Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

2008-02-18 03:12:52 pm

unemployed Dragon

wow i didnt even tried to beat Shambala Sanctuary within 10 minutes

I'm really looking forward to the next level because that one will be huge
if i remember right its some caribic island stuff with a broken half sunken ship of the japaneses
so far i can remember there are not very much shortcuts
but many annoying sharks
is there any way to deal with them? some kind of swim technique so they dont get you

Neverdown

2008-02-18 07:47:27 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Goggen, will you submit this to the site?

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-02-26 10:43:29 pm

2008-02-26 10:37:50 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Roy_Hess:
wow i didnt even tried to beat Shambala Sanctuary within 10 minutes

¿Que?
Hm, needs some interpreting.
Version 1:
I am now promoting the "video game" "World of WarCraft".
Within the next ten minutes I will not have attempted to complete the level "Shambala Sanctuary" of the video game "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine".
To which I say:
eh, ok
Version 2:
I am expressing a sensation of being impressed. I did not even try, at any time, to beat the entirety of the "Shambala Sanctuary" level of the game "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine", and completing said level in equal to or less than ten minutes of time.
To which I say:
dint finish shamsanc in ten moinuts (actual spelling error there), am now at 13:41 with a liek 10 mynuts left off teh level
(And yeah, I'll stop making fun of your English from now on. Honest. Sorry about that.)

"I'm really looking forward to the next level because that one will be huge
Geographically: Oh yes.
In time: Less than this one, actually.
In my speedrun plan document, I've written down, rather cryptically, that it took either 14 or 30 minutes. Yes, I know that's a pretty bad margin of error. Either way, the present level was planned at 40. And that with three segments for Shambala and one for Palawan Lagoon.

if i remember right its some caribic island stuff with a broken half sunken ship of the japaneses
Indeed you do remember right, that being the level's big setpiece. Also the site of An Arming Device For A Japanese Torpedo. And somewhere near A Japanese Torpedo, But It's Missing An Arming Device. Although I don't know how those two are connected.
Oh, and you do *not* remember right in it being a Caribbean island. In actuality, it's a South Pacific island, Palawan, and in actuality, actually Palawan. Site of a WW2 Japanese invasion and all. And a subsequent US invasion/liberation. Really.
An honestly real island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palawan
Look, really!
Wow.

Oh, and that whole thing with the "mysterious South Pacific Island with elements of ancient religion and crashed ships and buried hatches and caves with bodies in them and there's this tough guy with a big knife and running around with Russian weapons and in particular the SKS semi-automatic rifle and lots of other mysterious goings-on".
That's never going to come up.
Why'd you ask?

"so far i can remember there are not very much shortcuts
Two, to be precise.
"but many annoying sharks"
A "bunch", to be precise.
"is there any way to deal with them? some kind of swim technique so they dont get you"
Guns. Lots of guns. Explosives. And guns. And more guns. Oh, and you can use a machete. But mostly guns.
But since guns take time, I'll instead just outswim them, or to be precise, get bitten lots of times and chow down on medkits. Hopefully, although I'll make no promises, but hopefully, I could get to torpedo one of them. With a Japanese Torpedo. As soon as I get the Arming Device, For A Japanese Torpedo.

Neverdown:
"Goggen, will you submit this to the site?"

Hm. My spellchecka.exe didn't find any problems with spelling, grammar, punctuation, or overall writing-good-ness.
Aw.
So, right, submitting it?
Weeell, y'see, that'll take a while, since I'll most likely want to finish the whole thing first.
But feel free to check in now and again, to follow the progress. And then one day, in some distant future, you might be able to sit down and watch it with your grandchildren. Or their grandchildren. If you haven't died of old age yet. Because it's taking so long. So long that you would get to have grandchildren and they would get to have grandchildren and you could die of old age before it's finished. Which is funny. Heh. Death, brings down the house every time.

Anyway, as far as making some progress goes:
Setback!
Surprise, there. Sometime during winter break, I lay in bed thinking ~~about something cool and not horrifically geeky~~ and it came to me, that I'd apparently forgotten to write down an utterly tiny trick, where you can jump straight from the second-to-second-to-last beam thing to the last beam, before the key. This skips a three-second cutscene of the second-to-last beam falling in the water. So, I'll most likely be re-running the segment, for that. Yes, aren't I so cool and not horrifically geeky?
But, hopefully, doing so will also allow me to optimize the last thirty seconds of the segment, by removing the last thirty seconds of the segment, since they were fairly awkward climbing maneuvers that could probably have a few seconds shaved off.
*Theoretically*, I could have squeezed in the whole going-up-to-the-library bit at the end, and still make it in under 4 minutes, but considering how bad I got after two-and-a-half minutes of climbing around those beams, it's *really* best I don't. Hopefully, it should help efficiency (and my sanity) to leave that in another segment.
But, until then, a short farewell:
"When you have a trick, write it down instead of thinking to yourself that you'll remember it later because by then it'll have been half a year or more and you'll only remember it half a week or more later. Dummy."

Roy_Hess:
[i]wow i didnt even tried to beat Shambala Sanctuary within 10 minutes[/i]

¿Que?
Hm, needs some interpreting.
Version 1:
[i]I am now promoting the "video game" "World of WarCraft".
Within the next ten minutes I will not have attempted to complete the level "Shambala Sanctuary" of the video game "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine".[/i]
To which I say:
eh, ok
Version 2:
[i]I am expressing a sensation of being impressed. I did not even try, at any time, to beat the entirety of the "Shambala Sanctuary" level of the game "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine", and completing said level in equal to or less than ten minutes of time.[/i]
To which I say:
dint finish shamsanc in ten moinuts (actual spelling error there), am now at 13:41 with a liek 10 mynuts left off teh level
(And yeah, I'll stop making fun of your English from now on. Honest. Sorry about that.)

"[i]I'm really looking forward to the next level because that one will be huge[/i]
Geographically: Oh yes.
In time: Less than this one, actually.
In my speedrun plan document, I've written down, rather cryptically, that it took either 14 or 30 minutes. Yes, I know that's a pretty bad margin of error. Either way, the present level was planned at 40. And that with three segments for Shambala and one for Palawan Lagoon.

[i]if i remember right its some caribic island stuff with a broken half sunken ship of the japaneses[/i]
Indeed you do remember right, that being the level's big setpiece. Also the site of An Arming Device For A Japanese Torpedo. And somewhere near A Japanese Torpedo, But It's Missing An Arming Device. Although I don't know how those two are connected.
Oh, and you do *not* remember right in it being a Caribbean island. In actuality, it's a South Pacific island, Palawan, and in [b]actuality[/b], actually Palawan. Site of a WW2 Japanese invasion and all. And a subsequent US invasion/liberation. Really.
An honestly real island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palawan
Look, really!
Wow.

Oh, and that whole thing with the "mysterious South Pacific Island with elements of ancient religion and crashed ships and buried hatches and caves with bodies in them and there's this tough guy with a big knife and running around with Russian weapons and in particular the SKS semi-automatic rifle and lots of other mysterious goings-on".
That's never going to come up.
Why'd you ask?

"[i]so far i can remember there are not very much shortcuts[/i]
Two, to be precise.
"[i]but many annoying sharks[/i]"
A "bunch", to be precise.
"[i]is there any way to deal with them? some kind of swim technique so they dont get you[/i]"
Guns. Lots of guns. Explosives. And guns. And more guns. Oh, and you can use a machete. But mostly guns.
But since guns take time, I'll instead just outswim them, or to be precise, get bitten lots of times and chow down on medkits. Hopefully, although I'll make no promises, but hopefully, I could get to torpedo one of them. With a [b]Japanese Torpedo[/b]. As soon as I get the [b]Arming Device, For A Japanese Torpedo[/b].

Neverdown:
"[i]Goggen, will you submit this to the site?[/i]"

Hm. My spellchecka.exe didn't find any problems with spelling, grammar, punctuation, or overall writing-good-ness.
Aw.
So, right, submitting it?
Weeell, y'see, that'll take a while, since I'll most likely want to finish the whole thing first.
But feel free to check in now and again, to follow the progress. And then one day, in some distant future, you might be able to sit down and watch it with your grandchildren. Or their grandchildren. If you haven't died of old age yet. Because it's taking so long. So long that you would get to have grandchildren and they would get to have grandchildren and you could die of old age before it's finished. Which is funny. Heh. Death, brings down the house every time.

Anyway, as far as making some progress goes:
Setback!
Surprise, there. Sometime during winter break, I lay in bed thinking [s]about something cool and not horrifically geeky[/s] and it came to me, that I'd apparently forgotten to write down an utterly tiny trick, where you can jump straight from the second-to-second-to-last beam thing to the last beam, before the key. This skips a three-second cutscene of the second-to-last beam falling in the water. So, I'll most likely be re-running the segment, for that. Yes, aren't I so cool and not horrifically geeky?
But, hopefully, doing so will also allow me to optimize the last thirty seconds of the segment, by removing the last thirty seconds of the segment, since they were fairly awkward climbing maneuvers that could probably have a few seconds shaved off.
*Theoretically*, I could have squeezed in the whole going-up-to-the-library bit at the end, and still make it in under 4 minutes, but considering how bad I got after two-and-a-half minutes of climbing around those beams, it's *really* best I don't. Hopefully, it should help efficiency (and my sanity) to leave that in another segment.
But, until then, a short farewell:
"When you have a trick, write it down instead of thinking to yourself that you'll remember it later because by then it'll have been half a year or more and you'll only remember it half a week or more later. Dummy."

Roy_Hess

2008-02-28 03:22:12 pm

unemployed Dragon

dont make fun with my english because i didnt learn english at school but french

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-02-28 10:33:45 pm

2008-02-28 10:32:56 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Yeah, I suppose making fun of grammar and spelling from someone not used to the language, was indeed quite a cheap shot. So, my apologies.

Still, that *does* leave punctuation, so I'll only make fun of that from now on. (Joking!)

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-03-16 05:05:10 pm

2008-03-16 04:57:41 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Success!

I've finished Shambala Sanctuary!
Completely, this time!
And in just six short segments. True, twice as many as planned, but whatcha gonna do.
And with a couple days of spare time with my computer, I may take a crack at Palawan Lagoon. I've already recorded a run-through of the level, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Oh, and here's a quick run-down on segment 04, which I re-did:

Original route through the plant treasury place, as intended by the game makers, in four parts:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3442/infernal1tg8.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1452/infernal2zg3.jpg

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/811/infernal3jw8.jpg

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/8851/infernal4me1.jpg

Shortcut, as intended by me:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4906/infernal1apm6.jpg

Oh yes. But note that I drew that map, months ago, back in the planning stages, forgetting to write down the minor shortcut of jumping over the collapsing beam, which is why this segment 04b. But three seconds faster, and seven if you count what I saved the next segment!

And now for a run-down on the whole level's...
Running...
...Down...
...!

