Automated generation of Manic Miner speedrun/walkthrough

[crem]

4 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

you can't know whether the beam touched you or not

Maybe someone could quickly make a version that indicates that?.. Maybe by changing border or so.

[IRF]

8 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

I'm not sure if I will ever be able to force myself to repeat that result. I should, but recording the Solar Power cavern is a real pain, as you can't know whether the beam touched you or not (when talking about split-second contact). I tried to "control" it by looking at the amount of Air left on the status bar (as compared to my previous best recording). But it's really hard to tell if you just look at the remaining Air on the status bar.

I like the sound effect in some of Norman Sword's modified MM games, which lets you know when the air supply is being sapped by the beam without you having to closely monitor the air bar (as that takes your eye off the playing area of the screen).

Edited March 18, 2021 by IRF

[IRF]

4 hours ago, crem said:

As far as I remember, in the score=1133 run, 160 points were lost due to the solar beam.

 

Is there any way of seeing how that breaks down in terms of:

- Frames of the game when the solar beam passes horizontally through Willy, or Willy is passing through the vertical solar beam whilst he is cell-row aligned [in which case the beam will sap 8 units of air];

versus:

- Frames when Willy is jumping or falling through the vertical solar beam and Willy's sprite is spanning across three cell-rows [in which case the beam will sap 8 units of air during that frame].

 

The difference between Danny's and the algorithm's performances might be explained by the above difference in the way that the beam saps air (and therefore potential points)?

Edited March 18, 2021 by IRF

[crem]

2 hours ago, IRF said:

Is there any way of seeing how that breaks down in terms of:

In the attached video the total air drain caused by the solar beam is shown as the number above (and also in a blue progress bar directly above the game screen).

[IRF]

[Duplicate post]

Edited April 4, 2021 by IRF

[IRF]

Thanks crem.

It's amazing how far Willy manages to get in that video before he gets hit by the solar beam at all !

In fact, Willy only passes through the beam on three occasions - and two of those are unavoidable in order to reach the top-right item and get back again.  I doubt that it is possible to do much better than you did, to be honest.

Also noticeable at one point is that Willy touches the solar beam but only four units of air get sapped in that moment, rather than eight units.  He is in such close proximity to the top-right guardian at the time (without pixel-colliding with it) that part of his sprite is overshadowed by the guardian's yellow INK - so only one cell occupied by Willy's sprite contains the white INK which is detected by the solar beam routine as triggering 4xAir decrements.

The video also confirms my theory that when Willy is jumping through the beam and is non cell-aligned (so that his sprite spans across three character-rows), the beam saps 12 units of air for a period.

[MtM]

All right Crem, you have done it, congratulations!

 

Now, how about a _real_ challenge - Jet Set Willy? 😉

 

[crem]

5 minutes ago, MtM said:

Now, how about a _real_ challenge - Jet Set Willy? 😉

Already working on it. 🙂

It's tempting to jump on it right away, but I'm forcing myself to take a few weeks of pause first.

It's actually not that bad. Having connected rooms with arbitrary route and place to enter every room adds complexity, but on the other hand JSW doesn't have have crumbling platforms.

Without crumbling platforms, basically the coordinates of Willy (and set of collected items) is the only changing part given the frame number. For a typical room, there's only ~40000 realistically possible states per frame (and only 2.5million theoretically possible), and there's no difference how Willy got there.

With crumbling platforms, the number of states explodes (8 states per platform, e.g. with 70 crumbling platforms in a level it gives number of 1645504557321206042154969182557350504982735865633579863348609024 theoretically possible states).

[MtM]

3 hours ago, crem said:

Already working on it. 🙂

It's tempting to jump on it right away, but I'm forcing myself to take a few weeks of pause first.

It's actually not that bad. Having connected rooms with arbitrary route and place to enter every room adds complexity, but on the other hand JSW doesn't have have crumbling platforms.

Without crumbling platforms, basically the coordinates of Willy (and set of collected items) is the only changing part given the frame number. For a typical room, there's only ~40000 realistically possible states per frame (and only 2.5million theoretically possible), and there's no difference how Willy got there.

With crumbling platforms, the number of states explodes (8 states per platform, e.g. with 70 crumbling platforms in a level it gives number of 1645504557321206042154969182557350504982735865633579863348609024 theoretically possible states).

My goodness, I have just realised what you have said there about JSW - no crumbling platforms. I had never really thought of that before, even though I knew it to be true it just never occurred to me.

 

If it makes your task easier then that is good though. JSW II + would be an even better challenge after JSW 😉

 

Just out of interest, are there any mods etc. of JSW or even JSWII that feature crumbling platforms? I still can hardly believe I had never realised that before consciously...

 

Anyway if you are already on with it then that should be really good, I guess you will release one film of the whole hit once it's done a la RuffledBricks? I guess you have his time to go at too as a marker. Is it possible your AI will work out about saving time with deathwarp thing RB does? I suppose the parameters do change here AI wise, as we are talking about sacrificing a life in order to make progress. Now, if your AI routine came up with that by itself, I would be impressed. The AI also has to work out an optimum route, in order to do the best time, again it will be interesting to see if this tallies with RB's route. Or perhaps the AI will be hamstrung by not wanting to lose a life, or not that concerned about the time either, as although against the clock, it is not like getting the bonus air as a score in MM, you can finish the game with a minute to go and the score is the same as far as I know?

 

This should be exciting anyway when it happens. Maybe a challenge could take place between RB and your AI Crem, live on the internet, to complete JSW in the fastest time, who will win? 😉

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by MtM

[geoff]

Bear in mind that JSW, in its original release, was uncompletable, so you'll need to agree on a set of fixes.