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Just watching the TAS's isn't really going to be of much help. Though, watching Sleepz's old one might help entertainment wise. Just be patient though, I'll decide a game sooner or later and attempt to run.
OK then.
SDA Forum
Poverty runner
Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but Deln made me pick up this game on a whim and I came across some interesting tidbits that made me do some hardcore datamining. This was mostly meant as a fun project and probably just exploded in a full-fledged run project for me. The game has a lot of fun things to mess around with once you learn the engine properly, but here's a breakdown of some of the things I found so far.
So first things first, the first three hits of any character's combo can be cancelled by either doing a crouch attack or moving forward. This does not work in Ranger form (although there's an application for it in it that I'll go into detail later on), but makes for some interesting frame saving opportunities and lockdown on some enemies. Kimberly's full combo is 120 frames long. This includes around 15 frames where she is completely immobile and will not respond to any inputs. On the bright side, Kimberly is invincible for the duration of her final it until a certain point (haven't got to the actual frame data on that one). Doing a forward cancel during a certain combo string can bring a Putty down in about 85 frames, so that's a 35 frames saving if done properly.
Now on to actually illustrating what I tested on this.
Combo 1: Attack x4 (120 frames)
Combo 2: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x3 (85 frames)
Combo 3: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2 (117 frames)
Combo 4: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, crouching attack (125 frames)
So Kimberly's crouching attack is so slow that she actually GAINS time by doing it.
Doing this also made me realize just how much damage the final hit of her combos does. I haven't got to the actual memory address for this yet so I'll just put it down as simple numbers.
First two hits: 1 damage (each)
Third hit: 2 damage
Final hit: 4 damage
Throw: 1 damage
Special: 1 damage
Vertical jump attack: 1 damage
Forward jump attack: 2 damage
So most Putties that don't die in a single hit have 8 health. Shield Putties have 24 (16 on the shield). Throws do barely anything in damage, but make you invincible for the entire animation. Doing a vertical jump attack is completely worthless in terms of damage, but you can do 2 in a row if your timing is proper. This is especially useful against the second and third bosses, who can each be hit twice if their position is proper. Bomb damage is completely random as far as I know, each hit seems to do around 2 damage each but the number of hits per activation is dependent on where the enemy is hit.
Jumping stops your advance for around 30 frames, but you can jump again within the first few frames of landing. This makes for some interesting setups against weak Putties since they die in a single hit and Kimberly's reach on her jumping kick has much more range than her firsts. This goes out the window once she morphs (her reach is just incredible in that form, and she has the arrow), but until she's morphed, jumping attacks might be in order when screen locked to minimize downtime.
Okay so regarding forward cancelling while in Morphed mode, this STILL works but it's a bit different. Basically, when morphed, your combo buffer gets extended for some reason. And by extended, I mean extended by a LOT. Done properly, you can store a final hit from your combo indefinitely by cancelling the third hit at the right time. So long as your next attack is standing and you haven't jumped, you'll get the final hit.
Now the real application for this is that while morphed, your combo's speed depends on your presses. Mashing will get the full combo out, but if you time the button presses properly, you get a substantial speed increase. If you HOLD forward while doing the attack, you don't have to time the presses anymore, the game automatically cancels each hit and lets you do a full speed combo. This is mostly useful on Green Putties as it allows you to consistently do a full combo on them without them jumping out. The second boss can also be fully combo'd with this method provided you hit him on the first frame he appears.
I'm still doing a lot of datamining and I should have actual health values up later this week. So far tho, Kimberly looks like the best character only for the first two levels and then Jason gets picked because his combo is a lot faster and he can lock jumping Green Putties way more easily than she can. His final hit from his main combo in morphed form is also easier to land.
And this is how I learned I needed to take care of my OCD.
So first things first, the first three hits of any character's combo can be cancelled by either doing a crouch attack or moving forward. This does not work in Ranger form (although there's an application for it in it that I'll go into detail later on), but makes for some interesting frame saving opportunities and lockdown on some enemies. Kimberly's full combo is 120 frames long. This includes around 15 frames where she is completely immobile and will not respond to any inputs. On the bright side, Kimberly is invincible for the duration of her final it until a certain point (haven't got to the actual frame data on that one). Doing a forward cancel during a certain combo string can bring a Putty down in about 85 frames, so that's a 35 frames saving if done properly.
Now on to actually illustrating what I tested on this.
Combo 1: Attack x4 (120 frames)
Combo 2: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x3 (85 frames)
Combo 3: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2 (117 frames)
Combo 4: Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, forward 1 frame, Attack x2, crouching attack (125 frames)
So Kimberly's crouching attack is so slow that she actually GAINS time by doing it.
Doing this also made me realize just how much damage the final hit of her combos does. I haven't got to the actual memory address for this yet so I'll just put it down as simple numbers.
First two hits: 1 damage (each)
Third hit: 2 damage
Final hit: 4 damage
Throw: 1 damage
Special: 1 damage
Vertical jump attack: 1 damage
Forward jump attack: 2 damage
So most Putties that don't die in a single hit have 8 health. Shield Putties have 24 (16 on the shield). Throws do barely anything in damage, but make you invincible for the entire animation. Doing a vertical jump attack is completely worthless in terms of damage, but you can do 2 in a row if your timing is proper. This is especially useful against the second and third bosses, who can each be hit twice if their position is proper. Bomb damage is completely random as far as I know, each hit seems to do around 2 damage each but the number of hits per activation is dependent on where the enemy is hit.
