Penny Racers - July 10th, 2013

Flip

Edit history:

Flip: 2013-07-10 08:22:27 am

2013-06-25 04:49:38 pm

1-Up!

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Penny Racers (Any %) (Individual Level)

Decision: Accept

Reason: All levels well played, and difficulty of Volcano and Ice adequately explained by the runner.

Congratulations to Wouter M. 'WMJ' Jansen!

Thread title:

Flip

2013-06-25 04:49:38 pm

1-Up!

Run Information

Penny Racers (Any %) (Individual Level)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/WMJPennyRacers/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by July 9, 2013.

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

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

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2013-06-25 09:55:47 pm

2013-06-25 09:49:35 pm

Weegee Time

I watched these on HQ. The audio and video are good and sync'd up.

The horn (R) triggers the power roll. The speedometer drops quite a bit at the end of the roll, but shoots back up as the car starts moving forward again.

Here's the times I could find, for reference:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/n64/198272-penny-racers/faqs/42581
http://www.geocities.ws/n64highscores/ --> http://n64hs.speedrunwiki.com/PennyRacers.html

Country - First race, extremely straightforward and very clean. Puts the IL table off to a good start!
Lakeside - Some ghost following, but it's close and for a short period.
Harbor - The runner makes it past each corner at least once without incident, but has trouble on other laps.
Mountain - This looked really clean and was an all around entertaining race to watch. This one made me want to give this game another shot.
Ruins - There's got to be a way to make it around that first major corner without smacking it... right?
Volcano - I think this may have the most potential improvement. I figure at least a second is blown between the boost panel at 0:23 and the hill right after it.
Alpine - A short track and a great performance. Hitting that boost panel on the hill on lap 3 was cool; is it faster to do that?
Caves - Unlike Alpine, I'm pretty sure you can't hit the boost panel on this track's hill.
Ice - Another run with visible improvement possible, the runner follows the ghost for fully half the race and it even caught up on lap 3.

This runnier is going all out on these tracks. There are some amazingly tight corners, like the 0:43 mark on Lakeside. This comes at a cost, as the runner clips many corners as well. Some tracks could do with more consistency. That said, I can't imagine a penny racer moving 200 mph is an exact science.

There's highlights and there's lowlights. In the end, these videos exist, they're faster than the times I can find, and they make the game look fun to play. I give this an accept and hope it might foster a bit of competition for the game.

I watched these on HQ.  The audio and video are good and sync'd up.

The horn (R) triggers the power roll.  The speedometer drops quite a bit at the end of the roll, but shoots back up as the car starts moving forward again.

Here's the times I could find, for reference:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/n64/198272-penny-racers/faqs/42581
http://www.geocities.ws/n64highscores/ --> http://n64hs.speedrunwiki.com/PennyRacers.html

[b]Country[/b] - First race, extremely straightforward and very clean.  Puts the IL table off to a good start!
[b]Lakeside[/b] - Some ghost following, but it's close and for a short period.
[b]Harbor[/b] - The runner makes it past each corner at least once without incident, but has trouble on other laps.
[b]Mountain[/b] - This looked really clean and was an all around entertaining race to watch.  This one made me want to give this game another shot.
[b]Ruins[/b] - There's got to be a way to make it around that first major corner without smacking it... right?
[b]Volcano[/b] - I think this may have the most potential improvement.  I figure at least a second is blown between the boost panel at 0:23 and the hill right after it.
[b]Alpine[/b] - A short track and a great performance.  Hitting that boost panel on the hill on lap 3 was cool; is it faster to do that?
[b]Caves[/b] - Unlike Alpine, I'm pretty sure you can't hit the boost panel on this track's hill.
[b]Ice[/b] - Another run with visible improvement possible, the runner follows the ghost for fully half the race and it even caught up on lap 3.

This runnier is going all out on these tracks.  There are some amazingly tight corners, like the 0:43 mark on Lakeside.  This comes at a cost, as the runner clips many corners as well.  Some tracks could do with more consistency.  That said, I can't imagine a penny racer moving 200 mph is an exact science.

There's highlights and there's lowlights.  In the end, these videos [i]exist[/i], they're faster than the times I can find, and they make the game look fun to play.  I give this an [b]accept[/b] and hope it might foster a bit of competition for the game.

bangerra

2013-06-26 08:52:41 am

Some tracks look a bit more sloppy than others, but still fantastic execution overall!

Accept

AlecK47

2013-06-28 10:12:26 pm

A/V good, no cheating detected.

