This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3490: goofydylan8's NES Gargoyle's Quest II: The Demon Darkness in 28:54.68

where to get 2.1.6?

where to get 2.1.6?

To my knowledge it is going to be released in about a week or so. This is a link to their source forge page though if you want to compile it yourself. I haven't tried but I would think it would sync fine with 2.1.5 old ppu.

Syncs on 2.1.5 "Old PPU"

  File: Gargoyle's Quest II - The Demon Darkness (U).nes
CRC-32: da7a9f89
   MD4: c1678e78803e9b7a9b132d8ecc0a875c
   MD5: 8ea7a1b1552d55b42163c27a7efc0800
 SHA-1: 2380b3439b2f1ea98d63db99758671fa8faf601c

http://code.google.com/p/feos-tas/downloads/detail?name=fceux-r2411.7z On movie: no action, totally boring. Meh vote.

ah, i just used 2.1.5. goofydylan8, do you mind if i quote your 'comments' so i can post the information to my blog?

Link to video

ah, i just used 2.1.5. goofydylan8, do you mind if i quote your 'comments' so i can post the information to my blog?

That's fine. If you want a slightly more legitimate quote you could look for one who is actually on the fceux team because I am not actually connected, I just am a user. Also thanks for the encode.

This is probably one of my favorite NES games to casually play. I tried speedrunning it myself on console with fairly bad results. If I ever got the chance to actually learn to TAS, I would want to run this game. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that you made this run, goofydylan8! However, I can't watch it until I'm home from work. I'll add comments later. By the way, could you provide some details about how to maximize the horizontal distance you get from flying with limited wing power? I could never really figure out if it made more sense to keep starting and stopping flight or just to fly in one continuous motion. (This is important for the big gap you have to cross on the way to Desert Sittem.)

I'm not convinced that the movement is fully optimized here -- for example, when returning from the desert you fly over a platform that you could have walked on, which implies that you jumped a bit high, which in turn means you were using the slower horizontal speed of jumping rather than the faster speed of walking/hovering. Similarly when backtracking across the broken bridge shortly thereafter -- it seems like it would be preferable to land on some of the moving platforms rather than jump so high. But I can believe that optimizing movement for this game would be a royal pain and I don't think it's worth going back to change these areas. Other thoughts: it doesn't seem like it takes very long to switch weapons. It might have been worth using the tornado in the cave after getting the Candle of Lethe -- you have to go out of your way to get to a ledge to jump up from when you could have just made a platform. I enjoyed watching it, though I'm familiar with the game. It's almost a point-for-point remake of the Gameboy version though. Also kinda weird how the ghouls are deathly allergic to UV. Oh well. Nice work! mklip: I would assume that rapidly toggling flight would get you more distance than just holding it, but that assumption relies on: * starting hovering immediately stops your vertical velocity and immediately starts you on "flying" horizontal speed (per goofydylan, 1px/frame). * starting/stopping hovering doesn't cost any extra from your flight meter The reasoning behind this is simply that gravity accelerates you downwards, which means that you can "glide" for a bit after stopping hovering. This gets you decent horizontal distance coverage without sacrificing too much vertical distance. If you use all of your flight meter at once and then fall for the remainder then you have a much worse glide ratio (horizontal distance : vertical distance). Thus your best option (for maximizing distance) would be to toggle flight on and off as fast as possible such that you are just barely above your destination when you reach it.

By the way, could you provide some details about how to maximize the horizontal distance you get from flying with limited wing power? I could never really figure out if it made more sense to keep starting and stopping flight or just to fly in one continuous motion. (This is important for the big gap you have to cross on the way to Desert Sittem.)

The biggest key is actually to just put off flight for the last possible moment. Falling after you have used the wings at all causes gravity to work more powerful on you, so if you were to turn on the wings and fly straight the frame after you started falling from a jump and then did the same thing but waited 5 or so extra frames you would be able to make it further. Whether or not you alternate on-off the wings actually does not have any effect on the distance you travel so the only control you have over it is how high you jump initially and how long after hitting the peak height do you decide to start flying. Also I have to admit that the way that I discovered this game was through your signature so you actually were the inspiration for the run so I hope you enjoy.

I'm not convinced that the movement is fully optimized here -- for example, when returning from the desert you fly over a platform that you could have walked on, which implies that you jumped a bit high, which in turn means you were using the slower horizontal speed of jumping rather than the faster speed of walking/hovering. Similarly when backtracking across the broken bridge shortly thereafter -- it seems like it would be preferable to land on some of the moving platforms rather than jump so high. But I can believe that optimizing movement for this game would be a royal pain and I don't think it's worth going back to change these areas.

