Automated generation of Manic Miner speedrun/walkthrough

[crem]

13 minutes ago, MtM said:

That route in Wacky Amoebatrons is a shocker! 😉 It looks on like on several occasions WIlly has made proper contact with baddie sprites to me, he changes colour due to proximity. Further, I suppose one huge advantage that the AI has is that it can make perfect jumps every time off the very end of ledges without having to worry about keypresses being correctly read.

I think it's not that scary in all places though.

The tool just picks the first or last possible frame to do the jump/some other trick and the near-miss makes it look like it's a frame/pixel-perfect strat. While several parts of this video are probably indeed frame-perfect, some of strats surely have 2-3 frame/pixel window to be executed.

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks, crem, it's very interesting, and a great discovery about Amoebatrons! 👍

The route is pretty much what I've been doing for a while now, with the exception of the "home stretch", where I failed to see that you could jump over the cyan guardian and then the horizontal one like this.

So that's a second level on which I'll have to improve my recorded performance...

[IRF]

Depending on what else emerges from the rest of the caverns, a possible total score of 39500 points after 20 caverns may be within reach...

[crem]

9 hours ago, IRF said:

It won't make a difference in some caverns, where you have to wait around later on for a moment anyway - e.g. for the bottom penguin in the Cold Room to move out of the way of the portal.  But it may well tweak the score up in other caverns?

I gave it a go in Level 3, and indeed it improved the score by one frame.

Score:1904

lvl3_20210312-1729.rzx

[jetsetdanny]

ALERT!!! Humans are behind the algorithm by one point! All hands aboard to equal the score! 😀

[IRF]

Will the High Score table on the other thread be updated to give first billing for that cavern to the algorithm machine?

(And what does the machine physically look like? - is it a clockwork robot like the one in the Central Cavern that has achieved this feat?!?)

Edited March 12, 2021 by IRF

[MtM]

17 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

ALERT!!! Humans are behind the algorithm by one point! All hands aboard to equal the score! 😀

It might be fun, imagine if say the best scores by the AI are added up, and the best individual legitimate human scores are added up per level, i.e. ones where there is some proof of them being played by hand, and the humans won by say just one point overall. There are a few early screens I am fair at score wise, I agree with Danny, we all try and get the best scores we can and win by one 😉

 

[Norman Sword]

The first two  cavern played by scripted movement.

one cavern per script

Score 1724 (cavern 1) and 1975 (cavern 2)

Not carrying on- interesting one night exercise.

--------------------

Watching cavern 7's erratic generated movement. I decided to do my own. The route taken by my script is a bit more relaxed. Still gets the same score.

This has shown me not to do any more, it just is not what I want to do with my time.
 

 

 

sc1_1724.tap sc2_1975.tap

sc7_1824.tap

Edited March 14, 2021 by Norman Sword
Adding 2nd file - now a third

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks, Norman Sword! 🙂

Are these your scripts or did you use crem's algorithm?

> Not carrying on- interesting one night exercise.

Wouldn't "Solar Power Generator" be an interesting technical challenge? Balancing between the most efficient movements and the necessity to avoid the solar beam...

[Norman Sword]

Scripted Movement.

I altered the keyboard input routine to accept input from a data stream. The data stream is simply a file that I write, with values for the various inputs ( left, right, jump) The room is played and the data is taken from the data stream one item at a time, which simulates the keyboard input. I simply play the room and watch what happens, and add or delete the data to make the jumps at the exact timing I want. After I have perfected a particular jump or movement. I start adding more data to simulate movement to the next point of interest. The data streams are simply optimised movement data from myself. I played (typed data) for the first two rooms, just to establish what my optimised play would do. 

This method is Not going to find the best route. It will play a route that is picked and adjust the jumps and walks to one frame accuracy.

Part of one data file (generated by visual play - type data and watch what happens)
    DB    0,0, 0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0
    db    1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
    db    1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1;,1,1;,1,1,1,1,1,1    ;START FALL
    DB    0,0,0
    DB    1,1,1,1,1,1,1                  ;WALK
    DB    5
    db    0,0, 0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0    ;jump collect
    db    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0         ;floor collapse
    db    2
    db    6                                       ;jump out of hole
    db    0,0, 0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0,0
    DB    2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2        ;WALK TO FALL
    DB    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0