Link to video
Completely redone the strat (again) which saves a whooping 4 frames.
I think this is as optimised as it can be. I won't bother doing the Fladdermus bounce for 3 reasons:
1. You need a stupid angle to get it. This angle means completely redoing grinding, but with about 10 speed less than what is in this current run.
2. It's very inconsistent. Even if it gives 30 more speed for about 1.9 seconds, going faster on the rails (the grinding part) I think is overall faster.
3. It's stupidly hard to get. Trust me on this one: would be more frustating than trying to do Curvature. I don't want to spend 20 000 rerecords just to be 'damn, the angle was too wide, time to restart!' and I don't even think it can speed it up.
This is why I think doing this strat is faster than doing a Fladdermus bounce, and I can safely say I'm done with this level (both normal strat and all bananas). Thank god.
Also just discovered you can record AVIs within DesMuNe: I'm going to be doing that for all tas world records for now on, but not for the others videos (this way I can go back and watch in slow-mo what went wrong, my current speed/angle when it went wrong, and improve it and potentially do something better)
Movie file
Next level up is Anaconda, aka 1-6, aka WINDO6. There was 1-5, but it's a bonus level that progresses whether you die or not; as such, you finish them by falling off as fast as possible.
I've put togheter a strat in about 5 minutes that shows what you can expect (1 second behind WR) and am currently researching a good TAS strat.
Link to video
Oooh, nice! Anaconda looks like it'll get pretty interesting at a TAS level of optimization. Keep up the good work!
The IL (individual level strat) isn't too interesting: boost, go up, fall off, done. The all banana strat for this level, however, will probably turn out to be one of the most impressive and mechanical strats in the entire run.
Here is the world record, for reference:
Link to video
What's happening?
My current approach is not very different from the IL (that skips the entire level): gather speed on the start with a left boost instead of a right boost (may need to do a half reverse boost).
Then, the stage is a bunch of curves: 'thankfully', the edge of these curves are straight vertical, and you can bounce off them. The strat involves falling down, doing a frame-perfect pixel-perfect position-perfect orientation-perfect on the black ledge (orientation for the second bounce) into another frame-perfect pixel-perfect position-perfect orientation-perfect bounce on the yellow ledge, sending us straight to the goal.
If this succeds, it will be one of the craziest strats in the TAS, and may save up to 40 frames. Hovewer, it's going to be extremely hard to optimise; movement will be extremely tight and unforgiving to route.
This is the last of the three extremely hard stages in World 1 (Curvature, Progenitor, Anaconda) and it's the hardest on par with Curvature.
Link to video
So doing a onebounce is not possible, but by bouncing TWICE on the 'rail', we gather more speed and go to the place we want to go (the end curve, to bounce straight to the goal.)
Could save.. I don't know, it's completely insane. I've saved half a second by not even trying, so I'd estimate it to save around 85-105 frames.
Link to video
Happened in normal gameplay (exported from my ACE3ds card.)
I have no words. I have no damn words.
The worst part isn't that this happened, the worst is that this could be technically used (although I don't think it has any uses). If it does, oh boy, Anaconda just got 5x more rerecords.
Link to video
So I managed to get a low bounce (and extremely low): we're getting there.
This can likely be manipulated, doing big work on it at the moment while watching SGDQ :)
If you have noticed, the last video I've posted was on EU. Now, why are we going back to EU?
The most important reasons are:
- hardcore lag in specifics levels, which is fixed in EU
- JP has varying banana spots, most of which waste time; plus, we will be using EU as the 'consistent' version to beat all existing time+score records
- EU shows level name (which is better than WIND 01)
- EU shows the world 12 unlock banana counter on screen, which is handy for people watching to grasp what's going on
This stage sure is fickle with its collision. And good idea switching to the European version, it should be more impressive with less lag and even better record-breaking times.
Updated the game resources page again (click on this). Editing courtesy of Samsara.
About the actual stage, I think we've got a serious competitor to Curvature. Tedious falling sections, level entierely dependant on the starting boost (I've redone it.. around 16 times now?), dumpster collision, and a record almonst impossible to tie; it's got it all. There's nothing more frustating than having done 0 progress after around 6 hours of work and only being more frustated because you're literally one frame away from world record.
Onto good news, there is someone who is interested in TASing this game (is he being forced against his will, or just crazy?) and I'm talking with him as we speak.
Link to video
After only 6164 rerecords of doing nothing but redoing the starting boost, Anaconda has pity on us.
This start abuses the fact that you can bounce on a platform you've been just on again with a lower angle to bounce off the corner and get a slight vertical speed boost, which then becomes massive because of our acceleration.
This is about 3 speed faster leaving off the ramp than all my other attempts, and that's without optimising sliding on the ramp. I'm pretty enthusiastic for this start.
Link to video
This game is actually making my writing skills better with the creative insults I have to come up with with this farce of a game. (Note that I am not joking: this game is great, but frustating to speedrun/TAS)
Okay, so what's - exactly - happening here? Skip if you are allergic to long-winded explainations.
This is a variant on 'sliding', see the game resouces page for this game (it's two posts above). It's best explained with these interactive animated pictures: this is where the interesting things happen.
