[HN Gopher] Can you beat Pokemon FireRed while blind and deaf? (...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Can you beat Pokemon FireRed while blind and deaf? (2022) [video]
        
       Author : xena
       Score  : 143 points
       Date   : 2023-07-13 17:42 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | insanitybit wrote:
       | For those who have not watched, this is not "I am a blind and
       | deaf person, here is how I do this" it is "Imagine that we have
       | to construct a program to solve pokemon, accounting for its RNG,
       | where that program gets no feedback".
        
         | dang wrote:
         | If anyone can suggest an accurate and neutral title that
         | expresses that in 80 chars or less, we can change the title
         | above.
        
           | insanitybit wrote:
           | I'd probably just call it "Solving Pokemon FireRed" but idk
        
           | gooseus wrote:
           | "Pokemon FireRed completed without visuals or audio."
           | 
           | That's the first sentence of the video description, seems
           | more accurate and neutral.
        
       | sdwvit wrote:
       | Impressive. And this is what basically happens during tool
       | assisted speedruns, except for here you have to account for
       | randomness between demo runs, if that makes sense. Tons of work
       | and probably a lot of fun if you have automation for repetitive
       | stuff.
        
       | rightbyte wrote:
       | Interesting. So essentially a set of input solving the game. I am
       | on mobile so I skipped alot to save data but he is successful
       | right?
        
         | rcme wrote:
         | He's successful except in 1% of cases charmander can't run from
         | the first battle(s) with pidgey.
        
           | noah_buddy wrote:
           | I have a feeling that there's probably a way to resync in
           | every case where do don't run away but that it balloons the
           | command set by every by a huge amount each time making it
           | computationally unfeasible to complete in real time.
        
       | bonyt wrote:
       | Apparently someone got this going on real hardware:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMseY5_YeRs
        
       | rcme wrote:
       | This is amazing. For those who don't watch, there are a few
       | tricks to make this work:
       | 
       | 1. The start menu doesn't work in battle. So you can press start,
       | input directions, and then press start again to move the battle
       | menu cursor without moving if you're not in battle.
       | 
       | 2. Because of 1, you never know where the cursor is in the start
       | menu. He has a way of deterministically correcting that.
       | 
       | 3. His training strategy relies on fighting trainers multiple
       | times by killing their first Pokemon and then intentionally
       | losing so he can face them again with the XP gained from the
       | first KO.
       | 
       | I'm sure there are many other tricks but I could only watch the
       | first few minutes. Super cool!
        
         | __s wrote:
         | Training strategy is sped up by using daycare center later.
         | Fighting trainer multiple times is also how he gets infinite
         | money, since there's a trainer who gives you a golden nugget
         | each time you start facing them, even after you lose to them
         | 
         | Things get tricky in a few battles where he can't one shot
         | every enemy. Importantly, swapping out pokemon gives opponent
         | initiative, compared to having a pokemon faint to swap in the
         | desired one. So his team has an unleveled Abra used to faint
         | swap
         | 
         | Final team is Charzard, Abra, Gyrados, Lapras, Jolteon,
         | Articuno. Rare candy is used to converge xp values & evolve
         | pokemon when convenient. Repel is used to avoid random fights
         | (which then needs some tricks because there's certain
         | situations where repel counter diverges & using repel when at 1
         | tick doesn't put it back at 100 ticks, but leaves at 1 tick)
        
       | kinduff wrote:
       | This is so interesting, loved how it covers all good and worst
       | scenarios on these "parallel universes".
       | 
       | The title does not do any justice to the content though.
        
         | rgoulter wrote:
         | It feels like every sentence spoken in the video is the result
         | of thorough experimentation or other knowledge.
        
       | jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:
       | Thank you for sharing, this made my evening. For others that
       | enjoyed this, I also recommend watching this excellent video in
       | the same vein: "SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses":
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A
        
         | stevekemp wrote:
         | Similarly there's scripting a Doom level, to simulate days of
         | playing to complete that single level - complete with terrible
         | frame-rates:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOMN98DzQA
        
       | rootsudo wrote:
       | Interesting, really interesting -
       | 
       | My first realization (and I am going through Higurashi again) was
       | this can be applied immediately to Higurashi / Umineko and other
       | visual novels that rely on that same puzzle factor -
       | 
       | I didn't realize it before, it was a truly serendipitous
       | realization, perfect game and the most basic steps that can be
       | repeated ad infinitum to establish an always win scenario.
        
