Game presentation and own explanations

This game has two modes, the first one is a slalom mode where the player has to pass through a series of gates, each gate missed counts as a penalty of 3 seconds on the final time. The second one is the downhill mode, the player has to reach the end of the bottom of the ski course as fast as possible. the 5 firsts tracks in the game are the slalom mode and the 5 last ones are the downhill mode. Each one has 4 different tracks determined and the last one is created by a RNG of frames. Since we are TASers, I think the best track for this game is the 5th track of the slalom mode (Game 5) because Downhill mode could be to eazy if you find a pixel where you can reach the end of the ski course without moving... A difficulty set is also possible so I'm using the hardest one which spawns trees on the road.
If the community wants me to do this 5th track of the downhill mode (Game 10), ask me and I'll do so.

Goals

  • Aims for fastest In-Game Time insteads of real time
  • BizHawk 2.2.2
  • Uses hardest difficulty
  • Manipulates luck
  • Genre: Sport
  • Genre: Racing

Mechanics

The skier has 10 different positions ( 5 left, 5 right). Skier has 2 vertical positions (left, right), 2 horizontal positions, 2 diagonal positions, 2 almost vertical positions and 2 almost horizontal positions. More your position is vertical, more you'll be fast so the goal is to use the 2 vertical and 2 almost vertical positions to be faster. Changing between the 2 vertical position doesn't decrease your speed.
As Grand Prix [3660] A2600 Grand Prix by ViGadeomes in 01:34.67, you have to move as soon as you can to do not lose time.

Addresses

  • 19 : X position
  • 74 : Velocity

Way to improve this movie

  • In priority, finding a better track where you can have a better In-Game Time.
  • After, finding a better track where you can stop moving before I do in this one.

Thanks

Thanks to Greg Degeneffe (always) who made me want to do this TAS.

