Jarlyk | [TAS] Sorry, sis, gotta run; ghosts to bust @jarlyk | Uploaded September 2022 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
This is a first draft of the Hornet fight for the upcoming Tool-assisted speedrun of Hollow Knight in the category Ghostbusters. This is similar to the fight from the Spelless TE TAS, but of course subtly different rng means it plays out a bit differently. It's okay, though, she'll get to make a fierce comeback later in the run, as, unlike in SpTE, we won't have nail 2 and strength for the fight.
This is a first draft of the Hornet fight for the upcoming Tool-assisted speedrun of Hollow Knight in the category Ghostbusters. This is similar to the fight from the Spelless TE TAS, but of course subtly different rng means it plays out a bit differently. It's okay, though, she'll get to make a fierce comeback later in the run, as, unlike in SpTE, we won't have nail 2 and strength for the fight.
![[TAS] Sorry, sis, gotta run; ghosts to bust](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TSN0iBNK87w/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Sorry, sis, gotta run; ghosts to bust
This is a first draft of the Hornet fight for the upcoming Tool-assisted speedrun of Hollow Knight in the category Ghostbusters. This is similar to the fight from the Spelless TE TAS, but of course subtly different rng means it plays out a bit differently. Its okay, though, shell get to make a fierce comeback later in the run, as, unlike in SpTE, we wont have nail 2 and strength for the fight.")
![[TAS] Weirdest Archives Escape](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UNdYHlLefzs/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Weirdest Archives Escape
CONTENT WARNING: STROBING LIGHTS
Possibly the weirdest glitch Ive ever TASed. Its pretty slow and not sure if its useful, but this is escaping archives with only claw. Might be possible without claw if theres a way to get airwalk out of this setup. In case its not obvious, this is a TAS-only glitch, as it requires getting precise control over t-ft (needs to be essentially 0), running at exactly 50 fps and switching direction inputs every frame.")
![[TAS] Hollow Knight 0 Geo in 36:37](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U_12J2sUARk/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Hollow Knight 0 Geo in 36:37
This is a tool-assisted speedrun of the game Hollow Knight in the category 0Geo. The goal of this category is to complete the game as quickly as possible, but without picking up any geo. The TAS was created by entering every input to the game, frame by frame, then running the game with a special tool known as libTAS that allows for the same inputs to produce the same results (almost) every time. The run is on patch 1221 and also has the restriction of not using any major glitches; it does make use of several minor glitches, but it deliberately limits the scope of how it uses one of the more powerful minor glitches, wall cling storage, to only cases that are readily achievable by humans.
If youd prefer to watch an unedited version of this video (without the inputs display and geo dodging highlights), you can see that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_sSR-shIb0.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to ConstructiveCynicism, the creator of the Any% NMG TAS, both for allowing me to use the Any% inputs for several of the early rooms (before the route diverges), as well as for general advice on strats and how to use libTAS
Thanks to DemoJameson, who developed some of the HK-specific tooling we use to make TASing possible
Thanks to Kilaye, the creator of libTAS, the black magic software that somehow wrangles a Unity game into a mostly deterministic state
Thanks to Blue, the current human world record holder in the category, for cheering me on and providing some feedback
Thanks also to all of the other members of the Hollow Knight TAS Discord who provided feedback, advice and encouragement
Links:
CCs Any% NMG TAS: https://youtu.be/XBpo9j-I4kI
Blues WR run of 0Geo for 1221: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1145542092
Krythoms Any% NMMS TAS (if youd like to see what major glitches can do): https://youtu.be/YGu732UYgjs
Hollow Knight TAS Discord: https://discord.gg/38Cw7EvB4u
Technical Notes:
TASing is a time-consuming process, particularly in a game like Hollow Knight, which has quite a lot of RNG and whose RNG is extremely volatile. What this means is that, normally, you cant make any changes whatsoever to prior portions of a TAS without completely invalidating all of the RNG for the rest of the run. To work around this issue, this TAS is built using a modification to the game code that allows for preserving a snapshot of the RNG for a given room, then restoring it on the fly during the playback. This makes it possible to make adjustments to prior scenes without having to redo the entire TAS. All random sequences within rooms were generated by using in-game rng manip techniques and this tooling was solely used to allow for edits without breaking later rooms.
