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  • FCEU 0.98.15
  • Uses Warps and Cheats
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Uses Death
  • Aims for Fastest Time
Let me start of by stating this: This movie is not an attempt to obsolete Genisto's Arkanoid movie. (I am planning to do a full movie of the game)
To playback this movie make sure:
  • To set the second player input to 'Gamepad' instead of 'Arkanoid Paddle'
  • To use the US version
  • Probably FCEU 0.98.12 and higher will work, but 0.98.15 will work for sure
Note that the movie won't desync if this is done... not even when you think it desyncs. Let me explain what's going on:
There are two main cheats in this game:
  • Pressing start+A will teleport you to the next level. (this only works for the first 16 levels)
  • Holding A+B and pressing select 5 times, will allow you to continue from the level you died. This second trick is of importance.
If you wait long enough at the title screen, you will see the story of the game. If you wait a little longer a demo will start playing. The computer controls the arkanoid paddle, but the player is in control of the "A"-button. This allows you to launch the ball, and to shoot if the computer happens to pick up a power up like laser.
The demo will play 5 different levels if you wait long enough:
  • demo 1 = level 14
  • demo 2 = level 15
  • demo 3 = level 23
  • demo 4 = level 30
  • demo 5 = level 5
Level 30 isn't influenceable with pressing A, because of the nature of the level. Level 23 (the third demo) however is influenceable! By pressing A at the right frame, the computer picks up the laser power up, which gives you even more influence on how the demo will end. The computer is programmed on staying underneath the ball, but if you change to laser, or from laser to something else, your arkanoid paddle will shrink for a short moment. With the right manipulation this enables you to die in the computer demo. The computer will go game over and you will be at the title screen again... pretty neat, but why would you want to do that?
As said before, there is a cheat (holding A+B and pressing select 5 times) to continue from a game over. This means you can continue from the place where the computer demo went game over! In this case level 23. Completing the levels this way is even faster than using the regular level skip cheat.
This glitch to gain access to level 23 very fast was discovered by FODA. Thanks again!
For the levels that follow (all numbered differently since level 23 is seen as level 1 now) I use warps most of the time. The blocks that give you powerups are determened by the game, and aren't manipulatable (certain blocks will always give you a power, others won't ever). However, which powerup a certain block gives you is manipulatable. Getting the warps all the time required a great deal of luck manipulation. This movie aims for the fastest possible time, using all possible means.
The movie stops at the last hit. Stopping the movie earlier would have been possible to complete the game, but you would be able to keep the movie from finishing by pressing start after input time, so I stop the movie after the point of which this is possible.
Hope you enjoy this weird movie :)

Bisqwit: Short movies are yay to encode. Processing.
Bisqwit: Ack, it desyncs at me (for real). So I guess I actually need to patch my FCEU after all. Now, where to find that patch and a summary of changes...

Truncated: Putting it on accepted for completeness sake, and so that other encoders won't miss it.

