Haunting Ground

2009-04-08 12:50:27 am

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Well, I checked the forums and it looks like nobody's brought this game up in years, so...

Hi! I'm Seijiro, looking to make a run of the game Haunting Ground, a.k.a. Demento. As I recently learned, there is a speed run of the Japanese version of this game by Shin not actually posted here, lasting 1:13:xx (I can't remember the seconds at the moment). So I was thinking perhaps I might do a speed run of my own. I don't know if I'll wind up having the time/patience/compotence to pull it off, but I want to give it a shot at any rate.

That said, is there anyone here who would be interested in seeing an HG run? Or perhaps somebody is already working on one? This would be my very first speed run - my trial run went for 1:27:06, a good 14 minutes behind Shin (I still need to watch his run and see if there are any major differences between the two versions of this game), so I've still got some work to do, but I think I may actually be able to pull it off.

Let me know if anyone's interested. I've still got along ways to go before I get it done, not to mention stuff to buy so I can actually record it.

Thread title:

Well, I checked the forums and it looks like nobody's brought this game up in years, so...

Hi! I'm Seijiro, looking to make a run of the game Haunting Ground, a.k.a. Demento. As I recently learned, there is a speed run of the Japanese version of this game by Shin not actually posted here, lasting 1:13:xx (I can't remember the seconds at the moment). So I was thinking perhaps I might do a speed run of my own. I don't know if I'll wind up having the time/patience/compotence to pull it off, but I want to give it a shot at any rate.

That said, is there anyone here who would be interested in seeing an HG run? Or perhaps somebody is already working on one? This would be my very first speed run - my trial run went for 1:27:06, a good 14 minutes behind Shin (I still need to watch his run and see if there are any major differences between the two versions of this game), so I've still got some work to do, but I think I may actually be able to pull it off.

Let me know if anyone's interested. I've still got along ways to go before I get it done, not to mention stuff to buy so I can actually record it.

Sir VG

2009-04-08 02:07:21 am

Fucking Weeaboo

I've considered (and have been asked to do) a run of this game. I just never had time to complete it.

Seijiro

Edit history:

Seijiro: 2009-04-08 05:52:50 pm

2009-04-08 04:26:53 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Well, I'd love to take it off your hands if you don't mind!

I checked out Shin's speedrun...looks mostly solid, but I see a few points where I might be able to work faster...his boss fights are absolutely beautiful, I might add. Those will be tough to replicate, but I think I understand how he did everything.
The only regional difference I could catch was one single homonculus that didn't exist in his version - it's in that red hallway with five doors you have to open right before the Prima Materia. That shouldn't make too huge a difference.

The single biggest difference between my planned run and his is that he did not use the Lorenzo glitch, which raises an important question: would use of the Lorenzo glitch be allowed, or would that make the run illegitimate? Since that allows the player to skip a good ten or twenty minutes of the House of Truth, it'd be great if I could use it; if I can't, somebody please tell me so I don't.

UPDATE: Just completed another run, and got 1:08:40! Yay for perseverance, I guess. I think I might be able to break 1:05 if I polish up a little bit more and do an overhaul on the Daniella fight. Hopefully I'll have some recording equipment soon so I can get a recording.

Well, I'd love to take it off your hands if you don't mind!

I checked out Shin's speedrun...looks mostly solid, but I see a few points where I might be able to work faster...his boss fights are absolutely beautiful, I might add. Those will be tough to replicate, but I think I understand how he did everything.
The only regional difference I could catch was one single homonculus that didn't exist in his version - it's in that red hallway with five doors you have to open right before the Prima Materia. That shouldn't make too huge a difference.

The single biggest difference between my planned run and his is that he did not use the Lorenzo glitch, which raises an important question: would use of the Lorenzo glitch be allowed, or would that make the run illegitimate? Since that allows the player to skip a good ten or twenty minutes of the House of Truth, it'd be great if I could use it; if I can't, somebody please tell me so I don't.

