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Castle adventure done 587.6ms faster.
For info about the game and settings used, see the previous submission: #3675: Truncated's DOS Castle Adventure in 00:20.04

Improvements:

Route change:

Magic Wand is picked after the Key instead of before it. Even if this route has more walking, it saves one room transition (the castle is not euclidean), saving about 208ms total.

Shorter commands:

"GET" is shorter than "TAKE" and does the same thing. Saves about 10.6ms.

Subframe optimization

Using subframe input to move as soon as possible after each event that clears the keyboard buffer (executing extended command or changing room). Saves about 369ms.
turska: Judging.
turska: The speed at which the player can punch keys under TAS conditions makes monsters completely irrelevant. The run becomes an exercise in route planning.
Route planning for clearing the game is not very complex. The map (viewable here [remove dead link]) is static and the objectives are simple and small in number.
Subframe optimization is nice, but it only makes the trivial execution slightly more tedious.
As such, I am rejecting this run for game choice.
turska: Unrejecting under the neo-TASVideos publication system.
turska: Accepting for publication in the Vault.

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Posted: 8/19/2012 1:30 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3678: Ilari & Truncated's DOS Castle Adventure in 00:19.45
Posted: 8/19/2012 1:42 PM
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Nahoc
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Fast...
Posted: 8/19/2012 1:55 PM
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Nach
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At first glance, this game offers nothing in terms of TASing, so I'd say reject reject reject! However, it's not humanly possible to play at this speed, and it's extremely obvious from watching the video, that some tools are needed. I don't think this is the best TAS, I've ever seen. But for <20 seconds, I find it acceptable. Any longer though, it'd have to be rejected for utter lack of entertainment.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 8/19/2012 2:23 PM
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Odongdong
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Sega TAS of 2014
If this TAS is published, it would be 4th shortest run according to Movie Statistics. Yes vote, anyway.
Posted: 8/19/2012 2:55 PM
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moozooh
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Nach wrote:
However, it's not humanly possible to play at this speed, and it's extremely obvious from watching the video, that some tools are needed.
A very confusing, if not completely misguided notion. Would you judge a chess game's speed by the wall time as well, rather than the amount of moves made by the winning player? For discreet turn-based games that force no kind of continuous timing on any of the actions, wall time is close to completely irrelevant. When you play the game you essentially play it in frame advance, so the result is only different when recorded and played back. It's the same as speeding up the hardware to make it accept input and show output faster, or upping the framerate of a video. It might appear faster but the content is the same. This and all other such games should only be judged on the ground of meaningful actions, i.e. turns. Wall time would only matter as the unifying frame of reference that would only be valid if all actions are processed identically throughout and between all TASes done on the same game.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 8/19/2012 2:57 PM
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Nach
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Yes of course you're right moozooh, let's just reject it and be done with it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 8/19/2012 2:59 PM
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moozooh
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I'd prefer something other than a stupid passive-aggressive response, thank you.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 8/19/2012 3:00 PM
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Nach
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moozooh wrote:
I'd prefer something other than a stupid passive-aggressive response, thank you.
Your arguments are correct. You shot down my only reason to accept this game.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 8/19/2012 3:02 PM
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moozooh
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Were there no other reasons you had in mind? Not even route planning?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 8/19/2012 3:03 PM
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Nach
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moozooh wrote:
Were there no other reasons you had in mind? Not even route planning?
I don't see route planning to be TAS worthy in this game. It's like TASing one of those puzzle games were you already know the optimal solution, and just need to enter it as fast as possible.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 8/19/2012 5:05 PM
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mklip2001
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This isn't that interesting, but it is a little impressive. From what it sounded like from Truncated's description in the previous submission, this route is not really feasible in realtime, since monsters would be much more likely to catch up to you and attack you. That makes this run different from something like the Myst DS TAS, which has no strategy changes between realtime and TAS. Another good comparison would be the crazy short RPG runs done by people like MiezaruMono. I would imagine those runs fall into roughly the same boat as this one, except that those runs have more luck manipulation. For what it's worth, I think this is on the boundary, and I'm voting Meh. Thank you, though, for the 20% speed encode!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Posted: 8/19/2012 6:06 PM
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Truncated
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It appears I was wrong about the ratio of route planning to execution in this game. Ilari knew how to input commands between frames. To me (and I'm guessing to a lot of other TASers) the concept of subframe input is a bit alien. He also told me that pressing Keypad2 instead of ArrowDown is faster, since ArrowDown is an extended scancode. So one keypress can be slower than another keypress. Stuff like this should be on one of the JPC-rr pages I think, since it is so different from other systems which TASers here are used to.
moozooh wrote:
This and all other such games should only be judged on the ground of meaningful actions, i.e. turns. Wall time would only matter as the unifying frame of reference that would only be valid if all actions are processed identically throughout and between all TASes done on the same game.
I agree with what you wrote, but this is not a turn-based game. The monsters move in real time and will walk up to you and kill you if you just stand still in a room. If you hammer the keys they will move in slow motion compared to you. Also this version takes more steps than the previous movie, but is still faster because it makes one less room transition, as Ilari wrote in the submission.
Posted: 8/19/2012 6:11 PM
