Post by ThunderAxe31

Posted: 7/29/2017 3:32 PM

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Exonym

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So I think I saved time on stage 6? At frame 52870 of the current movie, I flame dashed to the right, then climbed that wall, and somehow I came out ahead by about 2 frames. Of course the ceiling clips later desync, so not entirely sure about it, but perhaps there are similar locations that something like this could be faster. Don't have as much time to look over it as I would like at the moment.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 7/30/2017 1:20 AM

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FatRatKnight

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So this is something that implements that flame charge. 4 frames. Well, it is initially 2 frames right after that flame charge. Not sure where I got more frames. Added a little more information relating to frame rules whenever we enter a stage. Select presses indicate frames we're delayed thanks to the 4-frame animation rule.

Posted: 7/30/2017 10:32 PM

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ThunderAxe31

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9 frames saved in Stage 13 (missile boss re-fight). Desyncs after the boss dialogue. I initially thought to have found an use for the whirlwind weapon, but I was wrong. It's just crap. The tasproj file also contains a branch that features an attempt for an ever faster route. Probably impossible to complete, but I've left it just in case...

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 7/31/2017 3:40 AM

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FatRatKnight

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Probably impossible, you say? Well, at least it isn't definitely impossible. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made the route. Whirlwind weapon spawns a bunch of sprites, so finding spots where it doesn't lag might be difficult. If nothing else, at least it is a cheap 2-hit 4-damage boss fighting weapon, but it still likes to lag and cause actions of minimal style to mitigate the lag. It also happens to have negative value in Stage 5 just having it.

Posted: 8/1/2017 8:53 PM
(Edited: 8/23/2017 10:41 AM)

Post subject: Some side notes...

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ThunderAxe31

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Although the submission day is not quite close, I'm doing some researches about Mega Man X, the main game from which this Zook Man ZX4 ~~stolen~~ got inspiration, and it looks like there are some names that should be corrected in both the submission text and the resource page. The source I'm using is the Mega Man wikia. Correct names of upgrades: Armor Parts (referring generically to upgrades), Helmet Part, Body Part, Arm Part, Leg Part. ~~I also note that the term "Miniboss" may be confusing and should be replaced with something like "Mid-boss".~~ What do you think about these names? Are they correct/appropriate? Also, are there any suggestions for other corrections? About the movie file, here are some notes about cosmetic choices that I advice: - Globally: kill as many enemies as possible - Globally: try killing enemies with less shots possible - Globally: avoid getting hit when possible - Stage 0, Segment 0: try to remove any music-breaking sound - Stage 0, Segment 1: improve entertaining in midboss fight - Stage 0, Segment 4: improve entertaining and avoid getting hit while luring the enemy for boss skip - Stage 8, Segment 5: improve entertaining in midboss fight - Stage 6, Segment 8: improve entertaining and avoid getting hit in boss fight - Stage 2, Segment 11: avoid getting hit in boss fight - Stage 9, Segment 1: improve entertaining and avoid getting hit in boss fight Lastly, we should publish on the resource page a wch file with all the addresses known, even the apparently useless ones. Edit: about the submission text, I'm going to rewrite most sections, ~~except~~ for the level-by-level comments (which consist in the most of the text) because I think FatRatKnight is already explaining these good and has more view about the matter than anyone. Edit 2: some parts of the level-by-level comments will need to be updated/corrected as well.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/5/2017 12:06 PM

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lapogne36

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5 frames improvement over boss 3 re-fight by not using the Spike (and so not refilling it), and instead using some charged Missiles/Stars as well as a lagless charged Groud Spike.