UPDATE: Just completed another run, and got 1:08:40! Yay for perseverance, I guess. I think I might be able to break 1:05 if I polish up a little bit more and do an overhaul on the Daniella fight. Hopefully I'll have some recording equipment soon so I can get a recording.

Sir VG

2009-04-08 10:40:31 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Yeah, I'm not working on it nor really have time to, so go ahead.

I'm not familiar with that glitch, but I doubt it'll make it illegitimate, just probably in a different category.

Seijiro

2009-04-08 11:43:47 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

The Lorenzo glitch is basically tricking the game into letting you skip almost all of the House of Truth. When you first enter, you pick up the Golden Candlestick, then break one of the red vases to release a luminessant. Lead the luminessant over to where you would ordinarily use the candlestick. The game thinks that Lorenzo is chasing you, but it's just a lumi...so the cutscene is activated without you ever meeting Old Lorenzo.
But wait! When you get to the conveyer belt room, Old Lorenzo never shows up and the Sol door is automatically unlocked. The door opposite the Sol door is unlocked too, so you can go straight to the Cane of Cadeceus (sp?) part without ever encountering Old Lorenzo, skipping the color maze, and only meeting Young Lorenzo at his boss battle.
In other words, it's awesome. I first saw it on one of SashaSilverMoon's videos on YouTube - not sure if she's the first to find it or not.

All right! This weekend I'll see what I can do about getting some recording equipment...with any luck I can post it soon.

The Lorenzo glitch is basically tricking the game into letting you skip almost all of the House of Truth. When you first enter, you pick up the Golden Candlestick, then break one of the red vases to release a luminessant. Lead the luminessant over to where you would ordinarily use the candlestick. The game thinks that Lorenzo is chasing you, but it's just a lumi...so the cutscene is activated without you ever meeting Old Lorenzo.
But wait! When you get to the conveyer belt room, Old Lorenzo never shows up and the Sol door is automatically unlocked. The door opposite the Sol door is unlocked too, so you can go straight to the Cane of Cadeceus (sp?) part without ever encountering Old Lorenzo, skipping the color maze, and only meeting Young Lorenzo at his boss battle.
In  other words, it's awesome. I first saw it on one of SashaSilverMoon's videos on YouTube - not sure if she's the first to find it or not.

All right! This weekend I'll see what I can do about getting some recording equipment...with any luck I can post it soon.

TheQuietMan

2009-04-09 02:49:09 pm

Complete. Global. Saturation.

I was going to post before and say that the reason Shin was getting such a good time was probably because he was using the Lorenzo glitch. I knew of it and tried to find a video, but couldn't. It didn't help that I couldn't recall exactly how to do it either, so I didn't have much to offer but support. Can't say anything has really changed now, but yes, since a large portion of the game is skipped, it'll be a seperate category for sure. Not that that is a bad thing, if you can beat it that fast, go for it.

Seijiro

2009-04-30 10:10:32 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Oh boy.

So I've got my run going great. I average a time of 1:05 (I can usually beat it, and since I know it's possible my current goal is to submit a run that does).
Problem is, I have become very poor. : ( I should be able to go out and find whatever recording stuff I need and buy it soon, but "soon" has increased from a few days to a month or two. I can still do the run, but it's gonna be a while. In the meantime I'll keep fine tuning and try out a few route changes to see if they're more optimal and all that...I really don't think I can break an hour, but I'll shoot for it.
Anyway, just popping in to say that. I've got a super technologically adept cousin who might be able to help me find what I need, but for now I'm at a bit of a stall point.

Enhasa

2009-05-04 03:25:02 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

If you have a VCR you can just use that.

Seijiro

2009-05-04 10:05:43 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Really? I thought VHS runs weren't legitimate. Well, I can definitely record a VHS or DVDs, although the DVDs might have to be per segment...okay, I'll get to work on that then! Thanks!

