Shadowgate (NES)

2011-07-02 12:49:46 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I got the strategy to use a torch right after key 4 to be 21 frames, 0.35 sec, slower, so I'd say you can keep doing this if it makes life a bit easier for you with the torch charges. You'll gain 51 frames in your first visit to the banquet hall, gain 40 frames in the sphinx room, and then lose 112 frames on your third visit to the banquet hall.

Randil

2011-07-07 09:57:11 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

How's the speedrunning coming along? I just watched your streams of your speedrunning and quite enjoyed them, so please keep uploading your attempts. Is there anything more I can do to help? Any route question or hit box info I can provide?

ZenicReverie

2011-07-07 11:03:55 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from Randil:

How's the speedrunning coming along? I just watched your streams of your speedrunning and quite enjoyed them, so please keep uploading your attempts. Is there anything more I can do to help? Any route question or hit box info I can provide?

I didn't have much time to speedrun since last Thursday, and the next time I might get some time will be next Tuesday. Two busy weekends with the family really eat into game playing time.

Nothing really more I can think of that I need to know, just need to practice and get the precision down. You know what would be cool though, is there a way to make lua script that would draw a rectangle (or whatever shape) showing the hit boxes for all the objects of interest on each screen? That actually might be helpful to study.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-07-07 01:31:57 pm

2011-07-07 01:31:16 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I could make such as script (in fact, I've played around a bit with it myself), the problem is that it has to be done manually for each room, so I would need to manually go through all objects on the photo that needs its hit box drawn. Unfortunately the hit box information is not (at least not easily) accessible from the game's RAM. Perhaps the easiest solution would be if you'd list the objects that you'd like to know the exact hit boxes of, then I can make a lua script that draws a hit box around these objects when you're in that room. Another solution could be that I simply make .png-images of these rooms with the hit boxes drawn and upload them somewhere.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-07 02:21:59 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

.png images was my thought, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. I hit most everything and know where I have to be. I thought it'd be nice to see the hit boxes for everything is all. I understand having to do it for each room, but could it be more generally by doing something like this (I don't know lau or scripting limitations here):

use the look command on every pixel in each image (reloading a save state after a certain amount to avoid torch game overs)
color code each text response depending on the description
dump that map to a file

That way you're left with hot zones for each image. I may be over simplifying the issue though, and it might be more difficult in scripting if you can't see what the text response is exactly and compare that to something.

Just a thought.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-07-07 11:15:32 pm

2011-07-07 11:05:42 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Interesting idea - there are two RAM addresses telling you what text is currently showing (a unique value for all text boxes in the game), so I could make a lua script that dumps what text showed up on all pixels to a text file and then use matlab to make this into an image, one color per text value. I'll try it out this weekend, I think it can turn out pretty neat!

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-07-09 01:00:52 am

2011-07-09 01:00:16 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

What do you think? Helpful in any way? If not, maybe you'll find the images beautiful anyway! Smiley

Let me know if there's any specific room you'd like me to make an image of.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-09 10:30:37 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

That's rather cool. Here's some that would be good to see:

Dragon room
Wyvern room
Sphinx room
Arrow room
Epor room (once Epor is used)
Well room (before and after it's open)
Lake room (after the torch is used)

Those spots seem to give me the most trouble.

Thanks.

Randil

2011-07-09 01:41:31 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Dragon room:

The spear's hit box extends all the way up to the shield, just make sure the cursor is below the shield.

Lake room:

Arrow room:

The arrow's hit box extends to the left beyond where it's sprite ends. The secret door is very narrow horizontally so you might be better off using the minimap.

Epor room:

The rope extends a bit to the left, just make sure the cursor is never to the right of the rope sprite.

Sphinx room:

Wyvern room:

Well room (before opening the lid):

Well room (after opening the lid):

ZenicReverie

2011-07-09 09:51:07 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Does the Big Coin need to go into the red area only?

One last room, the Orb room, I want to see the levers and the orb as well.

Thanks a lot for these, they're really helpful. Knowing the spear goes a bit above the the sprite helps. Also, good to know to stay on the left side of the rope.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-07-10 01:28:58 am

Randil: 2011-07-10 01:28:06 am

Randil: 2011-07-10 01:21:46 am

2011-07-10 01:19:47 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

You open the well in either the red or yellow area, throw the coin in in either the yellow or red area and move into the yellow area.

Orb room (orb present):

The orb seems to extend to the right of its sprite. Interesting.

As for the levers, it's hard to make the program display them in a good way, but I did some manual testing and drew hit boxes myself (everything on and inside the drawn boxes are the hit boxes):

You'll proably need to zoom in to get a good look. Generally, all levers hit boxes extend vertically much more than their sprites indicate. This means that for the levers in the upright position, you can be a bit above them and still be inside their hit box. A lot can be read from that hit box image, I find it interesting that the levers' sprites don't give a very good indication of their hit boxes.