Posted: 8/5/2017 8:28 PM

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FatRatKnight

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We need a grand total of 8 Star ammo across all our boss skips, and using 4 here puts us at a deficit of 1 we must fix one way or another. I would recommend changing the opening attack. That said, lag free meteors are always welcome. A reminder on our ammo availability without refills: Damage / Hits ??/?? - Flame is easiest to recharge itself with, though apparently I had trouble and used an Ammo Tank anyway. Improvements mean different drops 40/10 - Whirlwind can 2-hit with 4 damage each on 2 ammo 20/_5 - Dirt. Projected without laginite meteors. Getting lag-free meteors helps this number 12/_4 - Bubble. We're using the barrier in several spots, leaving only 2 ammo for other things 22/_4 - Missile has those 6 damage charged shots that are nice, and can easily use up 11 ammo _9/_2 - Star is needed on skips, so we're down 8 ammo. That leaves... A 6-damage charge and 3 damage regular 32/_4 - Spikeball is fancy stuff, but we still need Charge Swap barriers at the end, so we can't leave this at negative ammo _0/_0 - Laser is desperately short on ammo for lock breaks. 133/165 damage accounted for, across 29/33 hits, from our starter ammo stocks. If that was one hit with the meteors, 135/165 across 28/33 hits accounted for. Hard to tell exactly what I'm getting out of ammo drops. In picking an optimal path through s11, I ended up using the dirt weapon and forcibly getting a refill for it there, so that's potentially 16 ammo for it. Meaning +12 damage and +3 hits without meteors. Has there been any checks in trying to get meteors working lag-free on the s9 or s13 re-fights?

Posted: 8/5/2017 9:56 PM

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ThunderAxe31

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*quick post before going bed* 1) If you burned out too much flame ammo, then just don't use it aganist boss 1 re-fight 2) I found how to trigger shot counter glitch with water barrier. It was very simple, really. Now we can avoid opening menu for charge swapping from water to flame weapon, which will save about a second in total.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/5/2017 11:11 PM

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lapogne36

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Stage 9 boss 4 frames faster (due to skipping his text 4 frames sooner...) Now what is interesting is the ammo I used. 1 Flame (instead of 2 on previous wip), 2 Whirlwind (8 left to use), 2 Bubble (no more to use, which is good), 6 Missile (5 left to use), and last but not least, 4 Dirt (lagless Meteor double hit !!, 6 left to use). I think a Meteor double hit might also be possible on stage 11, but definitely not on stage 13 (the boss will never be on the left of the screen).

Posted: 8/6/2017 8:50 AM

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FatRatKnight

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If we can get double hits on both meteors, that increases our 20/5 of single hit uncharged shots to 44/5, with four hits of 10 damage and one hit of 4 damage using leftover ammo on uncharged shot. If we can't double-hit, a single hit of 10 is still more efficient than two hits of 4, so we'd have 34/4 in that case, still better. If we can get a second double hit off the meteors, that accounts for 157/165 damage across 29/33 hits. That's actually good enough without refills or using the flame weapon right there, as we can use the remaining hits on basic charged shots essentially for free. Well, except that I do need a dirt weapon and a missile weapon for stage enemies, so that skews things.

Posted: 8/6/2017 11:50 AM

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ThunderAxe31

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Ok now explaing things better. When the last barrier wears off, the shot count gets set to 0, so if in that moment there is already one or more shots on screen, when these will disappear as well the shot counter will get negative. The ~~new~~ thing I found is... a third way to trigger the shot counter glitch... which is actually already used. At 37071 (s5 Segment 0), the very first enemy is damaged by touching our flame barrier. Apparently, charge swapping from Bubble to another weapon turns the barrier animation in an actual bullet, that moves together with Zook and will disappear when touching an enemy, dealing 1 damage and lowering the shot count by 1. The news is that you can do this after having used the other metod I mentioned, in order to lower the shot count even more, at will. But be careful, because swapping from bubble barrier to other weapons can cause game crash depending on the moment is done. Here is a .tasproject file demonstrating it: https://filebin.net/kpcjzj4pplmzu9h2/ZM_s9doublemeteor.bk2.tasproj ~~Sorry for not re-syncing the rest of the movie... Just say if you want me to do it...~~ Edit: I'm re-syncing stage 5, so wait for me ok? By the way, why didn't you make a smaller jump and grabbed the ladder at 40020 (s5 Segment 8)?