The TAS was also run on a forked version of libTAS due to some issues with memory management in Unity causing it to crash late in the run; the change I made was to increase a buffer size to allow for HKs heavily fragmented memory mapping. If anyone wants to sync this TAS, feel free to contact me on the Discord (link above) and I can provide the movie (inputs) file, the tooling that I used, as well as instructions on how to get it to sync.
To address any questions about collisions that Ive seen come up in other TAS videos, there are several instances in this video where it looks like the knight should have been hit by enemies or projectiles, including some frames where the knight appears to be touching geo. There are two factors that cause this. The first is that the hitboxes used by the game are generally substantially smaller than the sprites, giving some margin for error when you play as a human. The other is that the game only checks collisions at 50 frames per second, even though the graphics are updating at 100 frames per second. This means that the knight can intersect with hitboxes for single frames if theyre timed to be between the physics checks.")
![Sundered [TAS]: Coming in Hot](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ujt_5oprZxw/hqdefault.jpg "Sundered [TAS]: Coming in Hot
The various runs Ive been playing with for Hollow Knight havent been as interesting as Id hoped, so I decided to liven things up and try a different game. This is Sundered, a Metroidvania with crazy movement tech and massive swarms of enemies. This is a first draft of an early part of the game. The movement in this game is a lot of fun to TAS with, so looking forward to seeing how the final run comes together.")
![[TAS] Claw to Sanctum Movement in 0Geo](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V3c7QZmCBDM/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Claw to Sanctum Movement in 0Geo
This is a rough draft of some movement for the 0Geo TAS Im working on. There are definitely a few rough spots, especially early, but looking for feedback on some of the movement decisions. Im aiming to avoid too much exploitation of wcs.
This TAS is heavily based on the Any% NMG TAS by ConstructiveCynicism. You can see that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBpo9j-I4kI")
![[TAS] A long relaxing walk, prelude to a murder](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XDn-0YId9xQ/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] A long relaxing walk, prelude to a murder
The Uumuu fight is never particularly exciting, but I did find this one satisfying, at least.")
![[TAS] Local Citizen Assists Knight in Avoiding Tourist Trap](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XjpZU02raMs/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Local Citizen Assists Knight in Avoiding Tourist Trap
So, going this direction was actually a mistake as I completely forgot about the lever blocking access to Lemm from below, but this skip from May is extremely funny, so I figured it was worth encoding before I revert. Enjoy.")
![[TAS] Dismantling the Devout](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XwPKahvOdAM/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Dismantling the Devout
When you cant touch the floor and dont have any spells, the Devout can be a surprisingly tough obstacle. This is a snippet from the upcoming floor-is-lava tool-assisted speedrun, where we try to minimize time spent on the ground. Among other interesting implications of that goal is that we need to avoid drop floors where possible, meaning that we have to fight the Devout twice, courtesy of patch 1221.")
![[TAS] 0 Geo: The Baldurs Revenge](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y1f6nhYEmpE/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] 0 Geo: The Baldurs Revenge
No fancy music video this time, but this room took a while to get to work and I just had to share the ridiculousness. One more step toward the tool assisted speedrun of 0 Geo TE with Gathering Swarm.")
![[TAS] Reckless Dives in 0Geo](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y5DjpCy_r04/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Reckless Dives in 0Geo
A perfectly safe series of dives to exit Sanctum without picking up any geo.")
![[TAS] First Try (in this timeline)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YocGFuPtMgY/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] First Try (in this timeline)
Pay no attention to the 20 minutes of trial and error behind the curtain to get this to work...")
