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Pokemon FireRed completed without visuals or audio (2022) [video]

157 points by xena 3y ago

kinduff 3y ago
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 3y ago
  It feels like every sentence spoken in the video is the result of thorough experimentation or other knowledge.
rootsudo 3y ago
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 3y ago
  Higurashi / Umineko - those two are just awesome. That's all I wanted to say here. :)
insanitybit 3y ago
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 3y ago
  If anyone can suggest an accurate and neutral title that expresses that in 80 chars or less, we can change the title above.
  - gooseus 3y ago
    "Pokemon FireRed completed without visuals or audio." That's the first sentence of the video description, seems more accurate and neutral.
    - dang 3y ago
      Ok let's use that. Thanks!
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    I'd probably just call it "Solving Pokemon FireRed" but idk
rightbyte 3y ago
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 3y ago
  He’s successful except in 1% of cases charmander can’t run from the first battle(s) with pidgey.
  - noah_buddy 3y ago
    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.
rcme 3y ago
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 Pokémon 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 3y ago
  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)
staringback 3y ago
Reminds me of "Solving Pokemon Blue With a Single, Huge Regular Expression (2018)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2g9d29UIzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2g9d29UIzk
aaron695 3y ago
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_of_gameboy_and_gba_games_with/ 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 3y ago
  Maybe something like the power led sidechannel [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36331446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36331446
Atreiden 3y ago
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 3y ago
  >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 3y ago
    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.
    - saghm 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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.
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 3y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A
- stevekemp 3y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOMN98DzQA
jonathrg 3y ago
Seems like the level 5/level 6 charmander split could be avoided by just losing on purpose by using growl.
- rcme 3y ago
  A level 5 charmander increases the chance of being unable to escape pidgey and losing.
csours 3y ago
Wow. It's kind of like a speedrun, but super slow.
- sdwvit 3y ago
  Essentially a TAS, but have to account for randomness in demo playback.
  - csours 3y ago
    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?
epiccoleman 3y ago
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.
sdwvit 3y ago
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.
bonyt 3y ago
Apparently someone got this going on real hardware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMseY5_YeRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMseY5_YeRs

157 points by xena 3y ago

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 3y ago
It feels like every sentence spoken in the video is the result of thorough experimentation or other knowledge.

rootsudo 3y ago

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 3y ago
Higurashi / Umineko - those two are just awesome. That's all I wanted to say here. :)

insanitybit 3y ago

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 3y ago
If anyone can suggest an accurate and neutral title that expresses that in 80 chars or less, we can change the title above.
- gooseus 3y ago
  "Pokemon FireRed completed without visuals or audio." That's the first sentence of the video description, seems more accurate and neutral.
  - dang 3y ago
    Ok let's use that. Thanks!
- insanitybit 3y ago
  I'd probably just call it "Solving Pokemon FireRed" but idk

rightbyte 3y ago

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 3y ago
He’s successful except in 1% of cases charmander can’t run from the first battle(s) with pidgey.
- noah_buddy 3y ago
  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.

rcme 3y ago

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 Pokémon 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 3y ago
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)

staringback 3y ago

Reminds me of "Solving Pokemon Blue With a Single, Huge Regular Expression (2018)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2g9d29UIzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2g9d29UIzk

aaron695 3y ago

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_of_gameboy_and_gba_games_with/ 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 3y ago
Maybe something like the power led sidechannel [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36331446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36331446

Atreiden 3y ago

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 3y ago
>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 3y ago
  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.
  - saghm 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 3y ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A

stevekemp 3y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOMN98DzQA

jonathrg 3y ago

Seems like the level 5/level 6 charmander split could be avoided by just losing on purpose by using growl.

rcme 3y ago
A level 5 charmander increases the chance of being unable to escape pidgey and losing.

csours 3y ago

Wow. It's kind of like a speedrun, but super slow.

sdwvit 3y ago
Essentially a TAS, but have to account for randomness in demo playback.
- csours 3y ago
  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?

epiccoleman 3y ago

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.

sdwvit 3y ago

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.

bonyt 3y ago

Apparently someone got this going on real hardware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMseY5_YeRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMseY5_YeRs