Shadowgate (NES)

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-05-07 01:34:32 pm

Randil: 2011-05-06 05:03:35 pm

2011-05-06 04:58:09 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Regarding where the sphinx teleports you: This depends only on what question he asks. Once he has asked his question, the place you will be teleported to when you present him with the wrong item has been decided, and is not in any way affected by randomness. Here's a table of where you will be teleported depending on the question:

Skull: Red carpet hallway
Horseshoe: The room where you get the horseshoe and water
Mirror: Coffin room
Bellow: Library (with the glasses)
Broom: Troll bridge
Map: Globe room (with the bellow)

EDIT: I now tried your idea to be teleported to the coffin room, get the scepter, and then move on to the staff. This will of course require a route change to get the mirror instead of the map, but still: Not counting the extra time it will take to get the mirror instead of the map (perhaps 2 extra seconds at most). I found this route change to be (brace yourself) an amazing 6.3 seconds faster. All those screen transitions that are skipped sure makes up for it. So even if it takes, say, 2 seconds longer to get the mirror instead of the map, this route change will still be at least 4 seconds faster. Nice!

Regarding where the sphinx teleports you: This depends only on what question he asks. Once he has asked his question, the place you will be teleported to when you present him with the wrong item has been decided, and is not in any way affected by randomness. Here's a table of where you will be teleported depending on the question:

Skull: Red carpet hallway
Horseshoe: The room where you get the horseshoe and water
Mirror: Coffin room
Bellow: Library (with the glasses)
Broom: Troll bridge
Map: Globe room (with the bellow)

EDIT: I now tried your idea to be teleported to the coffin room, get the scepter, and then move on to the staff. This will of course require a route change to get the mirror instead of the map, but still: Not counting the extra time it will take to get the mirror instead of the map (perhaps 2 extra seconds at most). I found this route change to be (brace yourself) an amazing 6.3 seconds faster. All those screen transitions that are skipped sure makes up for it. So even if it takes, say, 2 seconds longer to get the mirror instead of the map, this route change will still be at least 4 seconds faster. Nice!

ZenicReverie

Edit history:

ZenicReverie: 2011-05-07 05:11:43 pm

ZenicReverie: 2011-05-07 05:11:09 pm

2011-05-07 05:09:58 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

I don't understand why we need to get the mirror, you said it depends on the question not the item. I mean I know I've used the map to get to the coffin room. The question will have changed once you've answered it correctly, so we can still pick the optimal question to answer the first time, then when once we're off to get the staff we can go to the sphinx, manipulate the correct question and use the item we have to answer the wrong question (mirror question).

Still, 6 seconds is pretty big, I didn't think it'd be that much. That'd probably be more than could be saved trying out that idea for casting those three spells without getting off the spells page. It'd be pretty crazy to try this in a real time run.

Any ideas for a better torch grab? I'm thinking the second one in the torch room on the way to (or back from) getting the staff.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-05-08 03:43:17 am

2011-05-07 11:55:08 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Quote from ZenicReverie:

I don't understand why we need to get the mirror, you said it depends on the question not the item. I mean I know I've used the map to get to the coffin room. The question will have changed once you've answered it correctly, so we can still pick the optimal question to answer the first time, then when once we're off to get the staff we can go to the sphinx, manipulate the correct question and use the item we have to answer the wrong question (mirror question).

Yeah, you're right about this, my mistake (it was late in the night when I wrote that post Smiley

). It will of course require some luck to pull this off: the odds of first getting the map question and then getting the mirror question are about 1 in 50.

Quote from ZenicReverie:

Any ideas for a better torch grab? I'm thinking the second one in the torch room on the way to (or back from) getting the staff.

Yeah, this was where I picked up the torch when I TASed this new route, I think it's the fastest one.

EDIT: I realized something with this new route - because now we pick up the scepter before the staff, the item order will be bad once we reach the skeleton king - we will have to switch item page both to select the scepter, and then switch page again to get to the ring. The new route is still definitely worth it, but this makes it lose some frames. It seems to be tricky to get the scepter one position higher up in the inventory list - I had an idea about picking up a torch before the scepter, but we still have to use up this torch before reaching the skeleton king, so it won't help. Maybe you have an idea on how to solve this.