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/7/2017 3:35 AM

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FatRatKnight

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Stage 5 is improved 16 frames. Before I forget, the route change at the corner between Segments 7 & 8 was inspired from watching a DTC6 team. I forget who, but it definitely isn't Team 4. The Charge Swap thing with barriers is documented as Fragile Barrier over in Game Resources. The reason why I didn't grab the ladder in the older route (new route makes the point moot) was because we were far too close to the top of the camera. For ceiling clip to work through three solid tiles, we need a particular camera position. Additionally, we're actually high enough at that moment that wall jumps will not work, we lose that along with ceiling collisions for being too high. EDIT: Some notes about switching weapons with an existing barrier... Object stats offset +0x10 is the important thing to look at. It is essentially the animation counter of the weapon. It tends to increment every 4 frames (some type of animation frame rule, based on when it came into existence). This thing helps the game decide what next sprite to use, modifying offset +0x08 as appropriate. The game assumes the animations of whatever weapon you equipped, not as the projectile of the original weapon. Each weapon has a different animation length. Bubble has a pretty long animation length, so it can get to some pretty high numbers. Flame has fewer. If you switch from bubble to flame at a moment +0x10 is too high, we're past the end of the animation table for flame, it grabs a buggy sprite index for flame, which is in the thousands when it shouldn't usually exceed two digits, and since that doesn't lead to a workable pointer, the game promptly crashes. I don't know about hitboxes of these glitchy index values, it might be possible to get some oversized boxes that instantly hit something before it has a chance to draw the game crashing sprite. More exploration might be needed. However, it is also possible to select numbers where the game instead puts a zero into offset +0x08. This actually disables the projectile without properly destroying it, and removing a projectile like this will not decrement our shot counter. Some animations (like ones described as Gone Barrier) actually destructs the projectile "naturally," removing it and reducing our shot counter as well. This sort of glitching can take a bit of exploring and mapping. Offset 0x10 is our important thing to pay attention to. I recommend finding local function DoBllt in my basic script and adjusting a number in there to show it.

Posted: 8/11/2017 4:42 PM
(Edited: 8/14/2017 10:39 AM)

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ThunderAxe31

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Stage 3 resynced. Since the luck manipulation in segment 6 got much harder, and I don't find the current scripts good enough for RNG monitoring, I've written a new one from scratch. It shows on the game screen an overlay list of all the 32 possible drops, indicating which is the current one. I think it's very handy. Have it here: RNG Overlay The rest of the stage synced fine without having to change anything. For the boss battle, I've done some minor changes in order to avoid getting hit. Apart from these things, I've tried doing some improvements, especially about the new Shot Counter Glitch strategy, but I didn't find any way to trigger it without wasting huge amounts of time... So it's very unlikely that this stage could be improved any further. By the way, next stage is 6, and will surely get some nice improvements, especially by triggering Shot Counter Glitch for ~~improving the miniboss fight.~~ Actually, not even a frame can be saved on the miniboss. Maybe some in the save segment before it.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/12/2017 12:13 AM

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FatRatKnight

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Based on what I can remember, Bubble Barrier is first used on the segment transition 0->1. It is refreshed during a particularly awkward moment where I'm inside an enemy hitbox near the top of Segment 1, where the first barrier ends and the first HP of the second barrier is immediately consumed. The second barrier runs out for some lengthy time before the third is up, and I think I did another Flame Charge in between, so finding a way to glitch that Shot Counter here is going to be rather tricky without a new route. If you find a way, that I will find impressive. Keeping sync at all with the 16 frames difference is still going to be helpful regardless. I'm guessing you had difficulty with my basic script? I prefer a more compact RNG display, this one along the bottom of the screen. Then again, my scripts rely on taking a few moments to get used to them, as I rarely append identifying words to the display. Sorry about basically dropping things, I've had a busy week.