         | valenterry wrote:
         | Higurashi / Umineko - those two are just awesome. That's all I
         | wanted to say here. :)
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
       | A real deaf person would have access to the speakers for the
       | vibrations.
       | 
       | Obviously that makes no sense for a machine since it'd be able to
       | 100% reproduce the sound.
       | 
       | Pokemon FireRed has no Rumble -
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/3o10rk/full_list_o...
       | 
       | I did wonder if there would be any other outputs from the game.
       | Heat comes to mind.
        
         | fisian wrote:
         | Maybe something like the power led sidechannel [1].
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36331446
        
       | epiccoleman wrote:
       | This is so cool - I can't imagine the amount of experimentation
       | and work that went into this project. It's also interesting to
       | ponder the fact that this could have been impossible without some
       | of the various advantages. I love the hacker spirit shown of
       | using every little advantage and trick to make everything work
       | out.
       | 
       | Part 4 of the video is maybe the most interesting, because you
       | really get a look at the planning necessary to make everything
       | shake out identically (or close enough) in a battle.
        
       | jonathrg wrote:
       | Seems like the level 5/level 6 charmander split could be avoided
       | by just losing on purpose by using growl.
        
         | rcme wrote:
         | A level 5 charmander increases the chance of being unable to
         | escape pidgey and losing.
        
       | Atreiden wrote:
       | This is a masterpiece, and I agree the title doesn't do it
       | justice. He's literally found an almost completely deterministic
       | set of inputs to beat the game. Had no idea you could retry
       | trainers you lost to, or abuse the Nugget battle for unlimited
       | money.
       | 
       | Great watch!
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | >Had no idea you could retry trainers you lost to
         | 
         | This is fundemental to pokemon. Else you would have to restart
         | the game any time you lost to a gym leader.
        
           | carstenhag wrote:
           | Doesn't it tell you something like you fainted or woke up
           | from a dream?
           | 
           | It could be consistent with not actually leveling up your
           | pokemon. But I think it's not the case.
        
             | rootsudo wrote:
             | I remember it says you blacked out in the first generation
             | on gameboy.
        
             | saghm wrote:
             | If I remember correctly, it says something about you
             | running back to the closest pokemon center to heal your
             | team. The games show your team getting experience within
             | battles as each member of the opponent's team is defeated
             | (even letting you gain levels and learn/replace moves from
             | those level gains mid-battle, although evolution via
             | leveling up is deferred until after the battle), so I think
             | it's pretty clear about those gains not being reverted if
             | you lose.
             | 
             | I think the main reason that people might not be aware that
             | you can retry things with no penalty (other than losing a
             | small amount of in-game money) is that most of the time
             | people will save right before every trainer battle, and
             | then just restart the game if something major goes wrong. I
             | imagine a decent number of players have never seen what
             | happens when you lose because it's often just as fast or
             | faster to just turn the console off and back on and load
             | the last save rather than go through the in-game sequence.
        
               | zamadatix wrote:
               | Between the two of us, at least one is in for a "wow, I
               | really thought the way I played it was how everyone did"
               | moment in that I've never even imagined playing the game
               | by saving before most battles let alone restarting the
               | console if it goes south. That seems more like a
               | speedrunning strategy to me, whereas for most of normal
               | play there tends to be very little actual risk in the
               | battles to worry about.
        
       | staringback wrote:
       | Reminds me of "Solving Pokemon Blue With a Single, Huge Regular
       | Expression (2018)"
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2g9d29UIzk
        
       | csours wrote:
       | Wow. It's kind of like a speedrun, but super slow.
        
         | sdwvit wrote:
         | Essentially a TAS, but have to account for randomness in demo
         | playback.
        
           | csours wrote:
           | This makes me think of crash-only programming. If he didn't
           | try to avoid variance and just quit, what are the odds that
           | he could finish the run? Or like, how much does each risk
           | mitigation cost?
           | 
           | If he made it twice as risky, is it twice as fast?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-07-14 23:02 UTC)