I would call that category "minimalist pacifist", personally. Though the fact that bats die (?) when you jump into them is a bit problematic for the "pacifist" angle, though.
Congrats on finishing your first TAS! I'm not set up to watch it, alas, so I can't provide feedback.
I've already uploaded an encode (quite a poor encode) on youtube so I had to find at least a simple name for the category, which happened to be "minimal destruction"...
If you don't mind the framerate which is far from optimal, or even good (arrg when Simon is blinking :p), here it is:
Link to video
I would call that category "minimalist pacifist", personally. Though the fact that bats die (?) when you jump into them is a bit problematic for the "pacifist" angle, though.
Congrats on finishing your first TAS! I'm not set up to watch it, alas, so I can't provide feedback.
I've already uploaded an encode (quite a poor encode) on youtube so I had to find at least a simple name for the category, which happened to be "minimal destruction"...
If you don't mind the framerate which is far from optimal, or even good (arrg when Simon is blinking :p), here it is:
Link to video
I watched the run, it was overall pretty neat. Have a list of mental notes I picked up while watching:
- The encode is just fine, you can see everything clearly. Youtube caps the framerate to 30fps either way, there's little you can do about that.
- Why didn't you jump into the entrance right at stage1? It saves quite a few frames and is done in the published run.
- I think you could've manipulated the Vampire Bat to attack you quicker.
- In Stage 5, would it be faster to jump left for the damage boost instead of straight upwards? Not sure whether Medusa heads move faster than you.
- In Stage 6, you can avoid waiting for the third ceiling stomper by not scrolling the camera as far so early. Just hang back at the candles for a while, you should be able to pass through just fine later.
- I really like the whip fighting against Medusa. In my own "no subweapons/no damage" run, I had to do the same, it looks very nifty.
- Nice hunchback manipulation. I also like the damage boosts, they are all executed very well.
- I like how you act around the ravens and skull cannons, though sometimes, I do wonder whether you could go faster. The RNG is very rigid around these parts though.
- Nice Mummy Fight again. I do wonder whether you could have gotten more hits on both of them at once (or used the damage to do a 'critical hit'). I honestly am not sure myself.
- Frankenstein Fight was great, nice critical hits.
- Outside of boss fights, you never use the whip. THis made the one time where you do use it to break your fall very jarring. I think it should be left out for consistency's sake, even if it costs a few frames.
- Dying to restock on life was very unexpected and surprisingly nice. Great idea!
- Drac Fight was done very well, too.
Overall, the run is pretty good. I don't think it could be improved by much, if anything. Keep it up, man.
Ah, an encode! That makes it much easier to watch. :)
On the whole, I think that if you cleaned this run up a bit, it'd be totally submittable. The only time I thought you "broke conduct" was when you used a bat to do the damage boost in the first stage, since that caused the bat to die. Otherwise there was a lot of creative use of enemies, and boss fights that are completely different from the ones in the currently-published run. Great work!
Unlike scrimpeh, it doesn't bug me when you use the whip outside of the boss fights (and it's done three times, not once).
I find it amusing how the developers didn't account for the possibility that there'd still be candles out for Drac's second form. That's some serious sprite flicker there.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
- The encode is just fine, you can see everything clearly. Youtube caps the framerate to 30fps either way, there's little you can do about that.
- Why didn't you jump into the entrance right at stage1? It saves quite a few frames and is done in the published run.
- I think you could've manipulated the Vampire Bat to attack you quicker.
- In Stage 5, would it be faster to jump left for the damage boost instead of straight upwards? Not sure whether Medusa heads move faster than you.
- In Stage 6, you can avoid waiting for the third ceiling stomper by not scrolling the camera as far so early. Just hang back at the candles for a while, you should be able to pass through just fine later.
- I really like the whip fighting against Medusa. In my own "no subweapons/no damage" run, I had to do the same, it looks very nifty.
- Nice hunchback manipulation. I also like the damage boosts, they are all executed very well.
- I like how you act around the ravens and skull cannons, though sometimes, I do wonder whether you could go faster. The RNG is very rigid around these parts though.
- Nice Mummy Fight again. I do wonder whether you could have gotten more hits on both of them at once (or used the damage to do a 'critical hit'). I honestly am not sure myself.
- Frankenstein Fight was great, nice critical hits.
- Outside of boss fights, you never use the whip. THis made the one time where you do use it to break your fall very jarring. I think it should be left out for consistency's sake, even if it costs a few frames.