Good luck!

ZenicReverie

2011-07-10 11:10:34 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

I find it interesting that the left lever (which you don't use at all) has the largest hit box.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-20 01:41:32 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Been making attempts for the last 2 hours. Had about 3 successful under 14 minutes. Last was 13:22. Best would have been 13:02 except for a stupid, stupid mistake where I accidentally used the orb on the glasses instead of the staff... kind of sat there dumbfounded for a bit, then resumed to finish with 13:23. I definitely think 13 minutes is the time I'm aiming to beat before I submit. There are still mistakes aside from the major one, so I could even see a time as low as 12:50 - 55 in realm of possibility. The majority of time came from less mistakes during the second torch, which allowed me to use key 4 with the rest, and terrific spamming through taking glasses. Problem is, it's less spamming, and more getting a good rhythm going.

I'm still making minor tweaks as I need for consistency and what seems intuitively faster for the imprecision of my controls compared to the TAS, Randil if you'd like to double check these and tell me how much time I'm losing feel free to:
In the arrow room, I find it easy to hit that secret passage, so I do that instead of using the mini-map. While I'm doing that though, I find it easier to hit the exit in the next room on the main screen instead of going down to the mini-map for it.
Grabbing the second torch in the broom room, I find it easier to grab the one above the torch instead of going on and off the map twice.
I've been doing my best to hit the Sphinx's foot with the broom, but from the hit boxes, it looks like it might be easier for me if I just hold left until I'm on the left side of the stairs because then I don't have to guess if I'm on a good part. Then return to the other side of the stairs to go to the next room.

My goal times in case anyone is interested start from the Press Start screen. I expect to be leaving the lake room after getting key 3 at about 3 minutes (best 2:55), and leaving the wand room at about 9 minutes (best 9:03). If I can hit those times and do really well spamming through taking glasses, then I should be able to hit sub-13 fairly soon. Just need to consistently set time aside to run. So far, this is the first time I've ran the game this month >.<

Been making attempts for the last 2 hours. Had about 3 successful under 14 minutes. Last was 13:22. Best would have been 13:02 except for a stupid, stupid mistake where I accidentally used the orb on the glasses instead of the staff... kind of sat there dumbfounded for a bit, then resumed to finish with 13:23. I definitely think 13 minutes is the time I'm aiming to beat before I submit. There are still mistakes aside from the major one, so I could even see a time as low as 12:50 - 55 in realm of possibility. The majority of time came from less mistakes during the second torch, which allowed me to use key 4 with the rest, and terrific spamming through taking glasses. Problem is, it's less spamming, and more getting a good rhythm going.

I'm still making minor tweaks as I need for consistency and what seems intuitively faster for the imprecision of my controls compared to the TAS, Randil if you'd like to double check these and tell me how much time I'm losing feel free to:
In the arrow room, I find it easy to hit that secret passage, so I do that instead of using the mini-map. While I'm doing that though, I find it easier to hit the exit in the next room on the main screen instead of going down to the mini-map for it.
Grabbing the second torch in the broom room, I find it easier to grab the one above the torch instead of going on and off the map twice.
I've been doing my best to hit the Sphinx's foot with the broom, but from the hit boxes, it looks like it might be easier for me if I just hold left until I'm on the left side of the stairs because then I don't have to guess if I'm on a good part. Then return to the other side of the stairs to go to the next room.

My goal times in case anyone is interested start from the Press Start screen. I expect to be leaving the lake room after getting key 3 at about 3 minutes (best 2:55), and leaving the wand room at about 9 minutes (best 9:03). If I can hit those times and do really well spamming through taking glasses, then I should be able to hit sub-13 fairly soon. Just need to consistently set time aside to run. So far, this is the first time I've ran the game this month >.<

ZenicReverie

2011-07-21 06:05:42 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

How big is that side exit in the gargoyle room?

Randil

2011-07-21 11:34:25 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Here are the hit boxes for the gargoyle room:

I'll look into those other question this weekend.

ZenicReverie

2011-07-21 11:47:42 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

That's bigger than I thought and very helpful. Thank you.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2011-08-02 11:04:53 pm

Randil: 2011-08-02 10:43:59 pm

2011-08-02 10:43:11 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

How are things going, ZR? I haven't heard anything from you in a while. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've improved the TAS route several times for the past few days now. The current run is 43 seconds faster than the published run (and still doesn't use the death shortcut), so it's definitely something of interest for the console speedrun. The latest run can be found under EDIT4 in this post. Any questions/ideas are as always welcome!

ZenicReverie

2011-08-02 11:14:59 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

I'll try to take a look at it later, but I've kind of lost interest in running this game for a while; I'm not sure when I'll pick it up again.