04 - Shambala Sanctuary
21 minutes 55 seconds
(Planned: 40 (14+21+5))
PROBLEM: Starting the level, when the opening cutscene ends, the camera jumps back to the opening camera position of the cutscene, and not to Indy's camera.
SOLUTION: Doing "stuff" in the menu fixes the camera, but often ruins the textures. Running the game without WMP, IE, or some combination, might help. If you change certain graphical settings, the view resets to the correct one. In particular, changing colour depth helps. Sometimes.
Minor: Jumping into the cutscene where Indy states that the religion is unknown. Saves Indy the trouble of walking to the spot where he says it.
Minor: When entering the clock face room, rolling left, running forward, rrolling back, rolling forward, and rolling forward, is one second faster than running forward, rolling left, rolling back and rolling forward.
[Actually slower than the intended route, sliding down on the right]: In the waterwheel room, rolling from the opening ledge, bouncing from the lowest of the moving platforms to the broken elevator to the floor. Losing one or two circles of health.
Medium: (obvious) In the clock face room, jumping up wherever possible (over dead monks, nearby whip climb, top gate opener lever platform to top rather than ladder)
[Obsoleted] Minor: In the clock face room, activating the small bridges and after activating the statue, jumping up to top from that side of the room rather than trek across.
Minor: Reading text on bell while at bottom, rather than after raising it.
Fun: While running to activate the bell ringer, shooting the bell for fun comment from Indy.
Minor: After the lever and the whip climb, you can jump straight up from a corner near a support beam, and latch on to the top level, one hand off. Then a climb right and a climb up, and you're set.
Minor: On the way down to the sunlight room, running straight past bellringer, rolling left+down, rolling right+down, and running to the lock.
Minor: You can run straight past the mallet deathtrap, by running into the wall. If you run at a steep angle Indy'll stand still-ish, at a shallow angle he'll run fast, and then you just time it right.
Medium: In the "treasury", jumping straight to right-hand block (rather than climb down, shimmy across, drop down and climb up on it).
Minor: Jumping straight from second-to-second-to-last beam, to last beam, skipping a tiny cutscene.
Massively major (unintended, but too obvious by far): After getting key, aiming outside the blocking block, JUMPING STRAIGHT TO PLANT'S BALCONY. Seriously.
Obvious, but in case you didn't know: Jumping from balcony into the water, then swim to statue and sunlight room.
Minor: You can skip the tiny movie where Indy says "there's a window over there", by standing *just* outside the trigger before shooting the window. The trigger is the last "tile" of carpet in front of the window, stand on the edge and shoot.
Minor: You can save a slight detour by jumping over the handrail after lowering the plant.

And the segments, repeating slightly for those that weren't paying attention.

Segment 00
17seconds
Just the opening cutscene, and some non-counting bits where I fix the messed-up camera (I may have to do the same for Palawan Volcano, too, now, for some reason).

Segment 01
3 minutes 20 seconds
From the start of the level, through the climb to the top of and into the clock tower, down to the bottom of the clock-powering waterwheel, and up to the final ledge of that room.

Segment 02
3 minutes 48 seconds
Up through the clock tower, into the bell tower, raising the bell, back to the clock tower, and ending at the whip climb after activating the bellringer.

Segment 03
3 minutes 09 seconds
Climbing up to the belltower, ringing the bell, back to the belltower and down to the treasury (I guess), into the sleeping quarters, take the Monastic Seal, shooting three commies, and ending the segment on the climb-up to the door-opening statue.

Segment 04b
2 minutes 26 seconds
Activating the statue, into and through the trap-laden underworks, up to the plant treasury place, jumping around to the key, *massively* skipping straight to the plant, grabbing that, jumping into the water, and ending the segment on the climb out into the statue room.

Segment 05
2 minutes 53 seconds
Opening and climbing into the librarey loft of the statue room, breaking a window, shooting a commie, and climbing over to the aforementioned window, grabbing some herbs and placing the plant, back to the statue room, letting in some sunlight, and ending the segment after grabbing the plant.

Segment 06b
5 minutes 59 seconds
Using a large herb, past a hail of gunfire in the clock tower, up top, killing a rifle commie and stealing his rifle, over to the old lady in the belltower, de-olding her, into the boss arena, smiting it vigorously (and grabbing a herb and a sprig in the process), out the exit, and out of the level.

And now for some statistics:

Levels done: 04/17 (23,53%)
This level, plan/game: 40/310 (12,90%)
Segments, this run/plan: 6 / 3
Average segment length: 3 minutes 39 seconds (w00t)
Segments, whole run, so far/plan: 19/6
Game, plan: 80/310 (12,90%)
This level, time: 21:55 (out of 40; 45,21% saved)
Time so far: 0:57:43 (out of 80; 27,85% saved)
Months spent on this level: 3 (Getting better)

Success!

I've finished Shambala Sanctuary!
Completely, this time!
And in just six short segments. True, twice as many as planned, but whatcha gonna do.
And with a couple days of spare time with my computer, I may take a crack at Palawan Lagoon. I've already recorded a run-through of the level, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Oh, and here's a quick run-down on segment 04, which I re-did:

Original route through the plant treasury place, as intended by the game makers, in four parts:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3442/infernal1tg8.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1452/infernal2zg3.jpg

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/811/infernal3jw8.jpg

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/8851/infernal4me1.jpg

Shortcut, as intended by me:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4906/infernal1apm6.jpg

Oh yes. But note that I drew that map, months ago, back in the planning stages, forgetting to write down the minor shortcut of jumping over the collapsing beam, which is why this segment 04[b]b[/b]. But three seconds faster, and seven if you count what I saved the next segment!

And now for a run-down on the whole level's...
Running...
...Down...
...!

04 - Shambala Sanctuary
21 minutes 55 seconds
(Planned: 40 (14+21+5))
PROBLEM: Starting the level, when the opening cutscene ends, the camera jumps back to the opening camera position of the cutscene, and not to Indy's camera.
SOLUTION: Doing "stuff" in the menu fixes the camera, but often ruins the textures. Running the game without WMP, IE, or some combination, might help. If you change certain graphical settings, the view resets to the correct one. In particular, changing colour depth helps. Sometimes.
Minor: Jumping into the cutscene where Indy states that the religion is unknown. Saves Indy the trouble of walking to the spot where he says it.
Minor: When entering the clock face room, rolling left, running forward, rrolling back, rolling forward, and rolling forward, is one second faster than running forward, rolling left, rolling back and rolling forward.
[Actually slower than the intended route, sliding down on the right]: In the waterwheel room, rolling from the opening ledge, bouncing from the lowest of the moving platforms to the broken elevator to the floor. Losing one or two circles of health.
Medium: (obvious) In the clock face room, jumping up wherever possible (over dead monks, nearby whip climb, top gate opener lever platform to top rather than ladder)
[Obsoleted] Minor: In the clock face room, activating the small bridges and after activating the statue, jumping up to top from that side of the room rather than trek across.
Minor: Reading text on bell while at bottom, rather than after raising it.
Fun: While running to activate the bell ringer, shooting the bell for fun comment from Indy.
Minor: After the lever and the whip climb, you can jump straight up from a corner near a support beam, and latch on to the top level, one hand off. Then a climb right and a climb up, and you're set.
Minor: On the way down to the sunlight room, running straight past bellringer, rolling left+down, rolling right+down, and running to the lock.
Minor: You can run straight past the mallet deathtrap, by running into the wall. If you run at a steep angle Indy'll stand still-ish, at a shallow angle he'll run fast, and then you just time it right.
Medium: In the "treasury", jumping straight to right-hand block (rather than climb down, shimmy across, drop down and climb up on it).
Minor: Jumping straight from second-to-second-to-last beam, to last beam, skipping a tiny cutscene.
Massively major (unintended, but too obvious by far): After getting key, aiming outside the blocking block, JUMPING STRAIGHT TO PLANT'S BALCONY. Seriously.
Obvious, but in case you didn't know: Jumping from balcony into the water, then swim to statue and sunlight room.
Minor: You can skip the tiny movie where Indy says "there's a window over there", by standing *just* outside the trigger before shooting the window. The trigger is the last "tile" of carpet in front of the window, stand on the edge and shoot.
Minor: You can save a slight detour by jumping over the handrail after lowering the plant.

And the segments, repeating slightly for those that weren't paying attention.

Segment 00
17seconds
Just the opening cutscene, and some non-counting bits where I fix the messed-up camera (I may have to do the same for Palawan Volcano, too, now, for some reason).

Segment 01
3 minutes 20 seconds
From the start of the level, through the climb to the top of and into the clock tower, down to the bottom of the clock-powering waterwheel, and up to the final ledge of that room.

Segment 02
3 minutes 48 seconds
Up through the clock tower, into the bell tower, raising the bell, back to the clock tower, and ending at the whip climb after activating the bellringer.

Segment 03
3 minutes 09 seconds
Climbing up to the belltower, ringing the bell, back to the belltower and down to the treasury (I guess), into the sleeping quarters, take the Monastic Seal, shooting three commies, and ending the segment on the climb-up to the door-opening statue.

Segment 04b
2 minutes 26 seconds
Activating the statue, into and through the trap-laden underworks, up to the plant treasury place, jumping around to the key, *massively* skipping straight to the plant, grabbing that, jumping into the water, and ending the segment on the climb out into the statue room.

Segment 05
2 minutes 53 seconds
Opening and climbing into the librarey loft of the statue room, breaking a window, shooting a commie, and climbing over to the aforementioned window, grabbing some herbs and placing the plant, back to the statue room, letting in some sunlight, and ending the segment after grabbing the plant.

Segment 06b
5 minutes 59 seconds
Using a large herb, past a hail of gunfire in the clock tower, up top, killing a rifle commie and stealing his rifle, over to the old lady in the belltower, de-olding her, into the boss arena, smiting it vigorously (and grabbing a herb and a sprig in the process), out the exit, and out of the level.

And now for some statistics:

Levels done:                                   04/17  (23,53%)
This level, plan/game:                    40/310 (12,90%)
Segments, this run/plan:                6 / 3
Average segment length:               3 minutes 39 seconds (w00t)
Segments, whole run, so far/plan:  19/6
Game, plan:                                     80/310 (12,90%)
This level, time:                               21:55   (out of 40; 45,21% saved)
Time so far:                                     0:57:43 (out of 80; 27,85% saved)
Months spent on this level:             3 (Getting better)

Goggen

2008-03-18 12:05:36 pm

"Time to go to work..."

A small progress update.

I've done the first segment of Palawan Lagoon, starting at the start of the level, and ending as Indy climbs onto the sunken ship. Actually as he puts on his hat afterward, since actually making it through the segment came fairly out of the blue.

Now, this is segment 01c, the reason being that it's the third time I made it to the end.
Segment 01a, took 88 attempts, ending with 3:21.1. Here, I had a tiny tiny flaw, I accidentally unsheathed the machete before the cutscene introducing the ship, and was only partially able to re-sheathe, causing Indy to stand there for a whopping 0.367 seconds. Which isn't *too* bad, for one hour and 44 minutes work.
I decided to re-run the segment, partially for that, but mostly because the opening cutscene bored me to tears and I wanted to "break" it somehow, by only continuing the attempts where a background crab would walk into frame while Indy is talking.
Segment 01b, after 114 attempts in 74 minutes, not ending until half past mdnight, did have a crab in frame, but also had two niggling tiny flaws, a roll that lost momentum and somewhat awkward surfacing at the end for the climb-out, which in normal circumstance would be acceptable. However, since 01b was 0.867 seconds *slower* then 01a, this just wouldn't do.
Segment 01c, finally, after 183 more attempts the next day, 2 hours 14 minutes of work, I had the crab in frame, made no mistakes, and finished 0.533 seconds ahead of 01a.
So now I'm done with the first three-and-a-half minutes of Palawan Lagoon. The quick'n'dirty work-in-progress run-through I made of the level was at 3:45 at the same point, and in total was 14:30 long, so I should be able to get it all in under four segments, three to go.