- Dying to restock on life was very unexpected and surprisingly nice. Great idea!
- Drac Fight was done very well, too.
Thanks for the feedback :)
All the possible improvements that you listed are... possible. For me it's obvious that these parts can be done faster.
For example, just the door in stage 1 where I should have jumped in; at the time I was still like: "Hum, ok, that's how frame advance works... Let's go to the next screen.". I wasn't even trying to do a perfect run ^^
I didn't know how to manipulate the vampire bat either (in fact I still don't know, I never tried it), and I was only focused on trying to do a critical...
Medusa heads move faster than the player, so that's an other improvement to note for stage 5.
Against Medusa, critical hits are painfully absent in my run, that's another part where some time could have been saved. But maybe it would be less entertaining to watch.
All the parts with ravens are certainly improvable, too. Again, maybe at the cost of entertainment, but I'm not sure.
For the mummies, I didn't try it, but there is, perhaps, a way to do a critical to both at the same time when I'm surrounded.
It depends on how this glitch works. When you get hit and do a critical, in fact the attack goes both ways, as if you were whipping right and left at the same time. It's really interesting.
@Derakon:
The big problem is that I can't avoid killing at least 1 bat, in the best scenario possible. It happens in stage 10: I use a bat to go over the ceiling, but if I take the lower route, there will be a bat in the way, and I don't think I can avoid killing it.
Ravens die too when they hit me...
(and don't tell anybody, but I killed a snake in the medusa fight :p)
So you think I should avoid at all cost any contact with these enemies if I redo a run? And the category of the run isn't too arbitrary to be submitted?
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11476
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Loved the jump race with goblins.
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 big problem is that I can't avoid killing at least 1 bat, in the best scenario possible. It happens in stage 10: I use a bat to go over the ceiling, but if I take the lower route, there will be a bat in the way, and I don't think I can avoid killing it.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that bit. Well, there it's unavoidable, as you said, so killing one bat is necessary. Like killing the bosses is necessary. But the bat in stage 1 should still live.
Ravens die too when they hit me...
(and don't tell anybody, but I killed a snake in the medusa fight :p)
Snakes and fireballs and mummy wraps and so on ought to be killable during boss fights.
So you think I should avoid at all cost any contact with these enemies if I redo a run? And the category of the run isn't too arbitrary to be submitted?
Personally I think the run could be submitted. It feels very different from the existing run -- that run is all about throwing around as many subweapons as possible to rack up a huge score while slaughtering the enemies; this run is about sneaking through the castle and assassinating the guys in charge while leaving the peons alive. :)
Especially, if you can find some way in stage 10 to avoid killing a bat, then that removes any ambiguity about the "pacifist" aspect. But even if you absolutely have to kill a bat I think it could still work.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The big problem is that I can't avoid killing at least 1 bat, in the best scenario possible. It happens in stage 10: I use a bat to go over the ceiling, but if I take the lower route, there will be a bat in the way, and I don't think I can avoid killing it.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that bit. Well, there it's unavoidable, as you said, so killing one bat is necessary. Like killing the bosses is necessary. But the bat in stage 1 should still live.
Ravens die too when they hit me...
(and don't tell anybody, but I killed a snake in the medusa fight :p)
Snakes and fireballs and mummy wraps and so on ought to be killable during boss fights.
So you think I should avoid at all cost any contact with these enemies if I redo a run? And the category of the run isn't too arbitrary to be submitted?
Personally I think the run could be submitted. It feels very different from the existing run -- that run is all about throwing around as many subweapons as possible to rack up a huge score while slaughtering the enemies; this run is about sneaking through the castle and assassinating the guys in charge while leaving the peons alive. :)
Especially, if you can find some way in stage 10 to avoid killing a bat, then that removes any ambiguity about the "pacifist" aspect. But even if you absolutely have to kill a bat I think it could still work.
Ok, if I redo it, I'll try really hard at that part to let the bat live. I wonder if I can manipulate a merman to jump at the right spot and replace the bat as a platform, but I'm quite sure it's impossible. So, taking the lower route, it will be about timing the bat spawning and all, if possible, too...
The ravens will be my nightmare I think. I still don't know how they work, and if they use the RNG, as I suspect, they will be a torture. I'm really not good at luck manipulation, my method is the brute force approach ^^ (just trying different things until I find one that works well enough).
feos wrote:
Loved the jump race with goblins.