Sir VG

2009-05-04 10:42:10 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Quote from Seijiro:

Really? I thought VHS runs weren't legitimate. Well, I can definitely record a VHS or DVDs, although the DVDs might have to be per segment...okay, I'll get to work on that then! Thanks!

You just can't submit them to SDA directly, anymore (VHS submissions were halted Jan 2008). You can record to them and then dub to DVD, but the recording of VHS is inferior to DVD.

Seijiro

2009-05-04 11:00:00 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Okay, then. I have a DVD player so I'll just go ahead and record it on those directly. I'll get to work on it tomorrow night - should have it done by this weekend. I'll ask around in the tech forum if I need any more help with this stuff.

Seijiro

2009-05-07 12:39:27 am

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Update!

Segments one and two completed; I'm now up to the Debilitas boss fight. My current time is 21:30, which is approximately 13 seconds ahead of Shin's speedrun. Thankfully, in my experience these two segments are also by far the hardest, so I'm very glad to have them over with.
You learn something new every day. What I learned today was that Debilitas can knock Fiona off a ladder, and that it's faster than climbing down it. Too bad that requires loads of luck and the one time it actually happened my DVD player decided to eat my run. -_-

InsipidMuckyWater

2009-05-07 09:14:51 am

Visit my profile to see my runs!

Awesome. I'm looking forward to this run (never noticed the thread until now). Haunting Ground was one of the many runs I meant to do someday which I never did. Probably wouldn't have, anyway, since I've never even played more than an hour or two.

Anyway, keep up the good work. The more Shin runs we can make our own, the better.

Seijiro

Edit history:

Seijiro: 2009-05-08 02:12:57 pm

2009-05-08 01:00:37 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Okay, segments 3 and 4 are done. Segment 4 (after lighting the luminessant lamp up to right before Dani boss fight) was quite a bit harder than I anticipated, mostly on account of Hewie refusing to follow me when I needed him. I made two pretty embarassing menu slip ups (tried to feed the Jupiter Key to the hand beckoning from the catacombs, and almost tried to put that same key into the golem; total loss is roughly 3 seconds) but make up for it by managing to actually cancel Fiona out of a stumble (which gets those 3 seconds back). Not to mention Hewie and Daniella were really really REALLY cooperative.

As for the real reason you're reading this...2:36 lead on Shin's run! Admittedly, one minute of that is an ending difference (I'm shooting for A and he went for B, and it takes longer to kill Debi than to drop the chandelier on him...especially when you're restricing yourself to only kicks), but still, that's pretty exciting. For what it's worth, my current time is 35:11.

EDIT: I decided to try and improve on my segment 4 run. As it turns out, I didn't get a little lucky...I got mind-blowingly lucky. I haven't even been able to come close to replicating Hewie's obedience or Fiona's stumbles to be anywhere near as good as they were in my current segment. Thus, I have opted to keep the Jupiter Key fumbles and accept that that cost me 3 seconds but the luck bought me at least ten back.

Okay, segments 3 and 4 are done. Segment 4 (after lighting the luminessant lamp up to right before Dani boss fight) was quite a bit harder than I anticipated, mostly on account of Hewie refusing to follow me when I needed him. I made two pretty embarassing menu slip ups (tried to feed the Jupiter Key to the hand beckoning from the catacombs, and almost tried to put that same key into the golem; total loss is roughly 3 seconds) but make up for it by managing to actually cancel Fiona out of a stumble (which gets those 3 seconds back). Not to mention Hewie and Daniella were really really REALLY cooperative.

As for the real reason you're reading this...2:36 lead on Shin's run! Admittedly, one minute of that is an ending difference (I'm shooting for A and he went for B, and it takes longer to kill Debi than to drop the chandelier on him...especially when you're restricing yourself to only kicks), but still, that's pretty exciting. For what it's worth, my current time is 35:11.

