My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Charles 'Arcanod' Nannan's 100% IL run
Verifier Responses
Note: It has been decided that 100% is max score per level in this game (as many point boxes as possible).
Runner's response about some levels being impossible to collect all bonus points.
Decision: Accept
Reason]: It's a great run, despite being a bit difficult to categorize.
Charles 'Arcanod' Nannan's 100% IL run
Verifier Responses
Note: It has been decided that 100% is max score per level in this game (as many point boxes as possible).
Quote:
Kind of like with Super Monkey Ball, Score seems to be the only reasonable way to run this game. The issue with labeling this 100% is that he doesnt get all the score objects (see, for instance, 3-7 where the best route doesnt get the one in the middle right because it skips over the wall in the center), but it is natural to run this game as Maximum Score because that's what the game tracks and it is the easiest way to compare runs of the same level. Whether or not this makes any sense to have on SDA is not my decision to make, but it certainly adds a bit of depth to each level.
My first impression is that the video and audio quality of the verification copies seems to be... almost unbearable. The picture is VERY blurry and the audio feels too loud and buzzy. I'm not sure it makes any sense to host MQ videos for this game at all.
The route on all levels seemed very sound and the execution was fairly tight throughout. Keep in mind that due to the nature of the score timer not every frame counts (so a slight imperfection could still lead to an optimal time because you can't save enough to roll over to a 10 higher score) and sometimes something looking slower turns out to actually save time due to the way the physics work in the game. For whatever it is worth, this run at least matches all of the scores we set when we were working on this game for freewareruns for a while. I, in fact, felt the execution picked up in the later levels, mostly because those allow for more and better shortcuts.
Overall, I'm giving a thumbs up as long as the higher quality encodes are actually watchable and if we can agree on what this category should be and if it belongs on SDA.
Also, the game doesn't play nearly as smooth as this run might make you think.
My first impression is that the video and audio quality of the verification copies seems to be... almost unbearable. The picture is VERY blurry and the audio feels too loud and buzzy. I'm not sure it makes any sense to host MQ videos for this game at all.
The route on all levels seemed very sound and the execution was fairly tight throughout. Keep in mind that due to the nature of the score timer not every frame counts (so a slight imperfection could still lead to an optimal time because you can't save enough to roll over to a 10 higher score) and sometimes something looking slower turns out to actually save time due to the way the physics work in the game. For whatever it is worth, this run at least matches all of the scores we set when we were working on this game for freewareruns for a while. I, in fact, felt the execution picked up in the later levels, mostly because those allow for more and better shortcuts.
Overall, I'm giving a thumbs up as long as the higher quality encodes are actually watchable and if we can agree on what this category should be and if it belongs on SDA.
Also, the game doesn't play nearly as smooth as this run might make you think.
Quote:
Well I'd like to start off saying I really enjoyed your run. All levels were really well done.
There was no Cheating that I could tell.
The Video Quality of the run though was really bad I'm not sure if this is because SDA is sending out low quality AVI files or just Fraps giving you really bad quality.
I am debating whether this run should be excepted or not though. Reason being that you seemed to go for best score rather than best time. There were levels that you went out of your way to get points rather than just going straight to the exit. So I'm not sure how this would be timed or if this is required for your run to have the best score. You didn't really explain this in your comments which is why I'm confused.
So please explain this to me because I know alot of levels could be done faster if you didn't go out of your way for points. So I'm going to Reject this for now but I will accept this if you explain why you're going out of your way for points.
(post-explanation)
100% to me would feel like going for all the bonus points. Bonus points are the the boxes with the + in the middle. Even though a few levels I'm not sure if that is possible. So I would consider 100% to be getting as many of the bonus points as possible.
There was no Cheating that I could tell.
The Video Quality of the run though was really bad I'm not sure if this is because SDA is sending out low quality AVI files or just Fraps giving you really bad quality.
I am debating whether this run should be excepted or not though. Reason being that you seemed to go for best score rather than best time. There were levels that you went out of your way to get points rather than just going straight to the exit. So I'm not sure how this would be timed or if this is required for your run to have the best score. You didn't really explain this in your comments which is why I'm confused.
So please explain this to me because I know alot of levels could be done faster if you didn't go out of your way for points. So I'm going to Reject this for now but I will accept this if you explain why you're going out of your way for points.
(post-explanation)
100% to me would feel like going for all the bonus points. Bonus points are the the boxes with the + in the middle. Even though a few levels I'm not sure if that is possible. So I would consider 100% to be getting as many of the bonus points as possible.
Quote:
The issue that I see is in the collection of almost every "bonus point" item in each stage. These are not required to complete the level, and in certain levels take a small to a significant amount of extra time to collect.
If this were a high score IL run I would accept these for certain, as the player's skill level is very high. Even a SS playthrough would require collecting some in order to have enough points to unlock each world. But in an IL any% run, none of them need to be collected to complete the level.