Also, the night after 01a and b, I lay awake in bed thinking, as is my wont, and it came to me at precisely 01:59, that once I have Taklit's Part from Palawan Temple, which grants invisibility, I can basically grant Indy invincibility, by just Predatoring my way past all enemies from this point on. Hopefully. Oh my, yes.
(The translator for the Norwegian subtitles for the premiere of Star Wars Episode I actually confused the phrase "we will be invincible" as "invisible". Kinda changed the tone of the Sith.)

And here's actually a tiny little comparison of how the three successful attempts were.
Format:
First frame of the return whipping after picking up the machete - first frame of subtitles when picking up the entrenching tool - first frame of the climb-out on the first swim - first frame after the ship cutscene - first frame of climbing out at the end

01a
55-1:35.017-2:16.917-3:01.883-3:21.1
(0,367 seconds lost to the machete)

01b
55.383-1:35.017-2:17.333-3:01.883-3:21.967

01c
55.017-1:35.017-2:16.817-3:01.117-3:20.567

Pretty darn synchronized, eh?

Note that this means the segments were a fraction of a second longer, since I ended the segment somewhat into the climb-out. But the total time for the level is still the same, just distributed slightly different across the first two segments.

And for those of you that can't get enough of the crab, like me, I rejected 74 runs in 01b and 147 runs for 01c, with the record being 28 in a row. Also note that I sat through the opening cutscene every single time, and with the time needed to re-set, that's fairly exactly 30 seconds per attempt.
That's 221 attempts, 1 hour 50 minutes 30 seconds, spent on having a crab in frame in the opening cutscene. Or rather, that was how many it *wasn't*. It *was*, only 69 times out of 290 attempts. That's one in four, give or take.

But aside from that, no other ill effects from being off my meds...

A small progress update.

I've done the first segment of Palawan Lagoon, starting at the start of the level, and ending as Indy climbs onto the sunken ship. Actually as he puts on his hat afterward, since actually making it through the segment came fairly out of the blue.

Now, this is segment 01c, the reason being that it's the third time I made it to the end.
Segment 01a, took 88 attempts, ending with 3:21.1. Here, I had a tiny tiny flaw, I accidentally unsheathed the machete before the cutscene introducing the ship, and was only partially able to re-sheathe, causing Indy to stand there for a whopping 0.367 seconds. Which isn't *too* bad, for one hour and 44 minutes work.
I decided to re-run the segment, partially for that, but mostly because the opening cutscene bored me to tears and I wanted to "break" it somehow, by only continuing the attempts where a background crab would walk into frame while Indy is talking.
Segment 01[b]b[/b], after 114 attempts in 74 minutes, not ending until half past mdnight, did have a crab in frame, but also had two niggling tiny flaws, a roll that lost momentum and somewhat awkward surfacing at the end for the climb-out, which in normal circumstance would be acceptable. However, since 01b was 0.867 seconds *slower* then 01a, this just wouldn't do.
Segment 01[b]c[/b], finally, after 183 more attempts the next day, 2 hours 14 minutes of work, I had the crab in frame, made no mistakes, and finished 0.533 seconds ahead of 01a.
So now I'm done with the first three-and-a-half minutes of Palawan Lagoon. The quick'n'dirty work-in-progress run-through I made of the level was at 3:45 at the same point, and in total was 14:30 long, so I should be able to get it all in under four segments, three to go.

Also, the night after 01a and b, I lay awake in bed thinking, as is my wont, and it came to me at precisely 01:59, that once I have Taklit's Part from Palawan Temple, which grants invisibility, I can basically grant Indy [i]invincibility[/i], by just Predatoring my way past all enemies from this point on. Hopefully. Oh my, yes.
(The translator for the Norwegian subtitles for the premiere of Star Wars Episode I actually confused the phrase "we will be invincible" as "invi[b]s[/b]ible". Kinda changed the tone of the Sith.)

And here's actually a tiny little comparison of how the three successful attempts were.
Format:
First frame of the return whipping after picking up the machete - first frame of subtitles when picking up the entrenching tool - first frame of the climb-out on the first swim - first frame after the ship cutscene - first frame of climbing out at the end

01a
55-1:35.017-2:16.917-3:01.883-3:21.1
(0,367 seconds lost to the machete)

01b
55.383-1:35.017-2:17.333-3:01.883-3:21.967

01c
55.017-1:35.017-2:16.817-3:01.117-3:20.567

Pretty darn synchronized, eh?

Note that this means the segments were a fraction of a second longer, since I ended the segment somewhat into the climb-out. But the total time for the level is still the same, just distributed slightly different across the first two segments.

And for those of you that can't get enough of the crab, like me, I rejected 74 runs in 01b and [b]147[/b] runs for 01c, with the record being 28 in a row. Also note that I sat through the opening cutscene every single time, and with the time needed to re-set, that's fairly exactly 30 seconds per attempt.
That's 221 attempts, 1 hour 50 minutes 30 seconds, spent on having a crab in frame in the opening cutscene. Or rather, that was how many it *wasn't*. It *was*, only 69 times out of 290 attempts. That's one in four, give or take.

But aside from that, no other ill effects from being off my meds...

Neverdown

2008-03-18 03:16:18 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Perfectionism.

Is it a curse?

Goggen

2008-03-26 10:44:27 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Neverdown:
Perfectionism.

Is it a curse?

Wikipedia says it is, so it *must* be true!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_%28psychology%29

But in other news:

I've done some practise runs of the second segment of Palawan Lagoon, and apprently, it shouldn't be much of an issue. I managed to get to the end of it *twice* in eight semi-attempts, which is pretty much a new record. True, neither of them got *past* the end of the segment, since Indy is all too picky about climbing out of water he's drowning in. Oh well.
And for those that are curious, this segment would be from the deck of the boat and picking up the Arming Device.
For a Japanese Torpedo, in case you were overwhelmed with thoughts on things you could arm with it.
Then I jump over the side of the boat, a swim over to torpedo, apparently Japanese in origin, but which also seems to miss some form of device for the arming of.
Without spoiling the thrilling conclusion to the puzzle, I swim for the mysteriously appearing hole in the boat, grab a hammer (if *I* had a hammer, *I*'d hammer in the morning, just so you know), grab some air too, and swim for the key in the cargo hold. Which is apparently the only cargo this ship has. And even this key is only for the upstairs door. Huh. Well, I can see a *few* logical faults here and there.
And finally, I swim up to the hatch, hammer it open (I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters too, if I have time left over for it), surface, and (try to) climb out. THat last bit is the major problem so far.

All in all, the segment should be just shy of 3 minutes, which is only because this is the only decent segment end for over a minute. But even with this short-ish segment, I should still be able to speed through the *rest* of the level in less than two additional segments, each at less than four minutes. So that's good.

When I'll have time to run these segments might be slightly less good, since I have a school project going on and a wisdom tooth going out and an interview for school enrollment to go to and a some work to go out of town for, all this week, so that ought to be fun. But *after* this week, I, well, will still have that project and this work to do, so I guess that's not so good either. Oh well, I'll see if I get some time on my hands soon.
And then I'll squander it utterly on speedrunning! Oh yeah! Who's with me!?

Neverdown:
[i]Perfectionism.

Is it a curse?[/i]

Wikipedia says it is, so it *must* be true!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_%28psychology%29

But in other news:

I've done some practise runs of the second segment of Palawan Lagoon, and apprently, it shouldn't be much of an issue. I managed to get to the end of it *twice* in eight semi-attempts, which is pretty much a new record. True, neither of them got *past* the end of the segment, since Indy is all too picky about climbing out of water he's drowning in. Oh well.
And for those that are curious, this segment would be from the deck of the boat and picking up the Arming Device.
For a Japanese Torpedo, in case you were overwhelmed with thoughts on things you could arm with it.
Then I jump over the side of the boat, a swim over to torpedo, apparently Japanese in origin, but which also seems to miss some form of device for the arming of.
Without spoiling the thrilling conclusion to the puzzle, I swim for the mysteriously appearing hole in the boat, grab a hammer (if *I* had a hammer, *I*'d hammer in the morning, just so you know), grab some air too, and swim for the key in the cargo hold. Which is apparently the only cargo this ship has. And even this key is only for the upstairs door. Huh. Well, I can see a *few* logical faults here and there.
And finally, I swim up to the hatch, hammer it open (I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters too, if I have time left over for it), surface, and (try to) climb out. THat last bit is the major problem so far.

All in all, the segment should be just shy of 3 minutes, which is only because this is the only decent segment end for over a minute. But even with this short-ish segment, I should still be able to speed through the *rest* of the level in less than two additional segments, each at less than four minutes. So that's good.

When I'll have time to run these segments might be slightly less good, since I have a school project going on and a wisdom tooth going out and an interview for school enrollment to go to and a some work to go out of town for, all this week, so that ought to be fun. But *after* this week, I, well, will still have that project and this work to do, so I guess that's not so good either. Oh well, I'll see if I get some time on my hands soon.
And then I'll squander it utterly on speedrunning! Oh yeah! Who's with me!?

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-03-27 10:53:16 pm

2008-03-27 10:47:32 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Well, I still haven't run across some large clumps of time to squander, but I *did* get around to doing some tests. Firstly, I shaved seven seconds off of segment 03 by going *around* the obvious route, whenever I get around to *that*.
Then, I did some speed tests. Really, after finding out that mye *entire* Emperor's Tomb run might be horribly flawed because I never bothered to *check* if rolling was faster than running has wisened me up a bit.
But only a tiny bit, considering I'm 24% into the game already.
And considering how little time it took to just record Indy moving down a specific length of beach, it's kinda embarassing I never bothered until now.

But anyway, on to the numbers! Woo!

run: 1
roll: 1,4
wade/run: 1,4
swim: 1,6
longjump: 1,6
walk: 2,6
treading water/surface swim: 3,0
shortjump: 3,0
backhop: 3,7

Obviously, the lower the number the faster. I couldn't test crawling because Indy would just slide down the slight gradient of the beach, and into the ocean.
Aside from that, there are few surprises, *except* that roll is actually second-fastest.
Which means that there might be some tiny optimizations to be made by swapping jumps for rolls. Not that I can be bothered to re-run anything, though.
But how could I possibly have seen that coming?
It's not like rolling has been central to speedrun any *other* speedruns!?
Not even one of my own!

Hm... I was thinking of finding some way of tying The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time into that somehow, what with how central it is there and how well known that game is. But I ran into trouble since the only thing these two games have in common apart from the rolling, was that the über-rare Nintendo 64 version of Infernal Machine used the same control scheme as Zelda 64. Which is kinda hard to just happen to mention smoothly.
But ooo, isn't it spooky!?
I mean, you have Zelda 64, right, and then you have Indy 64, right, and then Indy 64 uses Zelda 64's control scheme. Now, co-incidence, you might say. Or not, considering Indy 64 came out half a decade later or so.
But here's the real conspiracy stuff:
Not only do they share the same control scheme, but in Zelda 64 the fastest movement is rolling, and in the sequel to Infernal Machine the fastest movement is also rolling!
Co-incidence?
I think not.
We are through the looking glass here, people.

And quite co-incidentally, my favourite documentary series ever is Connections.
Man, is James Burke awesome. He's so dreamy.

Well, I still haven't run across some large clumps of time to squander, but I *did* get around to doing some tests. Firstly, I shaved seven seconds off of segment 03 by going *around* the obvious route, whenever I get around to *that*.
Then, I did some speed tests. Really, after finding out that mye *entire* Emperor's Tomb run might be horribly flawed because I never bothered to *check* if rolling was faster than running has wisened me up a bit.
But only a tiny bit, considering I'm 24% into the game already.
And considering how little time it took to just record Indy moving down a specific length of beach, it's kinda embarassing I never bothered until now.