What happens in the video is Aiai is going very fast, and with an angle very horizontal. The original plan was to bounce on this horizontal platform. As you see, it is sloped to the right. However, the start of this horizontal platform is extremely thin, and by having an angle as such as we can almonst slide vertically off this platform, we actually clip into it a bit. This is what 'sliding' is in basis.
Let's look at this picture to see exactly what is happening (this all happens in two frames)
We have Aiai, our smooth criminal, in his ball, and the platform he's about to full on assault. The red arrow is his velocity. If you look in Panel 1, Aiai is going at near horizontal velocity and is about to hit the platform (he's actualy a little bit to the left, but that's not important here.)
Now, what is about to happen is he is about to clip into this platform. If you notice, this platform has darker red lines. What are those? Well, you have to remember the most important thing: this red platform is not actually just one platform, but rather a series of triangles. I simplified it a lot here: the red lines are just separation between triangles.
In Panel 2, Aiai begins his relentless assault against the horizontal platform. You can see, because he is in the plaform, his velocity (the arrow in blue) is now 'locked' slightly to that platform, because he clipped into it. This is how grinding works, by the way: you grind enough into a platform so that you can slide harder onto it and get mad style points.
You can also see a few pixels of his plastic fiber ball became green: these are basically, the portion of his hitbox that are into the platform currently.
Progressing to Panel 3, Aiai slides enough into the platform that he encounters another one. He can not clip into this one, though.. The blue pixels are into the 'second platform' and now register as collision. In reality, Aiai is more ejected into the portion of the platform that is to the right.
Now, since Aiai has collision, the game goes 'wee woo wee woo' and changes Aiai's speed. For his position, it's a little bit tougher: he is technically into a solid platform, and the game only just realised it now. What do? Since the platform we clipped into was sloped to the right (which is convenient) the game will eject us the direction of the slope, which is what the blue arrow represents.
Panel 4, the game ejects us, it looks like a teleport, and with his new velocity, Aiai technically hit a sloped platform, so he takes the velocity just like he would by hitting the platform normally. And the best part: combined with the speed we just got from being ejected, we go super fast!
That's basically how these two frames happened.
cool game
This is probably my favorite screenshot in the entire game.
I did some background exploration:
Link to video
My current approach is not very different from the IL (that skips the entire level): gather speed on the start with a left boost instead of a right boost (may need to do a half reverse boost).
Then, the stage is a bunch of curves: 'thankfully', the edge of these curves are straight vertical, and you can bounce off them. The strat involves falling down, doing a frame-perfect pixel-perfect position-perfect orientation-perfect on the black ledge (orientation for the second bounce) into another frame-perfect pixel-perfect position-perfect orientation-perfect bounce on the yellow ledge, sending us straight to the goal.
If this succeds, it will be one of the craziest strats in the TAS, and may save up to 40 frames. Hovewer, it's going to be extremely hard to optimise; movement will be extremely tight and unforgiving to route.
This is the last of the three extremely hard stages in World 1 (Curvature, Progenitor, Anaconda) and it's the hardest on par with Curvature.
What happens in the video is Aiai is going very fast, and with an angle very horizontal. The original plan was to bounce on this horizontal platform. As you see, it is sloped to the right. However, the start of this horizontal platform is extremely thin, and by having an angle as such as we can almonst slide vertically off this platform, we actually clip into it a bit. This is what 'sliding' is in basis.
Let's look at this picture to see exactly what is happening (this all happens in two frames)
We have Aiai, our smooth criminal, in his ball, and the platform he's about to full on assault. The red arrow is his velocity. If you look in Panel 1, Aiai is going at near horizontal velocity and is about to hit the platform (he's actualy a little bit to the left, but that's not important here.)
Now, what is about to happen is he is about to clip into this platform. If you notice, this platform has darker red lines. What are those? Well, you have to remember the most important thing: this red platform is not actually just one platform, but rather a series of triangles. I simplified it a lot here: the red lines are just separation between triangles.
In Panel 2, Aiai begins his relentless assault against the horizontal platform. You can see, because he is in the plaform, his velocity (the arrow in blue) is now 'locked' slightly to that platform, because he clipped into it. This is how grinding works, by the way: you grind enough into a platform so that you can slide harder onto it and get mad style points.
You can also see a few pixels of his plastic fiber ball became green: these are basically, the portion of his hitbox that are into the platform currently.
Progressing to Panel 3, Aiai slides enough into the platform that he encounters another one. He can not clip into this one, though.. The blue pixels are into the 'second platform' and now register as collision. In reality, Aiai is more ejected into the portion of the platform that is to the right.
Now, since Aiai has collision, the game goes 'wee woo wee woo' and changes Aiai's speed. For his position, it's a little bit tougher: he is technically into a solid platform, and the game only just realised it now. What do? Since the platform we clipped into was sloped to the right (which is convenient) the game will eject us the direction of the slope, which is what the blue arrow represents.
Panel 4, the game ejects us, it looks like a teleport, and with his new velocity, Aiai technically hit a sloped platform, so he takes the velocity just like he would by hitting the platform normally. And the best part: combined with the speed we just got from being ejected, we go super fast!
That's basically how these two frames happened.
cool game
