Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 was held from Sun, Jan 5th 2014 to Sat, Jan 11th 2014, raising $1,031,666 for the The Prevent Cancer Foundation. All TASBot runs at AGDQ 2014 were shown in a block on Sun, Jan 5th 2014.
TASVideos.org administrator adelikat joined the commentators via teleconference; midway through the TAS block, the TASVideos server was receiving so much traffic from GDQ viewers that it got overloaded and went offline.
Runs presented
Gradius Any% | |
|---|---|
| Game(s) | Gradius |
| Platform(s) | NES |
| Author(s) | Adelikat |
| Lead(s) | dwangoAC |
| Presenter(s) | dwangoAC, micro500, Weatherton, TheGreekBrit |
| Video(s) | TASBot HD (YouTube), TASVideos (YouTube), GDQ (YouTube), GDQ original (Archive.org) |
This run was TASBot's debut, featuring one of the first replay devices. The run desynced twice and wasn't shown in full until Awesome Games Done Quick 2017 where a slightly modified version was played back in full on an NES Classic.
Mario Kart 64 Special Cup | |
|---|---|
| Game(s) | Mario Kart 64 |
| Platform(s) | N64 |
| Author(s) | Weatherton |
| Lead(s) | Weatherton, dwangoAC |
| Presenter(s) | dwangoAC, micro500, Weatherton, TheGreekBrit |
| Video(s) | TASVideos (YouTube), GDQ (YouTube) |
Super Mario World ACE | |
|---|---|
| Game(s) | Super Mario World |
| Platform(s) | SNES |
| Author(s) | Masterjun |
| Lead(s) | micro500, dwangoAC |
| Presenter(s) | dwangoAC, micro500, Weatherton, TheGreekBrit |
| Video(s) | TASVideos (YouTube) |
This run was built upon the previous work of finishing SMW as fast as possible, but rather than displaying the credits, we decided to have fun with the game instead. The setup for achieving total control involves creating five Yoshis, juggling multiple items into precise positions, and spawning an unintended sprite triggering the start to everything. We upload data into memory using two multitaps meaning 8 controllers while polling input at triple the normal rate, achieving an upload rate of 48 bytes/frame or ~2.8KiB/s. We needed a temporary memory location for storing data, so OAM was chosen. Not only was it now unused and never overwritten, it's also responsible for displaying more and more random objects on the screen, which created a nice effect of the world being visually rewritten.
The actual payload was quickly decided to be a game because "a game in a game" is a very natural way of showing off total control to a non-technical audience. A menu screen, playable versions of Pong and Snake, hand-programmed in 65816 assembly, and a custom avatar of the author were uploaded and started. Conveniently, the Mario head sprite was already loaded in memory, and was used in the newly programmed games. The final THE END screen was modified to show the avatar and allow returning to the menu, thus allowing actual humans to play the programmed games, showing off that the games weren't just scripted videos.
The final version of the run was finished and verified only 22 hours before the presentation.
Additional Informaton
Members of TASVideos were invited to show off TAS content at AGDQ 2014 in a designated TAS Block. The 45-minute block was primarily organized by dwangoAC alongside micro500 and Weatherton. The TASes/games that were shown off during the TAS Block were:
- NES Gradius by adelikat in 10:52.35 (Did not sync during AGDQ due to cable interference)
- Mario Kart 64
- N64 Super Mario 64 "0 stars" by snark, Kyman, sonicpacker, MICKEY_Vis11189 & ToT in 05:02.25
- In the end, SNES Super Mario World "arbitrary code execution" by Masterjun in 02:25.19 was unveiled to the world and received amazing feedback and media coverage.
During the bonus stream another TAS Block was organized. The TASes/games that were shown off during the TAS Block Bonus Stream were: