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[Quoise Games]

If I were to write something that generated some sanity checked labyrinths for races, would you give me the technical info to patch the data into the roms?

As I'm unreliable, I'd write the generator first so it made playable maps out of game to a level that seemed OK, and then worry about figuring out how to bring them into the game.  If I don't write the generator, I have no reason to waste your time probing for details.

I can give you data information about the Labrynth. Infact there's already a thread for it on this forum.  But if I'm reading this right, you want to make random races? As in a competitive race through the labyrinth?

[fireball]

If I were to write something that generated some sanity checked labyrinths for races, would you give me the technical info to patch the data into the roms?

As I'm unreliable, I'd write the generator first so it made playable maps out of game to a level that seemed OK, and then worry about figuring out how to bring them into the game.  If I don't write the generator, I have no reason to waste your time probing for details.

I can give you data information about the Labrynth. Infact there's already a thread for it on this forum.  But if I'm reading this right, you want to make random races? As in a competitive race through the labyrinth?

Races for speedrunners and that like of which there's a few now.  Give everyone the same modified rom, everyone goes into the rom blind, you see who finishes the game first.  You need some consistency in how things are generated just so the races have a predictable difficulty and time frame.

--edit-- I would probably just leave the corridors the same.  Trying to keep those balanced would be a good bit of work.  Keeping the labyrinth balanced is pretty easy, to the extent of "you can lock the items to being the same area as the original, they just fall in random spots in the new labyrinth" and you'd still have a pretty fun race.  After that you kindof just add options to add variance to the number of areas things can spawn in.

[Quoise Games]

If I were to write something that generated some sanity checked labyrinths for races, would you give me the technical info to patch the data into the roms?

As I'm unreliable, I'd write the generator first so it made playable maps out of game to a level that seemed OK, and then worry about figuring out how to bring them into the game.  If I don't write the generator, I have no reason to waste your time probing for details.

I can give you data information about the Labrynth. Infact there's already a thread for it on this forum.  But if I'm reading this right, you want to make random races? As in a competitive race through the labyrinth?

Races for speedrunners and that like of which there's a few now.  Give everyone the same modified rom, everyone goes into the rom blind, you see who finishes the game first.  You need some consistency in how things are generated just so the races have a predictable difficulty and time frame.

--edit-- I would probably just leave the corridors the same.  Trying to keep those balanced would be a good bit of work.  Keeping the labyrinth balanced is pretty easy, to the extent of "you can lock the items to being the same area as the original, they just fall in random spots in the new labyrinth" and you'd still have a pretty fun race.  After that you kindof just add options to add variance to the number of areas things can spawn in.

Oh. That's a great idea.  Currently the generator removes the need for keys, but I can modify it so that maps are layed out in the original Game's format, giving two corridors per area and giving the key to the next area upon completion. Provide as many details as you need and I should be able to work on it once all the details are in. 

[fireball]

Ah, I was going to work on the logic a bit to not try to impose my own personal goals on you, but, if you want to work on it, it would make me happy.  If you have any questions/comments about anything I say, ask, or if you want hard numbers, I'll happily count the occurrences of things in the main game or things like that.  If you're finding this hard to read I'll reformat it.  I'm also willing to chat on... pretty much any messenger if that's more convenient, or skype call, or whatever.  Ask and I'll pm you whatever.



I talked to another speedrunner, and it seems like a base set of rules for our current group would be something like:

Seeding from a entered number/string would be good, so we could all generate a rom based on a working base, instead of having to transfer the rom.

Corridors
   Stock corridors are fine, especially early on.  We probably could use the practice anyway.
Separated zones with keys. 
   The game should be roughly the same size as the original, probably meaning that each zone would be somewhere between 24-40 rooms large.
   (random zone interlinking is neat, but probably shouldn't happen more then 2-3 times in a rom much, should still require key to switch zones)
   Somewhat maze like, not entirely open, though perhaps open in places, as much as you can convince random generation to fake stock design.
Items
   Our group has done enough challenge runs, as long as the items are in the game, the only thing that must be controlled is that shields and gun powerups have to happen at around the time they do in the base game. With too low of shields, the game stalls out at about red grimgrin, if our no shields no guns challenge race says anything.  Red grimgrin is beatable, we were ehhhh on continuing.
      Actually, it may just be shields that is required.
   Minibosses can be randomized however they may fall, just try to limit miniboss occurance to about 3.
      The only way this could screw you over is if many of your shields got locked behind the red seaweed bosses, or the skull bosses, I'm pretty sure we could take any other occurrence.  If you limit shields to 3 or less in these 2 spawns combined, we will be fine. (there are several extra shields)
   Item distribution
      Normal Landers, Normal Shields, Normal Guns
      4 of each weapon, to deal with that boss you don't want to backtrack for, or losing items to pick 3 shops.  If you must lose an item, we'll certainly deal with it.
      Shops, same shop number and prices is fine, and you can put them anywhere, but if it contains a shield, it's a shield from an area that matches the area the shop price came from.  You could also just ban shields as a shop spawn, this is inferior to the prior logic, but it's also less work.
   As far as items go, you lock the spawn area for your shield's/guns, then you go nuts with placing the other ones.
      20 items come from corridors
      ?? items come from minibosses, I assume you aim for the same number of minibosses as the main game
      other stuff comes from crates, again, I assume you just pull that number from the main game (though it might increase or decrease slightly due to the 4 of each item, lock spawn just about as many EEs as stock.)
Enemies
   Honestly don't care, because they're generally easy enough to evade.  Locking enemies to their areas is dandy.  Having full game chaos is fine too, only thing that would slaughter of the games normal enemy set is the re-purposed spidercrabs of a9/10, and we'd probably go around them.

