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9 years ago
Austria

Sorry for the sound of my voice in my last stream, I've been struggling a lot to make it work well... I also don't know what the almost constant buzzing sound during it was, it never happened before...

Thanks for that cog! I think it's amazing :D Now it'll be much easier to fly around to areas I want to explore. (One funny but useless thing I found while playing with it, if you try to fly up the shaft in which you enter Teotihuacan, the view will be stuck in the beginning room and won't follow Indy anymore. See that little Indy in the back on the left? :P ) [IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/4s00ue.jpg[/IMG]

Seems we'll have to make some use of the Nubian boy then! It's not like we have another choice. I didn't know you could backroll there when going up the red pyramid! Makes everything a lot smoother and faster since we don't have to move across the ledge. But it does seem tricky so I'll see how consistent I can get it before deciding whether or not to include it in my final route. It's interesting how pulling a block on the spiders doesn't kill them. And I thought it was funny how that spider died during the wall shattering animation at 4:39 XD

I thought more about using it for finding triggers or parts of areas that don't have a trigger property - to skip cutscenes, perhaps. Still it's nice to see that it's used even for pure fun, like exploring inaccessible areas. Thank you good sir for the opinion. :)

I wanted to see, whether anything can be done to make the "falling down" setup more consistent. Maybe... grab the pullable block to be positioned at a "perfect angle" and then do some acrobatics, like roll back to even cancel the animation in mid-air to land safely ? Well... even then there's so much randomness that you have to witness it yourself. Use this savegame: http://www58.zippyshare.com/v/18sgR72p/file.html and compare the results, which should be identical, but won't be:

  1. hold 'Z' all the time and the hold 'down arrow'
  2. hold 'Z' all the time, press 'down arrow' once and one more time when the animation finishes
  3. press 'Z' and then 'down arrow' an then release them. do this once more after the animation finishes I don't know why the game behaves like this. Sometimes I got stuck in the "slippery" floor, sometimes I died from fall damage, sometimes I kept on bouncing these platforms to land safely. Any ideas for improvements ?
Germany

I tried it too some weeks ago and at some spot I could land near the hole so I didn´t have to climb the ladder, but it is pretty much pixel perfect. I will try to find that spot again and make a savegame, not sure if something can be done about the inconsistency.

[i]Edit: Here I found some setup which works most of the time, savegame here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4a2v27330569f66/lvl14drop.nds?dl=0

Coordinates: Pos: (9.08, 3.49, 0.17) PYR: (0.00, -170.76, 0.02) Sector: 1017.

It should be the "ideal" place to land since all you have to do is turn to the side and runjump forward. I also had different setups where I also landed on other sides of the ground and sometimes I was able to hang at the top platform but after climbing he just went to this hanging animation and I couldn´t do anything anymore. Best would be if Indy somehow lands on the edge of the top platform, then maybe he doesn´t get stuck in that animation and we can grab Nubs part right away, but so far no success.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

I couldn't manage to make your setup work for me - all the time I kept on getting stuck in one of those platforms. There's something else in addition to my previous complaint about the randomness. Here's another savegame, similar to the previous one: http://www10.zippyshare.com/v/ALvk29tB/file.html Once the savegame is loaded, hold Z and down arrow all the time - I kept on getting different results and don't know, what causes the randomness. Usually this setup allows to drop "perfectly" down to your death, sometimes to bounce off those platforms to land down safely.

And remember the "wowing sound" ? Here's what I can get from the savegame you uploaded: https://s18.postimg.org/85l82zmop/Jones10.jpg https://s18.postimg.org/gdn5nzel5/Jones12.jpg :D

Germany

I usually bounce off the lowest platform and end up next to the hole, so I don´t need to climb it. Sometimes I get stuck too, so as you said there is just a randomness factor there. In your savefile I sometimes survive and sometimes die while landing in the hole, so even more confirmation that there is randomness. About the sounds I get constanty "Dr. Volodnikov!" by Indy from your files and even more other sounds appear when I try to finish the level, some of the sounds begin to run in slower/faster.

What levels haven´t been examined properly yet, "Infernal Machine" and "Teotihuacan" I think? Maybe we should focus on them, I tried to search for something in "Infernal Machine", but couldn´t find anything new. Well a useless thing you can do is to push down the Marduk robot (or let him fall down in the cutscene by placing the Marduk head before the Azerim part), but the level still finishes (good to know lol). What I haven´t timed yet is if it is faster to use the elevator where you put Urgons part in up to the top, jump across the platforms there and use the other elevator to get to Turner or to just use it once, drop down to the area where you start after the big cutscene, run to the other elevator and use that to get to Turner. That Turner fool himself is worthless, a few Machine Gun shots and he drops dead in a second... a disappointing "boss" fight honestly, but good for speedrunning I guess.

