Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
I know this game have been discussed before here but I think Little Samson deserves a thread of its own.
Anyway I'm working on it and you can see my progress here. Please say what you think; can it be improved somewhere? Is something done wrong? Don't be afraid of cynicism, it's just good. ;)
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
This movie, to my untrained eye, is the supreme tightness. I have never ever played the game and don't know what any mistakes would be, but this looks waaaaay better than Sjoerd's movie already. I especially love all the rapid-fire character switching.
FYI, you're around 1:04 faster than him already.
-Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
I really like this so far. I got to agree with Josh, the switching characters quickly to get the greatest advantage out of their powers is great! I can't wait to see this completed!
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Thanks for the coments! :D
Making the movie isn't going to fast, there is alot of hard jumps and tricky situations so you'll probably have to wait a while till it's done :/
I will post updates later on so you'll have something to watch during your waiting ;)
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
This was nice, and has a lot of potential. But I think it can be done even better. Some ideas:
* In Samson's level, you jump later than neccesary going upward. For example at 840 (first jump), 1030, 1090, 1460.
* At 1310 it looks like you could have done one longer jump instead of two small.
* When going downward, you should jump as high as possible, and so that there is no gap beween the end of the platform and yourself when you pass it. This doesn't appear to be the case at 2340, 2420, 2500, 2600, and so on.
* Also when falling, don't "hug the wall", stay a bit away from it and time it so you have some speed when passing the ceiling instead of starting from 0.
* From 13740 onward, there seems to be a bit of lag as you jump over the flowers with the mouse. Perhaps you could bomb some of them or their shots so there aren't that many shots on screen later?
* On the first boss, you switch to the dragon too early I think. Since you can't shoot directly anyway, it's faster to run towards him with the mouse and switch to the dragon halfway.
* On his second form, can't you start laying new bombs earlier, after your last set explodes? It looks like you wait too long.
* At 18250, it looks like you stay as Samson too long. Switch to the mouse earlier. (Perhaps it's not possible while a shot is in the air?)
* Very bad cornercut at 19350-ish, no need to jump so late.
* Before the water boss, you switch to the stone man, they you don't use him and switch directly to the mouse again. Huh? (Am I missing something here?)
* At the water boss you place the first set of bombs very high. Is there a reason for this? Why not place them direcly at the bottom so they hit the boss as it's moving upward?
* 22170 doesn't seem like a neccesary switch either, but I might be wrong. Jump differently somehow.
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Thanks for you effort Truncated, here are some answers:
Truncated wrote:
In Samson's level, you jump later than necessary going upward. For example at 840 (first jump), 1030, 1090, 1460.
I see your point. I don't loose time there but it would look better. Point taken.
Truncated wrote:
At 1310 it looks like you could have done one longer jump instead of two small.
The wall jumping is quite strange in this game; after a certain point the speed in which you're move upward decreases dramatically. That is why I do as I do. There is a possibility that I could have planed the entire shaft better so I wouldn't have needed that last jump. I'll check it out.
Truncated wrote:
When going downward, you should jump as high as possible, and so that there is no gap between the end of the platform and yourself when you pass it. This doesn't appear to be the case at 2340, 2420, 2500, 2600, and so on.
The word acceleration is unknown to this game, the moment I start moving down I've reached top speed so soon that I doubt it would be faster. Checking that out too.
Truncated wrote:
Also when falling, don't "hug the wall", stay a bit away from it and time it so you have some speed when passing the ceiling instead of starting from 0
As I said, there is nothing like acceleration. I'm at top speed as soon as I've started moving forward. Maybe it would look better though.
Truncated wrote:
From 13740 onward, there seems to be a bit of lag as you jump over the flowers with the mouse. Perhaps you could bomb some of them or their shots so there aren't that many shots on screen later?
There are some slowdowns when all the flowers fire at the same time and it wouldn't be possible to destroy all the seeds at once. The "lag" you see when I jump is a stop for one frame so I won't touch the flower.
Truncated wrote:
On the first boss, you switch to the dragon too early I think. Since you can't shoot directly anyway, it's faster to run towards him with the mouse and switch to the dragon halfway.
You are right. I haven't thought of that earlier (damn).
Truncated wrote:
On his second form, can't you start laying new bombs earlier, after your last set explodes? It looks like you wait too long.
The big problem with this giant is those shots he fire. The seem too lock on too you before they are fired. I have those short delays so I can lure away those eyes or whatever they are.
Truncated wrote:
At 18250, it looks like you stay as Samson too long. Switch to the mouse earlier. (Perhaps it's not possible while a shot is in the air?)
Correct. This can be seen in some more places.
Truncated wrote:
Very bad corner cut at 19350-ish, no need to jump so late.
True, no need to but I don't loose anything on it either. I don't see what is bad with it, please explain.
Truncated wrote:
Before the water boss, you switch to the stone man, they you don't use him and switch directly to the mouse again. Huh? (Am I missing something here?)
