Astebreed - November 13, 2014

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2014-11-13 05:57:40 pm

2014-09-25 11:21:45 pm

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Astebreed (Any %) (Single Segment) (Normal)

Decision: Reject

Reason: The runner's speed strats were likely based around framerate variance on his computer. Rejecting with hopes that, if this game is a viable speedrun, we'll see a future submission.

https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/1301/

This run will be available for a month. After that these link(s) will no longer work.

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2014-09-25 11:22:26 pm

Run Information

Astebreed (Any %) (Single Segment) (Normal)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/astebreed-v_HQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by Oct. 10, 2014.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.

bangerra

Edit history:

bangerra: 2014-09-26 02:46:21 am

2014-09-26 02:46:03 am

A/V quality is good. There is however some noticable framestutter and slowdown on more intense parts, not sure if this is just the game or if it's a performance issue.

Level of play seems good, never played this though so I have no idea how this game works.

This is a shmup however, can the runner give us a timeframe in how much time he actually saves compared to a non-superplay? Because the levels seem to be pretty static part from the bossfights.

UraniumAnchor

2014-09-26 10:14:56 am

Not a walrus

Poked the runner for more info, because at first glance I don't see any obvious things that speed this up vs a normal playthrough.

Vulajin

2014-10-22 01:59:36 am

Apologies for the delayed follow-up. We did receive some responses from the runner about this run:

Quote:

I understand that you normally don't accept autoscrollers, so I will provide as much information on how I manipulate the game that I know. I have not done extensive data collection on exactly how, and what, works, however I have several ways that I know of at the moment of taking time off the run.
By destroying specific enemies, or not destroying them, I am able to cut time out of each level. this works because the game is scripted, but only to an extent. This extent has to do with how many enemies spawn and how long they take to "respawn" after they are destroyed, not all of them do this, but enough of them are able to be influenced to be destroyed at a time where they do not respawn, but still get off screen faster then if they were to just fly off screen.
Another way that I am able to speed the game up are the boss battles. They are not scripted into timed events, well they are, but you lose if you run out of time. If I can make a "route" through each boss battle finding new ways to defeat the different bosses and stages, I can cut lots of time off. As in the final boss, if I just hack away at it, and don't anticipate, and find the best way to do as much damage to it as I can as fast as I can, I lose lots of time. But since I know what it is going to do by rough time estimates and such "flags" in the game, I am able to predict where it will go, and attempt to get there first, or move with it to do as much damage as I can.

I hope that this has provided enough information on how I am able to speedrun this game and why I think it should be accepted as a speedrun. If you need any more information, or any clarification please contact me again, I will give you the best ways that I know of to take time off this run, and why I think it should be accepted. Thank you for accepting it to this point in the process, even if you find it to not be accepted into the archives.

Upon further prompting for more specific numbers:

Quote:

On the first level of the game, and one of the shortest levels, I get around 6:06 when I play it without any set strategy to destroying enemies and still predicting the bosses, however if I play through it by destroying everything in my way I can gain up to 20 seconds more. If I play it without destroying most of the enemies, except a select few, I am able to get 5:31 saving 25 seconds currently. Where as on the third level, that takes around 8:40 to beat, it is faster to not destroy anything on the first section of it, saving around a minute of time, however on the second half destroying most of the enemies that don't respawn can save around 24 seconds. I am able to do this on all the levels except level 2 as far as I am able to tell. All together playing through the game the same as I would normally, and with defeating the specific enemies that save time, I have saved almost 10 minutes on the run, and I project that I am able to save at least 10 more with what I have learned at the moment. I am also looking into more ways that I am able to save time. I am able to watch the frame rate of the game, and that is not affecting the times that I get as far as I am able to determine.

We'd like some input from verifiers about whether or not this run qualifies as different enough from a standard playthrough to be posted. Please let us know what you think.

Apologies for the delayed follow-up. We did receive some responses from the runner about this run:

[quote]I understand that you normally don't accept autoscrollers, so I will provide as much information on how I manipulate the game that I know. I have not done extensive data collection on exactly how, and what, works,  however I have several ways that I know of at the moment of taking time off the run.
By destroying specific enemies, or not destroying them, I am able to cut time out of each level. this works because the game is scripted, but only to an extent. This extent has to do with how many enemies spawn and how long they take to "respawn" after they are destroyed, not all of them do this, but enough of them are able to be influenced to be destroyed at a time where they do not respawn, but still get off screen faster then if they were to just fly off screen.
Another way that I am able to speed the game up are the boss battles. They are not scripted into timed events, well they are, but you lose if you run out of time. If I can make a "route" through each boss battle finding new ways to defeat the different bosses and stages, I can cut lots of time off. As in the final boss, if I just hack away at it, and don't anticipate, and find the best way to do as much damage to it as I can as fast as I can, I lose lots of time. But since I know what it is going to do by rough time estimates and such "flags" in the game, I am able to predict where it will go, and attempt to get there first, or move with it to do as much damage as I can.