OK, I managed to find some minor time savers:

http://www49.zippyshare.com/v/KFZOHg7B/file.html

Teotihuacan:

  1. It's possible to push the button to open all doors that close automatically in that spiral route to the gears room without cutting down the web - just crawl close enough, get up and push. Any time saved ?
  2. After pulling those pillars that raise the statue, there's a short break before the statue-raising cutscenes start. So after the pulling animation ends, immediately turn to the closest wall and attempt to draw somthing with a chalk - once the drawing is finished, the cutscene should be going, but you'll be allowed to move normally or use the inventory menu. The third one triggers another cutscene that shows door opening - maybe we could use the trick to unfreeze Indy in that one as well ?
  3. A simple morph-jump to skip climbing animation.
  4. This cutscene preserves movement that was active once it started. So hold the up arrow to run and then press ctrl to start it - you should be inside with the music playing even before the cutscene finishes.
  5. Morph-jump and once the gun holstering animation is present, open the inventory and choose Fish Idol - it'll be put in the initial cutscene you get after visiting this room for the first time.

Don't attempt to use morph-jumps to get through the "open spaces" in that corridor that allow to see Idols' rooms - those are just invisible walls.

Infernal Machine: Use the exact same trick, that unfreezes Indy after drawing, after picking up Azerim's Part:

I also attached a savegame showing that you can abuse the crawling-ascending trick to get to one upper level without even returning to the room, in which you normally put Urgon's Part, but still the elevators are out of order, so no progress this time. Something tells me I'll need to study both the original and patched scripts for that level to find out, what was so broken that the developers decided to rewrite. Could you attach the whole "cog" folder from patched version ?

Germany

I tried your finds and they work, besides Nr. 5. I didn´t test it yet as I didn´t get there yet in my game and with your savefile I get some exception and game crashes when I select the fish statue. Also sometimes I can´t load your savegames it tells me invalid filetype.

The cog folder: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4amx4eeer7vaqtw/Cog.zip?dl=0

Austria

I've also tried the savegames and they also work for me, except the fifth one in Teotihuacan and the Infernal Machine one. In the former, like Molotok said, when I want to select the fish statue, the game invariably crashes. In the latter, the game crashes regardless of what I do. I press ctrl, and no matter if I want to fire a gun or trigger a part cutscene, the game crashes.

I don't know what's going on with that savegame - works fine for me. Could it be because it was made using wireframe rendering ? Here's the same one using normal rendering: http://www73.zippyshare.com/v/RGbjERSS/file.html If it still doesn't work, here's what's going on there: https://s14.postimg.org/wljyd0cgx/Jones22.jpg I'm standing close to the area that triggers the cutscene with the dialogue "These pedestals look [...]". From there just morph-jump and do the rest I described in previous post.

Question: is there really a way to make an even more extended jump by combining different animations ? While reading comments on one of your older videos () I found this one interesting: "You can also combine the sideways roll with ¤non-rolls¤, which could be ¤very¤ interesting. By messing up the key binds something fierce, I was able to make it combine the side-roll and the long-jump! On default, these are the impossible keystrokes: LCtrl->Hold Z->Left->Hold Forward->Hold Shift->LAlt I can not do it reliably (at all) even with different keybinds, so I'd need macros or something to test it properly. So far it seems to be a slightly longer long-jump, like the slightly longer roll" Has anyone managed to do this even with macros ? If so, maybe we could finally have consistent setup for the Babylon skip or jump directly to the trigger that removes "slippery" property from those platforms in Nub's Tomb. I know this still wouldn't be valid in a run, unless it's classified as TAS, but I'd just like to know, if it works.

Thank you for the scripts ! Onto comparing them and studying the differences !

One more thing... "Thanks for that cog! I think it's amazing Now it'll be much easier to fly around to areas I want to explore. " Should I write something else, let's say a "ignore player" (normally set by becoming invisible) or walk-through-walls toggleable cheat, or even combine some to allow exploring even more areas ?

Germany

I tried your savegame and it doesn´t work either, but I went to the end of the level in my game and can verify that trick with the fish statue. Edit: It also works with a long jump, should be slightly faster because no need to wait for Indy to holster the weapon.

