The new guy

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BrandonWalshGP
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The new guy

Post by BrandonWalshGP »

Good day, all of you.

I am new here and thought I'd post a couple of lines in this sub section. I've just recently rekindled my love for the PoP series and I just played through it for the first time ever, actually. When I was a kid I never finished it properly so this was a great relief to me.

Now, I want to get into the speedrunning scene. I am sure that such a popular game has some crazy records set but in the beginning I will just start kind of easy and try to work things out as well as I can to see what happens.

I am running the Amiga version which I think is kind of suboptimal. It has severe FPS lags from time to time, which I can't remember that the DOS version, or even Apple II version had - but maybe my memory is being nostalgic and just forgot about such issues. But its really bad on the Amiga, down to 5 FPS or so at least several times per level when there is more than one or two things being animated at the same time.

So, I am thinking about running the Apple II version, in order to play the game as the master himself conceived it. Any runners in here and/or any recommendations on my path?

I'm casually reading the source code and playing it every day to find some tricks and corners to cut. I am sure it has been analyzed to death by others already but I like to explore on my own as well.

I live stream a lot of old games on twitch.tv. Amiga/Atari/C64/NES, you name it. Check me out there if you are interested. http://www.twitch.tv/brandonwalshgp

Apart from my recent PoP interest I also try to write music.

Thank you for reading and I am looking forward to some nice PoP related discussions with you guys.
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Norbert
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Re: The new guy

Post by Norbert »

Hi, most of us play primarily the DOS (in DOSBox) and SNES (in ZSNES) variants; these should both give you lots of fps.
Speedruns... you could check the record videos - or not, if you want to explore the game some more on your own.
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Jakim
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Re: The new guy

Post by Jakim »

Are you THIS BrandonWalsh? I guess yes, I recognize your SID tunes, part of good work (although not my preferred style), technically great! :) Nice to see you here.



!!! :)

And, about Prince of Persia, start with being familiar with common tricks:
http://www.popot.org/documentation.php?doc=Tricks
BrandonWalshGP
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Re: The new guy

Post by BrandonWalshGP »

Thank you for your replies. From what I can tell most records are segmented, which I am not very interested in. To me, a speedrun is doing the entire game in one run. Sure, saving and loading is allowed but you should not be allowed to discard the failed attempts and only use your best runs, in my opinion.

Thank you for the trick page, I will have fun trying some of that stuff out.

Yes, I wrote that track. My latest release is the soundtrack for an iOS/Android game: http://brandonwalsh.bandcamp.com/

Is anyone running the Apple II version? I am really thinking about making a run on the real hardware if I get the time down to record times on the DOS version or so. :)
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Norbert
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Re: The new guy

Post by Norbert »

BrandonWalshGP wrote:Is anyone running the Apple II version?
See:
viewtopic.php?p=12137#p12137
viewtopic.php?f=68&t=3124
BrandonWalshGP
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Re: The new guy

Post by BrandonWalshGP »

Thank you.

I am searching through the forums but it is a whole lot to go through as a beginner. Is there a confirmed world record (real time) for a PoP MS-DOS game? I mean, not played in segments and then the best runs patched together using load-save until the level is perfect?

Like, real time clock starts when you gain control of the character. RT clock ends when control of the character is lost, i.e. when you enter the room with the girl? This is how most speedruns are done, so I would assume there would be something like this for PoP as well?
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Norbert
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Re: The new guy

Post by Norbert »

Your question is similar to a question Andrew asked here.
Forum user mk1995 suggested creating a Hall of Fame with the times of such runs, but only three people were interested.
Unless someone records himself/herself playing through the game (as you do), it's impossible to tell if people actually played everything in one run or not.
For example, htamas created a nice video, but is it a continuous run... I don't know.
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