Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 (edited) Actually I wanted to join TwinGalaxies's 2005 Bounty Challenge for Pitfall!, but I have to admit, that I am not able anymore to repeat what I did 20 years ago (perfect score with a remaining time of 1:4x or maybe 1:14?). So I decided to do something different to find out. I have started to manipulate the z26 emulator, so that it is automatically playing a perfect game. I have done only ~2.5 minutes so far, so it will take some time until I have a final result. Stay tuned... Edited November 26, 2005 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 Actually I wanted to join TwinGalaxies's 2005 Bounty Challenge for Pitfall!, but I have to admit, that I am not able anymore to repeat what I did 20 years ago (perfect score with a remaining time of 1:4x or maybe 1:14?). So I decided to do something different to find out. I have started to manipulate the z26 emulator, so that it is automatically playing a perfect game. I have done only ~2.5 minutes so far, so it will take some time until I have a final result. Stay tuned... 967899[/snapback] I ran it with 1:03 remaining the other day. I did 1:04 remaining back in the day. No way is 1:4x possible. I'd be really surprised if 1:14 was possible. Todd say 1:08 may be possible, but I doubt that too. I say maybe 1:05. I hope you can prove me wrong with your project. I'm very interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 18, 2005 Author Share Posted November 18, 2005 I ran it with 1:03 remaining the other day. I did 1:04 remaining back in the day. No way is 1:4x possible. I'd be really surprised if 1:14 was possible. Todd say 1:08 may be possible, but I doubt that too. I say maybe 1:05. I hope you can prove me wrong with your project. I'm very interested. Probably it was just 1:14. And since the rules of the Activision club didn't say anything about the remaining lives, I most likely sacrificed two lives for some extra remaining time. So that would make sense, wouldn't it? Anyway, I hope we will find out soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
video game addict Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 I ran it with 1:03 remaining the other day. I did 1:04 remaining back in the day. No way is 1:4x possible. I'd be really surprised if 1:14 was possible. Todd say 1:08 may be possible, but I doubt that too. I say maybe 1:05. I hope you can prove me wrong with your project. I'm very interested. Probably it was just 1:14. And since the rules of the Activision club didn't say anything about the remaining lives, I most likely sacrificed two lives for some extra remaining time. So that would make sense, wouldn't it? Anyway, I hope we will find out soon. 967924[/snapback] You may be able to beat the clock that way, but then you would have no perfect game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 18, 2005 Author Share Posted November 18, 2005 You may be able to beat the clock that way, but then you would have no perfect game. I know, but I am also interested how my score back then was. So I'll probably try this variation too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 You may be able to beat the clock that way, but then you would have no perfect game. I know, but I am also interested how my score back then was. So I'll probably try this variation too. 967928[/snapback] Yeah, I too lost two lives on purpose at cetain opportune places in the game back in the days of the Activision Cliff Hangers Club to boost my time. Thomas, the 1:14 score may very well be possible using that additional strategy. They tracked "Perfect Scores" of 114,000 as opposed to today's additional track of "Perfect Games" which must be 114,000 with no lives lost according to the Twin Galaxies Bounty Contest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 I don't think it makes any difference in your speed, but I have to ask for expert analysis here. If you jump/skip along with Pitfall Harry do you move any faster/slower than if you simply run? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 18, 2005 Author Share Posted November 18, 2005 I don't think it makes any difference in your speed, but I have to ask for expert analysis here. If you jump/skip along with Pitfall Harry do you move any faster/slower than if you simply run? Nope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the 5th ghost Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 I don't think it makes any difference in your speed, but I have to ask for expert analysis here. If you jump/skip along with Pitfall Harry do you move any faster/slower than if you simply run? 967941[/snapback] It won't make a difference, as long as you keep moving. D.Yancey, does that mean you claimed the bounty!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 19, 2005 Share Posted November 19, 2005 I don't think it makes any difference in your speed, but I have to ask for expert analysis here. If you jump/skip along with Pitfall Harry do you move any faster/slower than if you simply run? 967941[/snapback] It won't make a difference, as long as you keep moving. D.Yancey, does that mean you claimed the bounty!? 