Uncle Bob Wants You! (to record .ohrkey files!)

Uncle Bob Wants you for the War Effort! Yes, the War Effort against OHRRPGCE Engine Bugs!

"How can I help?" you ask? "Grow A Victory Garden?" "Register For The Draft?"

No, Uncle Bob needs your .ohrkey files!

"What is a .ohrkey file, Uncle Bob?" you ask.

That is an excellent question. An .ohrkey file is a file that allows you to record and playback the keys you press when you are playing a game. Here is how to create one:

1) You need to use the command-line for this. That means either using a command-propmt window, or editing the properties of a shortcut to GAME.EXE

2) Run your game with the following command:

This assumes that your rpg file is in the same folder as game.exe. If that is not true, you have to specify the paths too:


3) Now start playing your game FROM THE BEGINNING, don't load a save game.

4) Play as long as you can stand in a single sitting. Don't save or load. If you have to leave for a minute to use the bathroom or weed your victory garden, just leave the game running.

5) When you are finished, post a link to your gamename.ohrkey file to this thread, along with your .RPG file. (or a link to download the rpg file, if it is already on the gamelist)

6) Be sure to mention where the replay is supposed to end. Is it the first dungeon? Should it end dying to the second boss? Is it a full playthrough until the ending credits?

I will be able to replay your playthrough at high-speed like this:



And you can try it too if you want, it is pretty fun to see your replay happen at high speed.

How is this useful? When I clean up code, I want to make sure I haven't accidentally broken any features. If you send me a playthrough of your game, I can re-test your game in a matter of seconds after I have made a change. This will help me catch errors before they ever get checked in.

Here's an OHRKEY to the latest build of my Doom EU game.

it uses some features that're kinda new to the OHR, so it may be worth a look-see.

http://www.mediafire.com/?97e3sxe83fjqs23

Yay, thanks!

One question though: is this done using the version of Evil Unleashed that you have on the game list? or a newer unreleased version.

When I tried replaying the ohrkey file with that version, the doomguy quickly got stuck in a room, running back and forth, going in and out of the menu, swapping himself around in the party order list.

That is what I would expect to happen if the ohrkey file didn't exactly match the rpg file it was created with.

wouldn't random events like wandering npcs and different monster groups ( or perhaps a randomly turning fire breathing dinosaur) ruin any hope of this working?

I recorded it with the latest version of the Doom RPG, from the post made in the games section.

o.o

Nope, because the .ohrkey saves the seed used by the pseudorandom number generator.



Hmm... strange. You didn't start from an existing savegame, did you?

There are other things that could go wrong, I suppose. For example, plotscripts that do things based on time in seconds instead of time in ticks would make a replay fail.

It is also possible that I have some undiscovered bugs in recording and playback.

I am trying the replay again now without -runfast and I'll see if it does the same thing.

Behold Tim-Tim "The Mighty Playthrough".

http://www.2shared.com/file/-Db3rH9t/tim-tim.html

Hehe. I realized an important detail. I need to know where the playthrough is supposed to end, so i know if it worked :)

When I playback the Tim-Tim playthrough, it plays perfectly to just past what i think is the first save-point and then Tim-Tim dies. if that is where you stopped, then it worked perfectly.

As for the Evil Unleashed replay, when I watched it in normal-speed it *seemed* to go wrong at the first battle. That makes sense to me, since the battles are the trickiest in terms of randomness, so it probably means there is something wrong with my random number replay in-battle.

Ideally people should end their playthrough by saving the game if possible and also provide the saved game, so that we can compare the resulting save files.



I have a plan to record the results of all nondeterministic script commands such as "milliseconds" (except "import globals" and the like) in the .ohrkey file to play back.

James noted today that games which use stun or mute attacks also won't be recorded properly; please hold on recording games using them. Mouse (and maybe joystick?) support also isn't implemented yet.

I beat the game in my Tim-Tim playthrough. I did die a few times though, but not till the last boss.

New mission: Help find the bug in ohrkey recording/playback

Even though there is a serious bug in the ohrkey recording and playback, examples of ohrkey files are still helpful because they can help us identify where the bug is located. (and if the bug turns out to be in playback and not in recording, the ohrkey files will remain useful for testing other bugs in the future)

What I want to discover is the trigger condition that causes ohrkey playback to mismatch recording.

Is there some in-game menu or screen that triggers the mismatch? Is there a specific plotscripting command that triggers the mismatch? Does the mismatch happen after a specific amount of time? A specific number of ticks? A specific number of keypresses?

We do know that attacks involving stun or mute, use of mouse input, and the milliseconds, system seconds, seconds of play, etc. commands will break replays, but that doesn't explain why the replay for Tim Tim isn't working.

You say "ohrkey," but all I'm hearing is "TAS."

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Dang, TLA's are hard to google for!

Yes, I am looking forward to the first ohrkey TAS :)

Part of me wants to say don't spend any time on it until we have the bugs fixed, but another (much bigger) part of me says please do! It will help us find the bugs!