[chipsy]

Botting the whole game for perfection involves a huge number of permutations since it's a dynamic system. But fastest time is arguably a less complex problem than maximum score since fewer of the RNG events "matter" to time attacks. In a game like Donkey Kong, maximizing one score-relevant event may take away from another.

My favorite RNG manipulation is the King's Bounty TAS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm9cKEWbTiU

If you don't get it, here is the summary: To win King's Bounty your hero must find and dig up the randomly-located Sceptre of Order. This normally means questing around for map pieces, combat, recruitment, etc. But with some RNG manipulation it can be placed right outside your starting point.

The run posted actually improved upon the previous one with a new bot that does a more exhaustive search.

[panic]

Here are the authors' comments on the video which go into more detail: http://tasvideos.org/2025S.html