I am not sure what effect jumping over the platform there did. It couldn't have added more than a frame but you may be correct. I tried to test every jump so there is a slight chance that it didn't lose any time as it was one of the frames where x-movement occured at the same time as y. On the return across the broken bridge I know jumping so high over the platforms was faster. This is due to the large amount of lag that occurs when moving items are present on screen. In that case it became apparent that jumping way higher got the moving platforms out of frame and reduced a lot of lag.

Other thoughts: it doesn't seem like it takes very long to switch weapons. It might have been worth using the tornado in the cave after getting the Candle of Lethe -- you have to go out of your way to get to a ledge to jump up from when you could have just made a platform. I enjoyed watching it, though I'm familiar with the game. It's almost a point-for-point remake of the Gameboy version though. Also kinda weird how the ghouls are deathly allergic to UV. Oh well. Nice work!

It only takes 3 frames to switch weapons so not a very long time at all (4 if you have to use A on the first frame back). You are probably correct on this aspect. I am glad you enjoyed it. And hey, sunburns are uncomfortable. I am sure that would be a mild nuisance to go through.

I had to vote Meh. While you can visibly see the execution is bang on for a TAS, it's incredibly slow and plodding... quite honestly bored me after 5 minutes. Just not my cup of tea to be honest. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

I actually really enjoyed it. I was a bit slow paced at times, but it held my interest. Yes vote.

Alright, I finally watched this. I'm glad I was able to inspire this run. (In fact, I removed mention of the run from my sig because it got done!) However, I'm not yet sure what to vote. First of all, there are definitely some very nice parts:

• Not taking damage is very tricky to do in this game, given how the enemy layout tends to require tricky movements. Some boss fights look especially good, such as King Breager and Goza. I also liked the dual creature fight in Mt. Imaus.
• You jumped off of spikes sometimes (a couple times in Mt. Imaus by the pillars, and once in the last stage). That was cool.
• Fighting bosses right in front of their faces is impressive, given that Firebrand moves too slowly to do effective dodging in many cases.

Things that I'm not really sure with:

• By avoiding damage, you noticeably slow down in the forest stage to dodge obstacles. I probably would've taken damage to boost through, but you're welcome to your stylistic choice.
• With the Mt. Imaus boss, I'm curious whether it would be faster to get in one creature's face first and fire very quickly. The other can then be made to fly at you and be close up for more shots.

And now, the parts that I'm pretty sure can be done better:

• As Derakon mentions, Tornado is pretty under-utilized. It would definitely make the big vertical shaft in Mt. Imaus faster (you just ride a levitating platform during that part), and I'm pretty sure it would speed up Naga's Path at the end.
• I've gotten Doppleganger to stay his true self two turns in a row and avoid firing a fireball. That would speed up that fight tremendously.
• Can the Desert Sittem boss be manipulated to avoid creating the little mini-things? I'm pretty sure he's invincible for less time when he does his dash.
• When rising up big shafts with Tornado or Claw, you tend to use a maximum-height jump and zip up to the top of the platform you created. Since you decelerate to a slow speed at the top, wouldn't it be faster to make more shorter jumps?

In any case, you've taken a fairly clunky game and made it look pretty good. I'm not sure if it's improvable enough to vote Meh at this point. I will say, though, that if you attempt an improvement of any of this, I'd be thrilled to offer support and observations (I didn't know you were making this run until today... :-( ).

In any case, you've taken a fairly clunky game and made it look pretty good. I'm not sure if it's improvable enough to vote Meh at this point. I will say, though, that if you attempt an improvement of any of this, I'd be thrilled to offer support and observations (I didn't know you were making this run until today... :-( ).

I am going to start over due to your and a few other complaints. It is sort of a miserable game to go through but it seems like I made enough mistakes that it could potentially be a noticeable improvement and due to the clunkiness no one else would probably make one for a while so I don't want a long-term improvable movie on the site. Plus my spring break started today and I do not have the funds to do fun things this week so I will probably be back within a week or two. And I did post 3 WIP here. I would be extremely pleased if you would comment on them if I posted WIP's. If you have any other suggestions please post them in that thread. Hopefully those of you who voted yes will feel the same in a week and those who voted Meh will be more pleased then.

om, nom, nom... 'twas dry

Sure, I'll help out your new run! I definitely think the new run will be at least good enough to be published with a couple strategy changes. Further posts for now will go in the thread you linked.