EDIT: I decided to try and improve on my segment 4 run. As it turns out, I didn't get a little lucky...I got mind-blowingly lucky. I haven't even been able to come close to replicating Hewie's obedience or Fiona's stumbles to be anywhere near as good as they were in my current segment. Thus, I have opted to keep the Jupiter Key fumbles and accept that that cost me 3 seconds but the luck bought me at least ten back.

Seijiro

2009-05-09 09:33:28 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Segment 5 done. I managed to get a really awesome Daniella fight - even beat Shin's time by roughly 8 seconds, which I never would have believed possible.
Anyway, I've got finals to study for, so I'm putting the run on hold for a bit. I should be able to start working on it again Thursday night. Of course, I'll be practicing in the meantime, but I don't think I'll have the time to sit down and actually get a great recorded segment.

TheQuietMan

Edit history:

TheQuietMan: 2009-05-09 10:24:31 pm

2009-05-09 10:15:24 pm

Complete. Global. Saturation.

It sounds like you're doing a great job at a speedy pace, so now I'm really looking forward to this run even more.
Just to clarify, which ending are you going for?

Seijiro

2009-05-09 11:50:49 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

I decided I'd go for A or B, depending on which would get me a faster Debilitas fight. Since it is notably faster (45-60 seconds) to drop the chandelier than it is to kill Debi, it looks like I'm going for A. I did a quick run ahead without saving just to make sure I have enough friendship points with Hewie to bypass Ending D, so no worries there.
While I doubt I'll talk myself into it, I have considered running all the endings (sans B, since it's virtually identical overall). Ending D is looking really nice at the moment, since I am ~~getting really fed up with Hewie~~ trying to be a thorough speedrunner.

Gojira345isDante

2009-07-26 05:02:13 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

What happened to this.

Horror games always need a run....

TheQuietMan

2009-07-27 01:32:45 am

Complete. Global. Saturation.

Yeah, it sounded like this run was going so well and then died for some reason.

Seijiro

Edit history:

Seijiro: 2009-08-17 12:24:17 am

2009-08-16 09:38:38 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

It still exists. I promise I'm going to finish this. Really.

Unfortunately, real life is getting in the way. Like, not just a little bit, I mean I barely have time to do things like...well...run Haunting Ground. : ( I have managed to complete two more segments, so I'm just starting the Water Tower - after that it's just the glitched H.O.T., so I should only have two or three segments to go (Water tower will probably all be in one, then up to the final boss, then final battle and flee). My time right now is 47:28 - I'm pretty confident in breaking my goal of 1:05:00, and I still might have a shot at sub-hour. Anyway, the next few days are pretty open for me and I think I may really be able to finish before Friday (getting my wisdoms out, then school, so my time will be too filled up with that for a while - plus I can't take my parents DVD player/recorder, although I could come home for the weekends and work on the run during that time maybe).

Anyway, I am very sorry about all the wait but the run is still alive. I will finish it!

EDIT: I did some math, and I am approximately 3:28 ahead of Shin. That's a guesstimate - he doesn't show the in-game clock during his segments, so I added up all of his times amd subtracted about 80 seconds (he shows the loading screen which is roughly ten, so that times eight segments). His approximate time at the start of the Water Tower is 50:56, against my 47:28. Needless to say, I find that pretty exciting. Cheesy

It still exists. I promise I'm going to finish this. Really.

Unfortunately, real life is getting in the way. Like, not just a little bit, I mean I barely have time to do things like...well...run Haunting Ground. : ( I have managed to complete two more segments, so I'm just starting the Water Tower - after that it's just the glitched H.O.T., so I should only have two or three segments to go (Water tower will probably all be in one, then up to the final boss, then final battle and flee). My time right now is 47:28 - I'm pretty confident in breaking my goal of 1:05:00, and I still might have a shot at sub-hour. Anyway, the next few days are pretty open for me and I think I may really be able to finish before Friday (getting my wisdoms out, then school, so my time will be too filled up with that for a while - plus I can't take my parents DVD player/recorder, although I could come home for the weekends and work on the run during that time maybe).

