Reviving 2 year old thread because why not.

A few more proposed ideas for categories that have been tossed around mostly by tundra, songbirder, and me.

101% deathless- all items, lord rank, no deaths (tundra insists that this sounds like fun)

2boots- some variant of either only allowing 2 wing boots for the whole run, or only using them specifically when they are necessary.

all bosses- kill every boss in the game at least once; this would most likely be defined as every room that plays the boss music. I believe this would be: -mattock wyvern -elixir rock vaulter -pendant wyvern -black onyx bone dog -battle suit bone dog -battle helm bone dog -king grieve -evil one

The current difference in Any% from TAS and WR is about 3:16, so not even close yet. Technically speaking, the TAS actually is in the Dagger% category too. Current TAS is 23:04.69

The main difference in the WR and the TAS is the wing boots extensions- the hardest trick used in speedruns right now is Ultimate Flight Plan, which extends one pair of wing boots to about 30 screens by wing boots pausing. The TAS takes this a step further and extends a wing boots and ointment to about double that length, as well as doing the same with ointment in the branch section. Lastly, the TAS doesn't death warp after the Demon Ring, but keeps an ointment and boots all the way to the end.

Theoretically if someone was an absolute god at doing boots extensions, this game could go much lower than it is now, likely sub 25. The skill ceiling for doing wing boots pausing is extremely high, requiring both near perfection in parts and actual perfection in others (King Grieve room sets ointment counter to 0, so holding that to the end of the game requires actual perfection). Realistically I don't see Any% going too far below 25 by human hands unless this game ends up getting the speedrun popularity of something like Mario.

Only other popular category is Deathless, which is far from optimized and could be taken relatively easily by someone skilled. The routing for it isn't even settled, so Deathless could probably be taken down to sub 32 or even 31 with a bit of work and some fresh ideas.

As far as currently active runners, I'm only aware of three or four- tundra, songbirder, NLeseul, and myself. I expect that if WR changes hands then shiner will likely return. Currently, the more active scene seems to be in the randomizer for this game, though it wouldn't surprise me if a few of the other top 10 runners show back up should more high level runs start popping up.