Randil

2011-08-02 11:25:33 pm

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I understand, I can see why this game could be tedious to speedrun. I hope you regain your interest eventually.

ZenicReverie

2011-08-03 01:04:12 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from Randil:

I understand, I can see why this game could be tedious to speedrun. I hope you regain your interest eventually.

well, a little tedious yeah. especially when the mistakes in the run are dumb miss clicks and stand out like a sore thumb. plus I'd like to give you a little more time to shake out the optimizations of the current route, which looks so much less like normal play that I'm pretty sure it should be in a separate category. I may start trying to get a solid non-glitched run, but for now I'm picking up a game that has caught my attention for whatever reason. I think it's the fun of route planning.

Randil

2011-08-14 12:59:54 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

The new TAS has been published. Here's the youtube encode:

I hope you enjoy it. I think I'm gonna take a well earned break from this game now.

ZenicReverie

2013-07-01 09:15:15 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

I'm getting back to this game finally. Just completely writing out the route Randil put together to use without the glasses glitch (v2g). I put the route in the first post. I ran through a trial run and got a very safe 15:10 run (no random teleporting sphinx). I'm aiming for sub-14 and open to suggestions for modifying the route further if anyone sees possible improvements. Most of the time saved will be in faster cursor movement and not forgetting the route. Random teleporting sphinx should be in the final run once I get close to the 14 minute mark (I think last we found it only saves 5 - 6 seconds).

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2013-07-02 12:16:57 am

2013-07-02 12:16:27 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

Nice to hear, good luck with this, let me know if I can help you with anything.

Also, you might be interested in the game script extraction that HHS did over at TASVideos. I've uploaded it to pastebin here:
http://pastebin.com/1XeL0Lm1

This might look a bit messy, but basically contains all the interesting ROM code in the game, such as how all sceneries react to commands, what exactly happens when you interact with items, etc. For example, you can find the glasses trick inside this big chunk of code:
Item-62 GLASSES take
ADE1 name1 62 GLASSES
ADE3 text 646
; THE {0514} IS IN HAND.{W}
ADE5 takeit
ADE6 end

the glasses trick works because the game doesn't make a "hasit"-check, as it does for all other items, such as WHITEGEM:
Item-5A WHITEGEM take
AB00 hasit
AB01 jt 9149
AB04 test 0B
AB06 jt AB11
AB09 name1 5A WHITEGEM
AB0B text 646
; THE {0514} IS IN HAND.{W}
AB0D takeit
AB0E set 80
AB10 end

Forum post explaining the syntax: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=345298#345298
Both me and HHS have looked through these without finding anything, but maybe you'll have more luck. If this stuff is interesting to you, I can provide text files with (in my opinion) better formatting.

HHS has also made a room information file, containing the positions of all sprites in all rooms:
http://pastebin.com/4eVh8Usd

HHS has also made these files for Deja Vu and Uninvited (see their respective forum threads over at TASVideos).

Nice to hear, good luck with this, let me know if I can help you with anything.

Also, you might be interested in the game script extraction that HHS did over at TASVideos. I've uploaded it to pastebin here:
http://pastebin.com/1XeL0Lm1

This might look a bit messy, but basically contains all the interesting ROM code in the game, such as how all sceneries react to commands, what exactly happens when you interact with items, etc. For example, you can find the glasses trick inside this big chunk of code:
Item-62 GLASSES take
ADE1 name1 62 GLASSES
ADE3 text 646
; THE {0514} IS IN HAND.{W}
ADE5 takeit
ADE6 end

the glasses trick works because the game doesn't make a "hasit"-check, as it does for all other items, such as WHITEGEM:
Item-5A WHITEGEM take
AB00 hasit
AB01 jt 9149
AB04 test 0B
AB06 jt AB11
AB09 name1 5A WHITEGEM
AB0B text 646
; THE {0514} IS IN HAND.{W}
AB0D takeit
AB0E set 80
AB10 end

Forum post explaining the syntax: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=345298#345298
Both me and HHS have looked through these without finding anything, but maybe you'll have more luck. If this stuff is interesting to you, I can provide text files with (in my opinion) better formatting.

HHS has also made a room information file, containing the positions of all sprites in all rooms:
http://pastebin.com/4eVh8Usd

HHS has also made these files for Deja Vu and Uninvited (see their respective forum threads over at TASVideos).

theseawolf1

2013-07-11 02:21:47 pm

SGL Scrublord

Why am I so amped for this still? Let me know if I can help in anyway.

Randil

Edit history:

Randil: 2013-07-16 05:32:13 am

2013-07-16 05:31:56 am

I'm just a friendly TASer visiting

I found a weird death in this game that isn't useful in any way, but still pretty funny: by using Big Coin on the left torch in this room, the game initiates a dialogue with the troll, who throws you to your death.