I would agree with both points.

Puzzle customization and other menu options are initialized with file select and do have impact on time. In addition, going into the menu to toggle stuff is a valid practice during the run- I turn voice on for the stage to hear part names instead of reading, and turn voice off to save time after the race. Given that I see no reason to exclude the first meaning from the time.

I would say that either starting the clock with file select or when the screen switches to the parking lot would be best practice. Either one provides a frame specific easy visual cue to verify against.

As for the ending, I would count the ending voice line in the time too for consistency's sake- the congratulations pop up or ending cutscene starting is a consistent specific visual cue to stop against. Avoiding the voice toggling during the run is a potential skill that could save a little time, so it only seems fair to factor that voice line into the time as well.

The primary difference according to the rules given is that 100% requires you to collect all the clues on each floor; even if you finish collecting gems, you are still required to find all three orange starfish.

Still seems like a pointless category split given that you're the only person who's bothered to run the full game in any capacity. The main case I can see for splitting them is if spamming lights without getting clues is faster than actually getting 2 or 3 clues and playing properly. I don't know if it's actually faster or not (could easily be with how long the bubble station animation takes), but there's that.

Hey all, I know this game barely has any activity, but I started looking into running it and had questions on both start and end timing. Not sure if DOS version is different, I'm on 1.12 windows version.

Time starts when a building is selected to start the first stage. Time ends when the trophy has finished being raised after winning the final race.

If time doesn't start until first building is selected, does that mean that the menu can be accessed freely before that outside of timer? This would allow for turning off sounds, voices, and new player hints before the timer actually starts.

Second, with voices on, the trophy raises at the end and either the Super Solver or Maxwell says a voice line before the "Congratulations" popup occurs. Is it actually when the trophy stops moving, or would timing stop after the voice line finishes playing and the text box appears? I'm aware that voice can be turned off to avoid this, but voice is actually useful in the stage proper.

I would have no issue with allowing a music patch, personally. I would say it should be marked in some way, either with a subcategory tag or just called out in the submission comments, but I see no other issues with it.

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.