Posted: 8/12/2017 11:16 AM

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ThunderAxe31

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I already managed to trigger the Shot Counter Glitch, I even managed to get it to -2... Too bad this didn't help with the miniboss at all, since the current WIP is already charging the second attack while the miniboss is still invicible. I also tried replacing the first attack with a charged missile, but when swapping to laser the game crashes, just as repored on the resource page. About the script, it's just that I like highly-friendly interfaces. I'm noob inside. Now with the news: have you noticed how using Flame Dash cancels the Shot Counter Glitch? Well, I found a way to avoid losing it. Just fire some shots before changing to Fire weapon and charging. When the Flame Dash starts, it sets the Shot Count to 1, and then when it ends it sets it to 0. But if after the Flame Dash ended there are still some of your bullets on screen, these will trigger the Shot Counter Glitch again when they disappear. I've tried triggering Shot Counter Glitch by using Fire shots alone, but it was impossible, because the shot disappeared off screen before the Flame Dash ended. For the moment I only managed to do it with Spikeball shotsm by having the Shot Counter Glitch already active before Flame Dashing. Maybe Missiles and Fragile Barrier will work as well. Edit: here you can download a .tasproj that documents what I've said: https://filebin.net/9tjnod8saldiqcv2/ZM_s6ShotCounterGlitch.tasproj The fourth branch features Shot Counter Glitch re-triggered after firing Charged Laser, after Bubble shots; if you use Spikeball shots first intead, you get Zook freezed in place forever. Edit 2: miniboss killed, 6 frames saved. 4 frames saved thanks to Shot Counter Glitch triggered by barrier, and 2 more frames saved in segment 2 thanks to a new strategy. Desyncs after beating miniboss. Edit 3: Looks like my new strategy that saved 2 frames in segment 2, but made lose 1 frame and 1 X screen pixel. Here is a .tasproj file if you're interested to analyze: https://filebin.net/8h27620je3pobh46/ZM_s6seg4tests.tasproj Since in segment 4 we're much close to the right edge of the screen, it could be problematic to handle some collisions and drops, so I've prepared 3 extra routes with 1, 2, and 3 less X Zook pixels. All these are present as TAStudio branches in that file. Edit 4: Stage 6 almost done... 7 frames saved until segment 5. Edit 5: Zook Man ZX4 - Stage 6 clear, stage select in 56280. Because of frame rules, I lost 4 frames in Segment 6. But I may have done something wrong there. Need someone to double check for possible improvements. Edit 6: total of 12 frames saved in Stage 6. Edit 7: Resynced Stage 1 after the 8 frames improvement in Stage 7 by keylie. Edit 8: Resynced Stage 4 until miniboss. Edit 9: keylie Resynced Stage 4 completely. Also added two improvements in Stage 5, respectively 2 and 5 frames, but still need to resync because a Shot Counter Glitch usage got broken. I found a 1 frame save in Stage 8, but boss battle needs to be resynced. Edit 10: In case someone is wondering about the 2 lag frame introduced with the improvement by keylie, I have to tell that even if you avoid them, they will pop out in another place. Here is the proof: https://filebin.net/7nxu52764otjrp1z/ZM_s4failedlagsave.tasproj Edit 11: Resynced Stage 3 by keylie. 2 frames were saved, but it didn't get to the dialog rule. Edit 12: I want to save another lag frame in Stage 3, segment 7. For this reason, I reworked segment 6 in order to get Flame ammo replenished completely earlier... Though I was still unable to save the lag frame. Someone help please: download movie Edit 13: keylie managed to save that Stage 3 lag frame. Edit 14: Stage 6 resynced, but not the boss battle. Edit 15: Stage 6 boss resynced. Now we have to look Stage 2 thorough for possible improvements. Edit 16: keylie improved Stage 2, then I improved it further, by saving about 10-11 more frames. Segment 8 and the boss fight need to be resynced though. Here is a .tasproj file: https://filebin.net/m3fn5qm1nu14sqmz/ZM_s2bosstosync_29.tasproj *Note* that there are 2 improvements branches: the first is 1 frame faster, but is slightly less likely to be resynced. Edit 17: keylie finished resyncing Stage 2. Stage select at 62358 (-9 frames) Edit 18: I remember FatRatKnight saying that the first boss-refight couldn't skipped because the enemy to make spawn was just a mare 1 pixel away. We gotta try hard to get that pixel.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/23/2017 7:51 PM