It was jut the fastest way to go, I thought it was too long and boring, but I'm glad you liked it :)
Grincevent, this was a really well done run and I am glad you're willing to go back and improve this.
Though I would love to know how you seemingly OHKO'd the first boss! That was intense!
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Just another random gamer
----
<OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Grincevent, this was a really well done run and I am glad you're willing to go back and improve this.
Though I would love to know how you seemingly OHKO'd the first boss! That was intense!
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Thank you, and I don't know when (or maybe if) I'll start redoing this run.
The OHKO on the big bat is due to a well known, but not well documented, glitch.
It's what can be called a "critical hit".
There are conditions to trigger it:
-hit the enemy at the exact same frame that you are hit yourself (by anything, not only the boss, it can be another enemy or a projectile)
-you must be hit from behind. At least it's how you make it work every time, but I've encountered some sort of exception: In the video you can see a bandage hitting me when I attack a mummy, this bandage comes from behind... But hits me from the front (I'm thrown backwards to the left).
Anyway, when the conditions are met, there is a critical hit: a lot more damage than usual, enough to kill the first boss in one hit.
Well... I'm at it again to improve the run from the beginning :p
I didn't kill the bat with a damage boost and took the stairs to the extra screen, and now I'm at the first boss.
It's already at least a visual improvement, since I don't get hit at all and gain time compared to my test run (but I lose more time in the end because of the extra screen to go through, which is unavoidable if I want to respect the pacifist rule).
Now I need YOU (as many "you" as possible ^^) to tell me what I should do or not do in the run, according to the "pacifist/minimalist" rule.
I'm reposting the rules here:
-I don't break anything (no candles or walls)
-I don't kill enemies except bosses, I don't hit them either, even if they survive the hit.
-I don't pick up items (they sometimes can be dropped by projectiles for example)
So, tell me what you expect from that kind of run.
I've decided to still use the whip to perform a trick which saves time when landing from too high (because it's a nice trick, I think, +1 for entertainment in my book).
Do you think I'm allowed to use the whip "just for the show" too? Maybe feinting an attack on an enemy or something like that, just for an example.
Is it acceptable to destroy some projectiles if it saves time? Both for the bosses and in the levels. Example: the bones thrown by skeletons; I don't know if it is possible, but there is a chance that I can be able to jump over a skeleton while destroying a bone to save time.
That's all I can think about right now. I'm waiting for your suggestions ;)
I'd generally say that using the whip outside of boss rooms is fine, but it should always have a clear purpose (either for speed or entertainment). I mean, you shouldn't just swing the whip randomly.
Personally I think that you should be able to destroy projectiles, but I don't know if I'm in the majority. Certainly I think anything that appears during a boss fight is fair game.
Good luck! I look forward to seeing the run on the workbench. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The vampire bat and medusa are down :)
I managed to get the bat to come at me earlier.
And it may disappoint you, scrimpeh, but the fight against medusa looks less like a "whipping dance" because of the critical hit abuse this time :p
Stage 5 took me a looooooot of tries and comparisons to have the best outcome with the damage boost on the medusa head. If I remember correctly, jumping left or just up are the same, time wise, but I jump left anyway ^^
Big improvement with the crushing pillars, too, less than 10 frames of "waiting" near the candles before going in and passing in one go (after the 1st pillar goes up).
But after these, I have to give up on the damage boost with the bat, obviously; it forces some nice jumps to avoid the bone pillars and their fireballs instead.
The bats and ravens appear to have been discussed already extensively... You shouldn't do shortcuts at the cost of enemies dying.
As was the lack of critical hits in the mummy boss.
In the death boss (stage 15), it appeared to be somewhat arbitrary when you would kill the scythes and when you would not.
Otherwise, nice. I like this objective. Looks like the developers did not anticipate someone leaving the candles alone in the dracula fight. It looks nasty with the blinking.
The bats and ravens appear to have been discussed already extensively... You shouldn't do shortcuts at the cost of enemies dying.
As was the lack of critical hits in the mummy boss.
In the death boss (stage 15), it appeared to be somewhat arbitrary when you would kill the scythes and when you would not.
Otherwise, nice. I like this objective. Looks like the developers did not anticipate someone leaving the candles alone in the dracula fight. It looks nasty with the blinking.
There are only 2 hurdles concerning bats and ravens dying. (I don't want to just discuss it once, I'd prefer to have as many opinions as possible ^^)
-in stage 10 when taking the lower route on the moving platforms, I don't know yet if I'll find a way to avoid killing a bat. If I really can't find it and a bat must die, that means I'll take the shortcut above the ceiling instead.
