot) and all enemies on screen get killed instantly. Must be shot in the front only, no collision box in the inside.
Overall a quick and fun level, I thought I'd finish with lots of health but no dice. As always manipulated the ending to have lots of 'Yahoo!'s.
256 rerecords.
-> 3-4: Lots of health management and luck manipulation. Jumping on the spikes meant no enemies spawns and thus no extra health lost. Flying demons are still a pain in the butt. The two switches between the elevator to 2nd crystal (and elevator itself) was the hardest to manipulate to ensure absolutely no time was lost (3:10-3:12 in the video).
Discovered really late that the demon spawn where the gold key can be manipulated to give you no damage (extremely tough though, only got this once). While this can save a few frames at the start of the level by going through the spikes for more damage boost rather than stopping, you have the ending which is impossible to do without taking damage, so another spot where taking no damage must be found, because otherwise this timesaver is nullified.
Another fun improvement is to stack up the laser shots. A previous run through the level had 4 laser shots for the last set of enemies (though you still take damage regardless).
589 rerecords.
I hope you enjoyed!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
Ugh the music is horrific, but the stages were still good. Anyway you broke that game so hard some levels were unrecognisable. Fast Rayman is glitchy rayman.
I haven't played the GBA version, only PC/PSX, so take some of these comments (especially pertaining to movement) with a grain of salt.
TG1: Wouldn't it better to revisit it with the runner ability and getting the first two cages with it? I'm not sure the third cage is necessary, but just curious.
Mr. Stone: Shame you didn't show his dancing :p
PPW Revisit: level 2, why didn't you run at first at the top of the level? 33:08 in video. 33:59 not sure if you could have saved a frame or two by running right next to goal
Mr. Sax: 4th cage, wouldn't it be better to stop yourself using the fist when you go down the slope to the 4th cage (small rayman)
Mr. Sax Pre-battle: is 6 the max number of hits allowed on him? If it allows for more, you could've hit him up to 8 times. I know for certain the PC version allows 7, so I would see no reason for this not to happen unless Ubisoft coded it as such.
EP1: 48:59, how come you didn't just crawl your way through once the blocking spike ball started bouncing? does it not allow you to? And right after it, I presume it is faster to hit it for the extra air boost than land and run?
EP3: at 51:18, wasn't it possible to skip the dark toon and jump to the platform above? certainly it's possible on PSX iirc.
Pirate Mama: that damage abuse is insane, I can't believe they disabled her invicibility like that. It's odd she DID have it on the penultimate knife cycle before you blew her away.
PP1: In reply to CAD, I'm not sure if it is faster. Don't cages like these disappear if you die and you have to reactive their trigger again? If not, then certainly it would be faster to die after checkpointing.
PP2: 55:55-6 not sure if faster to grab ledge, jump and then run or do what you did. Same in 56:23 (punching first should do the trick) and 57:25-6ish.
PP2: Any reason why you didn't helicopter your way through all the pins? it seems faster than jumping and moving nearly one by one.
SMC1: I'll ignore possible movement improvements, and ask if it's not possible to keep your running speed on those pencils. I know on PSX it's possible (I've done it in PP1 previously) so it's something to check.
Space Mama: Not related to the run, but in the PC version you can hit her from the back to get a total of 5 hits during the first section with her, whereas PSX/GBA allows 4 (though with GBA you do get damage as well).
EAJ2: Maybe the crawling part at 1:09:40 could be skipped if you didn't take damage before without the need to crawl?
MDD2: 1:17:42 you could have jumped before and grabbed that ledge (or the one after it) and dropped down into the cloud trigger
The only major disappointment is that you didn't skip both Mr. Sax and Skops. Is it not possible to in the GBA?
Essentially for PSX/PC you death abuse to the start, go back to the level select and that's it. It keeps your cages as completed since that's the only requirement for Mr. Dark, not beating bosses.
The run itself was fantastic. I loved many parts of it and the downtime showoff on many bosses. Improvement you say? looking towards the obsoletion!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
It works here when you put watch instead of Watch in the URL. Account (http://www.youtube.com/user/Mark69707) is available just fine.
Edit: just noticed Marx edited his post to have the proper link as well with lower-case w.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
Emulator doesn't have sound regardless, I don't think it's built in anyway.
You press 'F' on your own keyboard, but if you press Shift (on your keyboard) while pressing the virtual keyboard keys (using your mouse), then they don't stick, but the button press is sent. This way you can send in the button presses on the virtual keyboard and frame advance on your own but afaik you need to have the emulator window itself active for the frame advance.
I don't think the mouse support is inbuilt (what c-square has is probably the most advanced). I don't know about a running normally either.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
It's great to see you're restarting, hopefully most mistakes from previous WIPs get eliminated.
So far pretty good. The reverse jumping made it look better too.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
I actually started this back in April, but got busy until the end of July where I've done the first two levels. I just finished the third one so hopefully more updates will roll out soon.
Notes:
-> 3-1: Health management and luck manipulation were tough. I found that looking up/down managed to manipulate enemies. All in all, a tight level that was revised three times. The third elevator I take took ~200 rerecords to do and it's 2 frames away from perfect (no blocks in my way).
Please note that I did try to look down to manipulate it further and indeed the lowest blocks disappeared, but the upper 4 blocks wouldn't disappear.
556 rerecords.
-> 3-2: An easy level becoming really tricky. First crystal's enemy spawn was hard to do with the least amount of damage possible and losing no time.
On the way to 4th/5th crystal there are 3 lizards which normally you take damage from, but I killed two of them and despite my infinite shooting ending before the revisit, the last one wasn't in my way >_>
630 rerecords (those flying lizards were dicks).
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
I've done some tests on a few games that I do have installed (I have a lot more of "oldies" no one here heard of, heh):
DX-Ball 2 seems to work but needs mouse input before I can do proper tests.
3D Spins crashes (requires keyboard input only IIRC, but is still a 3D game though so no surprise)
WinBrick series also crashes.
Old DOS games can't work on it (e.g. Hocus Pocus, Xatax, Fox Ranger).
Rayman 1 just crashes (I used an extended install, which is everything needed on the HD except the movies, but I have an install with the movies as well)
Other arkanoid type games (Superball Arcade series) don't even start.
And then, Hardwood Hearts (for my own entertainment) ended up freezing and crashing my computer.
Long way away from Marble Blast Gold (although that did run in the background but nothing launched) but yeah, that's just the tests I've done...
Nonetheless, very good updates, can't wait for more. Best of luck!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
An excellent TAS, very entertaining, good stuff in the autoscroller in the spaceship and nice job keeping the player scores close for the end.
Big yes vote, eagerly waiting for more if you plan for any.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
Oh wow, those are great news (ugh, university kept me off).
Would Rayman 1 work? I'd guess Marble Blast Gold, C&C and others aren't, but it's a start. Gotta dig through my games, see which may be possible.
I wonder if Nach will start TASing if RA2 becomes TASable... heh.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(194)
Joined: 10/23/2010
Posts: 49
Location: Australia
- Windows TASing, to some higher degree than current. Get to this and I will camp it until it's done. Otherwise, having Rayman playable properly will make me TAS that instead.
- Ilari's Alien Carnage
- Dolphin produced TASes, any.
- Myself doing Hocus Pocus and finishing off Rayman.