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FatRatKnight

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Let's look over the re-fight skips... 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th are all skipped, and we can just do what was recorded already. So that leaves the three. 1st - Only two enemies in range to spawn. Neither of them move horizontally, and they are off by 1 pixel, by my tests of moving left. If I start moving left at frame x, the boss segment doesn't load. If I start moving left at frame x+1, room loads, but the enemies we need go away. This is what convinces me we're one pixel away. I can't think of any mechanic that displaces an enemy's position other than it being part of said enemy's AI, but feel free to suggest glitch we haven't found yet. 3rd - Exactly one enemy in reach. I see no sensible way to get the enemy to ignore the wall and travel right. It disappears long before the boss room loads anyway. No camera trickery available, as it's just one horizontal segment right up to the door. 5th - The ground enemy is in reach. However, I can't think of any way to delay the enemy to stick to the wall under the door for long enough, even if it's close enough to avoid despawning, as our basic bullets don't go that far. There is also a flying enemy likely in reach, probably a matter of simply not doing the camera adjustment, but it is unknown if the enemy's path will take it anywhere close to the boss room. I don't think it will fly close enough, based on what I remember of that type of enemy. If there's any way to remove these disappointments, that will be nice stuff to see. I've lost the will to TAS further, but it seems the progress keeps on going without needing me on the task anymore. Happy to see the continuation of this effort.

Posted: 8/24/2017 11:29 PM
(Edited: 9/25/2017 6:03 PM)

Post subject: Maybe skipping boss 5 re-fight.

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ThunderAxe31

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I researched about the 5th boss re-fight skip tonight. I tried using all sort of stuff in order to hinder the escape of that ground enemy. The problem is that we can't fire anything while we charge the Star weapon, which is the only shot type able to get so far offscreen. So I asked myself: is there any kind of weapon that can attack the enemy while we're charging the Star weapon, after swapping by Shot Counter glitch? Well, I found three: 1) Whirlwind shot. Too bad it kills the enemy on the second hit, unless we invent some way to heal the enemy HP. 2) Missile smoke. Too bad the tiny space available allows for hitting only once. 3) Sticky Meteors. Yeah, I know, sounds very unlikely but... But! I found something very interesting... You can generate Sticky Meteors by swapping after firing a Spikeball shot. You can do this with Shot Counter glitch. The fact is that the Spikeball shots, since they are supposed to never get out of screen, are programmed in order to despawn by timer. Most of other weapons have an infinite looping animation instead... So, what do you think it happens if you force an infinite looping animation to Spikeball shots? That's right, they never disappear! Well, unless they touch an enemy. But luckly, every spark animation generated when a Spikeball bounces, will turn into 1 zero-damaging stationary bullet. Which is probably enough to hinder that enemy from running out of screen. If not, we can still hit it before 3 times with the Basic weapon. And we can charge Star shot in the meanwhile thanks to Shot Counter glitch. So I'm sure it will work out. See you tomorrow... Edit: oh, and I almost forgot to mention... When Zook fires the Charged Laser to break the door lock, the Shot Counter glitch will get nullified, but if the Spikeball disappears after firing it, it will get again to -1, allowing to generate the Sticky Meteors and swap to Star weapon right away. Edit 2: actually, there is no need to re-trigger the Shot Counter glitch, since the Sticky Meteors will not disappear by themselves. Edit 3: 1 lag frame saved in Stage 9, the only one present. Edit 4: I improved the entertaining in Stage 0, except for the miniboss. I don't feel inspired for that, sorry. I also need help for the miniboss in Stage 8. By the way, remember about my 1 frame improvement in Stage 8? I'm still unable to resync the boss battle, especially because some lag frames popped out. Even if this improvement does not actually save any time dure to frame rules, I think it would be better to include it in the final movie for completeness and help possible future improvements (though I highly doubt to be possible...)

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/29/2017 2:18 AM

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FatRatKnight

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Stage 8 frame improvement sync, I believe. According to my measurements, we're delayed 7 frames out of 8. One more frame, if it exists anywhere...