I think that's about as much balance as one would need to create a labyrinth in the style of the original game that one/all of the current runner group could beat.  May want to sanitize it more to be easier, but for the people we're currently doing races for, this is probably the best balance of randomness/beatability, most of the people who would want it probably also are solid enough to handle it.


--edit-- probably best to only have one area touching the other by a single or few squares as well, just to keep the map a tad more readable.

[Mattrick_]

I am that other speedrunner that Fireball has been talking to, and i concur with his ruleset completely, as him and i came up with it together.

Seeding would be phenomenal if its a possibility (i dont code so i dont at all know its done) but it would definately be a benefit when trying to setup a 4 or 5 man race.

One important thing that Fireball touched on that i want to echo, is that the areas need to be locked behind keys. The main reason for this is game flow, as well as progression. For the most part, we want everyone taking the same path so that people watching the race can get an idea of whos in the lead. if the whole game is open, 4-5 guys can easily go 4-5 different ways.... which isnt exactly great for race progression.

Also, keeping 2 corridors per area is also important, basically just to make sure that the game follows the same format it currently does.

Outside of that. His list is basically perfect

[Quoise Games]

Ok, all of that seems doable.  I plan to have the first draft up by this Friday.
"The Guardian Legend SpeedRacer." Do you think you'd have a need to limit the amount of corridors required to win? This way, you could shorter or longer races depending on how many corridors the user has to get through.

[Quoise Games]

All I want to ask from you word document with every jpeg of all the enemies, bosses, and items in the game.  I'm going to write information about each element and it would be helpful if I had the images in a word document.  Thanks.

[fireball]

Ok, all of that seems doable.  I plan to have the first draft up by this Friday.
"The Guardian Legend SpeedRacer." Do you think you'd have a need to limit the amount of corridors required to win? This way, you could shorter or longer races depending on how many corridors the user has to get through.

It's easy enough to do on a regular sized map, just by saying "first to beat c0-c5 wins".  I mean, a half map would be neat, but It'd be of low importance to me. 

All I want to ask from you word document with every jpeg of all the enemies, bosses, and items in the game.  I'm going to write information about each element and it would be helpful if I had the images in a word document.  Thanks.

Consider it done.  Are you wanting me to document all current spawns of items/minibosses/enemies, I'll certainly do that for shields/guns regardless.  I use a map that has most of the information already there, so separating the info shouldn't be bad.

If you just want a image with cleaned up images of just one of each items/bosses/enemies, I can do that too.  Just want to be sure on what you want before I start.

[Quoise Games]

Ok. As much documentation that you can provide will be great.   I don't need any cleaned up images, just so long as they are seperated so that I can add notes about each item.  So no progammable corridor limitations are needed, ok.

[fireball]

Talked to Zakky, he said that he had got to C10 with 1 shield 1 gun, so he thinks that most likely we would be able to finish with just the stock number randomized.  He says it would be good to have an option to have either the shield area rule, the guns area rule, both, or neither.  In which case, you can probably just not code in the rule until a later version, or not code the choice until a later version.  Doesn't matter to me.

Will work on that document either today or tomorrow.

[Mattrick_]

Wow by friday? Thats badass!
Limiting the number of corridors isnt an issue, we can just set an arbitrary number.
As long as the map is kept within the confines of the standard size, the games shouldnt be more than a couple of hours long as long as we dont get some insane bad luck on item spawns.

[fireball]

I started working on the document, and started chopping up the map.  Will base my formatting on this doc, which has all the item spawn information, will then grab images, and then attempt to document the enemy spawns of every room in the game (roughly).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tqe3Sxhqw1h7jG5If1c3BwA/htmlview?pli=1

[Quoise Games]

Document looks good so far. Still on target to have first draft up by Tomorrow.

[fireball]

That doc is unmodified from Zakky atm, he asked if I had an items list, and gave me it to work off.  I just figured it could be useful to you while I work on adding other info to it.

Also, exciting times, we'll be sure to do some test runs and document our adventures, though I'm sadly out of town this weekend.

[Mattrick_]

Oh dont you worry Fireball! WE ARE GOING TO TEST THIS