feos: According to the Manual, the game offers 2 modes and 5 games in each mode differing by difficulty. It should be noted that games 5 and 10 are shorter than 4 and 9, but they feature randomly built tracks, which may or may not be more difficult than the longest tracks. So which should we prefer?
There's another aspect to this game: it allows to select those tracks separately, or play them all in a row if you hit Select and Reset after every track. That will send you to the next one. Speedrun.com and TwinGalaxies feature a branch for every track.
I would argue that tracks 5 and 10 are what should be TASed, and since they both are instantly available as separate modes, each can have its own branch. Or they can be played withing a single movie, by selecting and reseting to 10 after you beat 5. This is up to the author.
So back to the main question, should we prefer 4/9 or 5/10? The game manual makes it sound like the speed increases for every track, but I checked the memory ($0E and $74), and you get the same acceleration on tracks 4 and 5. Maybe the developers think track 5 is more difficult due to its random nature, but this is just an assumption based on the ordering. But Olympic track isn't necessarily more difficult if you judge by the amount of gates alone: Intermediate has more gates than Expert, and I didn't notice any difference in acceleration. Also the second gate appears on the screen at the same frame for all 3 of the above. So I don't know why they call tracks 1 and 2 slower.
The only thing that objectively makes the game harder is trees appearing in the way. Difficulty between tracks is less clear, so I'll just accept this run as playing the highest skill track. A run of Downhill can be submitted separately, or it may be appended to a track 5 movie and obsolete this one. And due to simplicity of gameplay, Vault.
fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5967: ViGadeomes's A2600 Skiing "Slalom" in 00:26.57
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Short and sweet. Too bad about the placement of that last tree, otherwise you could have just skirted the edges of the last flags. I think a downhill version would be cool too.
DrD2k9
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Hmm... I found the Boxing run more entertaining (and i don't really know how to explain why). Sorry I just can't give this one more than a meh vote.
ViGadeomes
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c-square wrote:
Short and sweet. Too bad about the placement of that last tree, otherwise you could have just skirted the edges of the last flags. I think a downhill version would be cool too.
How could I skirted the edges of the last flags ? Avoiding a gate ? If I do that I'll have a penalty at the end but my goal is In-Game Time.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Hmm... I found the Boxing run more entertaining (and i don't really know how to explain why). Sorry I just can't give this one more than a meh vote.
No problem ! these both submissions will be Vault in any case so... x)
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You wait before pressing "s" for the fifth time to manipulate which track you get? Also, since those are 2 different game modes, we can have both of them published even in Vault. So feel free so submit the second one separately.
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.
ViGadeomes
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feos wrote:
You wait before pressing "s" for the fifth time to manipulate which track you get? Also, since those are 2 different game modes, we can have both of them published even in Vault. So feel free so submit the second one separately.
I wait before pressing "s" to manipulate the track yes, I continue to try each track one by one but since the In-Game Time I got here compared to others, I thought there was a little chance to find a better track so I submitted this run, I continue to try them one/day. you could change frames of all inputs before this last "s", that won't change the track even if you go to the 10th track and you come back to the 5th ( only possible if you let 20 frames under the 2 lasts "s" presses. I can understand if you want me to try every track before submitting a run (I'm afraid you'll have to reject this run). So see you all in 8-9 months. I believe i ever had 2 times the same track but I'm not sure, If someone could help me to figure out something helpful about tracks on this game, please do it and we'll be co-author because I have no idea how to figure out something like that. I don't think disassembling could be helpful because it doesn't show datas. It will be the same for the Downhill run !
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No, I don't think this run deserves rejection for being suboptimal. We make sure the run isn't sloppy and has solid goals, but pushing it to the actual limits is what we encourage the users to do. No run is absolutely unbeatable, and we don't demand being unbeatable in order to accept.
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.
Post subject: Re: #5967: ViGadeomes's A2600 Skiing "Slalom" in 00:26.57
ViGadeomes
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
<a>Speedrun.com</a> features a branch for every track, and <a>TwinGalaxies</a> only cares about track 5.
I'm sorry but you did a mistake, TwinGalaxies cares about each difficulty for each track. I only shared the track I've done to do not lose time to people who wants to verify the World Record time : https://www.twingalaxies.com/game/skiing/atari-2600-vcs
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Thanks, fixed. Regardless, there's no point in having 20 branches. It's better to stitch the movies together by running several tracks in a row instead. This movie is accepted as playing the hardest level of the first mode. Making a movie that plays all 10 tracks that way should also be acceptable.
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.
ViGadeomes
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feos wrote:
Thanks, fixed. Regardless, there's no point in having 20 branches. It's better to stitch the movies together by running several tracks in a row instead. This movie is accepted as playing the hardest level of the first mode. Making a movie that plays all 10 tracks that way should also be acceptable.
What would you prefer ? -This Game 5 slalom run and the Game 10 Downhill run as "<Categorie>" and all tracks for a "all tracks/100%"? or - A "No branch" run where we do Game 5 slalom and Game 10 Downhill, and a run where we do all tracks for a "all tracks/100%" ? or something else?
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It won't be a "full completion" type of a goal if you beat all the tracks, because the game doesn't know how many you've beaten and doesn't reward you for all. That makes "full completion" definition arbitrary, so we won't be using it. If you beat all tracks of a certain game mode, it doesn't matter how you do it, as 2 branches (slalom and downhill) or a a single segment run of all the tracks. http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#ObsoletingAPublishedMovie
Movies for all games or episodes inside a multi-game or multi-episode game can obsolete individual movies that only play a single game or episode within the game. This is assuming that the combined movie surpasses all the individual movies that it is trying to obsolete.
This implies that to make your branch unobsoletable, you need to make an exhaustive movie that already plays all the tracks. Otherwise there will remain chance that it gets obsoleted by a fuller movie. So if you wish to make an exhaustive run of this game, play all the tracks with the hardest difficulty switches settings.
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.