But anyway, on to the numbers! Woo!

run: 1
roll: 1,4
wade/run: 1,4
swim: 1,6
longjump: 1,6
walk: 2,6
treading water/surface swim: 3,0
shortjump: 3,0
backhop: 3,7

Obviously, the lower the number the faster. I couldn't test crawling because Indy would just slide down the slight gradient of the beach, and into the ocean.
Aside from that, there are few surprises, *except* that roll is actually second-fastest.
Which means that there might be some tiny optimizations to be made by swapping jumps for rolls. Not that I can be bothered to re-run anything, though.
But how could I possibly have seen that coming?
It's not like rolling has been central to speedrun any *other* speedruns!?
Not even one of my own!

Hm... I was thinking of finding some way of tying The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time into that somehow, what with how central it is there and how well known that game is. But I ran into trouble since the only thing these two games have in common apart from the rolling, was that the über-rare Nintendo 64 version of Infernal Machine used the same control scheme as Zelda 64. Which is kinda hard to just happen to mention smoothly.
But ooo, isn't it spooky!?
I mean, you have Zelda 64, right, and then you have Indy 64, right, and then Indy 64 uses Zelda 64's control scheme. Now, co-incidence, you might say. Or not, considering Indy 64 came out half a decade later or so.
But here's the real conspiracy stuff:
Not only do they share the same control scheme, but in Zelda 64 the fastest movement is rolling, and in the [i]sequel to Infernal Machine[/i] the fastest movement [b]is also rolling[/b]!
Co-incidence?
I think not.
We are through the looking glass here, people.

And quite co-incidentally, my favourite documentary series ever is Connections.
Man, is James Burke awesome. He's so dreamy.

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-03-27 11:02:52 pm

2008-03-27 11:01:41 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Huh.
Apparently, my über skillz at messing up stats have struck again.

Looking at my signature, and that the run would be 6:10, I also remember that I have consistently made stats from the whole run being 310 minutes. This being how long it took to just play through the game.
6:10 is 370 minutes.
I checked my notes.
And yes.
I did make a mistake in the first stats, and then dutifully copied it down through the run. Hm.

So, I'll just quickly fix that, so I can dutifully copy these new mistakes down through the run from now on. Progress!

Levels done: 04/17 (23,53%)
Plan, game: 40/370 (10,81%)
Game, plan: 80/370 (21,62%)

Goggen

2008-03-29 10:44:19 am

"Time to go to work..."

Two new segments done!

Or, well, one for sure. I do have the other one, but it's a bit ugly so I might re-run that until a) it's faster b) it's slower or c) I can't be bothered anymore. Somehow I don't think a) is all tha likely.
But anyway.

Segment 02!
I climb onto the ship, run for the Arming Device. You know, the one for the Japanese Torpedo, not the other arming devices. I jump over the side of the boat, and swim in a mostly straight line for the torpedo. (If I swim in a *completely* straight line for the torpedo, it is coincidentally a straight line for another torpedo. Which is ye olde name for seamine. Hence, torpedoes, comma, damning of. So now you know.)
I re-arm the torpedo, which after two patches, nine years and four operating systems, now just disappears along with a piece of the hull, rather than explode. Oh well.
I swim for the hullhole, swim for the hammer, swim for some air, swim for some getting to the cargo hold (which although completely flooded, is actually *above* the water line, somehow) then swim for a hammer, then swim for the hatch, and then end the segment as I de-swim, or, climb out as young people call it these days. Radical.

Segment 03, then!
I start from the hatch, run for the bridge and unlock the padlock. (Presumably made by anti-bridge-intrusion-padlock-company "You Shall Not Pass Inc.") I then grab the crank, and find myself slightly annoyed I didn't start the segment *here*.
That's because I figured out that you can jump through the window, skipping two seconds. However, it's fairly complicated, and fails 63,16% of the time. So having it less than 34 seconds into the segment would have been nice.
The procedure, if you're interested, is to stand in front of and touching the speed adjusting thing, turn away from the window, take one and a half steps backwards, and then a backwards hop. So, yeah, nice to have that close to the beginning of a segment.
Moving on, I use that crank, swing across to the totems, and skip Indy's "there's something buried here" by standing outside the speech trigger but inside the square of texture for that burial plot.
I open the underwater hatch (hm, mysterious islands with buried hatches and derelict ships and stuff), grab a Medicinal Herbs (sigh) and take the next little trick.
Instead of swimming back the way I came from, I swim hatch-ward, taking advantage of the strong tide to speed things up (by *three* seconds). I climb up and cut a corner of beach, jump back in again (which also recharges the air, in addition to being a tiny bit faster) and snag the propeller blade. I swim almost to the hatch, surface for air, and quicksave.
Note that if I re-run the segment, I will probably end the segment as Indy dives down again, per my guideline on ending segments during actions where you lose control.

Oh right, and the times.
Segment 02:
2:59.88 (just saying "three minutes" would have made me sound uncharacteristically inaccurate.)
Segment 03:
3:03 (better)

So, that's it for today (or, yesterday, really). I'll see if I run across any more chunks of spare time soon.

Two new segments done!

Or, well, one for sure. I do have the other one, but it's a bit ugly so I might re-run that until a) it's faster b) it's slower or c) I can't be bothered anymore. Somehow I don't think a) is all tha likely.
But anyway.

Segment 02!
I climb onto the ship, run for the Arming Device. You know, the one for the Japanese Torpedo, not the other arming devices. I jump over the side of the boat, and swim in a mostly straight line for the torpedo. (If I swim in a *completely* straight line for the torpedo, it is coincidentally a straight line for another torpedo. Which is ye olde name for seamine. Hence, torpedoes, comma, damning of. So now you know.)
I re-arm the torpedo, which after two patches, nine years and four operating systems, now just disappears along with a piece of the hull, rather than explode. Oh well.
I swim for the hullhole, swim for the hammer, swim for some air, swim for some getting to the cargo hold (which although completely flooded, is actually *above* the water line, somehow) then swim for a hammer, then swim for the hatch, and then end the segment as I de-swim, or, climb out as young people call it these days. Radical.

Segment 03, then!
I start from the hatch, run for the bridge and unlock the padlock. (Presumably made by anti-bridge-intrusion-padlock-company "You Shall Not Pass Inc.") I then grab the crank, and find myself slightly annoyed I didn't start the segment *here*.
That's because I figured out that you can jump through the window, skipping two seconds. However, it's fairly complicated, and fails 63,16% of the time. So having it less than 34 seconds into the segment would have been nice.
The procedure, if you're interested, is to stand in front of and touching the speed adjusting thing, turn away from the window, take one and a half steps backwards, and then a backwards hop. So, yeah, nice to have that close to the beginning of a segment.
Moving on, I use that crank, swing across to the totems, and skip Indy's "there's something buried here" by standing outside the speech trigger but inside the square of texture for that burial plot.
I open the underwater hatch (hm, mysterious islands with buried hatches and derelict ships and stuff), grab a Medicinal Herbs (sigh) and take the next little trick.
Instead of swimming back the way I came from, I swim hatch-ward, taking advantage of the strong tide to speed things up (by *three* seconds). I climb up and cut a corner of beach, jump back in again (which also recharges the air, in addition to being a tiny bit faster) and snag the propeller blade. I swim almost to the hatch, surface for air, and quicksave.
Note that if I re-run the segment, I will probably end the segment as Indy dives down again, per my guideline on ending segments during actions where you lose control.

Oh right, and the times.
Segment 02:
2:59.88 (just saying "three minutes" would have made me sound uncharacteristically inaccurate.)
Segment 03:
3:03 (better)

So, that's it for today (or, yesterday, really). I'll see if I run across any more chunks of spare time soon.

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-03-31 08:08:23 pm

2008-03-31 08:00:42 pm

"Time to go to work..."

And Palawan Lagoon is done!
Oh yeah!

This final segment, lasting from the spot where I would duck into the water and open the door with the airplane propeller (but, strangely enough, *not* with the blatantly more well-suited machete or the Entrenching Tool (which even has a handle!), but there's the adventure of action-adventure for ya). (Oh, and yes, I *did* nest two parentheses inside one another (so sue me).)

Interestingly, although I was happily treading water when I saved segment 03, I for some reason am now *under* the surface for segment 04. Apparently, this is because of some weird bug; when the game saves Indy's position (and miscellaneous animation, sound and other data) the game when loading does this weird one-frame placing down of Indy in this position. So, upon loading, there is one frame of Indy treading water well *above* the water (most segments have one frame of Indy well above position), and then he instantly teleports below the water, saving me one tiny little one-or-so second dive.
So, technically, this is a save warp, and possibly the smallest one at all possible in any game.
Now, in the olden days, this wouldn't have been allowed (I suppose this would have been an exception, considering it being unintentional and tiny), but now, save warping is allowed! Yay!
It did actually screw up the flow a bit, since Indy draws air when he's diving, and I was (very carefully) counting on that tiny little bit of air to go underwater all the way. But I worked around that, or more specifically, worked straight through that by swimming extra extra straight and fast. Which is good.
Anyway, neat that save warp is. I'll try to keep my eyes open for other places to abuse that.

Aside from that, not very much to draw attention through. I do a fairly time-saving shortcut near the end of the segment, where I don't climb down, but instead, fall down, after opening up the door to the next level. Obvious, of course.
Not even harmful, also. Odd, that. Which also saves me one small medkit over some of the re-runs I did for earlier segments, finishing with two-thirds of the circle-of-life black.
Good thing the health re-sets between levels.
Yay.

And now for some whole-level goodness.

05 - Palawan Lagoon
12:29, 4 segments (Plan: 14 minutes, 1 segment)
Medium: In first ship's room, swimming straight from hammer to key in cargo hold, *then* to air hatch.
Minor: On the bridge of the ship, you can jump out the window; stand in front of the wheel, turn around, take two steps backwards, and jump back. And hope you don't end up in the hatch again. And it saves two seconds.
Minor: You can stand on the corner of the little texture square over the hatch-button and use the shovel, skipping Indy saying that there's something buried.
Route: After uncovering the underwater door, swimming on the left to the propeller is faster than going by land. Furthermore, climb up on land to cut across to the plane.
Minor: Smallest save-warp ever; you can skip diving down after treading water (for air) by saving. On loading Indy is re-positioned below the surface.
Medium: After activating the final button, running off edge straight to incline at bottom of cavern room.

Segment 01: 3:23
Segment 02: 3:00
Segment 03: 3:03
Segment 04: 3:03

Levels done: 05/17 (29,41%)
Plan, level/game: 14/370 (03,78%) (Aw...)
Game, plan: 94/370 (25,40%) (Hey, one quarter!)
Segments, this run/plan: 4 / 1 (400%)
Average segment length: 3 minutes 07 seconds (w00t)
Segments, whole run, so far/plan: 23/7 (329%)
This level, time: 12:29 (out of 14; 45,21% saved)
Time so far: 1:10:12 (out of 94; 25,32% saved)
Months spent on this level: 0,5 (Great!)
Months to spend on the rest of the game at this rate: 10 (Not so great!)

And Palawan Lagoon is done!
Oh yeah!

This final segment, lasting from the spot where I would duck into the water and open the door with the airplane propeller (but, strangely enough, *not* with the blatantly more well-suited machete or the Entrenching Tool (which even has a handle!), but there's the adventure of action-adventure for ya). (Oh, and yes, I *did* nest two parentheses inside one another (so sue me).)

