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Co-op is just an N-player mode, Vault can have it if it's the fastest way to beat the game. If drop-in/drop out is faster, use that. Both versions can only be in Vault if they feature more than 50% of gameplay difference (inherently unique levels, bosses, etc).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Any input file that starts from power-on (for example, a previously submitted movie for that game) and creates the exact circumstances for your submission to sync will generally do.
Is it allowed to create the SRAM-verification movie itself from other verified SRAMs?
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
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Yes, as long as the whole chain starts from a non-save-anchored movie.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I'm planning to TAS Serious Sam Advance some day. There is a unusual trick with the password.
When you reach the pre-last level (Praetorian Fort), the game gives you the password in order to continue the game from this level. If you quit the game and enter it in the password section, you continue the game with all weapons, even those that you might not get yet. Here is that moment.
So, the question is: Is that allowed to use a password, given by the game during the TAS, in order to get such a time-saving benefit?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Dimon12321: Not a judge, but that password usage would be a beneficial cheat code, therefore it shouldn't be allowed. See Mothrayas' earlier post here.
edit: I'm not sure I linked to the correct post, but here is a TAS that rejected for something else but does very similar stuff: #5175: paosidufygth's PSX Mega Man X3 in 13:27.74
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
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Level passwords are only allowed when they unlock something not normally available, or harder. Obtaining the password and then restarting from it doesn't preserve the game state, so you're not exactly resuming where you left if you use it. Granting yourself just more resources by using a password is the kind of unfair advantage that we disallow, unless it's a part of some highly entertaining and difficult goal that could justify it, but that's extremely rare.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I'm not sure if it applies here, but: does it make a difference if you don't enter the password manually, but rather the game automatically enters the password from your previous save file after a reset? Several games will automatically fill in the password for the state they think you've reached for you, and continuing from that state feels to me more like reloading a save file than entering a password by hand.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Can it be a matter of choice if an author runs a PAL Master System game released in Brazil at PAL frequency instead of NTSC?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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If it was released in Brazil, it doesn't mean it wasn't released in Europe, where you run PAL games on PAL consoles at PAL speed. So was that game released in Europe? Or was the Brazil release explicitly chosen for something?
Otherwise, Brazil is a PAL-M territory, so it didn't have 50fps. And it wasn't compatible with true PAL signal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-M#Compatibility
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
So, in a hypothetical scenario:
Would a game made using GameMakerStudio that doesn't have an official linux port,
but can use the stock GMS runner for Linux without any issues be accepted to the site?
Even though its "technically" modifying the game/assets?
Or would one be better off waiting for an official linux port of that game?
Just trying to gauge where the line in the sand for acceptance would be in this scenario.
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TheProJamer wrote:
How entertaining must an edutainment game be to qualify for Moons? Are there any published runs of edutainment games that have qualified?
I don't remember any educational games in Moons. And it's hard to tell how entertaining it should be, just look at some Moons movies and see what gameplay challenges they have to offer to provide for an entertaining movie. I just don't know if a strictly educational game could even be entertaining enough for Moons while still being primarily educational. I think it has to be not-that-educational-really to be Moons worthy, which would make it vaultable as well anyway.
EDIT:
There's an option to make a movie that's not primarily speed oriented though, like [1734] DS Brain Age "playaround" by Ryuto in 06:33.66. It seems to be an educational game, and speedrunning it is questionable, but the movie was done in contradiction to what the game is even about, and to what fastest completion is about, and it was hugely entertaining.
Jenetrix wrote:
So, in a hypothetical scenario:
Would a game made using GameMakerStudio that doesn't have an official linux port, but can use the stock GMS runner for Linux without any issues be accepted to the site? Even though its "technically" modifying the game/assets? Or would one be better off waiting for an official linux port of that game? Just trying to gauge where the line in the sand for acceptance would be in this scenario.
If it's not an official release of the game, it won't be acceptable. What is a GMS runner though? Does it mean you load the game as a source and it replays it for you as a developer? If you can replay the official game release that way, it might be allowed, but any program that has to be explicitly launched by libTAS to run a game (like running emulators in libTAS) doesn't have movie rules for it yet. We're planning to define them soon, but for each such program will have to ensure absolute legitimacy of how the game is being played, which might be hard for your case. Your best bet is asking for a Linux release of the game.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
If it's not an official release of the game, it won't be acceptable. What is a GMS runner though? Does it mean you load the game as a source and it replays it for you as a developer? If you can replay the official game release that way, it might be allowed, but any program that has to be explicitly launched by libTAS to run a game (like running emulators in libTAS) doesn't have movie rules for it yet. We're planning to define them soon, but for each such program will have to ensure absolute legitimacy of how the game is being played, which might be hard for your case. Your best bet is asking for a Linux release of the game.
GameMakerStudio is inherently crossplatform and its games can be run on multiple platforms. the game just needs the runner (basically the universal executable) for that platform in order to load the game. Since this particular game didn't release officially with the runner for linux, It would be taking the runner from another game running on the same engine that was released on linux, and using it instead. Game assets themselves would stay the same, we would just be borrowing the executable, and then subsequently load that executable into libTAS.
