Summer Marathon Practice

2011-07-14 08:42:17 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Been able to run through all the games. I feel good about all of them. The only one that I need to work on is Castle Crashers, mainly so that I'm once again familiar with boss battles, enemy appearances, which ones I can/cannot juggle, etc. I'll post this in the Castle Crashers thread too, but I'll be free tomorrow night to practice online with anyone.

romscout

2011-07-14 12:29:58 pm

that Metroidvania guy

Ok! Got to practice the last couple of days for the first time in forever.

Portal, I'm just flat out rusty beyond belief in that. I had a run when racing it today that was like around 30 minutes. I'm going to grind the tricks out a few more days before attempting runs again. I should be back down into the sub-25 range in no time.

SotN... lol well I beat my best in-game time by 1 second today with a 29:15... but with a 10 times worse run. I uploaded it to YouTube just because it's hilarious.

At the very least, this shows I route I want to have down for the marathon. It's significantly faster than the route used in previous marathons. I figured since this is the first time SotN isn't in a marathon as a race, I had to do something a bit special to make it stand out. I'll learn the 2nd castle on this route a bit better and hopefully get a much lower time. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it took me this long to do the trickier Richter skip, but of course I'd prefer to pull it off faster.

Kirby Super Star... well, haven't been practicing that since I was at J's house some time ago, but we're going to netplay it at some point just to go over strategies and will get the bulk of our practice done on-site.

Castle Crashers... probably going to mostly be on-site practice, we'll see lol. I'm sure we'll get some online games going sometime this weekend.

Ok! Got to practice the last couple of days for the first time in forever.

Portal, I'm just flat out rusty beyond belief in that. I had a run when racing it today that was like around 30 minutes. I'm going to grind the tricks out a few more days before attempting runs again. I should be back down into the sub-25 range in no time.

SotN... lol well I beat my best in-game time by 1 second today with a 29:15... but with a 10 times worse run. I uploaded it to YouTube just because it's hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0uGx9ugaNc

At the very least, this shows I route I want to have down for the marathon. It's significantly faster than the route used in previous marathons. I figured since this is the first time SotN isn't in a marathon as a race, I had to do something a bit special to make it stand out. I'll learn the 2nd castle on this route a bit better and hopefully get a much lower time. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it took me this long to do the trickier Richter skip, but of course I'd prefer to pull it off faster.

Kirby Super Star... well, haven't been practicing that since I was at J's house some time ago, but we're going to netplay it at some point just to go over strategies and will get the bulk of our practice done on-site.

Castle Crashers... probably going to mostly be on-site practice, we'll see lol. I'm sure we'll get some online games going sometime this weekend.

Darkwing Duck

2011-07-14 02:58:54 pm

Highly Evolved

Real good play through of EVO just now. Just about an hour from game turn on to loss of control. Five minutes for ending and credits. One reset on the mammoths. Two deaths in the monkey cave. Two to the golden Yeti, and that was it. Unlucky evolve in chapter one forces me to grind 500 exp, so I lose a bit of time there.

Still pleased. It would definitely pass as a marathon run.

Darkwing Duck

2011-07-15 04:29:05 pm

Highly Evolved

63 or so minutes on the last run through.

Went ahead and got myself lost somehow in the Final Ocean. Lost a few minutes trying to figure out where the hell I was.

UraniumAnchor

2011-07-15 05:26:55 pm

Not a walrus

Had a pretty solid run through on Blaster Master, the only way I'll hit 55 minutes is if something goes seriously wrong. Not a bad idea to just leave it like that, though.

Kubelwagon

2011-07-15 11:49:02 pm

I suppose I should fill everyone in on my status. Been practicing Kirby's Epic Yarn like crazy. My most recent practice run was 1:46:01 (Yep, I beat Wakka's old time by almost 2 minutes. Tongue

)

Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland I can do in my sleep. Just did my first real practice attempt today and got a deathless 48:19. Easy.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a little tough to find time to practice because we all four have to be online at the same time, and with our current work schedules, that's not often. Undecided

Although, if it goes about as good as our last practice attempt, we should do fine.

DarkKobold

Edit history:

DarkKobold: 2011-07-16 05:19:15 pm

2011-07-16 05:14:47 pm

RPG TASer

http://www.justin.tv/darkkobold/b/290223372

Here is probably one of my best runs. I had a really crappy death at the start, in Top Man's stage, but other than that, it was deathless (iirc), and 45:24. Let me know if you guys think is up to snuff for the marathon. I'm still going to practice, but I don't know how much better I can get. Also, this was during a speedrunslive competition, so I was pretty nervous - you can really tell how much being behind made me cautious during Shadow Man's stage. But, this bodes well for the marathon.