Interestingly, although I was happily treading water when I saved segment 03, I for some reason am now *under* the surface for segment 04. Apparently, this is because of some weird bug; when the game saves Indy's position (and miscellaneous animation, sound and other data) the game [i]when loading[/i] does this weird one-frame placing down of Indy in this position. So, upon loading, there is one frame of Indy treading water well *above* the water (most segments have one frame of Indy well above position), and then he instantly teleports below the water, saving me one tiny little one-or-so second dive.
So, [b]technically[/b], this is a save warp, and possibly the smallest one at all possible in any game.
Now, in the olden days, this wouldn't have been allowed (I suppose this would have been an exception, considering it being unintentional and tiny), but now, save warping is allowed! Yay!
It did actually screw up the flow a bit, since Indy draws air when he's diving, and I was (very carefully) counting on that tiny little bit of air to go underwater all the way. But I worked around that, or more specifically, worked straight through that by swimming extra extra straight and fast. Which is good.
Anyway, neat that save warp is. I'll try to keep my eyes open for other places to abuse that.

Aside from that, not very much to draw attention through. I do a fairly time-saving shortcut near the end of the segment, where I don't climb down, but instead, fall down, after opening up the door to the next level. Obvious, of course.
Not even harmful, also. Odd, that. Which also saves me one small medkit over some of the re-runs I did for earlier segments, finishing with two-thirds of the circle-of-life black.
Good thing the health re-sets between levels.
Yay.

And now for some whole-level goodness.

05 - Palawan Lagoon
12:29, 4 segments (Plan: 14 minutes, 1 segment) 
Medium: In first ship's room, swimming straight from hammer to key in cargo hold, *then* to air hatch.
Minor: On the bridge of the ship, you can jump out the window; stand in front of the wheel, turn around, take two steps backwards, and jump back. And hope you don't end up in the hatch again. And it saves two seconds.
Minor: You can stand on the corner of the little texture square over the hatch-button and use the shovel, skipping Indy saying that there's something buried.
Route: After uncovering the underwater door, swimming on the left to the propeller is faster than going by land. Furthermore, climb up on land to cut across to the plane.
Minor: Smallest save-warp ever; you can skip diving down after treading water (for air) by saving. On loading Indy is re-positioned below the surface.
Medium: After activating the final button, running off edge straight to incline at bottom of cavern room.

Segment 01: 3:23
Segment 02: 3:00
Segment 03: 3:03
Segment 04: 3:03

Levels done:                                   05/17  (29,41%)
Plan, level/game:                           14/370 (03,78%) (Aw...)
Game, plan:                                    94/370 (25,40%) (Hey, one quarter!)
Segments, this run/plan:                4 / 1 (400%)
Average segment length:               3 minutes 07 seconds (w00t)
Segments, whole run, so far/plan:  23/7 (329%)
This level, time:                               12:29   (out of 14; 45,21% saved)
Time so far:                                     1:10:12 (out of 94; 25,32% saved)
Months spent on this level:   0,5 (Great!)
Months to spend on the rest of the game at [b]this[/b] rate: 10 (Not so great!)

henkie

2008-03-31 08:22:15 pm

If you calculate forward how long your run will take for completion, it almost never looks good. I guess it's best to just stick to the present and ignore the extrapolation to the future with pigheaded stubbornness, as it does get depressing sometimes when you realise that run completion will be so far off.

Extrapolation is subject to inaccuracies, anyway, as you assume you'll be spending as much time on the run in the future as you have in the past, and that the segments still to be completed will take as long as the segments already completed, which may or may not be the case. Of course, this can lead to even more depressing figures, so maybe a linear progression in time is the best to assume.

Also, for someone who supposedly has a lack of time, you sure do manage to get a lot of segments done, Goggen. Good job!

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-04-01 10:19:26 pm

2008-04-01 10:10:03 pm

"Time to go to work..."

henkie:
If you calculate forward how long your run will take for completion, it almost never looks good.
And how!
I guess it's best to just stick to the present and ignore the extrapolation to the future with pigheaded stubbornness, as it does get depressing sometimes when you realise that run completion will be so far off.

Actually, in my case, since I in some way *do* enjoy the process, that extrapolation actually inspires optimism, not pessimism. I mean, who *wouldn't* like months and months of pure speedrunning frustration fun?
I mean, aside from me. I like that. I'm weird.
Which puts me in a small minority. You know the kind of person who, when they see a ball of horribly tangled twine, will immidiately set to work untangling it, for no other reason than it being, if not *fun*, then at least *rewarding*, in some strange twisted way.
And that's me, there.
With this speedrun, I get constant reward, not so much in that the end result is impressive, but that the process is basically like untangling that twine.
Sure, I don't have all that much progress yet, and all the progress I make is on the order of hours spent on minutes of progress, but there *is* progress, and one day it will be all finished and I can start on the next tangled twine.
And that's what I like about speedrunning. For every one hundred attempts that fail, it means I get one hundred attempts closer to the finish line. Or untangled ball of twine, if I can finish choking that analogy to death.
And here, the extrapolation actually makes it *more* rewarding.
So, I have spent a year of largely rewarding spare time making this, and I'm one quarter into the game. And that means that I *know* I should be done if I just keep at it for three more years. (Okay, it won't be *that* long, though.)
So I get motivation, somewhat. Which is good. And makes it all the more rewarding to actually make more progress than anticipated.

Extrapolation is subject to inaccuracies,
Not mine! Mostly!
anyway, as you assume you'll be spending as much time on the run in the future as you have in the past,
No I don't! I'm far too obsessive to leave my statistics there!
and that the segments still to be completed will take as long as the segments already completed, which may or may not be the case.
I do pretty good math, me. But yeah, basically that.
Of course, this can lead to even more depressing figures,
I'm not so much thinking "Oh no, I have to do this" as "Oh no, I *get* to do this". At least, some of the time. I mean, I wouldn't go after crabs if I didn't.
so maybe a linear progression in time is the best to assume.
¿Que?
I'm pretty sure my extrapolation *is* linear, fairly.
Time spent so far times how much left of the game seems pretty linear.
Luckily, I likes math, and I have written down the level completion times for all the levels, so extrapolating from those is fairly easy.
Of course, level by level, segment by segment, there are massive differences. The next level coming up, incidentally the longest, is ten and a half times longer than the one two levels from that, incidentally the shortest.
And for segments:
Segment 01 of Palawan Lagoon, at 3:23, took me 229 minutes, just under four hours to do. (That's 0,8 seconds a *minute*.) (Oh, and including two hours of crabs. But still, that leaves two hours.)
Segments 02 through 04, a total of 9:06, took me 114 minutes. Just shy of two hours. (And that's 4,8 seconds a minute, 600% faster.)
So, yeah, working from how long the segments would be to predict how long the segments will take to *run*, doesn't *quite* work.
But still, the major point of my statistics is not to predict how fast/slowly I will make progress, it's about the progress I've already made. Some not-particularly-accurate predictions from that, though, is all a bonus.
Well, actually, the major point of my statistics are that statistics are fun!
Woo!

Also, for someone who supposedly has a lack of time, you sure do manage to get a lot of segments done, Goggen.

Well, I should point out that a key factor in getting a lot of segments done is that I actually shortened all the segments of the run, a) cause it saves on trouble with files reaching the 4-gig limit and b) because it made it humanly possible to squeeze a few extra seconds out here and there and c) cause I'm basically lazy, and more segments mean less work. But not less progress!

As for time: Since I have school on weekdays, I don't really get the large blocks of time I would need to speedrun efficiently. Basically, it takes a while to get into the flow of a segment, and without that time, the result gets rather crap. Andif I can't really finish one segment while I have that flow, all that muscle memory atrophies before my next chance.
I do try to do non-running things when I have *some* of those not-quite-big-enough blocks of time left over. Today, for instance, I was able to figure out that in segment 02 or 03 or so of Volcano, the path I assumed was fastest was, indeed, fastest. And I suspect I did those comparisons way back when I planned out the run but forgot to write them down. But hey, I've got them fresh in memory now!
So anyway, so much for weekdays. That leaves weekends, and holidays/vacations. Weekends are also tricky for me.
I work every other weekend, at an out-of-town local cinema, projectin', if you're curious, and the other other weekends there's a big chance that there's some movie there that I'd like to see (for free), which means I have to leave my gamin' computer behind. So, weekends are only rarely useful. *But*, on those weekends where I don't show the movies and the movies shown *suck*, then I get some time to run. You can thank Alien vs. Predator 2 for most of Palawan Lagoon.
And so, that leaves the mythical holidays. With that kind of spare time, I make all kinds of progress (Tian Shan and Shambala was almost all holidays). Shame they're so few and far between, and even more shame that I *also* work every other week of those holidays even then. But I have high hopes for the next one, in, uh, June. Ahem.

But in the end, that's all excuses. On a day-to-day basis, yeah, I *do* tend to choose other more immidiately rewarding things to do, (Fan-made MST3K/RiffTrax of Starship Troopers! Boy do I feel shame at admitting to that.) which is pretty much the sole reason why progress is sooo slooow. But still, progress!

So, to wrap this up, I guess this was a way too in depth look into a lot of how I think about speedrunning. I could have trimmed it down a bit, but well, why would I?
Now you know, if you're interested. Good for you!

Good job!
Well, hopefully so. We'll see when I'm finished...

henkie:
[i]If you calculate forward how long your run will take for completion, it almost never looks good.[/i]
And how!
[i]I guess it's best to just stick to the present and ignore the extrapolation to the future with pigheaded stubbornness, as it does get depressing sometimes when you realise that run completion will be so far off.[/i]

Actually, in my case, since I in some way *do* enjoy the process, that extrapolation actually inspires optimism, not pessimism. I mean, who *wouldn't* like months and months of pure speedrunning frustration fun?
I mean, aside from me. I like that. I'm weird.
Which puts me in a small minority. You know the kind of person who, when they see a ball of horribly tangled twine, will immidiately set to work untangling it, for no other reason than it being, if not *fun*, then at least *rewarding*, in some strange twisted way.
And that's me, there.
With this speedrun, I get constant reward, not so much in that the end result is impressive, but that the process is basically like untangling that twine.
Sure, I don't have all that much progress yet, and all the progress I make is on the order of hours spent on minutes of progress, but there *is* progress, and one day it will be all finished and I can start on the next tangled twine.
And that's what I like about speedrunning. For every one hundred attempts that fail, it means I get one hundred attempts closer to the finish line. Or untangled ball of twine, if I can finish choking that analogy to death.
And here, the extrapolation actually makes it *more* rewarding. 
So, I have spent a year of largely rewarding spare time making this, and I'm one quarter into the game. And that means that I *know* I should be done if I just keep at it for three more years. (Okay, it won't be *that* long, though.)
So I get motivation, somewhat. Which is good. And makes it all the more rewarding to actually make more progress than anticipated.
 