This looks like a fairly typical n64 racer to me, except for the physics. The game really doesn't seem to punish you much for light collisions as most racers of that era (or any era) generally do, even though the speedometer may suggest otherwise - there are a LOT of wall collisions here, but when I focused on momentum they hardly seemed to matter.

Rakuen covered most of what I'd say from track to track, but I would be a bit harsher on Ice, as opposed to Volcano. The latter certainly seems improvable, but I honestly think Ice could be improved more. Three laps on par with the ghost's lap 1 or the submitted lap 2 could yield significant improvement in Ice (how difficult that would be, I cannot say - I assume the physics are different, but it still looks pretty sloppy).

I am honestly tempted to reject Ice, although I honestly would not have known any better if not for all the ghost chasing. That said, I'll give Ice a very weak accept and hope that somebody who has this game (including the runner - I know he can do better) is inspired to improve it. The rest of the tracks get stronger accepts, and they honestly carry the decision, because they seem very solid to me.

A/V good, no cheating detected.

This looks like a fairly typical n64 racer to me, except for the physics.  The game really doesn't seem to punish you much for light collisions as most racers of that era (or any era) generally do, even though the speedometer may suggest otherwise - there are a LOT of wall collisions here, but when I focused on momentum they hardly seemed to matter.

Rakuen covered most of what I'd say from track to track, but I would be a bit harsher on Ice, as opposed to Volcano.  The latter certainly seems improvable, but I honestly think Ice could be improved more.  Three laps on par with the ghost's lap 1 or the submitted lap 2 could yield significant improvement in Ice (how difficult that would be, I cannot say - I assume the physics are different, but it still looks pretty sloppy).

I am honestly tempted to reject Ice, although I honestly would not have known any better if not for all the ghost chasing.  That said, I'll give Ice a very weak accept and hope that somebody who has this game (including the runner - I know he can do better) is inspired to improve it.  The rest of the tracks get stronger accepts, and they honestly carry the decision, because they seem very solid to me.

JackintheBox333

2013-06-29 01:12:32 am

Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner

Country: Not really much to say on it, its well executed.

Lakeside: This one also looks really impressive.

Harbor: Some very slight errors, but nothing that really detracts from it too much.

Mountain: The runner makes this look far easier than the level looks like it has any right to be.

Ruins: I echo the sentiment: That 1st corner of every lap looks bad. Other than that, it looks fine.

Volcano: The runner swings way wide right of the 2nd speed boost on the track on lap 1, actually manages to go too far inside of it on lap 2 and manages to finally hit it on lap 3, turning an extremely hard left to actually manage to get there. While there are other minor errors with hitting walls, these missed speed boosts really make the level look bad to me.

Alpine: Hitting that speed boost on the hill jump appears to be faster, but I'm not entirely sure that it is because with the top speed, the car clears the speed boost pad. The only way to hit it, is to either slow down or hit the wall to scrub enough speed and bounce onto the pad. The execution on this track is fairly clean, and it's short so this one looks okay.

Caves: There is one speed boost pad the runner skips on every lap, but it appears to be a routing decision to maintain speed coming out of that particular corner, due to the pad's positioning on the far inside, so that's fine. The laps themselves are fairly clean.

Ice: The ghost pulls out to a rather decent lead at the end of lap 1. On lap 2, the ghost actually takes a boost right after the jump in which the car plows into the wall. The runner completely misses this boost, a boost that the runner took on lap 1 and 3. The runner is also behind the ghost for the large portion of the time trial.

The biggest problems I have with this batch of submissions is the two levels: Volcano and Ice.

On Volcano it certainly appears to be faster to hit that speed boost considering the runner is certainly trying to hit it, and the runner only managed to do so once on three laps. Coupled with the wall bouncing, hitting the wooden wall before the bridge, and coupled with just how short these IL's actually are, I would want to see this particular level improved before I would accept it.

With Ice, the execution is sloppy compared to the other IL's, the runner missed a speed boost and was behind the ghost for a major portion of the time trial.

I'm not saying Volcano and Ice are bad, as the submitted times are clearly extremely fast, the problem is that they are really sloppy compared to the other ones. and they are clearly improvable. How hard it would be to improve those times? I do not know.

My verdict: Reject Volcano and Ice, Accept the rest

Country: Not really much to say on it, its well executed.

Lakeside: This one also looks really impressive.

Harbor: Some very slight errors, but nothing that really detracts from it too much.

Mountain: The runner makes this look far easier than the level looks like it has any right to be.

Ruins: I echo the sentiment: That 1st corner of every lap looks bad. Other than that, it looks fine.