Arrow

2011-07-16 11:37:26 pm

Now a hit show on the CW

I'm all practiced up on WLK, and I'm about as consistent with SMB as I feel like I'm going to get (8-3 and 8-4 are still a bit luck dependent, but hey, even Andrew died during his marathon run, and I doubt anyone expects me to match his level :P). TJ&E2 is the last game I really need to focus on getting down, and then I'll just continue to run through all of my games everyday until the marathon. I'm planning to stream some practice runs Monday-Thursday on all of my games. The start times are not going to be anything concrete, but will probably be late evening (after 8pm Pacific), except on Monday, which will be earlier in the afternoon.

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2011-07-16 11:59:59 pm

2011-07-16 11:57:31 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

DarkKobold: Overall your play is too cautious. You're not bad at the game, but you try too hard to survive and don't put enough effort into actually speeding through game. You pause and hesitate too much to kill enemies that you should either skip or shoot while moving ahead. I think a minute or two could be easily knocked off (consistently) with a bit more practice.

If you're not sure which stages to practice, I would practice the first 8 stages. You looked stronger as you progressed further in the game. The Docbot bosses could also use some tightening up too.

I will give you another week to improve.

puwexil

2011-07-18 10:42:03 pm

Professional Second Banana

spikevegeta sent me some route/battle strat improvement suggestions yesterday for KH2, so I just worked though the first half of the game and practiced most of the forced battles/bosses a couple of times each. I'll try to knock out the 2nd half of the game Wednesday evening, then stream a full game run Sunday afternoon and again the following weekend.

If I can get down into the ~4:35 range I'd be up for racing at the marathon, though if I can't get it by then I think it would be better for spikevegeta to just do the run and I'll commentate for it, since a blowout race of a game as long as KH2 wouldn't be very exciting for the viewers.

Brossentia

Edit history:

Brossentia: 2011-07-19 03:37:03 pm

2011-07-19 12:37:41 pm

No pain, no gain

Live streaming Mirror's Edge right now! http://www.ustream.tv/channel/essentia-s-speedruns

My goal is to get 1:30 this run. Let's see if I can do it.

EDIT: I got 1:26, and that was with some stupid mistakes. I think I can get it down under 1:20 if I tighten up a few parts.

romscout

2011-07-24 01:59:59 am

that Metroidvania guy

For Portal, I got a sub-24 minute run including load times once yesterday but am still fairly inconsistent. My runs range anywhere from 24-26 minutes on average when practicing. I'll continue to work on both individual chambers and the full game a lot before the marathon to have that variance cut down. I'm doing a lot more tricks now than I did in the JRDQ run, so it's a harder run but a lot more fun (and a better watch, as far as I'm concerned). This laptop chokes when I try to stream Portal, so I've refrained from doing it so far. Guess you'll get to see my practice at work in less than a couple of weeks, though. :p

For SotN, I'm doing an all bosses run instead of an any% run to make it more interesting since there's no race this time. My route has a handful of glitches in it that you normally wouldn't get to see, and I'll be doing a lot of extra silliness on top of that. There's some small changes being made in the route right now, but the difference just comes down to seconds, basically. My fastest run so far is 45:25ish real time and my other practice runs have varied from that to 48 minutes. Considering how new this run concept is to me, I don't think that's too bad at all. I'll be able to iron out some strats and become far more consistent in the next week. I stream practice runs of this, especially in the evening, if anyone's interested in seeing it.

Last time our Castle Crashers team practiced, we learned that the game is cute and funny. That's also what I learned the last time I played Kirby Super Star with JMan. Those games will be fine. :p

For Portal, I got a sub-24 minute run including load times once yesterday but am still fairly inconsistent. My runs range anywhere from 24-26 minutes on average when practicing. I'll continue to work on both individual chambers and the full game a lot before the marathon to have that variance cut down. I'm doing a lot more tricks now than I did in the JRDQ run, so it's a harder run but a lot more fun (and a better watch, as far as I'm concerned). This laptop chokes when I try to stream Portal, so I've refrained from doing it so far. Guess you'll get to see my practice at work in less than a couple of weeks, though. :p

For SotN, I'm doing an all bosses run instead of an any% run to make it more interesting since there's no race this time. My route has a handful of glitches in it that you normally wouldn't get to see, and I'll be doing a lot of extra silliness on top of that. There's some small changes being made in the route right now, but the difference just comes down to seconds, basically. My fastest run so far is 45:25ish real time and my other practice runs have varied from that to 48 minutes. Considering how new this run concept is to me, I don't think that's too bad at all. I'll be able to iron out some strats and become far more consistent in the next week. I stream practice runs of this, especially in the evening, if anyone's interested in seeing it.