Posted: 8/29/2017 7:42 AM

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Exonym

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So looking at stage 8 again, at frame 09263 we fire a shot and prevent the enemy from firing, why then don't we move right a few pixels just after the shot? I'm just throwing an idea out since you need 1 frame, not entirely sure this will work. Edit: Well it seems that we don't actually gain anything from moving right unless we move the full extent possible before grabbing the ladder. Unfortunately, since there are no ground blocks above the middle of the ladder we can't bonk, so any extra pixels gained are lost. This is just from my attempt, but I don't think we will gain anything here.

Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.

Posted: 8/30/2017 2:28 AM

Post subject: Re: Maybe skipping boss 5 re-fight.

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FatRatKnight

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ThunderAxe31 wrote:

Edit 4: I improved the entertaining in Stage 0, except for the miniboss. I don't feel inspired for that, sorry. I also need help for the miniboss in Stage 8.

Added: Senseless jumping patterns. Minibosses are kind of a big thing for entertainment. Bosses are kind of the other big thing, by the way. Here's what I could come up with for the first two minibosses.

Posted: 8/30/2017 9:12 AM
(Edited: 9/20/2017 4:26 PM)

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ThunderAxe31

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Thanks for the contribute, I didn't expect to receive help with the aesthetic improvements so soon. Now that I'm finally seeing an actual playaround with Stage 0 miniboss, I've got more aware of what is bad for it. I have to note that camera scrolling should be avoided as most as possible. Firstly, because most first-time watchers may want to look well at the miniboss appearance; secondly, some people can find all this camera scrolling nauseating. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to add excessive fooling around so soon in the run, because some people may get confused and wonder if that's part of the fighting strategy or even a requirement for killing the miniboss. The Stage 8 miniboss is good. By the way, here is my interpretation of the entertaining for the rest of the Stage 0 level, so that I can be judged as well. I removed all drop pickups before miniboss, picked up as many lifes as possible after miniboss, and especially worked on improving the part where the flying enemy travels toward the boss segment. By the way, to anyone who is reading this: in case it wasn't clear, we are currently in desperate need to save 1 frame in Stage 8. I'm trying hard myself, but I'm having no further luck... So please, consider helping finding the frame save.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Posted: 8/30/2017 5:14 PM

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FatRatKnight

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Well, the problem with intro miniboss is that any vertical movement scrolls the camera, which means we'd have to limit our jumps. Which are rather required to make any hits. Taking a second look at it full speed, I do see what you mean. We'll want to limit it to whatever jumps are necessary to hit, and to avoid being hit. This does mean we will only have one dimension of movement to entertain with, for the most part. I do like how quiet the first half of the intro is, then suddenly we get a lot of extra lives padding out that one visible counter. If we need Ammo Tanks, beyond our starting three and any extras we accidentally pick up in later stages, you'll know where to go to get more. As for the one frame desired in Stage 8, we can prepare later stages for when we do get that frame. Just insert 24 frames at the next stage select, then re-manipulate those items. If we then get that frame, we'll have a movie file prepared ahead of time that all we need to do is combine the 8 frames saved with the 24 frames we intentionally delayed and have a complete sync thanks to the 32 item cycle. EDIT: Stage 0 miniboss has fewer jumps now. Hopefully the reduced amount of camera scrolling helps things. Oh, and before I forget, I do like the actions around the flying enemy while we wait. Apparently we're glued to the platform trying to jump repeatedly. We also weave around bullets, yay! The last short hops make me think "come on, fly over here already, you can do it."

