TASBot

TASBot is a tool-assisted speedrun robot created in 2014, developed by a team led by dwangoAC. The robot takes a list of controller inputs which it then sends to a console such as a Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) directly via signals to the controller ports.

TASBot is known for its appearances at popular speedrunning events such as Games Done Quick.

History

The idea for TASBot began around 2009 when a user of the tool-assisted speedrun website TASVideos created a device which could send a predetermined list of inputs to a Nintendo Entertainment System directly via its controller ports. Over the next few years a number of different people developed similar devices and techniques to automatically play video game console games directly through their hardware. Allan Cecil, known by his username dwangoAC, first developed TASBot by building on the concepts and guides for these earlier devices along with assistance from their creators.[1] The robot is now developed and maintained by a team.[2]

The first version of TASBot – which was initially named ROBBerry Pi for the R.O.B. model exterior and Raspberry Pi internals – debuted at Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) in 2014, playing Gradius, Mario Kart 64, and Super Mario World.[1]

TASBot contains a "replay board", which takes a predetermined list of inputs from a Linux machine and uses them to send signals directly to a console's controller ports. The list of inputs is written and recorded manually, tested on an emulator. Controller inputs need to be timed extremely accurately; some live runs failed as a result of slight electromagnetic interference from crossed wires.[2]

Speedruns

At its debut during AGDQ in 2014, TASBot played Super Mario World. By leveraging an arbitrary code execution glitch, the run allowed players to play Pong and Snake inside the game.[3] At AGDQ 2015, TASBot used the same exploit to code a copy of Super Mario Bros. into Super Mario World, writing the game to the SNES and then playing it. It also played Pokémon Red, during which the event's Twitch chat was fed into the game in realtime.[2][4] During the AGDQ event in 2016, it wrote a Super Mario Maker level editor onto an SNES in realtime while it was running a game, an improvement over stopping and then replacing the game as in previous events.[5] At the summer SGDQ event of the same year, TASBot "completed" Super Mario Bros. 3 in less than one second by performing almost 8,000 inputs per second.[6]

At AGDQ 2017, after demonstrating similar runs from previous years, TASBot appeared to play Super Mario 64 and Portal, and make a Skype call on a SNES. This was achieved by streaming video and audio to the console after taking control of it via The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The bandwidth was sufficient to display a 128×112 video at 10 frames per second.[7] At SGDQ 2018, TASBot ran Celeste.[8]

At AGDQ 2019, the TASBot team showcased MASHBot, a new robot which physically presses controller buttons, rather than directly sending signals via the controller port. Initially designed to work with a Game Boy Advance SP, the robot debuted by playing Nintendo DS game Super Scribblenauts via the touchscreen.[9] In 2020 the team set up TASBot to play on a Nintendo Switch. In this case, however, the source code will not be made available, to avoid legal issues with Nintendo.[10]

References
  1. Cecil, Allan (14 November 2018). "Meet TASBot, a Linux-Powered Robot Playing Video Games for Charity". Linux Journal. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  2. Orland, Kyle (5 January 2015). "Pokémon plays Twitch: How a robot got IRC running on an unmodified SNES". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  3. Farokhmanesh, Megan (14 January 2014). "Bizarre Super Mario World hack turns the game into Pong, Snake". Polygon. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  4. Kollar, Philip (5 January 2015). "Watch a robot tear apart and rebuild Super Mario World and Pokémon". Polygon. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  5. Orland, Kyle (11 January 2016). "How a game-playing robot coded 'Super Mario Maker' onto an SNES—live on stage". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  6. Orland, Kyle (12 July 2016). "How to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 in less than a second". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  7. Orland, Kyle (15 January 2017). "How a robot got Super Mario 64 and Portal 'running' on an SNES". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  8. Rad, Chloi (10 July 2018). "SGDQ's Most Mindblowing Speedrun Wasn't Humanly Possible". IGN. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  9. Orland, Kyle (15 January 2019). "Meet MASHBot, the touchscreen-tapping, Nintendo DS-playing robot". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  10. Orland, Kyle (11 January 2020). "Inside TASBot's semi-secret, probably legal effort to control the Nintendo Switch". Ars Technica. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
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