[i]Extrapolation is subject to inaccuracies, [/i]
Not mine! Mostly!
[i]anyway, as you assume you'll be spending as much time on the run in the future as you have in the past,[/i]
No I don't! I'm far too obsessive to leave my statistics there!
[i]and that the segments still to be completed will take as long as the segments already completed, which may or may not be the case.[/i]
I do pretty good math, me. But yeah, basically that.
[i]Of course, this can lead to even more depressing figures,[/i]
I'm not so much thinking "Oh no, I have to do this" as "Oh no, I *get* to do this". At least, some of the time. I mean, I wouldn't go after crabs if I didn't.
[i]so maybe a linear progression in time is the best to assume.[/i]
¿Que?
I'm pretty sure my extrapolation *is* linear, fairly.
Time spent so far times how much left of the game seems pretty linear.
Luckily, I likes math, and I have written down the level completion times for all the levels, so extrapolating from those is fairly easy.
Of course, level by level, segment by segment, there are massive differences. The next level coming up, incidentally the longest, is ten and a half times longer than the one two levels from that, incidentally the shortest.
And for segments:
Segment 01 of Palawan Lagoon, at 3:23, took me 229 minutes, just under [b]four hours[/b] to do. (That's 0,8 seconds a *minute*.) (Oh, and including two hours of crabs. But still, that leaves two hours.)
Segments 02 through 04, a total of 9:06, took me 114 minutes. Just shy of two hours. (And that's 4,8 seconds a minute, [b]600%[/b] faster.)
So, yeah, working from how long the segments would be to predict how long the segments will take to *run*, doesn't *quite* work.
But still, the major point of my statistics is not to predict how fast/slowly I will make progress, it's about the progress I've already made. Some not-particularly-accurate predictions from that, though, is all a bonus.
Well, actually, the major point of my statistics are that [i]statistics are [b]fun[/b]![/i]
Woo!

[i]Also, for someone who supposedly has a lack of time, you sure do manage to get a lot of segments done, Goggen.[/i]

Well, I should point out that a key factor in getting a lot of segments done is that I actually shortened all the segments of the run, a) cause it saves on trouble with files reaching the 4-gig limit and b) because it made it humanly possible to squeeze a few extra seconds out here and there and c) cause I'm basically lazy, and more segments mean less work. But not less progress!

As for time: Since I have school on weekdays, I don't really get the large blocks of time I would need to speedrun efficiently. Basically, it takes a while to get into the flow of a segment, and without that time, the result gets rather crap. Andif I can't really finish one segment while I have that flow, all that muscle memory atrophies before my next chance.
I do try to do non-running things when I have *some* of those not-quite-big-enough blocks of time left over. Today, for instance, I was able to figure out that in segment 02 or 03 or so of Volcano, the path I assumed was fastest was, indeed, fastest. And I suspect I did those comparisons way back when I planned out the run but forgot to write them down. But hey, I've got them fresh in memory now!
So anyway, so much for weekdays. That leaves weekends, and holidays/vacations. Weekends are also tricky for me.
I work every other weekend, at an out-of-town local cinema, projectin', if you're curious, and the other other weekends there's a big chance that there's some movie there that I'd like to see (for free), which means I have to leave my gamin' computer behind. So, weekends are only rarely useful. *But*, on those weekends where I don't show the movies and the movies shown *suck*, then I get some time to run. You can thank Alien vs. Predator 2 for most of Palawan Lagoon.
And so, that leaves the mythical holidays. With that kind of spare time, I make all kinds of progress (Tian Shan and Shambala was almost all holidays). Shame they're so few and far between, and even more shame that I *also* work every other week of those holidays even then. But I have high hopes for the next one, in, uh, June. Ahem.

But in the end, that's all excuses. On a day-to-day basis, yeah, I *do* tend to choose other more immidiately rewarding things to do, (Fan-made MST3K/RiffTrax of Starship Troopers! Boy do I feel shame at admitting to that.) which is pretty much the sole reason why progress is sooo slooow. But still, progress!

So, to wrap this up, I guess this was a way too in depth look into a lot of how I think about speedrunning. I could have trimmed it down a bit, but well, why would I?
Now you know, if you're interested. Good for you!

[i]Good job![/i]
Well, hopefully so. We'll see when I'm finished...

The MAZZTer

2008-06-13 10:23:01 am

Sorry for the thread necromancy, I was sorta hoping this run isn't dead. I'm looking forward to seeing it! I was just playing this game and I decided to see if there were any speedruns for it.

Also I have a couple suggestions which could help you:

- The Shambala Sanctuary camera glitch in the opening cutscene is fixed in the 1.2 patch (at least it was for my brother). You're done with it now but the patch might help other issues you might have later. Also my brother patched while playing and his save game remained compatible. If you have a problem you could always reinstall the unpatched version.
- I don't need to keep WMP or IE open on XP in order for the game to work properly, with the 1.2 patch at least. The only problem I have is the occasional crash when I fire the rifle (when moving, possibly).
- My brother discovered you don't need the red gem in King Sol's Mines. You can use the key, then you can jump to the green gem slot without needing to use the red gem first. Should help significantly with times.

Can you post the segments you've already completed? If you need hosting and speeddemosarchive can't/won't host it until it's complete, you can upload it to a file upload site. Savefile.com might be a good choice, if you compress the videos to under 60mb a pop. Unlimited # of downloads and bandwdith, and downloads don't expire (I think). Looks like registering is optional too. I haven't used it myself (I haven't needed to, I have my own web space and I haven't made anything popular enough to need that site yet).

Sorry for the thread necromancy, I was sorta hoping this run isn't dead.  I'm looking forward to seeing it!  I was just playing this game and I decided to see if there were any speedruns for it.

Also I have a couple suggestions which could help you:

- The Shambala Sanctuary camera glitch in the opening cutscene is fixed in the 1.2 patch (at least it was for my brother).  You're done with it now but the patch might help other issues you might have later.  Also my brother patched while playing and his save game remained compatible.  If you have a problem you could always reinstall the unpatched version.
- I don't need to keep WMP or IE open on XP in order for the game to work properly, with the 1.2 patch at least.  The only problem I have is the occasional crash when I fire the rifle (when moving, possibly).
- My brother discovered you don't need the red gem in King Sol's Mines.  You can use the key, then you can jump to the green gem slot without needing to use the red gem first.  Should help significantly with times.

Can you post the segments you've already completed?  If you need hosting and speeddemosarchive can't/won't host it until it's complete, you can upload it to a file upload site.  Savefile.com might be a good choice, if you compress the videos to under 60mb a pop.  Unlimited # of downloads and bandwdith, and downloads don't expire (I think).  Looks like registering is optional too.  I haven't used it myself (I haven't needed to, I have my own web space and I haven't made anything popular enough to need that site yet).

Roy_Hess

2008-06-15 02:27:53 am

unemployed Dragon

I'am glad you didnt stop speedrunning Indy. Yes it takes quite much of time, so many attempts, so many fails.
I can remember my speedrun ... took me a while to sort things out. Good i had a friend of mine helping me finding all possible shortcuts.
But when this is done you can say to yourself: you're a speedrunner.

keep it coming! The longer it takes, the better it will get - i hope Tongue

Goggen

Edit history:

Goggen: 2008-06-16 11:15:29 am

2008-06-16 11:09:46 am

"Time to go to work..."

Well, this looks like a good spot for a little news update.
So, in short, sort of:
School's out, summer's in, and in a week I'll have moved to my parents' house for the summer.
Now, since I'm not quite the type to frolic in the sunlight (it burns), I'll have *tons* of time for speedrunning.
And, well, lots of other things. But since I'm on break until *September*, and I in principle don't have an internet connection to get new things, I'll have *plenty* of time on my hands for running.
Also, I'm looking forward to it, after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull half a dozen times. Granted, most of them through my work *showing* the movie, at a cinema, but I did *pay* to see it on opening night. Twice. And I liked it. And I look forward to more Indiana Jones and commies and the other things that Infernal Machine and Crystal Skull have in common but I won't say because of spoilers and the likes. But awesome things in common.
So, yay, in short.
And now, in other news:

The MAZZTer:
"Sorry for the thread necromancy[...]"
Ah, fresh victims for my ever-growing army of the undead!

"I'm looking forward to seeing it!"
And I look forward to you seeing it. And I also look forward to thanking you for you seeing it.

"I was just playing this game and I decided to see if there were any speedruns for it."
Not *yet*, no...

"Also I have a couple suggestions which could help you:"
Ah, fresh suggestions for my ever-growing army of the, uhm... Speedrun. ...Things.

"The Shambala Sanctuary camera glitch in the opening cutscene is fixed in the 1.2 patch (at least it was for my brother). You're done with it now but the patch might help other issues you might have later. Also my brother patched while playing and his save game remained compatible. If you have a problem you could always reinstall the unpatched version."
Actually, nope. I've been running with the 1.2 patch all along, since getting this game to work at all is kinda scary without going out of my way to make the game *less* stable. Furthermore, none of the listed bugfixes for the patch(es) indicate anything that would mess up a shortcut, so I went for it.

"I don't need to keep WMP or IE open on XP in order for the game to work properly, with the 1.2 patch at least. The only problem I have is the occasional crash when I fire the rifle (when moving, possibly)."
How much of a difference WMP/IE does depends on a variety oof factors far too complicated for our feeble minds. Some people have no problems whatsoever with the game without them, some can't run the game at all. In your case, no serious problem (I have the same problem in the level The Infernal Machine, actually, so it probably wouldn't have been fixed even then.)
But in my case, a great number of levels simply do not work, some are buggy, unstable and fragile, and yet others work flawlessly. However, WMP/IE helps a *lot*, not so much in general stability as in avoiding unpredictable bugs, so I make it a habit to keep it running at all times.

"My brother discovered you don't need the red gem in King Sol's Mines. You can use the key, then you can jump to the green gem slot without needing to use the red gem first. Should help significantly with times."
Hm...
Opens up King Sol's Mines...
Looks around...
You sir (or ma'am), are MADE OF WIN!
This shortcut saves minutes and minutes and minutes of time, since not only do I not need to get the red gem, I also don't need to switch the tracks and such, saving even more. I will have to re-plan this level extensively (I should anyway), but this is awesome.
And, as a matter of fact, it is also faster and more reliable to jump straight over to some scaffolding (urgh, Emperor's Tomb flashback) and over to the green gem.
So, in recognition of your talents, and of your immense contribution to this run, I will bestow upon you the highest of honours:
I'll mention you came up with the trick in the comments!
[Audience may commence cheering.]

"Can you post the segments you've already completed? If you need hosting and lotsa stuff about hostin'"
Sorry, no. The reasons why range from the technical, all the way to the practical, and finally, I'm lazy.
Technically: I simply do not have the bandwidth up to upload *anything* in any reasonable time. Particularly now that summer's coming up, and I move back to the wind-swept wastes of the Norwegian country-side, where internet connectivity is so bad, that the best alternative is *ISDN*. For those of you spoiled on broadband, ISDN is 8kB/s down, 8kB/s up. So, no, then.
Practically: All the time I spend uploading videos is time not spent running. So, no, again. Also, if I upload videos, someone else might come along, steal the run, and get all the credit. And I want that credit, and *then* someone can come along and steal the run. THus the eternal circle of speedrunning lives on.
And finally, I'm lazy.

Roy_Hess:
"I'am glad you didnt stop speedrunning Indy."
Well, I did take a break, because of a school project. But yeah, it should get under way now. (Also, odd contraction there.)

"Yes it takes quite much of time, so many attempts, so many fails."
Hey, that's where the fun is!
But yes, I simply did not have the time to speedrun at all, because of that school project. Now, on the other hand...

"I can remember my speedrun ... took me a while to sort things out."
I actually screwed that up a bit, by tiring myself out on the planning of the run in its entirety, before I could start running. Kinda unavoidable since I had no guarantee the game would even *work* from start to finish (and it was *close*), but it slowed me down a bunch.