Volcano: The runner swings way wide right of the 2nd speed boost on the track on lap 1, actually manages to go too far inside of it on lap 2 and manages to finally hit it on lap 3, turning an extremely hard left to actually manage to get there. While there are other minor errors with hitting walls, these missed speed boosts really make the level look bad to me.

Alpine: Hitting that speed boost on the hill jump appears to be faster, but I'm not entirely sure that it is because with the top speed, the car clears the speed boost pad. The only way to hit it, is to either slow down or hit the wall to scrub enough speed and bounce onto the pad. The execution on this track is fairly clean, and it's short so this one looks okay.

Caves: There is one speed boost pad the runner skips on every lap, but it appears to be a routing decision to maintain speed coming out of that particular corner, due to the pad's positioning on the far inside, so that's fine. The laps themselves are fairly clean.

Ice: The ghost pulls out to a rather decent lead at the end of lap 1. On lap 2, the ghost actually takes a boost right after the jump in which the car plows into the wall. The runner completely misses this boost, a boost that the runner took on lap 1 and 3. The runner is also behind the ghost for the large portion of the time trial.

The biggest problems I have with this batch of submissions is the two levels: Volcano and Ice.

On Volcano it certainly appears to be faster to hit that speed boost considering the runner is certainly trying to hit it, and the runner only managed to do so once on three laps. Coupled with the wall bouncing, hitting the wooden wall before the bridge, and coupled with just how short these IL's actually are, I would want to see this particular level improved before I would accept it.

With Ice, the execution is sloppy compared to the other IL's, the runner missed a speed boost and was behind the ghost for a major portion of the time trial.

I'm not saying Volcano and Ice are bad, as the submitted times are clearly extremely fast, the problem is that they are really sloppy compared to the other ones. and they are clearly improvable. How hard it would be to improve those times? I do not know.

My verdict: [b]Reject[/b] Volcano and Ice, [b]Accept[/b] the rest

MAS8705

2013-06-29 10:13:39 am

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

I have to say that it is pretty funny to watch a racing speed run where you have the ability to barrel roll around corners. With that said, the runs were good and had some very nice grouping with the lap times, but there were a few that left more to be desired.

A few of the runs had the ghost racer actually leading the way at times, but it got really bad during the Ice stage when the ghost runner was in front for the majority of the race until towards the end. Other than that, I double checked the colcano stage and did notice how the speed boost was missed a few times to, when it seemed rather clear that the runner did actually make the attempt to hit the boost but missed. Either the runner needs to explain himself about this, or redo these two stages since they don't seem to match the quality that the other stages have.

Overall, the run as a whole is an accept, but the Ice and Volcano stages need to get cleaned up. I'd highly recommend that you might want to redo these stages to improve the times.

I have to say that it is pretty funny to watch a racing speed run where you have the ability to barrel roll around corners.  With that said, the runs were good and had some very nice grouping with the lap times, but there were a few that left more to be desired.

A few of the runs had the ghost racer actually leading the way at times, but it got really bad during the Ice stage when the ghost runner was in front for the majority of the race until towards the end.  Other than that, I double checked the colcano stage and did notice how the speed boost was missed a few times to, when it seemed rather clear that the runner did actually make the attempt to hit the boost but missed.  Either the runner needs to explain himself about this, or redo these two stages since they don't seem to match the quality that the other stages have.

Overall, the run as a whole is an accept, but the Ice and Volcano stages need to get cleaned up.  I'd highly recommend that you might want to redo these stages to improve the times.

WMJ

2013-07-01 10:30:35 am

Alright I will give some more detail about these runs to clear some things up.

In this game hitting walls hardly slows you down and it is often faster to just hug the inside of the corner and just hit the wall a few times than go wide. In a good number of instances it is even faster to hit the wall and I intentionally crash into it. Besides that, boostplates give a very small often insignificant speed increase if you are already going at full speed. They do impair the steering a lot so on quite a few occasions it can be faster to skip them in favor of cornering.

Good examples of intentional wall hits are the first corner on Ruins and the top of the hill before the jump on Volcano (that track has quite a lot of them actually). I crash into the wall on ruins because there is a bump in the road and going over it at full speed makes you fly a bit making the corner way wide. Crashing into the wall right there makes me take the inside and you accelerate to full speed really fast making this faster. On volcano it is the biggest crash time saver in the game to hit the wall on top of the big jump. You accelerate back to full speed much faster from this crash hit than you would when recovering from the jump at full speed.

The volcano race really can not be improved so much time wise. A good illustration is that the 3rd lap was the cleanest and I hit that boost plate that was commented about but was still the slowest in the lap time. That boostplate is very difficult to hit since you have to do a difficult barrol roll jump to make the corner tightly after the landing it really doesn’t matter much for time and it shows in the lap times.

