Hello all,

As the newest firmware revision of the Everdrive now allows to use save states with Pin Bot, I was wondering if the moderating team would allow usage of a save state that skips most of the intro right after a power-on.

Now rule of thumb disallows usage of save states as in some games, as it would open the way for RNG manipulation normally not possible via original hardware. However, in the case of Pin Bot, it appears that no interaction with the game is at all possible until the intro is done with, which most likely means that there would be no RNG manipulation possible from that save state, as long as the state is taken BEFORE the game allows inputs.

Now I'm not all that well-versed in how the game's memory and RNG works, but if this could be looked into, it would be great. If we can save ourselves the hassle of waiting 20 seconds after every hard reset, it would make running the game all that more enjoyable.

Thanks!

I'm open to discussion, but my instinct would be to say no. Long intros can be annoying, but I don't know that 20 seconds is really overwhelming.

I'm sure I spent some time looking at the memory and the game code when I made the tas, but even if there isn't a direct influence on RNG there are better reasons it shouldn't be allowed. Most notably there is no way for someone verifying your run to know exactly what state you're starting from and if you may have modified your save state to your advantage in some way.

Hopefully the intro doesn't completely deter you, I look forward to seeing some more runs.

To be honest, I kind of expected this answer. After all, most boards adhere to the "start from hard reset" rule. But I thought I'd ask just to see if there were other considerations, and surely enough there are.

I'll get back to it at some point. At least I can practice using save states until I get consistent enough to give the game a whirl from a hard reset.

Thanks for the response.