Posted: 9/2/2017 6:47 AM

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FatRatKnight

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That little glitch gave me an idea for a miniboss skip, but without success. Well, this is Stage 8, where we don't have Miniboss Skip done. You have the spiky wheel enemy following you for a while. Any chance we can lure that to the next segment? I jump the wall after the spikes. The enemy doesn't disappear. Cool. I continue further right. Enemy gets stopped by something down in that area long before the next segment loads. Snap. If I can't lure that spiky wheel enemy, maybe I can find another? External Radar has spawn points included in it, so I can find them rather readily. Right at the start of Segment 3 (down segment), there is a spawn point for the spiky wheel enemy, but to spawn it, we just need to scroll the camera down a touch, then back up. Not really a problem. Now, can I send this thing off the left side of the camera, and lure it down a ways? No. Enemy will not travel left past the camera edge in that segment. I hate it whenever I'm trying to make the game act wrong, it turns out to act right enough to avoid this wrong thing. EDIT: Something from ThunderAxe31. We're trying to save a frame in Stage 8, got one before the miniboss, but hit a different frame rule somewhere between the ladder after the miniboss and the bullet an enemy shoots. https://filebin.net/m1u9uybxp5a3kp4j/ZM_s0_touchups_3.tasproj

Posted: 9/2/2017 10:02 AM
(Edited: 9/20/2017 4:25 PM)

Post subject: Success.

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ThunderAxe31

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8 frames saved in Stage 8, Stage select in 15841. While resyncing, please try to avoid as many item drops as possible until you kill the minibosses. This will improve entertain quality by allowing to hear better the original music stages. Oh and we also need to save as many lag frames as possible, so don't get haste with these and ask help you get stuck (actually, until now I was the one who got help with many lag frames btw...) Edit: Stage 7 resynced, Stage select in 23174. I took some time for improving entertaining: no drop pickups before miniboss, killed as many enemies as possible after. Oh and I also noticed that the Stage Select inputs were 1 frame later. Apparently, 1 lag frame was saved somewhere, uhm... Edit 2: I've made jet more entertaining improvements to Stage 7, and now I'm working to resync Stage 1. Fixing the ammo refills before and after miniboss is taking a while, but nothing that I can't take care of. What is making me stuck, is a research about Spikeball swapping. I'm wondering if the sparkles made by the bouncing Spikeball can be turned into Murder Barriers, because that would save 2 lag frames. Shot Counter glitch allowed me to turn them into 0-damage stationary bullets, but I'm still not sure if it could be possible to obtain actual Murder Barriers by adjusting weapon swaps order and timing. It would be simple if only there was a quick way to see if a bullet is a Murder Barrier, but after some searches, I've noted that it couldn't be determined from the object data addresses of the bullets. Still, I've noticed that if freeze field_1C before swapping, the barrier's appearance will remain normal (except the palette). This value keeps increasing by 1 every frame. All other object addresses don't affect the murderability, despite when or how I freeze them. There must be other sections of memory telling more about the bullets. Edit 3: News time. First, I found that Murder Barrier can't be triggered by Spikeball swapping. Second, I encountered a lag frame after killing Stage 1 Miniboss, and after some researches with FatRatKnight, we found that this was caused by memory leaks in the allocation of sprites for bullets. FatRatKnight implemented an allocated memory viewer in Team 4's script, then I've picked the code and rewritten an ultra-light version for bad PCs as mine. The interesting thing I found is that the lag frame wasn't caused by the huge amount of allocated memory, but rather by the amount of allocated chuncks of memory. See the image below:

These are two screenshots showing the current script by FatRatKnight in action. The only difference is the allocated memory, as you can note if you look in the upper left of both screenshots. The lag frame does appear only in one of these two situation... Guess which? Wrong! The lag frame occurs in the first case. When the miniboss sprite is loaded, the memory is allocated in every black zones, resulting in more chuncks of memory. When the miniboss gets defeated, the game does free the memory without wiping off the red zones. In the first case, there will result 4 chunks of memory to wipe, in second case only 3. So, despite having more memory allocated in the second case, the lag frame does not occur. This information could allow to save some lag frames later in succesive stages. Edit 4: Stage 1 resynced, Stage select in 29649. The new script helped, but in the end it still was a struggle with lots of trial and error. Two days of work just to avoid getting hit once in the boss fight... But I still need to add more swagstic to the boss fight movements. Any help is welcomed.

my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"

Forum Game Boy Advance Games Zook Man ZX4 / Rockman & Crystal Game: Zook Man ZX4

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Game Boy Advance Games

Zook Man ZX4 / Rockman & Crystal Game: Zook Man ZX4