Jumping stops your advance for around 30 frames, but you can jump again within the first few frames of landing. This makes for some interesting setups against weak Putties since they die in a single hit and Kimberly's reach on her jumping kick has much more range than her firsts. This goes out the window once she morphs (her reach is just incredible in that form, and she has the arrow), but until she's morphed, jumping attacks might be in order when screen locked to minimize downtime.
Okay so regarding forward cancelling while in Morphed mode, this STILL works but it's a bit different. Basically, when morphed, your combo buffer gets extended for some reason. And by extended, I mean extended by a LOT. Done properly, you can store a final hit from your combo indefinitely by cancelling the third hit at the right time. So long as your next attack is standing and you haven't jumped, you'll get the final hit.
Now the real application for this is that while morphed, your combo's speed depends on your presses. Mashing will get the full combo out, but if you time the button presses properly, you get a substantial speed increase. If you HOLD forward while doing the attack, you don't have to time the presses anymore, the game automatically cancels each hit and lets you do a full speed combo. This is mostly useful on Green Putties as it allows you to consistently do a full combo on them without them jumping out. The second boss can also be fully combo'd with this method provided you hit him on the first frame he appears.
I'm still doing a lot of datamining and I should have actual health values up later this week. So far tho, Kimberly looks like the best character only for the first two levels and then Jason gets picked because his combo is a lot faster and he can lock jumping Green Putties way more easily than she can. His final hit from his main combo in morphed form is also easier to land.
And this is how I learned I needed to take care of my OCD.
Poverty runner
Walk speeds are constant I think, but doing backflips is much faster (double tap B, it's not very obvious on how to do it).
Backflipping all the way through a level is not very useful because you still have to take out putties on the way but still saves time overall. I'm still not 100% on Jason or Kimberly being better than the other but I'm still feeling that jason's combo is somehow faster.
Backflipping all the way through a level is not very useful because you still have to take out putties on the way but still saves time overall. I'm still not 100% on Jason or Kimberly being better than the other but I'm still feeling that jason's combo is somehow faster.
I've been trying to work in backflips through my route so I can land behind weak putties, and throw one into another weak putty, but haven't been able to fully get a good run by doing it, as far as best ranger, personally I find Kimberly is more useful throughout the game as a whole, I use the arrows quite frequently to take out weak putties in Area 3/5, but haven't done a full Jason run yet, I will test out Jason and get back to this thread.
Poverty runner
Deln has beaten the time by a bit (32:XX iirc?) but it's possible to go further than that.
I was wrong on walk speeds, by the way. Kimberly is faster than every other ranger, so picking her is mandatory now. Now the idea is to figure out how the TAS does its strategy on the Eye Monster, because that would save an insane amount of time.
I was wrong on walk speeds, by the way. Kimberly is faster than every other ranger, so picking her is mandatory now. Now the idea is to figure out how the TAS does its strategy on the Eye Monster, because that would save an insane amount of time.
Just watched the latest run by Dan along with the current SDA run, and did an approximate time difference between stages from the run posted and the one currently on SDA.
Stage 1: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 1 second (unless you count the long fade out on Dan's run, which costs some time)
Stage 2: SDA run is beats Dan's run by 2 seconds.
Stage 3: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 30 seconds.
Stage 4: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 31 seconds.
Stage 5: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 12 seconds.
Stage 6: SDA run beats Dan's by 1 second.
Stage 7: SDA run beats Dan's by 4 seconds.
All-in-all, excellent run, Dan. And congratulations on beating the current SDA run. I hope you continue to work on this run and continue to optimize your stage runs, especially Stage 2, and submit to SDA as an improvement to the current posted run. The places where I saw major improvements to the current SDA run were the boss fights, with the exception of the first boss, Bones.
Stage 1: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 1 second (unless you count the long fade out on Dan's run, which costs some time)
Stage 2: SDA run is beats Dan's run by 2 seconds.
Stage 3: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 30 seconds.
Stage 4: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 31 seconds.
Stage 5: Dan's run beats current SDA run by 12 seconds.
Stage 6: SDA run beats Dan's by 1 second.
Stage 7: SDA run beats Dan's by 4 seconds.
All-in-all, excellent run, Dan. And congratulations on beating the current SDA run. I hope you continue to work on this run and continue to optimize your stage runs, especially Stage 2, and submit to SDA as an improvement to the current posted run. The places where I saw major improvements to the current SDA run were the boss fights, with the exception of the first boss, Bones.
Thanks Anonymous, I just beat that current one by 7 seconds, I could of easily gotten 32:01-08 if I didn't mess up on stages 3 and especially 4, Lost nearly 17-20 seconds worth, but all in all it's an improved run and I will be continuing with this game until I sub 32.
http://www.twitch.tv/danshow1/c/1956949
No audio sadly, the people who live upstairs were Vacuuming which causes a gnarly vibration and sound to come down through my floor into the mic.
http://www.twitch.tv/danshow1/c/1956949
No audio sadly, the people who live upstairs were Vacuuming which causes a gnarly vibration and sound to come down through my floor into the mic.
Well I think this will be my last post in this subforum regarding my own run:
http://www.twitch.tv/danshow1/c/1958509
31:36 my best run so far, incredible luck on the megazord bosses, tried out different strats, like Combo on BONES instead of Bombing the head, to save time with the bomb animation. Feel free to pick it apart, ect ect.
http://www.twitch.tv/danshow1/c/1958509
31:36 my best run so far, incredible luck on the megazord bosses, tried out different strats, like Combo on BONES instead of Bombing the head, to save time with the bomb animation. Feel free to pick it apart, ect ect.