I also recorded a TAS of the current route and it turned out 5.03 seconds faster than the published run. If it helps, I (or some other helpful encoder) can encode it to .avi. Input file: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1443971622/shadowgate_randil_zenicreverie.fm2

[quote="ZenicReverie"]I don't understand why we need to get the mirror, you said it depends on the question not the item. I mean I know I've used the map to get to the coffin room. The question will have changed once you've answered it correctly, so we can still pick the optimal question to answer the first time, then when once we're off to get the staff we can go to the sphinx, manipulate the correct question and use the item we have to answer the wrong question (mirror question).[/quote]
Yeah, you're right about this, my mistake (it was late in the night when I wrote that post :) ). It will of course require some luck to pull this off: the odds of first getting the map question and then getting the mirror question are about 1 in 50.

[quote="ZenicReverie"]Any ideas for a better torch grab? I'm thinking the second one in the torch room on the way to (or back from) getting the staff.[/quote]Yeah, this was where I picked up the torch when I TASed this new route, I think it's the fastest one.

EDIT: I realized something with this new route - because now we pick up the scepter before the staff, the item order will be bad once we reach the skeleton king - we will have to switch item page both to select the scepter, and then switch page again to get to the ring. The new route is still definitely worth it, but this makes it lose some frames. It seems to be tricky to get the scepter one position higher up in the inventory list - I had an idea about picking up a torch before the scepter, but we still have to use up this torch before reaching the skeleton king, so it won't help. Maybe you have an idea on how to solve this.

I also recorded a TAS of the current route and it turned out 5.03 seconds faster than the published run. If it helps, I (or some other helpful encoder) can encode it to .avi. Input file: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1443971622/shadowgate_randil_zenicreverie.fm2

ZenicReverie

Edit history:

ZenicReverie: 2011-05-09 12:39:02 pm

2011-05-08 09:22:35 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

I'm looking into other routes, but nothing seems obviously better. I'm looking at the other routes and I'll compare them this week.

Edit: did some attempts last night without segmenting and best so far is 15:10, which isn't too far off the segmented attempts. A lot of bad mistakes, but I still don't see how 30 seconds could come off. I'll just keep plugging away and hopefully surprise myself by how quick things improve when not actually making mistakes.

Randil

2011-05-11 11:05:22 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I made a quite big find and posted about it in TASVideos forum, but I thought I'd tell about it in this forum too:

Regarding the sphinx question and where you will be teleported: After some digging, I learned that the broom question is the default - so if you present him with a wrong item before he has asked any question, you will be teleported to the troll bridge. This also means that if you use the broom on him before even talking to him it will answer his question correctly! This is not in any way random - it should always work. Very interesting, it should definitely be nice in your console speedrun, now that you won't have to worry about the question randomness. It might save time in the TAS too, since you will skip a dialogue.

ZenicReverie

2011-05-11 11:43:22 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

That is very interesting. I'll test this on console a few times tomorrow to confirm, but that's a very significant find if it's the case. It would mean some slight changes to the route; which would be best: not to pick up bottle 2 right away or take the broom after using the cloak? How does this effect teleporting with the Sphinx's magic?

ZenicReverie

2011-05-19 03:03:15 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Alright, did a little speedthru a little bit ago to test out the justin stream. the autosave is coolest: http://www.justin.tv/zenicreverie/b/286197795

I estimate this video at 14:45 beginning to end. Obviously going to be a bit shorter for SDA timing. TG timing, who knows... it almost sounds like this would be 14:28 by their timing, but I don't know. I'm going to try to push the overall time down to 14 minutes. There were a couple of times I forgot what I was doing and slowed down or pushed the cursor the wrong way. It was late, I'll blame it on that.

seawolf: if you run this at the marathon, use this route, definitely sub 16 and no luck.
Mr. Kelly R Flewin: I hope this video helps you. Good luck running the game.
Randil: thank you so much for all the help, I'm going to keep pushing this time down and getting the route in-grained in my head. Please don't count frames lost on the video, it'd be ugly. Cheesy

Randil

2011-05-19 08:42:03 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Haha, I won't. Smiley

Good luck with the speedrunning, I'm interested in seeing how fast you can get it.

As for the TAS, I will keep looking for improvements for some more time. I will of course let you know if I find anything that can be of use in the speedrun, but so far I've only managed to find very small menu navigation improvements. When I eventually submit the new TAS, I think you should be co-author, since this new route was found by you, but I want to check with you if it's okay that I do so.