I hope that this has provided enough information on how I am able to speedrun this game and why I think it should be accepted as a speedrun. If you need any more information, or any clarification please contact me again, I will give you the best ways that I know of to take time off this run, and why I think it should be accepted. Thank you for accepting it to this point in the process, even if you find it to not be accepted into the archives.[/quote]

Upon further prompting for more specific numbers:

[quote]On the first level of the game, and one of the shortest levels, I get around 6:06 when I play it without any set strategy to destroying enemies and still predicting the bosses, however if I play through it by destroying everything in my way I can gain up to 20 seconds more. If I play it without destroying most of the enemies, except a select few, I am able to get 5:31 saving 25 seconds currently. Where as on the third level, that takes around 8:40 to beat, it is faster to not destroy anything on the first section of it, saving around a minute of time, however on the second half destroying most of the enemies that don't respawn can save around 24 seconds. I am able to do this on all the levels except level 2 as far as I am able to tell. All together playing through the game the same as I would normally, and with defeating the specific enemies that save time, I have saved almost 10 minutes on the run, and I project that I am able to save at least 10 more with what I have learned at the moment. I am also looking into more ways that I am able to save time. I am able to watch the frame rate of the game, and that is not affecting the times that I get as far as I am able to determine.[/quote]

We'd like some input from verifiers about whether or not this run qualifies as different enough from a standard playthrough to be posted. Please let us know what you think.

presjpolk

2014-10-22 08:15:49 am

HELLO!

Is there a run available that shows us what happens with naive strategies, so we can see the time differences?

Vulajin

2014-10-26 10:54:51 am

Here's a Normal difficulty Xbreed playthrough which I found on Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=vGM-3r3x278

Things about this video to note:

1) Judging by his video history, the player is experienced in shoot-em-up games, but not necessarily speedrunning.
2) The game runs faster. Based on counting seconds for a specific rock to cross the screen during the first level, I estimate the game runs around 40% faster in the YT video.
3) Observing the first boss only, there is a timer which counts down from the start of the fight. In the YT video, the time left is 110 "seconds"; in the submitted run, it is 138 "seconds".

As such, it might be difficult to compare the submitted run with this YT video. Do your best!

presjpolk

2014-10-26 12:43:52 pm

HELLO!

Yeah I'm having a hard time seeing what's different about the submitted run.

Seeing how much slower the submitted run is, than the youtube run, it makes me wonder if the effect the runner is seeing, is caused by all the extra explosions causing more lag, and slowing him down.

LotBlind

2014-11-06 10:19:56 am

How about asking if the runner could kindly provide us with a video of finishing the first level w/o the speedrun strats he was using? I.e. he could do it once shooting everything and once ignoring everything he can. This would prove for sure if his chosen strategy is better than either of those and by how much.

presjpolk

2014-11-06 11:39:08 am

HELLO!

Yeah that'd be great. I mean my suspicion is the speed effects he's seeing are caused by performance limitations of his computer, and it'd be good to see the game on his system to confirm/deny.

Bob620

2014-11-13 04:31:16 pm

After some stress testing with the game, as well as various time and FPS recording/comparison I have come to the conclusion that my computer is causing a lot of the variance in time. However I still think that there may be ways to improve upon the game and create a speedrun out of it. I should have done these tests earlier, but I was busy with daily life and I did not think that FPS would be an issue from what I had seen of it prior to recording and sending in a run. The game runs fine with max FPS not dropping more then 5, however the main issue with FPS came with the recording of the game, and I think that that will be inevitable with the computer that I currently own. I will have to obtain a better system, and keep trying to find ways to make this a true speedrun in the future. This was my first speedrun submission, and will not be my last. Thank you for going to to the trouble of thinking of a reason why I had these differences in time. This means that the run is not, at this point, a valid run. Thank you again and I hope to find more games that intrigue me, however that can be successfully spedrun.

After some stress testing with the game, as well as various time and FPS recording/comparison I have come to the conclusion that my computer is causing a lot of the variance in time. However I still think that there may be ways to improve upon the game and create a speedrun out of it. I should have done these tests earlier, but I was busy with daily life and I did not think that FPS would be an issue from what I had seen of it prior to recording and sending in a run. The game runs fine with max FPS not dropping more then 5, however the main issue with FPS came with the recording of the game, and I think that that will be inevitable with the computer that I currently own. I will have to obtain a better system, and keep trying to find ways to make this a true speedrun in the future. This was my first speedrun submission, and will not be my last. Thank you for going to to the trouble of thinking of a reason why I had these differences in time. [b]This means that the run is not, at this point, a valid run.[/b] Thank you again and I hope to find more games that intrigue me, however that can be successfully spedrun.

SDAVerification

2014-11-13 05:57:47 pm

Decision posted.

LotBlind

2014-11-14 02:23:24 pm

If you wanted to still run a Shmup, there's probably several that are valid choices. If you play DOS at all, Tyrian [2000] would be an obvious choice because at least you always have to find the best combination of weapons to buy from the shops and the money to buy it comes from playing well in the previous level[s]. Mechanics like that might work to justify the choice.

Yeah I'm telling you to run my fave DOS shmup, but it's all FOR SCIENCE!

Bob620

Edit history:

Bob620: 2014-11-14 02:31:49 pm

2014-11-14 02:30:03 pm

Quote from LotBlind:

If you wanted to still run a Shmup, there's probably several that are valid choices. If you play DOS at all, Tyrian [2000] would be an obvious choice because at least you always have to find the best combination of weapons to buy from the shops and the money to buy it comes from playing well in the previous level[s]. Mechanics like that might work to justify the choice.

Yeah I'm telling you to run my fave DOS shmup, but it's all FOR SCIENCE!

I might just, thanks for telling me about it! I'll look into it more and see what I can do with it :3 Glad to see more people with hope to speedrun more shmups and the such

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2014-11-15 09:56:14 am

2014-11-15 09:54:29 am

Bob: there's also a WIP TAS for the game but I don't know what the runner's goal is. Anyway it's here:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12509

Check out his YT vids too although first thing you'd have to figure out is what your category is. Anyway this discussion should be continued in a thread of its own. Start one and notify me if I'm not showing up within a week or so.

EDIT: this too
http://www.streamica.com/#!31jRR1GFQKA