On Playaround TASes

Patashu wrote:

"1)

    Sure, TASes like Brain Age are not particularly deep, because they basically repeat the same glitch over and over . But TASes that aren't deep but are flashy can be an onramp for TASing interest. Look at how popular the earlier TASBot blocks have been, even though they featured a lot of ACE/playaround TASes, where you do one glitch and then do whatever you want after that. Personally, the International Superstar Soccer Deluxe TAS, despite not solving some convoluted optimization problem related to score or speed, has been one that I've watched and laughed super hard at several times since I found it, have shown it to other people for similar reactions, and has an incredibly high view count on nicovideo (in the millions IIRC - on youtube it's not bad either, 232k). Once you're more familiar with TASing and your tastes have matured, you might not appreciate it as much as something finely optimized and incredibly detailed, like say Dawn of Sorrow "all souls" or YI 100% (the two highest rated TASes on the site ATM), but these TASes still serve an important and useful purpose, despite being 'non-competitive'. Not every TAS has to be all things to all people, and indeed it can't be."


I used to think myself that these TASes weren't all that deep but I later came to an understanding that they are far more deep than they appear on the surface. From my personal experience, having your TAS remain entertaining when there are no opportunities for speed like waiting periods and autoscrollers is in fact quite difficult.

I think this idea that as we become more familiar with TASing that playarounds and the like are somehow less appealing and less deep is entirely backwards. In fact, what I believe actually happens is that we grow more accustomed to speedruns, we close our minds off to the appeal and the depth of playarounds.

I believe that there is a great amount of strategy and efficiency to be had in playaround TASes as well. Let's take Brain Age for example. On the surface, it appears to just be abusing the same glitch over and over to get the game to accept nonstandard answers. But is that really all it's doing? No. If that was the case, the TAS would just input squiggles and it would be the same effect. Instead it uses the opportunity to draw high quality art of Nintendo characters and the like. There can be no room for sloppiness: the lines must be drawn well, and the art must be drawn in an efficient manner. If either one of these things were not true, than the movie would be able to be obsoleted by another that does either of those things better. As it is, the movie would only be obsoleted by another that does something more incredible and entertaining.

Is there no "depth" to making jokes? To telling stories? To making art? Of course there is. However with TASes, some express that there is no depth to any of the above and I find that absurd.

I realize that this is entirely off-topic, but this is a common sentiment I've seen and one I would like to address.
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