Automated generation of Manic Miner speedrun/walkthrough

[IRF]

Have you done the second Amoebatrons cavern yet?  You didn't mention it above, as far as I can see.

Edited March 15, 2021 by IRF

[crem]

1 minute ago, IRF said:

Have you done the second Amoebatrons cavern yet?  You didn't mention it above, as far as I can see.

I did, and there was no improvements (although I hoped, there's so much waiting involved!)

I'll post the remaining 3 caverns later today (with "fastest" rather than "highest score" level 19)

[IRF]

I would say good luck to the algorithm if it hopes to beat JetSetDanny's score of 1125 points for the Solar cavern!

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for all the new stuff, crem! 👍 And congratulations on improving some more human scores 🙂.

In order to honour your achievements, I have updated the High Score table to reflect your scores. I credited you as "crem's algorithm". Please let me know if you would like me to change it. I used the lower case for "c" in your nickname, because this is the spelling you registered with on this forum, but it can be changed in the high score table should you wish so.

I am looking forward to seeing what your optimised algorithm will do with the Solar Power Generator.

[jetsetdanny]

18 minutes ago, IRF said:

I would say good luck to the algorithm if it hopes to beat JetSetDanny's score of 1125 points for the Solar cavern!

To be honest, I would be slightly surprised if it cannot be improved. I will be pleased if it cannot 😉.

In fact, I recorded a nice score there three times: for the HighScore challenge and also for each version (BB and SP) of my walkthrough of MM which I then converted to video and which can be seen here and here. IIRC, in the end I never checked how my HighScore challenge result compared with the other two (because I was afraid that if I had done better previously, I would have had to pursue the same score until successful, and was too fed up with multiple attempts to achieve the best score in that cavern to do that 😀). It's quite possible that my results are the same in all three cases, or that the HighScore challenge one is actually higher than the other two. I should have a look at that one day.

[jetsetdanny]

54 minutes ago, crem said:

Among 20 caverns, 5 had improvements:

• 2 small (≤5 frames) micro-optimizations: Level 3 "Menagerie" (1 frame) and level 10 "Endorian Forest" (5 frames)
• 3 large (≥20 frames) route improvements: Level 9 "Wacky Amoebatrons", Level 11 "Telephones" (29 frames), Level 17 "Warehouse" (42 frames).

Congratulations on these achievements once again, crem!

Just a minor comment: I wouldn't call what you did in the three caverns where you achieved major improvements "route improvements". With the definition of route (Cambridge Dictionary) being "a way or course taken in getting from a starting point to a destination", to me a route in a MM cavern is which way you go, so to speak. In some caverns you could do different parts of the cavern in a different order (e.g. first the right-hand side, then the left-hand side, or vice versa), so then the route taken would really differ. In case of the three caverns in question, you and the humans covered pretty much the same route - we went the same way - but you were more efficient in some of your moves 🙂.

P.S. I won't be back to respond immediately if new comments are posted now or in the coming hours. I will be back later tonight.

[IRF]

25 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

In fact, I recorded a nice score there three times: for the HighScore challenge and also for each version (BB and SP) of my walkthrough of MM which I then converted to video and which can be seen here and here. IIRC, in the end I never checked how my HighScore challenge result compared with the other two (because I was afraid that if I had done better previously, I would have had to pursue the same score until successful, and was too fed up with multiple attempts to achieve the best score in that cavern to do that 😀). It's quite possible that my results are the same in all three cases, or that the HighScore challenge one is actually higher than the other two. I should have a look at that one day.

I just checked, and I can confirm that your score for the solar cavern was 1125 in all three cases!

Incidentally, in the process of finding the relevant part of the video of your walkthrough of the SP version, I observed the second Amoebatron cavern, and it occurred to me that there might be different possible maximum scores in that cavern (and in The Warehouse), because the guardian sprites are different (so it might be easier to sneak past them sooner?)

Edited March 15, 2021 by IRF

[crem]

1 hour ago, IRF said:

I would say good luck to the algorithm if it hopes to beat JetSetDanny's score of 1125 points for the Solar cavern!

Actually, I only planned the entire exercise to potentially discover new strats for speedrunners, so I optimized for speed rather than score... But then it turned out that you have this high score challenge in this forum.

But ok, challenge accepted. I'll see what I can do to generate lvl19 highest score variant. 🙂

[crem]

1 hour ago, jetsetdanny said:

Thanks for all the new stuff, crem! 👍 And congratulations on improving some more human scores 🙂.

In order to honour your achievements, I have updated the High Score table to reflect your scores. I credited you as "crem's algorithm". Please let me know if you would like me to change it. I used the lower case for "c" in your nickname, because this is the spelling you registered with on this forum, but it can be changed in the high score table should you wish so.

I am looking forward to seeing what your optimised algorithm will do with the Solar Power Generator.

Thanks for mentioning me in the high score table! I indeed prefer to write my nickname in all lowercase, so "crem's algorithm" is good. However, now the table says "creme" rather than "crem", that's not the spelling I usually use. 😜

[crem]

1 hour ago, jetsetdanny said:

Just a minor comment: I wouldn't call what you did in the three caverns where you achieved major improvements "route improvements". With the definition of route (Cambridge Dictionary) being "a way or course taken in getting from a starting point to a destination", to me a route in a MM cavern is which way you go, so to speak. In some caverns you could do different parts of the cavern in a different order (e.g. first the right-hand side, then the left-hand side, or vice versa), so then the route taken would really differ. In case of the three caverns in question, you and the humans covered pretty much the same route - we went the same way - but you were more efficient in some of your moves 🙂.

That's a question of terminology. 🙂

I agree that in the narrowest meaning "route" means the order in which you visit locations (in "Telephone"s the order of collecting two first items is different btw, but I think it doesn't affect the rest of the run), but which guardian's cycle to use (and whether to jump above or below the guardian) is kind of part of a route too.

Probably speedrunners' term "strat" would be more precise indeed.