Automated generation of Manic Miner speedrun/walkthrough

[IRF]

Note to self: I will have to check whether this Endorian Forest discovery has any implications for a certain project of mine... 

EDIT: I mean for the game engine, as well as for the data. 

Edited August 30, 2023 by IRF

[jetsetdanny]

This sounds intriguing 🙂 . And it's great to know you have a MM project - that your "bassification" is not complete 😉 .

[IRF]

On 8/30/2023 at 8:44 AM, IRF said:

Note to self: I will have to check whether this Endorian Forest discovery has any implications for a certain project of mine... 

EDIT: I mean for the game engine, as well as for the data. 

In relation to the above comment, the phenomenon discussed in the following post (in a discussion about an early version of Manic Jet Set Willy) is also relevant:

You might be wondering - how can the discovery of an improved maximum score for a cavern have implications for the game engine of a project, not just the game data? I will discuss more later...

Edited September 4, 2023 by IRF

[IRF]

Meanwhile, here are the appropriate keypresses - I think! - for DigitalDuck's more efficient walkthrough (quicker by one timeframe than Crem's algorithm managed) of The Endorian Forest:

R R R R R R R R R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R R R R R R R R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q R R Q Q Q . Q . Q R R R Q . . . . . . . . . QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q Q . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q . . . . . . . R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . R Q QM . . . . . . . . . . . . R R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . Q QM . . . . . . . . . . . . R R R R R RM . . . . . . . . . . . . QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R R R R R R R R R R R . Q . . . . . . . . QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q Q Q R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R . . . Q . . . . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q Q Q QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q

Perhaps @Norman Sword might like to update the data in his 'Manic Miner with automatic play', to take account of this recent discovery?  (And hopefully validate that I have correctly edited the datastream!)

 

[IRF]

Furthermore, I have updated the first post in the Manic Miner High Score Challenge thread, to take account of DigitalDuck's achievement in beating the algorithm!:

Spider has fallen off the bottom of the league table (sorry Andy!)

crem's algorithm no longer occupies the top slot for every single cavern!

Edited September 4, 2023 by IRF

[IRF]

On 9/4/2023 at 11:41 AM, IRF said:

You might be wondering - how can the discovery of an improved maximum score for a cavern have implications for the game engine of a project, not just the game data?

So the premise of the (as yet unreleased) project I was referring to above, is that the initial air supply in each cavern is reduced to such an extent that you HAVE to do the fastest possible run through the cavern, or else you will run out of air!  If you do make it through each cavern, you will have precisely zero increments of air remaining (and so you will score no points other than those gained by collecting the items).  However, I didn't want to change ANY other aspect of the gameplay (graphics/guardian behaviour etc should all remain the same as before).

When I was working on this project a couple of years back, I noticed that editing the initial air supply for caverns which contain slow horizontal guardians sometimes changed the gameplay.  Particularly in the Solar Power Generator, because of the complex interaction between the solar beam, the various guardians, and Willy. (In fact, @jetsetdannydiscovered this when playtesting an early version of @Norman Sword's game 'Manic Jet Set Willy' - the solar beam seemed to behave differently sometimes, compared with other times, when Danny entered the solar cavern - however, this transpired not to be the fault of the solar beam, but a result of the slow horizontal guardian's initial placement).

The changes in cavern behaviour arise from the fact that slow horizontal guardians only move when there is an even number of air increments left in the cavern.  So if reducing the air from the amount which Matthew Smith assigned back in 1983, to the bare minimum required for a super-efficient run through the cavern, involves reducing the initial air supply by an odd number of increments, then the slow horizontal guardians change their initial status (i.e. moving in the first time-frame, versus remaining still in the first time-frame).

In order to resolve this, I devised a Cavern Setup Patch system which edits a certain address in the 'Move the horizontal guardians' routine, so that for those caverns where it is necessary, the routine ensures that slow horizontal guardians only move when there is an odd number of air increments left in the cavern. (The patch also sets the routine back to normal for all the other caverns where the change is not necessary - so as not to adversely affect some of the other caverns which contain a slow HG but where I happen to have adjusted the air supply down by an even number of increments.)

DigitalDuck's discovery of a quicker route through The Endorian Forest - quicker by a single increment of air - and the fact that there is a slow HG in that cavern, means that it has to be added to the list of caverns where the 'Move the horizontal guardians' routine needs to be tweaked - or else the behaviour of the slow HG (and potentially the precise 'fastest possible' route through the cavern - timings of jumps etc) would be altered.  So in that sense, DD's discovery has necessitated a change to the game engine of my project!

Edited January 30 by IRF

[Spider]

On 9/4/2023 at 3:43 PM, IRF said:

Furthermore, I have updated the first post in the Manic Miner High Score Challenge thread, to take account of DigitalDuck's achievement in beating the algorithm!:

Spider has fallen off the bottom of the league table (sorry Andy!)

crem's algorithm no longer occupies the top slot for every single cavern!

Its possible those changes -might- of been removed by the automated updates where it will copy the download descriptor into the topic. I mention this as MJSWv3 was updated yesterday (the topic content now reflects the download) , I'm not 100% sure in this case on this file MM-HSC as I don't recall exactly what was there before. 😞 🙂

[IRF]

You're right, the changes 'of' been removed!

Edited October 2, 2023 by IRF

[IRF]

I've updated the high score table again in the topic (for The Endorian Forest entry).  This time, I've also edited the download descriptor to match, so hopefully the update will remain in place!

Edited October 5, 2023 by IRF

[IRF]

7 hours ago, IRF said:

I've updated the high score table again in the topic (for The Endorian Forest entry).  This time, I've also edited the download descriptor to match, so hopefully the update will remain in place!

Aarrgghh!! This time the table in the topic has reverted back to the old version, even though my update to the download section is still in place!

Maybe everything will be okay after the next automatic update? (How often does that happen?)