Baxter: Cancelling this, I can improve it.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1019: Baxter's NES Arkanoid "warps, demo glitch" in 04:36.58
nesrocks
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I think since arkanoid is a demonstration game, this one could be an exception to the "no cheat codes" rule of the site. It shows a flaw in the game which allows you to skip more levels than it was intended by the makers of the game and is the fastest known way to beat it using just the cartridge (no hack or game genie). Also, i tried myself manipulating the luck to get warps all the time and it wasn't too easy to do. Baxter excelled at this, and i think it's no different than getting critical hits all the time or enemies missing their attacks all the time in RPG TASes.
Player (25)
Joined: 4/23/2005
Posts: 435
Location: Germany
Voted yes. Great luck manipulation with the Warps. Only a question: Is it not possible to get always the Warp from the first block like it work in some Stages? In other Stages you must destroy more blocks till the Warp appear. How this luck manipulation work? Are the Warp already in the block when you start the Stage, or is the time when you destroy the block important?
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
Ooooooookay. Ever since seeing Genisto's run I've been hoping someone would make a warp run, just to see how quickly the game could be beaten, but I didn't see this coming. You guys found the right frame to release the ball in order for the computer to get the laser, then the right frame to drop a power-up to make sure that ball missed the paddle and died in the computer demo. That was... weird. It's pretty short and doesn't play the game from beginning to end, which is what I had been expecting, but this is just strange enough to deserve special recognition. You did, technically, beat the game as quickly as possible, and you might as well be allowed to use every trick that's available to you. This gets a Yes vote.
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nesrocks
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MattyXB: only some blocks give powerups. he tries to reach these as fast as possible, and then manipulate them to give the warp. sometimes they are in reach from the start of the level, but sometimes some no-prize blocks must be detroyed to reach those.
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Posts: 1821
MattyXB wrote:
Only a question: Is it not possible to get always the Warp from the first block like it work in some Stages? In other Stages you must destroy more blocks till the Warp appear.
The blocks that give you powerups are determened by the game, and aren't manipulatable (certain blocks will always give you a power, others won't ever). However, which powerup a certain block gives you is manipulatable. /Edit: FODA beat me to it :P
Player (25)
Joined: 4/23/2005
Posts: 435
Location: Germany
Ok, then its much better then I have think. Great job. Another question, maybe a bit Off-Topic: It is manipulatable that the CPU get a Warp powerup? And what will happen then? Can he Warp to another Stage?
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
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I did a lot of testing on the demo, and I didn't get a warp... but I don't know why is wouldn't be possible. You can complete a level during demo time, Here is a movie showing this. The demo lasts a certain time, if a level is completed, the demo will go to the next demo level in line, but only for a very short time, since the demo time for that demo is almost finished.
Player (88)
Joined: 1/15/2006
Posts: 333
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
I find this movie to be a good compliment to the existing movie by Genisto. One aims for fastest completion, the other for style. But truthfully, I think the fact that it warps directly to level 23 is one of its saving points; were it to warp through all 30 levels one by one, I think it would be pretty boring. The first time I viewed it, I had the same concerns as MattyXB; namely that sometimes many bricks were destroyed before finding the warp. But considering what you have said (that only certain bricks can contain power-ups), it seems to be very well done. Voting yes.
print reduce(lambda x,p:p/2*x/p+2*10**1000,range(6643,1,-2))
Twisted_Eye
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It took a long time to realize that both controllers, not just number 2, had to be set to gamepad, silly me. When it worked, it revealed a great movie, and understanding that only certain blocks give out powerups excuses what seemed to be wasted time destroying other bricks, I gladly give this a yes vote!
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 83
Location: Montreal, Canada
This is great and should definitely be published, but I don't think it should "obsolete" the existing warpless run, as its three-ball juggling is something that I feel is still worthwhile and which this movie doesn't have. That being said, beating this game in less than five minutes is amazing and as such I'm voting yes.
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
Any%/warped rarely obsoletes 100%/warpless or vice versa. The two things people tend to want to see the most are: "how fast can a game be beaten?", and "how fast can it be beaten from beginning to end?"
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Player (87)
Joined: 2/10/2006
Posts: 113
Location: US
I feel a little ambivalent about this movie. On the one hand, it's very good at what it does, and the technique to warp is very surprising. However, with the long wait in the beginning and all the warping, there is not much action. I think a full run is more interesting.
Use the force
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Luke wrote:
I think a full run is more interesting.
Yes, I totally agree with this. But like I stated before, this run isn't competing with the full run. The feeling I get with this movie is a bit like with the short 'A link to the Past'-movie, and 'Links Awakening'. Of course the full run is more entertaining in these cases, but the short movie shows something the creators of the game hadn't intended which makes completion of these games a lot faster than they had in mind. This movie is abusing a game cheat, instead of just using it. If using the regular level skip trick for the first 16 levels had been faster than this strategy, I wouldn't have submitted a movie doing that. I submitted this movie, since it shows something inventive and unexpected, and is faster than any other method (a little like those zelda movies).
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
Being a big fan myself of glitched runs, I vote yes in this movie. "Uses death as a shortcut", he. You should add "Two players control one character", too, being the recorded demo one of them.
No.
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... blech, stale!
JorWat25
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TASVideos Grue wrote:
om, nom, nom... blech, stale!
Ah, good to see you! You're only...13...years late.