On ice that ghost racing is of course myself. How can the run be bad if it’s on par with my own previous run? I just wanted to improve it because it had one bad crash. That said it had a completely sick lap 1 which is unbeatable and that’s why the ghost took a lead. The crash into the wall after the bounce is unavoidable as far as I know. By doing a barrel roll on impact I can avoid speed loss however. On lap 1 of the ghost run I hit the very exact seam in the graphics and “glitched” in the ground, avoiding the bounce, making that section much faster. I haven’t replicated that ever in a few hours of attempts. Overall the run I submitted is much more consistent. The boost miss is not a mistake at that point it doesn’t really matter much if you take it or not faster cornering may actually be faster in the end than taking that boost and going wide. I didn’t notice much of a difference and you can tell from my lap times.

Ice and Volcano are by far the longest and most complex tracks in the game so of course they are not going to be completely as perfected as the very simple Country track.

One last thing I will say to take into consideration for the optimization of this is that this game is very dreadful to speedrun. Why? It takes 5 – 10 minutes of retries between every attempt on a track because of this completely ridiculous turbo start that requires like 2 inputs that have to be pretty much frame perfect.

Alright I will give some more detail about these runs to clear some things up.

In this game hitting walls hardly slows you down and it is often faster to just hug the inside of the corner and just hit the wall a few times than go wide. In a good number of instances it is even faster to hit the wall and I intentionally crash into it. Besides that, boostplates give a very small often insignificant speed increase if you are already going at full speed. They do impair the steering a lot so on quite a few occasions it can be faster to skip them in favor of cornering.

Good examples of intentional wall hits are the first corner on Ruins and the top of the hill before the jump on Volcano (that track has quite a lot of them actually).  I crash into the wall on ruins because there is a bump in the road and going over it at full speed makes you fly a bit making the corner way wide. Crashing into the wall right there makes me take the inside and you accelerate to full speed really fast making this faster. On volcano it is the biggest crash time saver in the game to hit the wall on top of the big jump. You accelerate back to full speed much faster from this crash hit than you would when recovering from the jump at full speed.

The volcano race really can not be improved so much time wise. A good illustration is that the 3rd lap was the cleanest and I hit that boost plate that was commented about but was still the slowest in the lap time.  That boostplate is very difficult to hit since you have to do a difficult barrol roll jump to make the corner tightly after the landing it really doesn’t matter much for time and it shows in the lap times.

On ice that ghost racing is of course myself. How can the run be bad if it’s on par with my own previous run? I just wanted to improve it because it had one bad crash. That said it had a completely sick lap 1 which is unbeatable and that’s why the ghost took a lead. The crash into the wall after the bounce is unavoidable as far as I know. By doing a barrel roll on impact I can avoid speed loss however. On lap 1 of the ghost run I hit the very exact seam in the graphics and “glitched” in the ground, avoiding the bounce, making that section much faster. I haven’t replicated that ever in a few hours of attempts. Overall the run I submitted is much more consistent. The boost miss is not a mistake at that point it doesn’t really matter much if you take it or not faster cornering may actually be faster in the end than taking that boost and going wide. I didn’t notice much of a difference and you can tell from my lap times.

Ice and Volcano are by far the longest and most complex tracks in the game so of course they are not going to be completely as perfected as the very simple Country track.

One last thing I will say to take into consideration for the optimization of this is that this game is very dreadful to speedrun. Why? It takes 5 – 10 minutes of retries between every attempt on a track because of this completely ridiculous turbo start that requires like 2 inputs that have to be pretty much frame perfect.

MAS8705

2013-07-01 12:42:01 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

*slow clap*

This is one reason why I love this new concept of the "Public Verification": It allows the runner to come forward and explain him or herself in case we need a further explanation. Of course, the same can normally be said about the regular verification but usually, it takes a bit longer to get the runner to respond for clarification.

Now granted that it would have been nice to have seen this in the run comments, but then again we don't know if it got left out or wasn't posted in the first place.

I'll go ahead and reverse my previous stance on the volcano stage, but Ice is still pretty iffy for me. Mainly speaking, I'm sure that we all know that the ghost was yours, but I think the reason why we got jumpy about it was how it looked in the comparison that you were falling behind in a previous attempt. Still, no denying that the runs are good, so I would accept them all now that we got those two tracks better explained.

UraniumAnchor

2013-07-07 05:09:14 pm

Not a walrus

Watched them, AV quality good, play quality seemed quite good, no reason I see they shouldn't go up.

Interesting noise those things are making.

Flip

2013-07-10 08:22:36 am

1-Up!

Decision posted.