ZenicReverie

2011-05-19 08:51:15 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Thanks! That's fine by me. I'm hoping I'll have something good by the end of June.

theseawolf1

2011-05-19 10:30:56 am

SGL Scrublord

Hehe, we're going to be pressed for time I think, I'll spare them the run, especially if you think you'll submit by June. Besides, I have to work out the Demon's Crest before I attempt another game to run. I look forward to the finished work!

ZenicReverie

2011-05-19 11:09:39 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

submitting by July, but even so, it probably won't be on the site until next year.

Randil

2011-06-05 12:38:34 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I would like to draw your attention to this post, where I have uploaded a movie that beats the currently best route by about 20 seconds. It abuses the glasses trick.

andrewg

2011-06-05 08:28:27 am

Hi! I'm andrewg!

Wow Randil, that's a great find. Cheesy

ZenicReverie

2011-06-05 06:31:48 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

That's pretty amazing: that all that glitching saves 20 seconds on backtracking. Finally a way to avoid going back for the staff! No luck you say? So, what determines what shows up once you get far enough?

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-06-08 08:59:44 am

Randil: 2011-06-08 08:58:58 am

Randil: 2011-06-06 01:53:59 am

Randil: 2011-06-06 01:52:59 am

Randil: 2011-06-06 01:51:47 am

2011-06-06 01:51:24 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Here are some details on this glitch: The first inventory item you pick up gets placed on RAM address $0496. For every new item you pick up, the list will keep filling, so item 2 will be placed on $0497, and so on. The game has only reserved space for items up to RAM address $04DA, so if you manage to fill up your inventory with more items than this, you get access to a block of RAM addresses determining game state.

For this trick, RAM address $04DE is the most interesting. For all those stones that I pick up, and using the sphere in lake, taking sphere again, and taking key 3, this RAM address will change value. No other action in the game makes this value change, so you won't have to worry about that. If you do all these things, the hex value of $04DE will be $50, corresponding to the Staff item, when the game interprets this value as an item. There is no random element to this, it will always be set to this value if you do exactly these things. It doesn't matter what order you do these things in, but you have to pick up exactly the stones that I pick up (if you don't, $04DE will have another value, and won't correspond to the staff).

So, after doing these things, $04DE is set to $50, and stays this way through the whole run. Then, when I reach this RAM address in the inventory list by filling it up with glasses, I can simply pick up the staff, since the game knows that I still haven't picked it up yet.

EDIT: So, what's the status on the speedrun concerning this new glitch? Have you tried it out on console yet? Will you use it instead of the current route, or do you think it falls under another category? I'm very interested in what you have to say about this new glitched route, maybe you can spot an improvement somewhere (I'm drawing blank, I think I've looked through it so many times that I think I've become too accustomed to it Smiley

).

Here are some details on this glitch: The first inventory item you pick up gets placed on RAM address $0496. For every new item you pick up, the list will keep filling, so item 2 will be placed on $0497, and so on. The game has only reserved space for items up to RAM address $04DA, so if you manage to fill up your inventory with more items than this, you get access to a block of RAM addresses determining game state.

For this trick, RAM address $04DE is the most interesting. For all those stones that I pick up, and using the sphere in lake, taking sphere again, and taking key 3, this RAM address will change value. No other action in the game makes this value change, so you won't have to worry about that. If you do all these things, the hex value of $04DE will be $50, corresponding to the Staff item, when the game interprets this value as an item. There is no random element to this, it will always be set to this value if you do exactly these things. It doesn't matter what order you do these things in, but you have to pick up exactly the stones that I pick up (if you don't, $04DE will have another value, and won't correspond to the staff).

So, after doing these things, $04DE is set to $50, and stays this way through the whole run. Then, when I reach this RAM address in the inventory list by filling it up with glasses, I can simply pick up the staff, since the game knows that I still haven't picked it up yet.

EDIT: So, what's the status on the speedrun concerning this new glitch? Have you tried it out on console yet? Will you use it instead of the current route, or do you think it falls under another category?  I'm very interested in what you have to say about this new glitched route, maybe you can spot an improvement somewhere (I'm drawing blank, I think I've looked through it so many times that I think I've become too accustomed to it :) ).