Unfortunately I wasn´t able to do this extended long jump, not back then when it was mentioned and not now. No clue what he pressed to do it, the input he posted doesn´t seem to be correct since indy just kinda rolls on the same spot for me (also tried it with macros back then or I did something wrong). Besides what you already mentioned this trick would shorten Olmec Valley by a few minutes since we probably could skip activating the bridges! Hope someone finds a way to do it..

Edited by the author 6 years ago

Once I have more free time I'll experiment with macros and combinations of jumps.

For now ? Do one less jump in Mines to access the green socket by jumping directly to its platform. I can do this from here: https://s2.postimg.org/3y7rtsfh5/Jones29.jpg

Once you're sure the boss in Nub's Tomb is going to die with the last shock, keep on chalking until the cutscene starts - movement allowed.

There's this button near the trapdoor that needs to be activated so we can use the elevator in Nub's Tomb. Quick study of both scripts shows that in the patched version player gets frozen immediately, then there's a 0,2 seconds delay and the cutscene starts, whereas in the original one firstly there's a one second delay, then the cutscene starts and then the player is frozen ! So this allows for a full one second movement in the original version - useful ? Maybe... maybe there's more stuff that might come in handy in different scripts. We'll see. Just in case someone out there is interested in studying them, here's a bundle: http://www116.zippyshare.com/v/QCTxBdQm/file.html And how do I easily compare them ? With a program named Meld. Here's a sample of how it looks when there are differences in files - using the one I described above. https://s14.postimg.org/yaqh5140x/compare.png (yes, there are even more differences, but they aren't related to speedrunning)

Molotok likes this
Austria

Firstly, sorry I'm not very active lately; I'm moving to Austria in just over two weeks (August 8) and need pretty much all my free time to prepare for it! My objective until then though is to find enough time to run and record Meroe at least once, so wish me luck on that! (Edit: Also, I want to update the tricks catalogue with the new things we know both from this thread here and Moritz's runs.)

Is there a way to see Indy's position as (x,y,z) coordinates? Seeing that might help finding a frame that jumps consistently in Babylon. Once we find that frame, we can describe the setup using in-game objects so that we don't need the coordinates anymore. For instance, my setup to get the backroll jump on the pillar that opens the Marduk statue niche in the library is that the center of Indy's hat (the little concave bit on top) must be just under the "Australia-ish-shaped" stain on the wall while Indy's feet are on the four stones' meeting point.

When I open my game again I'll try this sequence to get the longer jump but if it hasn't worked for Molotok I'm pretty sure it won't work for me either.

"Should I write something else [...]?" Well, if you're asking, I think it'd be great if you could do like this French guy (or that guy who owns the French version of the game, anyway) so we can go through walls: It's funny how crossing through the Map door in Babylon (i.e. the beginning of Infernal Machine) triggers the initial dialogue of Infernal Machine ("Sophia? Turner? They've been here all right. Where are they now?") Same as how visiting the "green zone" after the Ice Monster triggers the dialogue of the cutscene in Babylon when the guard talks to Volodnikov while he looks at the statue of some weird cat. Raises the question why? I mean, the beginning of Infernal Machine IS the end of Babylon, so that makes sense, but the end of Shambala in no way links to Babylon! As for cheats like that in general, I think it would be great if each of them is toggled using a different cheatcode, so that we can combine them. If urgon_elsa makes you fly and azerim_sophia makes you walk through walls, then new exploration possibilities arise and that's absolutely awesome! :D

As for the jump in Mines, I was already aware of it and got it right a few times, but I'm so bad at the longest jumps that the chances of me failing it are pretty high, so for now, I jump from the scaffolding.

The only kind of "coding" I do and understand is mathematical programming so I'll let you guys handle computer code if you don't mind ;) That's kind of why I asked for coordinates and not macros and things like that in Babylon.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Austria

By the way, if you look at the whole gameplay (read it as a synonym of screenplay but for a game, so all the dialogues), one can see that there are dialogues for a level called "Shambala Waterworks", which was obviously not included in the game. Reading the dialogue, it seems like it would have been a puzzle level whose objective would have been to thaw the frozen river that goes through the sanctuary to make its mechanisms work again. I saw that this French guy uploaded this picture of the level (no idea whatsoever how he found it!). Can any of you find anything about that level in the scripts you look at? Would be great to have more info about that level [IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/auee6g.jpg[/IMG]

