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Topic: Ugo's discussion of 'Unofficial worlds', (moved from the TL Guide)< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 21 2007, 12:28

This was originally posted by Ugo in the Tr3s Lunas Guide, and has been moved to here.

UGO's POST: 'Why do unofficial wordls exist?'

Posted: Oct. 21 2007, 15:19  

After half-an-hour-or-so of extensive browsing through the Guide, reading in depth all the explanations relating to the 'unofficial worlds' and especially having a very careful re-reading of Trinidad's "Pegasus World" and "Crazy Pause Effect", I've come up with a theory of why do unofficial worlds exist in the Tr3s Lunas game. I'll post it in here just as a bit of fun - admins are free to move this somewhere else, or even remove it completely.

My theory is that unofficial worlds exist because the Tr3s Lunas game is not flawlessly programmed - we all know this!!  - and bugs in the game allow a particular 'world' to exist even when the player is not actually in it.
I'll try to express myself more clearly. Every single one of the 'special sequences' within the game (Space Arrow, Seagull, Snowy Owl [or Snow Cavern, as I like to call it... ], Horses, Swords Game and Ants) does not take place within the 'regular' world of Tr3s Lunas, but it takes place in its own special world, where strange things may happen [just to give an example, during the Seagull's flight to Turtle Island, the sky changes from day to afternoon to night - and back! - within less than a minute!!]. If the player manages to start any of the sequences but also to actually avoid following it through, by not being attached to the sequence's main objects or creatures - and there are various methods of 'escaping' a sequence, all described in the Guide  - the game's world transforms into that sequence's own special world, but the game's program, presumably because of bugs, also "believes" that whoever triggered the sequence is actually within the sequence itself, even when he/she is not!!  This is, I think, what creates the 'unofficial worlds', which of course are without barriers because the player is supposed to stay within the (limited) world of that sequence, not to roam free through the whole of Tres Lunas!!

@ Alan: am I right?
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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 21 2007, 12:39

Ugo, I've moved this out of the Guide, partly because it's a general discussion about Tr3s Lunas, and not part of the guide to the game; and also because I try to keep the number of topics covered by the Guide itself to 20. That way the index all fits on one page, which is much clearer for people to use.

To the question at hand. There's no doubt that these 'unofficial' worlds exist because of bugs in the game. And I expect you're right - that they arise when we interfere with the normal progress of the game. But what seems to happen in most cases is that the sequence is suspended. Take firebeings world for instance. When you shoot the ringhead from a long distance, the music begins, the ringheads disappear, night falls, ready for the flight - but no firebeings appear. The sequence is suspended, and the player is free to roam around a world that, in the normal game, he'd only be able to be carried through. The proof is that if you go too near where the ringheads once were, the firebeing sequence is triggered, they appear and carry you off - and you're back in the normal game.

The wonderful thing is that the game is so constructed that the unofficial worlds are coherent, even though we've interfered with the normal running of the program. The sad thing is that Maestro seems to have been far more tightly programmed. There are hardly any loose ends that we can exploit. Some, but very few, and not so spectacular.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 15:44

After playing the game (and playing with the game! :D) a little bit more, I think I can correct one point in my original post, above, and confirm another. The correction I'd like to make is in the fact that the sequences, when you manage to 'escape' them, are not suspended or paused, IMHO - they just never start. :) Their start is cancelled by the player not actually being in the sequence's own area (each sequence, as I said, is limited to a particular area). The game program, somehow, 'senses' that the player is not within the sequence, and it doesn't start it. Yet - and this is what I'm confirming - the program 'sets the stage' for each sequence even if the start is cancelled. The Tr3s Lunas game, the whole of it, looks very like a stage to me - especially the main land, with its flat props. :D When a sequence's start is triggered (like when you're pressing the start button on something), the whole of Tr3s Lunas - not just the sequence's area - is changed into the specific 'stage' of that sequence, with its specific sky, its specific landscape setting, etc. That's why, I think, the unofficial worlds are coherent enough to be visited, and that's why the snowy owl's cavern has that strange worm-like shape: because it's always like that ;). But the only way that someone may realise that it's actually shaped like that is viewing it from outside (just like the very weird volcano shaft in Volcano World). And, of course, being outside the tunnel or the volcano shaft is only possible in unofficial worlds. ;)

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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 16:02

Quote (Ugo @ Oct. 22 2007, 20:44)
the program 'sets the stage' for each sequence even if the start is cancelled.

Yes, I see what you mean. That's a better description of what's happening. So what you're suggesting is that there are two stages:
1. Create the world
2. Carry the player through the sequence.

What we do is to set up the condition for no. 1 but obstruct no.2. Makes sense.

Space Arrow World is an odd one though. There, you do get carried out into space (so the sequence actually begins in a way) EXCEPT that the arrow doesn't come with you. When you get into space you see the whole world apparently being constructed - but the space arrow itself never took off. Indeed, it's lying below on the ground, ready to grab you if you go too close.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 18:26

Well... regarding the Space Arrow scene, I think it should more properly be called the Space/Planets scene, as the arrow is merely the object that carries you there: it's not the 'protagonist', i.e. the main object or creature featured in the sequence - the planets, the spaceship and the players themselves are the 'real' protagonists of the scene, when it's played in the normal way. [Pegasus is another secondary character here, IMHO - it's just what carries you back to Earth.] Then, if the player is quick enough not to let the arrow be launched from the third ringhead, the stage for the Space sequence is set (as above), but the arrow doesn't start off, and Space Arrow World can be visited. :)

P.S. I still haven't managed to get into this world. :)


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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 18:36

Quote (Alan D @ Oct. 22 2007, 22:02)
So what you're suggesting is that there are two stages:
1. Create the world
2. Carry the player through the sequence.