Hello! I asked this before to the community in Discord, the answer I received was useful, but I'm not fully convinced, I'm still in doubt... the problem is this:
I'm making a movie with a friend and seeing our progress I've noticed a probably improvement that technically may save frames.
What's the problem with that? Well... the "improvement" consists in collecting fewer coins, this will affect badly the gameplay (lose frames in-game) but will save frames if talking about "the shortest input possible", in my personal opinion, I think I should not collect fewer coins at the cost of frames lost, even if the "improvement" I seen will probably give the shortest input, it gives less technical gameplay and the movie will be very easily be seen as slow just because that part.
In movie rules (or guidelines, don't remember well), as I understand, the site only accepts an improvement if improves gameplay, so faster menu advancing, loading times and other things will be ignored (I already know it and I've seen some examples), in our case this will affect ending, that is outside of gameplay but needs to wait a process of counting the coins and when it ends, we can do the last input.
We want to know what do you think about it:
-Kill frames (in-game) to save them in the ending? The only disadvantage is that when watching that part of the TAS, will be very easily seen unoptimal.
-Or kill frames in ending to keep optimal gameplay? This will kill the shortest input.
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One way to approach this is checking if your movie actually aims for in-game time rather than real time. If such a goal is sensible, optimizing actual gameplay at the cost of the ending (or score tally) makes sense too. Or you could put that this is a speed/entertainment trade-off, exactly because it's more entertaining that way. If your movie is Moons worthy, this can be allowed as an artistic choice. And even if it's Vault-only, potential improvements may still remain when we publish a movie, if implementing them would mean redoing everything from scratch and they're not tremendous.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
When creating a TAS aimed at the vault, does spending frames to enter a character name count against the "fastest completion" criteria? Or to put it another way, can a vaulted run be obsoleted by a faster run wherein the only savings are not spending time entering a name?
We want to know what do you think about it:
-Kill frames (in-game) to save them in the ending? The only disadvantage is that when watching that part of the TAS, will be very easily seen unoptimal.
-Or kill frames in ending to keep optimal gameplay? This will kill the shortest input.
If you think about it, the "feeling of suboptimality" in this case is subjective, because it depends on the fact that the watcher is aware or not that avoiding the coins does make the movie faster afterwards. There are a lot of cases where taking a detour can save more time than what it loses, and it's usually abused, unless the vast majority of the community prefers a movie that aims for in-game time rather than real time (shortest input); in other words what feos said.
Fore example, Super Mario Bros "all items" picks up some coins, because it's necessary for accessing certain items afterwards, as explained in the submission text. Some people watching this video were confused, as they noticed that the author picks up some coins but leaves others, however if you're aware of which are the specific coins needed for achieving the goal, then it looks perfectly optimal.
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c-square wrote:
When creating a TAS aimed at the vault, does spending frames to enter a character name count against the "fastest completion" criteria? Or to put it another way, can a vaulted run be obsoleted by a faster run wherein the only savings are not spending time entering a name?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Isn't the context presented by Cyorter similar to those Sonic TASes on GBA"? If not, what makes it different?
Our goal is just a normal goal, like every normal "any%" goal in this site, we don't care about in-game time. The problem the part I'll show you, that coin kills 20 frames in the coin-counter but if we avoid it, we kill 9 frames in gameplay and will be easily seen unoptimal.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iP2g7w6dwALhp7bP4csN9C2_K9KAVgDN/
At the last, I've got an idea, I know once I'll avoid that coin I'll have to resync the rest. So if after resyncing, I recover that 9 frames or better, saves more frames, I'll leave the coin avoided. But if instead, I don't recover them or worst, lost even more frames, I'll undo this change and continue with a backup file.
Thank you for trying help me once again.
For Zelda: Spirit Tracks, after defeating the last boss, there is a bunch of minutes of cutscene that are skippable. However I feel bad about the author having to skip the last cutscene.
Can the author submit an input file that have the last input on defeating the final boss (like RTA), and provide another input file for publication which reach the end of credits without skipping the cutscene (so have the whole cutscene with textboxes and so) ?
[17:37:00]<TheCoreyBurton> It's N64 - it's ALWAYS bad news.
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Stovent wrote:
For Zelda: Spirit Tracks, after defeating the last boss, there is a bunch of minutes of cutscene that are skippable. However I feel bad about the author having to skip the last cutscene.
Can the author submit an input file that have the last input on defeating the final boss (like RTA), and provide another input file for publication which reach the end of credits without skipping the cutscene (so have the whole cutscene with textboxes and so) ?
It depends on how complex the extra input is, and we generally prefer extra input to be present in the main movie that's submitted and published, but an exception can be made if they provide an extra movie containing this input. See this rule for all the details:
http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#PostCompletionInput
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
The rule is good to know, but an example might help, too.
[2322] GBA Alien Hominid by FatRatKnight in 15:12.85The relevant submission text, the second paragraph with the note to encoders.
I've submitted what's being asked here, if I know what it is being asked. Complete with the main movie used as the fastest clear to deal with the ending, and an extra movie that plays around in the high score screen.
I only know my own history of these examples, though. Any others?