That French guy is just amazing: he started making a remastered version of the game all by himself, with better graphics, new menus and stuff. Just look at the main menu he made: [IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/5p5448.jpg[/IMG] Okay, I know this has no links with tricks and shortcuts, so I'll stop here.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Austria

Okay it was too tempting, I opened my game again, and tried your jump sequence in the opening part of Babylon. Most of the times the sequence got me fixed and I had to use the fixme cheat to, well, fix me. However, it wasn't all lost, as one of the jumps made me land there: [IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/b3lz78.jpg[/IMG] Once I was fixed I was able to stay there, but it's also possible to get there very easily with a normal jump. This brings us closer to the ledge we want to reach, and the morph jump is more of a straight line. I couldn't get it any of the times I tried, but I'm sure it's already more consistent. What do you guys think?

Germany

I tried to reach the upper part by a long jump to the right and also the rolling glitch from this position, still I can´t reach it. It is not much that is missing, but still nothing.. annoying :/

Typing "coords" in the cheat commandline reveals X, Y, Z position. Not to be pessimistic, but since the game can be so random and precise, it's likely we'll need to get more precise numbers, maybe by using Cheat Engine or another memory viewer/editor ?

One can use a tool called GOBExt to extract stuff from those big .gob archives and get loads of .cog scripts. Usually there's something that indicates, which level does a script correspond to. So for example: SHS is Shambala Sanctuary and SHW is the scrapped level - but at least one still used in vanilla SHS ! If they weren't, then why would the one named "SHW_BossCinematic.cog" be included with the official patch ? When it comes to modeling the level for full 3D preview I can't say anything - but there's this script that has definitions of hints and developers' comments. Enjoy:

Use your imagination. I wasn't the game's developer and I don't want to spread any possibly false information.

I'll try writing that no-clip cheat. Be patient - this requires studying the scripts for necessary functions, which takes time.

Potential shortcuts:

Skip the "Whose dreams..." cutscene by jumping like drawn here: https://s2.postimg.org/l2jqkfdzt/Jones39.jpg The first curved jump is somewhat tricky. At least it's right at the beginning of the level so there's not so much to redo in case of failure. The second jump to the final destination doesn't have to lead here - you might well bounce off to the lower floor and still skip the cutscene - at the cost of one additional climb.

Get out of water directly to the metallic floor by climbing like here: https://s21.postimg.org/4xyxmu8av/Jones35.jpg https://s21.postimg.org/pw9oynxjb/Jones36.jpg https://s21.postimg.org/jwlxv0cqv/Jones37.jpg

It's possible to move blocks by less than one "ideal" square ! Proof: https://s18.postimg.org/4hnx5k1jd/Jones40.jpg How ? Just crawl as close as you can to the corner that the block and the wall next to it make. Stand up, rotate a bit so you can trigger the "attempting to move it" animation and perform the move. The thing is that the game seems to know, how far it'll be pulled, so you can move it even when normally Indy would respond "Can't pull this any further". https://s18.postimg.org/et09y7t8p/Jones41.jpg https://s18.postimg.org/hblyyweyx/Jones42.jpg Note that I haven't tried pushing it this way. Seems possible, try it !

Another thing: performing the morph-jump is slightly farther with rifles than with pistols. Still, too short to reach eg. the "unslippering" trigger in Nub's Tomb.

No progress with the even more extended jumps. When trying, I usually got stuck in the standing animation and got Indy frozen permanently.

Germany

I found a pretty nice Indy-morph to get up to the ledge at the start of Babylon which should make it feasible even for single segment runs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipx70qnug34qhat/indy3d_morph.avi?dl=0

As you can see in the video I could do it like three times in about 40 seconds.. all you need to press is: Right+Ctrl, then Left+y(or z if you have an english keyboard) while letting go the first two and then Up. I could even produce a similiar morph without any weapon equiped, but it didn´t work here for me.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Hesse, Germany

I found a way to jump with the jeep directly to the gem eye in Meroe. But unfortunatly, as you already said, it's not possible to take the gem eye without the cutscene with the kid. That's annoying, cause you could skip killing all hyenas :(

Molotok likes this
Germany

How did you get there, I remember trying it dozens of time without success. Did you test if you need certain conditions, like for example getting the watch or kill hyenas first? I figure it probably should not work nevertheless, but still worth the try cause the cutscene is somehow long. x)

Hesse, Germany

Here's a video:

I already tested it under various conditions without succes. So if I have nothing forgotten, it's not possible (maybe it works in the n64 version?)

But it's interesting that you can jump out of the map here.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
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