Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.3.2
  • Fastest completion of all (9) holes.

The Game

Miniature Golf is an Atari 2600 game released in 1978. As the name of the game suggests, you play through a 9 hole miniature golf course. The yellow dot is your ball, the moving purple square is your putter, the moving red square is an obstacle, and the stationary purple square is the hole.

Score VS. Speed

On most holes, it's fastest to finish in as few shots as possible, however, there are two exceptions, hole 5 and hole 7. In both cases, an extra shot is taken, very slightly moving the ball to allow for a much more direct 2nd shot. The best possible score in Miniature Golf is -26, but because the TAS takes two extra shots, it finishes with a score of -24.

RTA Record

The current RTA record is a2:39 by Groudontamer.

ThunderAxe31's improvement

ThunderAxe31 speaking here. While judging this submission, I found a minor improvement applicable to 7 levels, for a total of 21 frames saved. It just made the movement of the cursor shorter, the trajectories of the ball are actually unchanged, so you can't see the difference by naked eye. Below is the list of improvements:
Level123456789
Frames saved341330043

ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 21 frames improvement made by me, and un-claiming the judging.
feos: Nice little movie, execution looks good, and the feedback was quite positive. Easy difficulty makes sense because hard doesn't add new impressive gameplay elements. The game can't be played further than in this movie because you can't hit the ball anymore, so for a game without and ending it's a sane ending point. Accepting to Moons.
Spikestuff: Publishing.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15568
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6615: Wipeoutjack7 & ThunderAxe31's A2600 Miniature Golf in 01:00.28
Lobsterzelda
He/Him
Skilled player (1257)
Joined: 3/17/2019
Posts: 282
Lol. That was one of the more entertaining Atari 2600 TASes i've seen. Yes vote!
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4043
Short and sweet, yes vote!
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Dwedit
He/Him
Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
Looks a lot like Cheap Golf.
nymx
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Expert player (2231)
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 929
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
I started off not liking it so much, but as it got to the more complicated rounds...it started to impress me. By the end, I'm said Yes. :)
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (310)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
I liked it, but I have two questions that the judges will ask you if I don't : - Is it played in the hardest difficulty ? and if not, why ? - Why should you not going for the maximum score of 24 ? since this game would be very similar if you take a "fastest completion" TAS and a "maximum score" TAS (only 2 more shots as I understood) both TAS can't be accepted at the same time, and the "maximum score" TAS will obsolete this TAS because the "fastest completion" TAS is included in the "maximum score" TAS. This is just some advices from a guy who knows these particular situations ;). Nothing will be against you if your reasons for choosing the easiest difficulty (if this is the case) are validated by judges.
GJTASer2018
He/Him
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 303
Location: Stafford, NY
ViGadeomes wrote:
- Is it played in the hardest difficulty ? and if not, why ?
According to the game's manual, the only significant difference in difficulty is the "handicap", with the ball going much farther after being putted when the difficulty switch is set to A. You can debate whether this would make things harder or easier, but that's the only thing that could be changed to affect the difficulty.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (310)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
GJTASer2018 wrote:
According to the game's manual, the only significant difference in difficulty is the "handicap", with the ball going much farther after being putted when the difficulty switch is set to A. You can debate whether this would make things harder or easier, but that's the only thing that could be changed to affect the difficulty.
Yes, I already red it up before writting my message and I'm mixed about it, I don't know if it could be considered as a significant adding or if this could be ended like my TAS here [3709] A2600 Boxing by ViGadeomes in 00:12.80. Like I said, it's only advices to him because I know that judges will ask about it anyway. ( Just to warn you GJTASer2018, never presents an URL from the site where you found the manual, because it actually presents some ROMs to download as well which is prohibited on this site ^^' )
Wipeoutjack7
He/Him
Player (90)
Joined: 9/25/2019
Posts: 8
Location: Georgia
Thanks for the questions :) I used the easy difficulty because it allows for putts to travel farther and quicker (just saving time in general). As for your second question, I had the choice of which to prioritize, speed or score, and I chose speed for no other reason then that's what I preferred to make/watch. I may end up making a best score TAS, but it'd definitely be slower by at least a few seconds.
ViGadeomes
He/Him
Judge, Active player (310)
Joined: 10/16/2017
Posts: 461
Location: France
Wipeoutjack7 wrote:
Thanks for the questions :) I used the easy difficulty because it allows for putts to travel farther and quicker (just saving time in general). As for your second question, I had the choice of which to prioritize, speed or score, and I chose speed for no other reason then that's what I preferred to make/watch. I may end up making a best score TAS, but it'd definitely be slower by at least a few seconds.
Thanks for the answer. I vote yes to this submission.
Zinfidel
He/Him
Player (206)
Joined: 11/21/2019
Posts: 247
Location: Washington
A nice, byte-sized amusing TAS. Yes vote!
Joined: 1/27/2014
Posts: 181
Good submission, but I prefer golf TASes to go for the best score with time as a secondary criterion.
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1354)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
What a nice A2600 game! I couldn't keep myself from trying to improve this submission, and I must say that the solutions used seemed quite good! However, I found some micro-optimizations that saved some frames there and there, for a total of 21 frames, though the difference can't be noticed by naked eye. Click here to download the movie. Would you like to have me replace the submission with this new movie, and add me as second author?
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"
Wipeoutjack7
He/Him
Player (90)
Joined: 9/25/2019
Posts: 8
Location: Georgia
That sounds good to me! Very happy the TAS is even more optimized now, and I look forward to seeing where you made improvements.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1251)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Am I doing something wrong or you can't use B anymore after this movie ends? There's a new layout but B isn't working.
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.
Wipeoutjack7
He/Him
Player (90)
Joined: 9/25/2019
Posts: 8
Location: Georgia
Not sure why, but when you initially turn on the game/finish the 9 holes, all that you'll see is the first hole rotating through different color palettes. You can still move your putter around, but it's impossible to hit the ball.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1251)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
ViGadeomes wrote:
both TAS can't be accepted at the same time, and the "maximum score" TAS will obsolete this TAS because the "fastest completion" TAS is included in the "maximum score" TAS.
Why do you think it will be included? If the goal is different then gameplay will be different across levels.
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: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15568
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4125] A2600 Miniature Golf by Wipeoutjack7 & ThunderAxe31 in 01:00.28
Joined: 10/28/2013
Posts: 130
Location: United States
Wipeoutjack7 wrote:
Not sure why, but when you initially turn on the game/finish the 9 holes, all that you'll see is the first hole rotating through different color palettes. You can still move your putter around, but it's impossible to hit the ball.
That's a pretty standard feature in earlier Atari 2600 games: after the game's end state is reached, a level remains on screen (be it the first or last), and the console cycles through different color combinations to prevent burn-in. Sometimes it lets you keep moving around or controlling your character in some way, sometimes not, but meaningful gameplay is always disabled.