"Good i had a friend of mine helping me finding all possible shortcuts."
Well, good for you. As for me, I'm pretty much the only person I know who's even played the game, let alone willing to speedrun it. But other people would have just ruined the fun...

"But when this is done you can say to yourself: you're a speedrunner."
Hey, but, uhm, I *have* done Emperor's Tomb! I'm not a speedrunner yet?
Oh no! I'll have to go to speedrun academy all over again!

"keep it coming! The longer it takes, the better it will get - i hope"
Hey, by that rationale, this should be THE MOST AWESOME RUN EVER. I hope.

Well, this looks like a good spot for a little news update.
So, in short, sort of:
School's out, summer's in, and in a week I'll have moved to my parents' house for the summer.
Now, since I'm not quite the type to frolic in the sunlight (it burns), I'll have *tons* of time for speedrunning.
And, well, lots of other things. But since I'm on break until *September*, and I in principle don't have an internet connection to get new things, I'll have *plenty* of time on my hands for running.
Also, I'm looking forward to it, after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull half a dozen times. Granted, most of them through my work *showing* the movie, at a cinema, but I did *pay* to see it on opening night. Twice. And I liked it. And I look forward to more Indiana Jones and commies and the other things that Infernal Machine and Crystal Skull have in common but I won't say because of spoilers and the likes. But awesome things in common.
So, yay, in short.
And now, in other news:

The MAZZTer:
"Sorry for the thread necromancy[...]"
Ah, fresh victims for my ever-growing army of the undead!

"I'm looking forward to seeing it!"
And I look forward to you seeing it. And I also look forward to thanking you for you seeing it.

"I was just playing this game and I decided to see if there were any speedruns for it."
Not *yet*, no...

"Also I have a couple suggestions which could help you:"
Ah, fresh suggestions for my ever-growing army of the, uhm... Speedrun. ...Things.

"The Shambala Sanctuary camera glitch in the opening cutscene is fixed in the 1.2 patch (at least it was for my brother).  You're done with it now but the patch might help other issues you might have later.  Also my brother patched while playing and his save game remained compatible.  If you have a problem you could always reinstall the unpatched version."
Actually, nope. I've been running with the 1.2 patch all along, since getting this game to work at all is kinda scary without going out of my way to make the game *less* stable. Furthermore, none of the listed bugfixes for the patch(es) indicate anything that would mess up a shortcut, so I went for it.

"I don't need to keep WMP or IE open on XP in order for the game to work properly, with the 1.2 patch at least.  The only problem I have is the occasional crash when I fire the rifle (when moving, possibly)."
How much of a difference WMP/IE does depends on a variety oof factors far too complicated for our feeble minds. Some people have no problems whatsoever with the game without them, some can't run the game at all. In your case, no serious problem (I have the same problem in the level The Infernal Machine, actually, so it probably wouldn't have been fixed even then.)
But in my case, a great number of levels simply do not work, some are buggy, unstable and fragile, and yet others work flawlessly. However, WMP/IE helps a *lot*, not so much in general stability as in avoiding unpredictable bugs, so I make it a habit to keep it running at all times.

"My brother discovered you don't need the red gem in King Sol's Mines.  You can use the key, then you can jump to the green gem slot without needing to use the red gem first.  Should help significantly with times."
Hm...
Opens up King Sol's Mines...
Looks around...
You sir (or ma'am), are MADE OF WIN!
This shortcut saves minutes and minutes and minutes of time, since not only do I not need to get the red gem, I also don't need to switch the tracks and such, saving even more. I will have to re-plan this level extensively (I should anyway), but this is awesome.
And, as a matter of fact, it is also faster and more reliable to jump straight over to some scaffolding (urgh, Emperor's Tomb flashback) and over to the green gem.
So, in recognition of your talents, and of your immense contribution to this run, I will bestow upon you the highest of honours:
I'll mention you came up with the trick in the comments!
[Audience may commence cheering.]

"Can you post the segments you've already completed?  If you need hosting and [i]lotsa stuff about hostin'[/i]"
Sorry, no. The reasons why range from the technical, all the way to the practical, and finally, I'm lazy.
Technically: I simply do not have the bandwidth up to upload *anything* in any reasonable time. Particularly now that summer's coming up, and I move back to the wind-swept wastes of the Norwegian country-side, where internet connectivity is so bad, that the best alternative is *ISDN*. For those of you spoiled on broadband, ISDN is 8kB/s down, 8kB/s up. So, no, then.
Practically: All the time I spend uploading videos is time not spent running. So, no, again. Also, if I upload videos, someone else might come along, steal the run, and get all the credit. And I want that credit, and *then* someone can come along and steal the run. THus the eternal circle of speedrunning lives on.
And finally, I'm lazy.

Roy_Hess:
"I'am glad you didnt stop speedrunning Indy."
Well, I did take a break, because of a school project. But yeah, it should get under way now. (Also, odd contraction there.)

"Yes it takes quite much of time, so many attempts, so many fails."
Hey, that's where the fun is!
But yes, I simply did not have the time to speedrun at all, because of that school project. Now, on the other hand...

"I can remember my speedrun ... took me a while to sort things out."
I actually screwed that up a bit, by tiring myself out on the planning of the run in its entirety, before I could start running. Kinda unavoidable since I had no guarantee the game would even *work* from start to finish (and it was *close*), but it slowed me down a bunch.

"Good i had a friend of mine helping me finding all possible shortcuts."
Well, good for you. As for me, I'm pretty much the only person I know who's even played the game, let alone willing to speedrun it. But other people would have just ruined the fun...

"But when this is done you can say to yourself: you're a speedrunner."
Hey, but, uhm, I *have* done Emperor's Tomb! I'm not a speedrunner yet?
Oh no! I'll have to go to speedrun academy all over again!

"keep it coming! The longer it takes, the better it will get - i hope"
Hey, by that rationale, this should be THE MOST AWESOME RUN EVER. I hope.

Goggen

2008-07-02 03:18:04 pm

"Time to go to work..."

And now, finally, a break from the constant near-blog posts about why I haven't made any progress, to bring you a post about...
ACTUAL PROGRESS!
Oh yeah!

So, I finally unpacked my computer (and, after finishing off Tiberian Sun, Quake IV, and Call of Duty IV in its entirety) I got around to planning out some of the next level, Palawan Volcano.
I also got around to clearing off the recording drive, recorded the plannings, and the next level is set to be not 42 minutes as originally planned, but 20:15 minutes.
Well. *Some* mistake has been made at some point.

But even better, I also just finished off the first (of five or so) segments, so the level is sorta 20% done now! Yay!

I will keep you informed of updates as the situation develops.

Goggen

2008-07-10 06:06:03 pm

"Time to go to work..."

And the situation has developed, so time for an update!

I've finished off another segment of Palawan Volcano, putting the level at 5:54 so far, while the runthrough at this point is at 6:14/20:15.
Which puts me 20 seconds ahead, which also puts me at at most 20 minutes for the whole level! ...Excluding the end cutscene. I don't remember what that is, but I just think it's a fade-out or something. Not very relevant, though.
Anyway, as you may have noticed, this new segment is also short-ish, at 2:09. I shortened it from the planned 3:50-ish, after it became apparent that I might have been overly optimistic. Including the final segment, I did 350 attempts and only made it to 2 minutes *seven* times. At most I got maybe another 30 seconds beyond that. But yeah, this segment is as fast as those, although I take slightly more damage than I'd like. This, however, may be an advantage later on, since I'm going to kill a lot of commies and they drop more medkits when you are more wounded, so I might snag me some. Downside, it takes *time* to pick up medkits and I already have quite a bunch, but we'll see...
In other developments, I haven't been making as much progress as I'd like. Of course, *this* progress took me pretty much all day, but that is pretty much the only all day I dedicated to runnin' since the last segment, so I hope I can have things pick up some more from now on, since I had some stuff to do that's done now.
And I was lazy.
But aside from that, I should be making loadsa more progress soon!

And the situation has developed, so time for an update!

I've finished off another segment of Palawan Volcano, putting the level at 5:54 so far, while the runthrough at this point is at 6:14/20:15.
Which puts me 20 seconds ahead, which also puts me at at most 20 minutes for the whole level! ...Excluding the end cutscene. I don't remember what that is, but I just think it's a fade-out or something. Not very relevant, though.
Anyway, as you may have noticed, this new segment is also short-ish, at 2:09. I shortened it from the planned 3:50-ish, after it became apparent that I might have been overly optimistic. Including the final segment, I did 350 attempts and only made it to 2 minutes *seven* times. At most I got maybe another 30 seconds beyond that. But yeah, this segment is as fast as those, although I take slightly more damage than I'd like. This, however, may be an advantage later on, since I'm going to kill a lot of commies and they drop more medkits when you are more wounded, so I might snag me some. Downside, it takes *time* to pick up medkits and I already have quite a bunch, but we'll see...
In other developments, I haven't been making as much progress as I'd like. Of course, *this* progress took me pretty much all day, but that is pretty much the only all day I dedicated to runnin' since the last segment, so I hope I can have things pick up some more from now on, since I had some stuff to do that's done now.
And I was lazy.
But aside from that, I should be making loadsa more progress soon!

Goggen

2008-07-21 02:00:54 pm

"Time to go to work..."

And a small loadsa progress today!

Okay, I finished off Segment 03 of Palawan Volcano, and shockingly enough, in only six attempts. Yes, I'm as shocked as you are. Moreso, even. Since it happened to me.
Of course, why it took a week-and-a-half for me to run six attempts, uhm, yeah...

Anyway, this segment lasts throughout the lava room, where I neatly trick my way past in less than four minutes, and surprisingly again, end the segment just before *five* minutes.
There's possibly the largest combat section of the game coming up, and it'd be somewhat silly *not* to segment here, considering there had been about a minute of cutscene right before. So, I end a frame or so after Sophia's silly kidnapping while unholstering a piece, and putting the whole segment at 4:53 minutes, the whole level thus far at 10:47. Comparatively, in the route planning this point was at 11:20. So, yeah, making progress. Moreso, with the whole level at about 20:15, that puts me about 56% into the level.

So, in other words: Progress! Yay!

And a small loadsa progress today!

Okay, I finished off Segment 03 of Palawan Volcano, and shockingly enough, in only six attempts. Yes, I'm as shocked as you are. Moreso, even. Since it happened to me.
Of course, why it took a week-and-a-half for me to run six attempts, uhm, yeah...

Anyway, this segment lasts throughout the lava room, where I neatly trick my way past in less than four minutes, and surprisingly again, end the segment just before *five* minutes.
There's possibly the largest combat section of the game coming up, and it'd be somewhat silly *not* to segment here, considering there had been about a minute of cutscene right before. So, I end a frame or so after Sophia's silly kidnapping while unholstering a piece, and putting the whole segment at 4:53 minutes, the whole level thus far at 10:47. Comparatively, in the route planning this point was at 11:20. So, yeah, making progress. Moreso, with the whole level at about 20:15, that puts me about 56% into the level.

So, in other words: Progress! Yay!

Roy_Hess

2008-07-22 12:52:22 am

unemployed Dragon

okay! 8)

Goggen

2008-08-07 05:56:46 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Bah, I'm really not making the progress I'd like. Especially not for a vacation.
But progress anyway.

I just finished off yet another segment, 04 obviously.