Last time our Castle Crashers team practiced, we learned that the game is cute and funny. That's also what I learned the last time I played Kirby Super Star with JMan. Those games will be fine. :p

mikwuyma

2011-07-24 02:02:40 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Alexandre: Should I bump down the time estimate to 1:30 or 1:35 now?

Brossentia

2011-07-24 02:20:58 pm

No pain, no gain

Mike, I think we could do 1:30 for now Smiley

Reaif

2011-07-25 01:53:58 am

I did a bunch of Zelda practice this weekend and here are the results...

100% - Got an all time best of 1:56, though 2:00 - 2:05 is more reasonable consistently.
Any% - Generally averaged 1:45 or so.

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2011-07-25 02:41:02 pm

2011-07-25 03:15:40 am

Not a walrus

I got 42:06 on Blaster Master a couple of hours ago. And I died twice, costing about 30 seconds. This just cements my belief that I can get the game down to 41:3x or better.

Edit: 42:06 available here:

Darkwing Duck

2011-07-25 01:31:14 pm

Highly Evolved

I've run into issues as I had food poisoning this weekend and had no energy to even practice games. Hopefully I'll feel good enough in the next couple days and I should be playing my games when I'm not working.

puwexil

Edit history:

puwexil: 2011-07-27 10:10:17 pm

puwexil: 2011-07-27 10:10:06 pm

puwexil: 2011-07-27 10:09:56 pm

2011-07-25 07:27:14 pm

Professional Second Banana

Just did my first full KH2 run using spikevegeta's recommendations and got a 4:43 in-game timer. I should have time for at least 4-5 more full game runs before the marathon (I'll probably start streaming them this Friday), so I'll keep practicing and aiming for 4:35-4:37.

EDIT 7/27: Just did another run and got another 4:43, though it would have been closer to 4:39 if not for a couple of big blunders (losing both Struggle matches, messing up Trinity Limit on the first Agrabah I battle, and losing control of Grim Reaper II's 3rd phase).

Reaif

2011-07-27 05:10:14 am

More Zelda today. Got 1:41 on any% and 2:00 on 100%, so things are looking pretty good.

Zyre

2011-07-27 09:43:57 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Haven't been able to practice much at all lately because I've got a new apartment and have been moving. I imagine in the next few days I'll be able to get the systems out of their boxes and get some practice in.

UraniumAnchor

2011-07-27 02:40:01 pm

Utter heartbreak in the stream last night, those who were watching know the details.

I'll explain more later, but suffice it to say I have a new time goal for a submission.

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2011-07-27 06:32:17 pm

Essentia: 2011-07-27 06:32:07 pm

2011-07-27 06:31:27 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Birth By Sleep: I just completed a practice speedrun of Aqua's story with a time of 2:20. That time should go down even more once I get my notes for the run written down (so I don't forget anything like I did this time). My best time for Ventus so far is 2:16, so it looks like my 3-hour estimate was very generous. I think I'll take donations to do the final episode to fill more time.

BTW, Mike, you jinxed me - the power went out at my house about 5 minutes after I finished streaming. Sad

Tranquilite

2011-07-28 03:30:26 pm

Super Metroid: Played pretty solid the first half, got a bit sloppy for the second half, managed to pull off a 1:08 anyway. Going to have to be at the top of my game if I am going to beat Dessyreqt Wink

Additionally, I had somewhat of an epiphany for doing the 2 round Phantoon kill. My biggest issue so far has been timing the wave beam combo, but i accidentally found out that if you go into a spin jump right after your beam is charged, you can more accurately time the beam combo by merely going out of the spin jump.

Dessyreqt

2011-07-29 09:46:37 am

That is an amazing idea.

spikevegeta

2011-07-29 12:30:37 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Practice times:

Rayman 2: ranging between 2:35 and 2:50 (Scheduled time of 2:45)
Kingdom Hearts: Still practicing, but it could end up anywhere between 6:15 and 7:00 because of luck. (Scheduled time of 6:30)
Kingdom Hearts 2: ranging between 4:29 and 4:34 (Same scheduled time as KH, so this wouldn't exactly be a problem).