I knew someone would ask this. You see, it's a matter of luck manipulation. In order to get the Water Jin to stay above the water long enough for me too kill him, that was the only solution I found. (And believe me, I tried for a very loooong time)
Truncated wrote:
At the water boss you place the first set of bombs very high. Is there a reason for this? Why not place them directly at the bottom so they hit the boss as it's moving upward?
The Water Jin is invulnerable until he's reached his highest point, that's why.
Truncated wrote:
22170 doesn't seem like a necessary switch either, but I might be wrong. Jump differently somehow
The skeleton part… this has so far been the most difficult part to get past. There were to ways of doing this, either fly above them all or do as I did. The reason I use the Golem to kill that skeleton is that if I land even a few pixels later I will jump up and get hit by the skeleton on the ledge above. That is also the reason for staying as Golem for longer than it seems necessary.
Conclusion: There are some things that need to be re-done. Do people think I should redo the movie from scratch? Thanks for you observations!
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
I would suggest testing to see how many of these suggested mistakes actually waste time. If one of them is early on, I would redo it from there. But that's just me.
-Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Same thing here. There's another small jump at the bottom of this complex, which you miss in the same fashion.
The word acceleration is unknown to this game, the moment I start moving down I've reached top speed so soon that I doubt it would be faster. Checking that out too.
I'm pretty sure this isn't correct. I can even see the character gaining speed as he falls at 100%. You might be right about the horizontal acceleration though.
>Very bad corner cut at 19350-ish, no need to jump so late.
True, no need to but I don't loose anything on it either. I don't see what is bad with it, please explain.
Jumping late means low jump, which means low speed as you pass the corner. A higher jump means you have max downward speed earlier. I can draw some more pictures:
There are some slowdowns when all the flowers fire at the same time and it wouldn't be possible to destroy all the seeds at once.
I was thinking maybe you could bomb the flowers before they shoot at all. But if you say there is no slowdown anyway this isn't neccesary.
Correct. This can be seen in some more places.
Which one was correct - that you switched too late or that you can't switch with shots in the air? If you can't, don't shoot that much, just the ones you need to get past. As it is now you shoot everyone, I don't think that's neccesary.
There are some things that need to be re-done. Do people think I should redo the movie from scratch?
Sooner or later, yes. I don't think this will pass the judges as it is now. If you want to continue to try out the new levels first (and get comments on them), or do it right from the start directly, is really up to you.
What I would do is finish up what you have, and then restart it using your version 1 as a reference to see how much faster version 2 is. That's what I do, generally.
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Truncated: After a few trials I've seen that I was mistaken. You were right at every point. Sorry I was stuborn.
I will finish this movie but I won't submit it. I'll follow Dan_'s sugestion.
Thanks everyone!
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
Joined: 3/21/2004
Posts: 32
Location: the Netherlands
Been away for a long while and I don't have any emulators and roms on my new PC yet, so I haven't seen your work so far. I'm the guy who made the movie at speedruns.org (which seems to have disappeared) which I think looked cool, but was definitely far from perfect.
It seems you're doing a pretty good job at it, so I wish you the best of luck. I don't think I could stand to do a perfect run for this game. ;-P Once I get my tools sorted out here I'll be sure to check your movie. It's a great game both to play and to look at.
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Jay! After hours of tries I'm finaly done with the "invisible blocks level". Also the Green Skull boss is defeted. The new updates can be found here.
I think I'm past the hardest level in the entire game now. Please give your reflections.
Edit: High speed progress here. New level added.
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
it looks nicely done, i think some of switching is un-needed. (ie, switching between samson and mice while climbing on wall, both have ability to climb on wall?)
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
ventuz wrote:
it looks nicely done, i think some of switching is un-needed. (ie, switching between samson and mice while climbing on wall, both have ability to climb on wall?)
That is true, but samson moves almost twise as fast with his jumping up walls.
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
This game sure is hard. I work from time too time and I'm now up too the Dragon boss (The pruple mage) but I can't seem too kill him fast enough (Gah!). That's about it.
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
I was wondering if you could give us any updates as to your progress? I like what I see so far!
Just tinkering with the purple mage I used the dragon for both forms (betting you could do the 'get hit and spam the mouse's attack' tactic for the 1st part of the mage). But then for the dragon, I charged up the dragon as he showed up and shot him for ~2 bars of damage then shot around till I think until he made a 2nd charge. After that 2nd charge his head was right at the perfect spot for the fire attack (about 1/3-1/4 of the way down the screen) and I was able to sit on the top most block and spam the dragons attack and did atleast 1/2 of his health pretty quickly. Not sure if this is the quickest way, but perhaps it could spark some more ideas and discussions.
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Well, I'm done with that dragon in the fastest way I could find. Thanks for those tipps Zalien, it helped a bit. New update can be found here. Or you could use the old links as well, since I just swap files :P
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
So, here is a complete run. (Link)
Time is 0:17:56 and rerecord count 10461.
I won't submit this one due to some serius flaws I've discovered and I've found some new tricks that will probably kill some bosses even faster. ;)
I'd like those who watch the movie to point out anything that you think I might have missed. Thanks!
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