-the second screen of stage 7. Ravens all over the place, small platforms (not a lot of room to manoeuver) and skeletons... This will be hard ^^
I don't know well how ravens and skeletons work, how to manipulate them, so if you have just some info on it, it would help a lot (even just something like: "yeah these enemies are indeed influenced by the frame counter and character position" is good info, I don't watch the RNG, it's above my skills I think :p).
What would you recommend about destroying the boss's projectiles?
I have 3 choices in mind:
1: it's ok to whip anything spawned by bosses, period
2: it's ok to destroy a boss projectile if I hit the boss at the same time (it's in the way)
3: I can't destroy any projectile
With 2 or 3, the fight vs Death will need a lot of work. The scythe that I whipped was really messing with the flow of the battle.
Anyway, thanks for your support ;)
Edit: in fact I used a critical on the mummy in that test run. As with everytime I'm hit in a boss battle.
There is a way to pass stage 10 without killing anything, it's now official (yay!).
I couldn't go over the wall without the help of a bat (I tried with a merman, but it really seemed impossible after quite some tries...), so I had to "board the platforms!"
But it was easy in fact :p
All the ravens earlier were a pain (in tandem with the skeletons and small platforms), but it's done too, without getting hit to have more criticals against the mummies.
There is a way to pass stage 10 without killing anything, it's now official (yay!).
I couldn't go over the wall without the help of a bat (I tried with a merman, but it really seemed impossible after quite some tries...), so I had to "board the platforms!"
But it was easy in fact :p
Congratulations. P.S. If you get hit by a enemy, do you get invulnerable to further hits by other enemies for a moment, even for a small one?
There is a way to pass stage 10 without killing anything, it's now official (yay!).
I couldn't go over the wall without the help of a bat (I tried with a merman, but it really seemed impossible after quite some tries...), so I had to "board the platforms!"
But it was easy in fact :p
Congratulations. P.S. If you get hit by a enemy, do you get invulnerable to further hits by other enemies for a moment, even for a small one?
Yes, any hit grants invulnerability for some time; I didn't time it, but I keep track of this "timer" with RAM watch. Useful to chain criticals on bosses, too: as long as you are in their hitbox when invulnerability wears off (and if you timed your attack to hit precisely at that moment, too), you can make a critical at the first frame possible just after becoming vulnerable again.
So, Simon gets invulnerable and also walks through enemies like if he weren't here, meaning small enemies or projectiles are not destroyed by contact.
By the way, medusa heads and hunchbacks are not killed when bumping into them, they can still be used to perform damage boosts.
Congratulations. P.S. If you get hit by a enemy, do you get invulnerable to further hits by other enemies for a moment, even for a small one?
Yes, any hit grants invulnerability for some time
Allright. Because in a pinch, where you really don't want to kill one enemy that is approaching you, you can hit another one (that does not die) and thus get past the weaker one with the invulnerability without harming it.
Allright. Because in a pinch, where you really don't want to kill one enemy that is approaching you, you can hit another one (that does not die) and thus get past the weaker one with the invulnerability without harming it.
Thanks, but I knew it already ^^
I used it in some tries with the ravens: getting hit by a skeleton to help getting past... But in the end, the best result I had was without getting hit.
In fact, I had to redo the raven part after going back in time to change something and gain some frames (improving a damage boost), and after that, the skeleton behavior was changed just enough to not let me find a good occasion to take damage to save more time :p
I also take in consideration that life=time in this game. Taking a hit means losing a critical hit for the incoming boss, and a critical is equivalent to... Let's say 5 normal hits approximately.
To summarize:
-1st go: I can pass it with or without getting hit, but the hit doesn't save enough time, considering that I lose a critical for the battle (due to the layout of the level, it's hard to find a good spot to take damage)
-oops! I can improve a damage boost on the screen before that, let's do it
-oh no, the skeletons behave differently now. I have to redo it all
-2nd go: now I can't even find a decent way to get hit and gain time, I manage to pass unscathed, and in fact it is faster than my 1st go "no damage edition"
In the end I'm quite satisfied because it looks better to not get hit after all :p
Derakon wrote:
Awesome! That's great news. I look forward to seeing your run on the Workbench. :)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11476
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Pasky13, can something like that be done for isometric games like Battletoads? At least for vertical and horizontal dimentions. If necessary, we have an IDB file with many discovered addresses.
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.
Link to video
Enjoy!