ViGadeomes
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feos wrote:
It won't be a "full completion" type of a goal if you beat all the tracks, because the game doesn't know how many you've beaten and doesn't reward you for all. That makes "full completion" definition arbitrary, so we won't be using it. If you beat all tracks of a certain game mode, it doesn't matter how you do it, as 2 branches (slalom and downhill) or a a single segment run of all the tracks. http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#ObsoletingAPublishedMovie
Movies for all games or episodes inside a multi-game or multi-episode game can obsolete individual movies that only play a single game or episode within the game. This is assuming that the combined movie surpasses all the individual movies that it is trying to obsolete.
This implies that to make your branch unobsoletable, you need to make an exhaustive movie that already plays all the tracks. Otherwise there will remain chance that it gets obsoleted by a fuller movie. So if you wish to make an exhaustive run of this game, play all the tracks with the hardest difficulty switches settings.
Ok so I'll do 2 branches (slalom and Downhill), but i have some problems : * These runs won't be too long for a simplistic game of Atari ? I think, after 1-3 tracks most of people will stop watching because it's always the same thing. * Also, I think the best way to TAS these games with an In-Game time is to reach the lowest one because it's the way to speedrun this kind of game which will be thinking of by everyone and be played like that in casual play like a default goal as finishing a game like Super Mario Bros or Aims to the best score possible like in Seaquest. There is nothing more to do in this game, and lowest In-Game Time is like a landmark for all players of this game. And doing all these tracks in the same TAS will have as a result that these tracks will be suboptimal on this point. I know that levels aren't accepted anymore but losing this landmark (in-Game time) in a no branch run of this is like losing the goal to finish Super Mario Bros x). * If we do that for this game, it means that we will have to do that for all Atari games like Grand Prix, Barnstorming, Sky Jinks (which is the same mechanics 4 determined levels and one "RNG" level) and Private eye (I'll submit 2 TASes in some days if I find a way to present maps). I won't talk about this anymore now because you are the Senior Judge and you decide and judge what is better for the site ^^.
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Here's my 2 cents. If the other tracks are simply more of the same, just with slightly different layout of obstacles; then the track considered "hardest" is all that is necessary. Similarly, for Grand Prix and Barnstorming: the different courses don't add any different content other than obstacle layout. Is it really necessary to do more than 1 course (assuming the hardest is the one chosen) in a given game that doesn't link or monitor how many courses have been completed? (For a contrast, consider Mario Kart type games where the various courses are monitored/linked to a completion goal of winning points/trophy.)
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ViGadeomes wrote:
These runs won't be too long for a simplistic game of Atari ? I think, after 1-3 tracks most of people will stop watching because it's always the same thing.
Maybe, but it'd end up in vault anyway, as we can't really entertain people by sliding down for a few seconds or minutes.
ViGadeomes wrote:
Also, I think the best way to TAS these games with an In-Game time is to reach the lowest one because it's the way to speedrun this kind of game which will be thinking of by everyone and be played like that in casual play like a default goal as finishing a game like Super Mario Bros or Aims to the best score possible like in Seaquest. There is nothing more to do in this game, and lowest In-Game Time is like a landmark for all players of this game. And doing all these tracks in the same TAS will have as a result that these tracks will be suboptimal on this point. I know that levels aren't accepted anymore but losing this landmark (in-Game time) in a no branch run of this is like losing the goal to finish Super Mario Bros x).
You don't need to drop the ingame time objective to beat all the tracks, because they are timed individually.
ViGadeomes wrote:
If we do that for this game, it means that we will have to do that for all Atari games like Grand Prix, Barnstorming, Sky Jinks (which is the same mechanics 4 determined levels and one "RNG" level) and Private eye (I'll submit 2 TASes in some days if I find a way to present maps).
It's not a requirement, just an option/suggestion for future. And note that games that don't provide individual levels separately don't belong to this scenario.
ViGadeomes wrote:
I won't talk about this anymore now because you are the Senior Judge and you decide and judge what is better for the site ^^.
Please don't appeal to authority, it doesn't help to have a productive discussion. Ask and post as much as you wish.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Is it really necessary to do more than 1 course (assuming the hardest is the one chosen) in a given game that doesn't link or monitor how many courses have been completed? (For a contrast, consider Mario Kart type games where the various courses are monitored/linked to a completion goal of winning points/trophy.)
I repeat that it is optional. It is only preferred if such a movie exists in the first place. Here's the original rule that handles such cases, I probably should have linked it earlier: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#MovieMustBeComplete
Games which consist of multiple full games available immediately in a menu, such as separate level sets, often referred to as episodes in DOS games, or the individual games in Super Mario All-Stars, they may be played and submitted individually. Playing a single episode or individual game to completion, or all episodes or games, is considered game completion. Playing multiple, but not all, episodes or games is not considered completion. Multi-games should be avoided if all the games they contain exist separately on the platform, play the individual ones instead.
For this game, it's not a set of levels, but a set of separate games (it's even how the manual calls them), so the rule that bans single-level movies doesn't apply here.
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.
ViGadeomes
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feos wrote:
ViGadeomes wrote:
I won't talk about this anymore now because you are the Senior Judge and you decide and judge what is better for the site ^^.
Please don't appeal to authority, it doesn't help to have a productive discussion. Ask and post as much as you wish.
Sorry.
feos wrote:
ViGadeomes wrote:
If we do that for this game, it means that we will have to do that for all Atari games like Grand Prix, Barnstorming, Sky Jinks (which is the same mechanics 4 determined levels and one "RNG" level) and Private eye (I'll submit 2 TASes in some days if I find a way to present maps).
It's not a requirement, just an option/suggestion for future. And note that games that don't provide individual levels separately don't belong to this scenario.
I'll do what I exepted to since the beginning not because it will be too long to make but because I won't like doing one or two all tracks runs on this game, I won't have the interest and I won't be proud to make them. (to everyone) Feel free to do an all tracks TAS and improve my future movies with one or two TASes but I won't support them.
Post subject: Movie published
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3710] A2600 Skiing "Slalom" by ViGadeomes in 00:26.57