What we do is to set up the condition for no. 1 but obstruct no.2. Makes sense.

Actually, yes. ;) To be more precise, our interference in the game places itself just a few seconds before phase 1 occurs. I mean, what we do is essentially tricking the game software into creating a world (a stage), but without playing the scene which should take place in that world/stage. So phase 2 never actually happens, when an unofficial world is created. ;)


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olracUK Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 18:50

Most of these exploits are down to the fact that we have a game written by an amateur, using non industry standard software.

Mike spent a lot of money and time, but no-where near as musch as the major game studios. So he couldn't de-bug or check everything. On the other hand, why would we find so many strange things in Meastro unless they were meant to be found?

Back to Ugo's theory. I'm guessing that the way the game was coded, the "sequences" were specially written, using some elements of the main areas/game and we are getting outside of that set sequence so the game parameters are confused.


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Trinidad Offline




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Posted: Oct. 22 2007, 23:24

I would distinguish two reasons for the "unnoficial worlds" "existance": flaws in the programming, and flaws in the design:

Being able to be on worlds like, for example, Space Arrow World, Ants World, Firebeings World, etc, seems to be caused by flaws in the design of the game. As Ugo has pointed, the game is programmed in a (relatively) simple way: "the player (or a projectile) enters a definite area in space" --> "something happens" (colours change, objects appear/disappear/move, animations start, the player get tied to something, etc). The problem is that, while designing the different situations, some assumptions were made, but they're not always true.

An example is the trip with the firebeings. You enter, or shoot something, through one of the ringheads, thus "entering" a definite zone. Then something happens: sky colours change, fog changes, ..., and the firebeings appear, but that's all. Mike (or whoever) thought that, if that happened, you would be very close to the firebeings, so he designed the trip to start when you're in a small zone around them. As it doesn't necessarily happen, you end in Firebeings World. But in this case the program just does what it's been asked to do, so that's not its fault.


And the other kind of "anomaly" is related to flaws in the program itself. In this category I would put things like Pegasus World, the Crazy Pause Effect, and probably Volcano World and the "Sprite Master World" * (though I'm not so sure about this one). In those cases, the game is perfectly designed to do something, but if you are able to create some special conditions on which the game finds problems to work properly, then the normal rules are broken, and there're changes in whatever was supposed to happen. I would say that most (if not all) of those strange situations are related to the game's "internal clock", and also to how it deals with the things that happen between two concrete moments in time (to say it some way, while the game is "blinking", and it doesn't actually know what's happened).


And also, there could be a combination of both situations. I would say that some of the slight differences we can experience when visiting the unofficial worlds at different times could be an effect of those little flaws in the programming. But that's too much guessing.


* The "Sprite Master" is that strange thing that's above the mountain near the Thin Men. Sometimes, if you run close, but without touching it, you end in a world without barriers. Did we talk about it in the guide?
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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 23 2007, 03:41

Quote (Ugo @ Oct. 22 2007, 23:26)
Well... regarding the Space Arrow scene, I think it should more properly be called the Space/Planets scene, as the arrow is merely the object that carries you there

Just wait till you've been there a few times, Ugo. There is no doubt at all that the Arrow is the boss in that world. 'He' is very difficult to elude in the first place; we're tolerated there only under sufference when we DO get there; and even then, only until 'he' wakes. Because 'he' lies in the desert, waiting to pounce.

No, it's 'Space Arrow World', alright ......

Actually, now I come to thing about it, so are the others. Firebeings World really does belong to the firebeings (though they're much gentler creatures). Ants World belongs to the ants. Snowy's belongs to Snowy (very much so). Each of those worlds 'belong' to the creatures/things we're tricking. So, I think the names fit the places quite well - very much as we experience them, imaginatively.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Feb. 22 2011, 19:04

Quote (olracUK @ Oct. 23 2007, 00:50)
I'm guessing that the way the game was coded, the "sequences" were specially written, using some elements of the main areas/game and we are getting outside of that set sequence so the game parameters are confused.

Yes. Exploiting again my theatrical metaphor above, each sequence is written as a stage set in a theatre play - a stage set which is supposed to be very limited in space and location, but which actually extends to the whole game. When we start a sequence and then manage to avoid the object or creature which is the protagonist of that sequence, the game's program creates the stage in which the sequence is set, i.e. it switches the whole game to the particular conditions (colours, sounds, animations, textures etc.) in which the sequence is supposed to happen, but then the program itself is unaware that we are on that stage... we are actually in the sequence's own stage set, but we are free to move outside the limited area where the sequence's protagonists move, because we have escaped them!! :) It's like we were climbing on a fully decorated, very realistic theatre stage, or like we were roaming around in a beautiful film set, but no actors are actually there... either because they're gone or because they never came... which is the case of some of the unofficial worlds in Tr3s Lunas. [Just to give you an example, if you fire at the ringhead to get into the Ants Game and run away before the ants appear, you hear the ants' music but you see no ants - but in the meantime, while you've been through half of the tunnel, the "stage set" has already been created by the program, and you find yourself within Ants' World. :)]


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