ZenicReverie

Edit history:

ZenicReverie: 2011-06-08 09:53:01 am

2011-06-08 09:44:33 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

I know I said I'd take a look at the last movie, but that never happened. I haven't put time aside to look at this thoroughly either, but I'll make sure to do so tomorrow. My inclination is to use this glitch, and I don't think it'll be a different category. Now, had the glitch teleported you to the ending scene, then that'd count as a separate category I'm sure, but this is probably tame enough to just call it a minor glitch. I think I may even stream some practice runs of the new route after I've taken a few good hard looks at the current movie. Given this glitch, I think this would be interesting enough for people who played it to be included in one of the marathons.

What're people's thoughts on having different categories?

Randil

2011-06-19 01:04:05 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

The new TAS is now up on Youtube:

theseawolf1

2011-06-21 03:02:11 pm

SGL Scrublord

Just watched the TAS, its outrageously good. Nice work from both of you to break this game in half thumbsup

ZenicReverie

2011-06-21 03:51:32 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from theseawolf1:

Just watched the TAS, its outrageously good. Nice work from both of you to break this game in half thumbsup

Mostly Randil, but thanks. I'm probably not going to reach my goal of having a run by end of the month. We'll see when it happens. If you're doing this run live, I suggest grabbing an extra torch or face possibility of sustaining a death (not too harsh) since the actions between the first torch lit and the second doesn't leave much room for error.

Randil

2011-06-23 02:30:41 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

In fact, in the TAS, that torch is used on the very last charge, so you can't even afford a single mistake if you want to use that torch in the sphinx room. For the console speedrun, you probably want to use that torch earlier (probably somewhere in the banquet hall) since you will still have some charges left of the last torch when you finish the game.

ZenicReverie

2011-06-23 03:10:05 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from Randil:

In fact, in the TAS, that torch is used on the very last charge, so you can't even afford a single mistake if you want to use that torch in the sphinx room. For the console speedrun, you probably want to use that torch earlier (probably somewhere in the banquet hall) since you will still have some charges left of the last torch when you finish the game.

Good to know.

ZenicReverie

2011-06-28 12:08:35 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

I've been having to use the torch right before key 5. Not much time lost compared to getting everything right. I'm not really even sure where the mistakes are coming from.

I just timed a run using the glasses glitch at 14:20. I need to tighten up the execution a bit then I'll have a better idea of a final goal. Definitely going to get sub-14, and I'll put the current estimated goal at 13:40. So many 1 pixel off places that it annoys the heck out of me.

I noticed some things to try in the TAS though, and I'll make a post over there after watching the video of it again to see if it really would be faster or just different.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-01 12:13:03 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

okay 14:20 was a terrible time, I just got ~13:20, so I'm going for sub 13:00, then I'll take another look at it. This still had some mistakes, and I've been changing the route slightly. Randil if you see this can you tell me how much time I'm losing by having these steps: use torch on rug->take key 4->use torch=1->use key 6->use key 5->enter sphinx room->...->use key 4->enter center room->...

I don't think it's much and so far it's helped me mitigate torch charges lost by mistakes. I think a lot of time is either gained or lost based on the rhythm I can get for getting through the dialogue of taking 50+ glasses.

This run seems so simple now that I've kind of lost the drive to complete it, but I'm going to plug away at it for at least an hour every other night or so and see where I stand at the end of July. If I can eliminate most mistakes, then I'll probably submit, but the route is at a point that I feel someone could easily do this better than myself.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-07-01 10:40:23 am

2011-07-01 10:39:47 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Won't "use torch on rug->take key 4->use torch=1->use key 6->..." require a page switch between taking key 4 and using a torch, and then another one when going to key 6? Or is your item order different from the TAS? If this is intentional, I suggest using key 6 before torch 1, thus avoiding the page switching.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-01 11:34:54 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

There's no page switching back to get to key 6 as when you use the torch=1 it moves to the second page (same as it does in the TAS in the Sphinx room). In the 13:20, I had so many mistakes that when I used the torch when I say I did, the other torch went out on the same turn. Here's the video in case you want to pick it apart. http://www.justin.tv/zenicreverie/b/289254609

Using key 6 while it's on page 3 would probably be faster since there's less cursor movement.

Quick thought... using a stone as on the sling just before we page flip to the scepter. This would put the orb on the second page after we use the blade. Not sure if it would save any significant time though. (going to double post this in the TAS thread in case it's useful for that)