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Nach
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Truncated wrote:
Ilari knew how to input commands between frames. To me (and I'm guessing to a lot of other TASers) the concept of subframe input is a bit alien. He also told me that pressing Keypad2 instead of ArrowDown is faster, since ArrowDown is an extended scancode. So one keypress can be slower than another keypress. Stuff like this should be on one of the JPC-rr pages I think, since it is so different from other systems which TASers here are used to.
Systems rarely have 1 video frame = 1 input frame. They're usually out of sync. Just most of our emulators are mistakenly designed that input changes with video frames.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 8/19/2012 6:20 PM
(Edited: 8/19/2012 6:40 PM)
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Ilari
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Truncated wrote:
Also this version takes more steps than the previous movie, but is still faster because it makes one less room transition, as Ilari wrote in the submission.
Also, the ratio of time it takes to transition between rooms and to take a step is approximately constant (ignoring keyboard clocking effects, which contribute a few microseconds total at most).
Posted: 8/19/2012 6:34 PM
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CoolKirby
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Thank you for providing a 60 fps encode! It was easier to figure out what was happening just from that without the 20% speed encode (which I watched anyway). I still like how fast this run completes the game. It's entertaining because it's short and crazy fast; there's a lot happening in less than 20 seconds. Still a Yes vote.
Posted: 8/19/2012 6:44 PM
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Ilari
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CoolKirby wrote:
Thank you for providing a 60 fps encode!
It is ~70fps, not 60fps. The dump I have is 1000fps (made using hacked version of the emulator). The 20% version is made by making 150fps video and setting framerate to 30fps (and also slowing down the audio to match).
Posted: 8/19/2012 7:17 PM
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CoolKirby
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Oh, well I just meant it's a much higher framerate than the YouTube encode of the last submission (which I assume was forced down to 30 fps) and I appreciate seeing every frame of the run.
Posted: 8/19/2012 9:45 PM
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Zavalix
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I guess this one is comparable to Shadowgate but the obvious difference is the glitches. Both games have solid objectives to advance (get a key to open a door, get a certain item to kill a certain monster, etc). Problem is, in here it's not THAT impressive... but other than that, I don't see what's the problem to accept this movie (there's a different route too so it's not a frame war)... and come on, being 20 seconds long I'm sure it's not a pain to watch it.
Posted: 8/19/2012 10:07 PM
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Radiant
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Very nice work! The funny thing is, I was thinking of TAS'ing this game just last week, and now you've beat me to it. And yes, I think route planning makes for a valid TAS. Yes vote; we need more games from this era. Who's up for Alley Cat? :)
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Posted: 8/20/2012 9:10 AM
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moozooh
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Truncated wrote:
I agree with what you wrote, but this is not a turn-based game. The monsters move in real time and will walk up to you and kill you if you just stand still in a room. If you hammer the keys they will move in slow motion compared to you.
Oh, I stand corrected then.
Truncated wrote:
He also told me that pressing Keypad2 instead of ArrowDown is faster, since ArrowDown is an extended scancode. So one keypress can be slower than another keypress. [...] Also this version takes more steps than the previous movie, but is still faster because it makes one less room transition, as Ilari wrote in the submission.
This I just don't appreciate at all. It makes sense technically but feels too disconnected from TASing the game rather than TASing and optimizing the vast complexity of the combination that is DOS/x86 PC. It also doesn't help that the emulated system has no solid hardware specs to have a reference processing speed, so basically optimizations like this can't even be called taking advantage of the specific hardware traits, unlike what is most often the case with non-PC systems. At this point it would be easier for everyone if the emulator were hacked into processing all scancodes at the same rate.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 8/20/2012 9:20 AM
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Patashu
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Radiant wrote:
Very nice work! The funny thing is, I was thinking of TAS'ing this game just last week, and now you've beat me to it. And yes, I think route planning makes for a valid TAS. Yes vote; we need more games from this era. Who's up for Alley Cat? :)
Alley Cat TAS hnnnghhh When will it be out
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Posted: 8/20/2012 7:37 PM
Post subject: I've never played this game but I give this TAS a Yes vote!
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dwangoAC
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I've never actually played this game. Having said that, I definitely enjoyed the run and I give it a hearty Yes vote. I played a lot of PC games of this type and I have a lot of nostalgia for them. In this particular case, TAS-worthy tricks such as ensuring keystrokes happen as fast as possible to prevent monster movement plus techniques that would not be used in realtime runs (skipping getting any offensive weapons) make this easy to vote Yes for. After all, it's only 20 seconds long. Admittedly, I'm still working on the NetHack run with ais523 and it's a similar type of feel so I may be biased but I'd be sad if this didn't get published. A.C. ******
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Posted: 8/21/2012 5:01 AM
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Tangent
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Voted nay. With input speed making monsters a non-issue, it becomes seemingly entirely pathfinding, which is too trivial a reason. To me, most people don't seem too impressed by the movie and admit that it's not interesting, but excuse it due to the short length. The game can be easily beaten in just a couple minutes even without TASing anyway. There's no luck manipulation or glitches. There are a number of these Adventure clones as well with little different between them than the map. A poor game choice remains that to me regardless of the length. /$.02
Posted: 8/23/2012 6:17 PM
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TASVideosGrue
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Posted: 11/3/2012 6:40 AM
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CoolKirby
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Why was this immediately accepted? No one even posted yet. I thought it was decided that this run isn't technically impressive because anyone could do the same thing in the same amount of time in real-time.
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