Granted, in some cases they are on the way or do not take significant extra time to collect, and collecting is very impressive looking and adds to the run.
I would advise replanning the routes of some levels, which I will list below, to aim for pure speed rather than 100% point collection. I trust that the runner's exceptional abilities with this game will not find this task terribly burdensome. Question marks will be placed by levels that may be able to be improved, but not necessarily. I will also list the levels that I think are particularly impressive.
Improve for speed: 1-9, 2-1, 2-2(?), 2-3, 2-6, 2-8, 2-10, 3-1(?), 4-2(?), 4-5, 4-6, 4-7(?), 4-8, 4-9, 4-10, 5-1, 5-3, 5-5, 5-6, 5-10, 6-1, 6-3, 6-10, 7-1, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4(?), 7-5, 7-8, 8-8
Darn impressive: 2-5. 2-7, 3-3, 3-5, 3-7, 4-1, 4-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-5, 6-6, 7-4, 8-1, 8-5, 8-7
Since the information I have seems to designate this as an any% run, I'm afraid I must reject this IL set for now. Just to make absolutely clear, the runner's skill level is enviably high and the runs look great, they just aren't optimally fast.
Verdict: Reject
(post-100% explanation)
I think that's a reasonable concession. I would be fine with that.
If this were a high score IL run I would accept these for certain, as the player's skill level is very high. Even a SS playthrough would require collecting some in order to have enough points to unlock each world. But in an IL any% run, none of them need to be collected to complete the level.
Granted, in some cases they are on the way or do not take significant extra time to collect, and collecting is very impressive looking and adds to the run.
I would advise replanning the routes of some levels, which I will list below, to aim for pure speed rather than 100% point collection. I trust that the runner's exceptional abilities with this game will not find this task terribly burdensome. Question marks will be placed by levels that may be able to be improved, but not necessarily. I will also list the levels that I think are particularly impressive.
Improve for speed: 1-9, 2-1, 2-2(?), 2-3, 2-6, 2-8, 2-10, 3-1(?), 4-2(?), 4-5, 4-6, 4-7(?), 4-8, 4-9, 4-10, 5-1, 5-3, 5-5, 5-6, 5-10, 6-1, 6-3, 6-10, 7-1, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4(?), 7-5, 7-8, 8-8
Darn impressive: 2-5. 2-7, 3-3, 3-5, 3-7, 4-1, 4-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-5, 6-6, 7-4, 8-1, 8-5, 8-7
Since the information I have seems to designate this as an any% run, I'm afraid I must reject this IL set for now. Just to make absolutely clear, the runner's skill level is enviably high and the runs look great, they just aren't optimally fast.
Verdict: Reject
(post-100% explanation)
I think that's a reasonable concession. I would be fine with that.
Quote:
At first I was all like "WOW!" Then I was all like "why did the runner do that?" Then I was all like "that was impressive." Then I was like "I don't get it, that waist time..." Then I thought about it for a minute. The runner never said anything in his notes on what run this is. Is it a low%? No, because the runner goes out of the way to get some point box thingies. Is it 100%? No because the runner finished with 202110 points. Yes the runner did collect all possible point box thingies. But the runner failed to unlock everything within the game with a single run. To do that, the runner was to get 210,000 points. Is it any%? No because then it would have been much faster to skip all of the point box thingies. So I will ask, what is this runs %? I guess this run could be considered a 100% going by that all of the point boxes were collected. So if that is the case for 100%, then this is a super easy accept. But that all lays in the hands of the head honcho around here. May the best come of this runners efforts. Side note, I dislike the verification videos lack of quality.
Runner's response about some levels being impossible to collect all bonus points.
Quote:
The level at which the verifiers refer to is probably the level 6-5.
Actually, it is the only level where it is impossible to take all the bonus circles (= items you must collect to do the 100% run). The level is designed so that the player has to make a choice between two routes: one with 4 bonus circles (the hardest), the other with 2 bonus circles (the easiest). I took of course the first one. Here is the video of the level that I just uploaded on Youtube, if I'm not clear enough (length: 13 seconds) :
(it's Youtube, the quality is really bad)
But that's odd; verifiers should know about it. Hope that solves the problem anyway.
Actually, it is the only level where it is impossible to take all the bonus circles (= items you must collect to do the 100% run). The level is designed so that the player has to make a choice between two routes: one with 4 bonus circles (the hardest), the other with 2 bonus circles (the easiest). I took of course the first one. Here is the video of the level that I just uploaded on Youtube, if I'm not clear enough (length: 13 seconds) :
(it's Youtube, the quality is really bad)
But that's odd; verifiers should know about it. Hope that solves the problem anyway.
Decision: Accept
Reason]: It's a great run, despite being a bit difficult to categorize.
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