It's 43 seconds long, whereas the rehearsal was 1:17 minutes. Yay!
Although one attempt was 41 seconds, this one is better because I kill more guys. Who shot me in the back one frame after starting that other attempt.
It is comprised of the most spectacular combat of the entire game, basically, hence it also being the shortest segment ever. So far, at least.
This puts the level at 11:30 or so, and compared to the rehearsal, 12:37/20:15, or 62,3% of the level.
In other interesting statistics, it also took about two hours straight of attempts, in twelve sessions.
And here we have part one of why it was so slow going; when Indy dies the game quite often crashes, demanding a re-start of my whole computer because it drags Direct3D down with it. And to start afresh, I like to empty out the Fraps disk, which involves statisticing the failed attempts. And since the attempts where usually short, I couldn't fast-forward through them, so I couldn't skip as much. Since a fewer number of longer attempts don't have to be sat through as long to be statified, as a large number of short attempts. It makes sense, trust me. All in all, I'd reckon about ten minutes of downtime per re-set, which pretty exactly matches the same two hours of gameplay. Wow, nearly as bad as Emperor's Tomb, that.
Additionally, the fact that this segment was non-stop gunning people down, and the fact that enemies in Infernal Machine are random beyond belief, kinda explains a bit of why I dragged my heels getting started on any running.

Which accounts for about half the delay, the other being, in a few words, stupidity-induced virus-attack of doom. Still, nice of them to hijack my desktop background to say I had a virus, even if it was so I'd give up my credit card number to the webpage of a *totally* legitimate virus scanner, which popped up if I clicked on, uhm, my mouse button. Anywhere. And even if I didn't. Crafty.
Took about a week of virus scanning, legitimate this time, to wipe it out completely.

(Hm, I got about one full page into a post before I decided that this isn't really a blog, and started again. And I couldn't be bothered to write the additional seven pages or so of fluff to keep it consistently word-bloaty. And when considering how long this *short* version is, you can be glad.)

Oh, and other news:
Of the most spectacular combat of the entire game, this was part ONE.
Seven commies downed, seven to go, then another two spread out later in the level.
And I actually considered a longer segment where I'd have to kill *fourteen* random commies in a row in a minute-and-a-half.
Yeah.
Not gonna happen.

My guess is, another small segment for The Most Spectacular Combat of the Entire Game: Episode II, two more segments for the rest of the level, and then, uhm, more Palawan. Temple, actually. And after that, Palawan-by-jeep. Dangit, this place keeps dragging on...

Bah, I'm really not making the progress I'd like. Especially not for a vacation.
But progress anyway.

I just finished off yet another segment, 04 obviously.

It's 43 seconds long, whereas the rehearsal was 1:17 minutes. Yay!
Although one attempt was 41 seconds, this one is better because I kill more guys. Who shot me in the back one frame after starting that other attempt.
It is comprised of [i]the most spectacular combat of the [b]entire game[/b][/i], basically, hence it also being [i]the shortest segment [b]ever[/b][/i]. So far, at least.
This puts the level at 11:30 or so, and compared to the rehearsal, 12:37/20:15, or 62,3% of the level.
In other interesting statistics, it also took about two hours straight of attempts, in twelve sessions.
And here we have part one of why it was so slow going; when Indy dies the game quite often crashes, demanding a re-start of my whole computer because it drags Direct3D down with it. And to start afresh, I like to empty out the Fraps disk, which involves statisticing the failed attempts. And since the attempts where usually short, I couldn't fast-forward through them, so I couldn't skip as much. Since a fewer number of longer attempts don't have to be sat through as long to be statified, as a large number of short attempts. It makes sense, trust me. All in all, I'd reckon about ten minutes of downtime per re-set, which pretty exactly matches the same two hours of gameplay. Wow, nearly as bad as Emperor's Tomb, that.
Additionally, the fact that this segment was non-stop gunning people down, and the fact that enemies in Infernal Machine are random beyond belief, kinda explains a bit of why I dragged my heels getting started on any running.

Which accounts for about half the delay, the other being, in a few words, stupidity-induced virus-attack [b]of doom[/b]. Still, nice of them to hijack my desktop background to say I had a virus, even if it was so I'd give up my credit card number to the webpage of a *totally* legitimate virus scanner, which popped up if I clicked on, uhm, my mouse button. Anywhere. And even if I didn't. Crafty.
Took about a week of virus scanning, legitimate this time, to wipe it out completely.

(Hm, I got about one full page into a post before I decided that this isn't really a blog, and started again. And I couldn't be bothered to write the additional seven pages or so of fluff to keep it consistently word-bloaty. And when considering how long this *short* version is, you can be glad.)

Oh, and other news:
Of [i]the most spectacular combat of the [b]entire game[/b][/i], this was [b]part ONE[/b].
Seven commies downed, seven to go, then another two spread out later in the level. 
And I actually considered a longer segment where I'd have to kill *fourteen* random commies in a row in a minute-and-a-half.
Yeah.
Not gonna happen.

My guess is, another small segment for [i]The Most Spectacular Combat of the [b]Entire Game[/b]: Episode II[/i], two more segments for the rest of the level, and then, uhm, more Palawan. Temple, actually. And after that, Palawan-by-jeep. Dangit, this place keeps dragging on...

Roy_Hess

2008-08-09 02:32:44 am

unemployed Dragon

once the Windows-computer is infected you dont know what that shit does download in the background and where it's hiding.
Using the internet with "Brain 2.0" and having secure up-to-date routers should usually be enough.

Goggen

2008-08-09 01:53:24 pm

"Time to go to work..."

Roy_Hess:
"once the Windows-computer is infected you dont know what that shit does download in the background and where it's hiding."

Well, it couldn't be downloading much since I'm on modem, nor would it have to since I manually installed the thing. As for hiding, well, two different malware- and one virus-scanner smoked it out alright.

"Using the internet with "Brain 2.0" and having secure up-to-date routers should usually be enough."
Secure up-to-date routers is kinda irrelevant once you quite actively *install* the thing. Which you apparently covered with that remark about Brain 2.0, so, yeah...

Anyway, progress!
I came across a new bug, where the loading screen music stops working. It doesn't seem to do anything else, but I'm fairly paranoid so I've re-set a bunch. But in *good* news, I also figured out a slightly faster way of resetting the camera when restarting a segment, by opening/closing the menu. So, now, on an attempt fail, it's: Stop record, quickload, enter menu, exit menu, start record, quickload. Or F9 F8 Esc Esc F9 F8. So now you know what I go through every attempt for some decent camera continuity.
More importantly, I just finished off Part Deux of the most intense combat of the game. This time, I kill twelve of thirteen dudes, not seven, and as you can probably guess I'm not quite pleased with it not being thirteen either...
Roughly speaking, it took me two hours to get one run where that one last guy shot poor Indy's back up real good, and another two hours got me zero new successes. So it stays.
But not so much for the four hours, moreso for the fact that since Indy died so much, the game crashed 39 times. Yes.
How's abouts some statistics!

I re-started my computer 39 times, for as many sessions, 34 of them being death-crashes, four sound-fixing crashes, and once being just a random crash. Lastly, once completing the segment, *then* a sound bug.
I tried the level 331 times, the highest number of attempts without crash was 24. The sound bug happened 10 times, with four crashes.
The highest number of times I died before it crashed was 16, the lowest *1*. Twice I only had two attempts total before a crash, both of those with less than fifteen seconds of in-game time.
Playing time was approximately 126 minutes. Eight sessions lasted one minute. The longest session lasted seven minutes. And, on average, a restart took three minutes.
I played it continuously with only two breaks, and it took me at least 243 minutes, just over four hours. On average, each attempt then took 44 seconds, but in actuality, the average was 23 seconds.
On average, I had to re-start my computer once every eight attempts, and once every six minutes.
I died 186 times, And with 34 of them causing crashes, the average probability of crash at death is 18,28%. Or just about one in five.
The first four guys killed me 179 times, all in less than ten seconds (most between 5 and 8), and thus caused 96,24% of crashes, or 34 of 35. In the first ten seconds. And that means I died in the first ten seconds 54% of the time.

Whee, statistics are fun.
And some slight more:
I finished off these according-to-plan 1:08 minutes in according-to-awesome precisely 1 minute (well, 59,667s), and the total completion of the level is now roughly 67,85%.
The segment starts from just after the elevator-full-o-commies lowers, to the ladder after getting the key.
Now, only two more segments to go, and this time with only two enemies in the way, rather than TWENTY.
And then at the end of the next level, I get my hands on some invisibility that might mean I'll hardly have to fight anyone else for the rest of the game.
Oh, if only...

Roy_Hess:
"once the Windows-computer is infected you dont know what that shit does download in the background and where it's hiding."

Well, it couldn't be downloading much since I'm on modem, nor would it have to since I manually installed the thing. As for hiding, well, two different malware- and one virus-scanner smoked it out alright.

"Using the internet with "Brain 2.0" and having secure up-to-date routers should usually be enough."
Secure up-to-date routers is kinda irrelevant once you quite actively *install* the thing. Which you apparently covered with that remark about Brain 2.0, so, yeah...

Anyway, progress!
I came across a new bug, where the loading screen music stops working. It doesn't seem to do anything else, but I'm fairly paranoid so I've re-set a bunch. But in *good* news, I also figured out a slightly faster way of resetting the camera when restarting a segment, by opening/closing the menu. So, now, on an attempt fail, it's: Stop record, quickload, enter menu, exit menu, start record, quickload. Or F9 F8 Esc Esc F9 F8. So now you know what I go through every attempt for some decent camera continuity.
More importantly, I just finished off Part Deux of the most intense combat of the game. This time, I kill twelve of thirteen dudes, not seven, and as you can probably guess I'm not quite pleased with it not being thirteen either...
Roughly speaking, it took me two hours to get one run where that one last guy shot poor Indy's back up real good, and another two hours got me zero new successes. So it stays.
But not so much for the four hours, moreso for the fact that since Indy died so much, the game crashed 39 times. Yes.
How's abouts some statistics!

I re-started my computer 39 times, for as many sessions, 34 of them being death-crashes, four sound-fixing crashes, and once being just a random crash. Lastly, once completing the segment, *then* a sound bug.
I tried the level 331 times, the highest number of attempts without crash was 24. The sound bug happened 10 times, with four crashes.
The highest number of times I died before it crashed was 16, the lowest *1*. Twice I only had two attempts total before a crash, both of those with less than fifteen seconds of in-game time.
Playing time was approximately 126 minutes. Eight sessions lasted one minute. The longest session lasted seven minutes. And, on average, a restart took three minutes.
I played it continuously with only two breaks, and it took me at least 243 minutes, just over four hours. On average, each attempt then took 44 seconds, but in actuality, the average was 23 seconds.
On average, I had to re-start my computer once every eight attempts, and once every six minutes.
I died 186 times, And with 34 of them causing crashes, the average probability of crash at death is 18,28%. Or just about one in five.
The first four guys killed me 179 times, all in less than ten seconds (most between 5 and 8), and thus caused 96,24% of crashes, or 34 of 35. In the first ten seconds. And that means I died in the first ten seconds 54% of the time.

Whee, statistics are fun.
And some slight more:
I finished off these according-to-plan 1:08 minutes in according-to-awesome precisely 1 minute (well, 59,667s), and the total completion of the level is now roughly 67,85%.
The segment starts from just after the elevator-full-o-commies lowers, to the ladder after getting the key.
Now, only two more segments to go, and this time with only two enemies in the way, rather than TWENTY.
And then at the end of the next level, I get my hands on some invisibility that might mean I'll hardly have to fight anyone else for the rest of the game.
Oh, if only...