967960[/snapback] No, I did not claim the bounty. I just wanted to let everyone know that it is possible for someone to actually do it. Maybe that would help to stimulate more interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 24, 2005 Author Share Posted November 24, 2005 (edited) Ok, here is my promised attempt of scripting a perfect Pitfall!. Just start the emulator with a Pitfall! binary (doesn't matter if it is PAL or NTSC). The remaining time is 1:42, which is the time I always had in my mind and everybody (including me ) has always doubted. PP_1_42.zip Edited November 24, 2005 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 That is amazing! I can't wait to view this!!! Way to go Thomas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 That was fun to watch, Thomas. I might have learned something from it too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 This is soooo cool, much better than watching a movie! :-) Can this be done with other games too? I'd sure love to see some more "perfect games"! Thank you for sharing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2005 Author Share Posted November 25, 2005 Can this be done with other games too? I'd sure love to see some more "perfect games"! It could we done with every game that acts predictable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Can this be done with other games too? I'd sure love to see some more "perfect games"! It could we done with every game that acts predictable. 971772[/snapback] Name a 2600 game that does not. AS long as the player always does exactly the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2005 Author Share Posted November 25, 2005 (edited) Name a 2600 game that does not. AS long as the player always does exactly the same thing. Berzerk uses a timer to initialize its random number generator when the console is switched on. That should be pretty random. Other games depend on how long you wait until you start the game. Pretty random too. Edited November 25, 2005 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Hi there! Other games depend on how long you wait until you start the game. Pretty random too. Wouldn't your replay start the game always at precisely the same time? It works perfectly for 99,99% of MAME games, you can record and replay your input for almost every single game it emulates. Would be marvellous if one of the 2600 emulators could do that as well, then we could launch an Ataried version of MARP Greetings, Manuel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2005 Author Share Posted November 25, 2005 (edited) Wouldn't your replay start the game always at precisely the same time? Yup, would work for every game that doesn't use power-up values for initialization. Edited November 26, 2005 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 (edited) It works perfectly for 99,99% of MAME games, you can record and replay your input for almost every single game it emulates. Would be marvellous if one of the 2600 emulators could do that as well, then we could launch an Ataried version of MARP We plan to add this to Stella at some point, as part of the debugger. Recording and playing back events could be very useful in tracking down bugs, especially if one can control/pause the rate at which input is played back. Edited November 26, 2005 by stephena Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 THis pitfall video is awsome. I thought I would watch the first minute or so just to see z26 doing a video but then I ended up watching the whole thing. Very nicely done. Gave me the urge to play Pitfall!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 26, 2005 Author Share Posted November 26, 2005 We plan to add this to Stella at some point, as part of the debugger. Recording and playing back events could be very useful in tracking down bugs, especially if one can control/pause the rate at which input is played back. That would be cool. Especially if it is editable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 We plan to add this to Stella at some point, as part of the debugger. Recording and playing back events could be very useful in tracking down bugs, especially if one can control/pause the rate at which input is played back. That would be cool. Especially if it is editable. 972181[/snapback] I don't see that generating the event stream is particularly difficult. We have to decide on the scheme, which could be something like EVENT:WAIT_FRAME pairs. So, for example, "left_down:1:fire_down:1" would mean "left pressed, wait 1 frame, fire pressed, wait 1 frame". Stella already contains an enumerated list representing all possible emulation core actions. We'd only need to modify the eventhandler to deal with these synthetic events, and I think it would be quite easy. Modifying the stream would be more problematic. The difficult issue would be creating a GUI within Stella to do it. However, if someone were to create an external GUI/application, or someone wanted to manually edit the input state file, it would make things much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 Forgot to put in my 2 cents that this is indeed 3l33t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 We plan to add this to Stella at some point, as part of the debugger. Recording and playing back events could be very useful in tracking down bugs, especially if one can control/pause the rate at which input is played back. That would be cool. Especially if it is editable. 972181[/snapback] I don't see that generating the event stream is particularly difficult. We have to decide on the scheme, which could be something like EVENT:WAIT_FRAME pairs. So, for example, "left_down:1:fire_down:1" would mean "left pressed, wait 1 frame, fire pressed, wait 1 frame". Stella already contains an enumerated list representing all possible emulation core actions. We'd only need to modify the eventhandler to deal with these synthetic events, and I think it would be quite easy. Modifying the stream would be more problematic. The difficult issue would be creating a GUI within Stella to do it. However, if someone were to create an external GUI/application, or someone wanted to manually edit the input state file, it would make things much easier. 972195[/snapback] That could be helpful in debugging Stampede like I've been interested in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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