Anyway, I am very sorry about all the wait but the run is still alive. I will finish it!

EDIT: I did some math, and I am approximately 3:28 ahead of Shin. That's a guesstimate - he doesn't show the in-game clock during his segments, so I added up all of his times amd subtracted about 80 seconds (he shows the loading screen which is roughly ten, so that times eight segments). His approximate time at the start of the Water Tower is 50:56, against my 47:28. Needless to say, I find that pretty exciting.  :D

TheQuietMan

2009-08-17 01:35:24 pm

Complete. Global. Saturation.

It's great news that this run is still alive, and I urge you not to rush it, because there have been a few similar cases where people rushed runs because of time limitations and suffered because of it.

Seijiro

2009-08-17 02:52:49 pm

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Don't worry, if I don't get a good prduct by my deadline then I'll just put it on hold again until I have time to work on it again. I don't want to ruin what's been a pretty great run (if I do say so myself) by having a crappy finish.

That said, these last three segments are probably going to be the easiest. I have little trouble with the Water Tower and for some wonderful reason Hewie really likes to cooperate with me on the puzzle at the top so I don't have to worry too much about him. The glitched HOT is a cakewalk until the Lorenzo battle and the ending sequence, so that's the only major challenge left outside of doing things like making Fiona run in a more or less straight line.

...as a side note, does ayone have some suggestions for the falling statue at the very end? I can't seem to get that thing steadied with any decent amount of speed.

Seijiro

2009-08-20 01:02:47 am

The Camera Obscura had no effect

Okay...after some intense running around, nearly getting squished by a statue, and desperately fighting the urge to kick Hewie into a pit of lava, I have finally completed a Haunting Ground speedrun with a total time of 1:00:44. I was secretly hoping to break an hour, which I fell just shy of, but I still managed to beat my goal of 1:05:00, so I'm happy.

Tomorrow I'm going to watch all of the individual segments one lasttime, create a backup, and then...I guess it's off to SDA!

Thanks you all for offering me support and for giving me a reason to do this besides "because it'd be sorta cool". I'm so excited that I finally pulled this off!

zero shift

2011-11-11 07:21:08 pm

What happened with this run? It's not uploaded here.

I'm planning a run myself based on Shin's standard. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make my DVD recorder work. It records sound but no picture even though all the AV cables are right. To be honest I'm useless when it comes to this sort of thing.

Something I want to address, which is all the comparisons to Shin's run and how this one is beating it.

This is not really true, because not only is Shin's run a speedrun, but also a challenge run. If you check his site it shows a list of rules for his run.

If you aren't following these, you aren't beating Shin. BTW last year he improved his time to 1 : 12 : 26.
You should list the rules you're going by and not compare with Shin unless you're following his rules exactly.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/shin3/yaricom/demento.htm

You should list the rules you're going by and not compare with Shin unless you're following his rules exactly.

I've been practicing and planning for a while now, but unless I can find some way to record, it's going nowhere.

What happened with this run? It's not uploaded here.

I'm planning a run myself based on Shin's standard. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make my DVD recorder work. It records sound but no picture even though all the AV cables are right. To be honest I'm useless when it comes to this sort of thing.

Something I want to address, which is all the comparisons to Shin's run and how this one is beating it.

This is not really true, because not only is Shin's run a speedrun, but also a challenge run. If you check his site it shows a list of rules for his run.

If you aren't following these, you aren't beating Shin. BTW last year he improved his time to 1 : 12 : 26. 
You should list the rules you're going by and not compare with Shin unless you're following his rules exactly.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/shin3/yaricom/demento.htm

You should list the rules you're going by and not compare with Shin unless you're following his rules exactly.

I've been practicing and planning for a while now, but unless I can find some way to record, it's going nowhere.

André

2011-11-11 08:00:54 pm

Main Work!!!

Cool, recently I've been talking about this game in the less known game, so I'll be looking forward this speedrun and if I can find something that help you get through this I'll help.