New Jersey, USA(Making this post cause I don't think it's appropriate to continue it in the 3ds thread.)
Spikestuff: "Hey, Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) speedrunners. Some major information that you might want to know. It looks like BizHawk is going to integrate PPSSPP for real in due time. So, if you want to TAS your PSP titles. It looks like it's coming.
Spread the word." -- https://bsky.app/profile/spikestuff.bsky.social/post/3lk3yeijuac2o
Our time is coming.
[ Board Aesthetic Change ]
Fresh new look! The steam page was updated with new images and a trailer for the full game. With that, I've changed the leaderboard to have cooler graphics. It would be nice to have a custom speedrun.com logo as well, though I certainly don't have the skill or time right now to make one myself.
Adding to this, you can wall clip and go out of bounds in Chapter 3 (don't know if that's known already). Grabbing on to the wall in the right spot pushes you OOB. You can use it to get to the crystal behind the gate (not shown in video)
There's a new release candidate for BizHawk, 2.10. I resynced that TAS to it since it has more accurate emulation. And if you want to fool around with TAS tools yourself there's a .lua I made as well as the bk2 at TASVideos.org.
Anyway, I found a ton of improvements to save ~10 seconds. The biggest improvement was that you don't actually have to kill the roach in Nasty Things, you can just walk past it given you avoid its collision. I also skipped through the cutscenes faster in The Basics, and a cool corner jump in Gathers No Moss. I made a sheet showing the specific timesaves.
Sadly the one thing I couldn't get to work were double jumps. I know they were found recently so I wanted to give it a try in this version, but it seems to be patched.
@golderzoa Cool, I haven't had much time to work on it if you didn't notice already. I'll try to get on it end of this year/start of next year. Maybe you'll develop more strats by then :)
[ This will be the main discussion thread about changes to the leaderboard ]
A few days ago, the team behind Stretchmancer announced they're turning this silly prototype into a full game (you should totally go wishlist it on steam). This means some decisions need to be made regarding how the board is gonna be changed.
The current plan is to split the leaderboard in two, one for the demo and one for the full game, and turn the full game into the main leaderboard. The same split will be done to the levels, if possible, so they aren't all in the same area. Mockup below.
Timing also needs to be addressed. I can't make any assumptions on the start or end point, but if the run's longer than 5 minutes then timing will be done to the second instead of millisecond to make it easier. Only if the game becomes competitive enough to warrant milliseconds will I change it back to seconds.
Also, some new art was shown for the game, seems to be the only piece though. Might change it to the board background to look cool, in addition to changing the colors to match.
A few days ago, the team behind Stretchmancer announced they're turning this silly prototype into a full game (you should totally go wishlist it on steam). This means some decisions need to be made regarding how the board is gonna be changed.
The current plan is to split the leaderboard in two, one for the demo and one for the full game, and turn the full game into the main leaderboard. The same split will be done to the levels, if possible, so they aren't all in the same area. Mockup below.
Timing also needs to be addressed. I can't make any assumptions on the start or end point, but if the run's longer than 5 minutes then timing will be done to the second instead of millisecond to make it easier. Only if the game becomes competitive enough to warrant milliseconds will I change it back to seconds.
Also, some new art was shown for the game, seems to be the only piece though. Might change it to the board background to look cool, in addition to changing the colors to match.
@golderzoa, I just posted my version of Citra if you don't wanna go scouring on archive.org.
Today, the citra (3ds) and yuzu (Switch) emulators were shut down by Nintendo. This won't stop me from working on the TAS, as I already have citra. It's sad the original developers have to stop working on it, but from what I can see citra is unaffected. People who've forked it can continue working on it, as only the original devs have to stop.
Anyway, it's not devastating for me, but it does leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Potential hint for accessing debug mode
I went back and reread the config file in case I missed something obvious, and it seems I did. based on this, there was a "debug pad" for the 3ds that they used during development. if we could know what exactly that is, and hack in a way to hit debug pad buttons, it'd be lovely (if it's not referring to something completely unrelated)
It's so unlikely that any normie from anywhere would know where to get one but dude it'd be so cool to access something like that. there's stuff about a level editor too, so i think they were gonna implement it then decided against it (or it's just a remnant of the PSP version, because of how similar these two are)
Hints of a Debug Mode and Level Editor
In the romFs of the 3ds version, there's a cfg file suggesting a debug mode (as well as functions within the code stating the same). Weirdly the file had the debug mode set to true. There could be a code still in the game to activate it, but I don't think we'll ever find it out unless someone knows how to fully decompile the game.
I tried changing various settings in the config but they don't do anything, so it's certainly an activation thing.
I figured I should list some things I noticed, but most is nothing new.
There are a few interesting glitches/bugs used throughout the game. Cutscenes only play if you're grounded, so you can delay them (sometimes skip them completely) by jumping the frame/a few frames before before they activate. That's most notable in "Rocks In Your Head" (the level after Under & Over) because you get the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cutscene to play back to back to back, and with the balls platform lowering. The same is true for the fall damage animation, you can walk and jump for a tiny bit before it plays, do that for the duration of the animation and you get no recoil (done in first level and Tin Can Alley). While watching the PSP Any% IL, this wasn't done, so more time could be shaved off of those (you can basically spam jump and get it RTA) ::EDIT: It's actually a lot easier to spam and get it on 3ds than on PSP. It's a lot trickier on PSP, but possible.
For cutscene triggers that you walk into, you can crush during their intro to save some small time (first level). In Nasty Things the cockroach moves very slow, and only dies if he's on screen and on bricks. That's why crushing the first doesn't kill him, and I have to wait for him to walk out of the hole. In some areas you can crush while falling, if you go from Falling -> Grounded -> Falling fast enough. It's only used once here (in Upstairs, Downstairs) but will be done in later levels as well.
Wanted to show off the 3ds TAS I've worked on a bit, finishes City world. From what I can see, you can't exit to Seaside early, you have to play all the City levels. If anyone finds something faster please let me know so I can redo the section. Thanks, and happy new years!
