I wanted to create a thread dedicated to brainstorming possible run categories, along with throwing out some ideas of my own.

The first few ideas I had revolved around a kind of completionist mentality. Ooblet% - Having at least one type of every ooblet in the game TrueOoblet% - Collecting all ooblet varieties of all ooblets in-game Collectable% - Finding all collectibles in the almanac Figure% - Complete all figure collections in town hall 100% - Complete game with at least one of every ooblet Max% - Complete game with having completed almanac, collecting one of every ooblet including all varieties, and completing all figure collections in town hall

I also had a few other random ideas such as runs for getting oobnet towers on, or getting all the high scores in Port Forward (which I feel like could be broken down into further runs based on whether bought or gotten through actual play of games).

I'm not sure how much interest might be in any of these run ideas or if they might be any good but they were just some things I thought of as possible ideas.

Regarding Ooblet% I think All Figures would be a nice way to consolidate everything to a single category, and was the first alt category to come to my mind. My idea was to divide it into Normal, Unusual, and Gleamy subcategories although I’m not sure they would all be ran.

A certain Ooblet is still considered to be spoilers in the official discord, but it is only available post-game, meaning any category that involves obtaining every Ooblet would also involve beating the game, so that probably narrows our scope in those types of categories. Just my opinion there.

My brain is leaning towards: any% (with a glitchless category added if any skips are found), All Figures (again, divided into Normal, Unusual and Gleamy), and 100%/Completed Almanac, however we would prefer to make that category.

I was thinking a category for All Badges and Tasks would be a decent idea as well

You make an excellent point on Ooblet% when it comes to consolidation and have some great category suggestions.

I get what you are saying about a certain ooblet being a spoiler, though I don't know if I agree with you on narrowing the scope on those categories. The way I look at it is that speedrunning a game is very often something that is inherently tied to spoilers. Such as watching other people's runs to get an idea for routing can lead to seeing the ending of the game. Therefore I don't think that should limit a run category but that's just the way I see things.

Oh I didn’t mean that the run wouldn’t include spoilers, just that I didn’t want to drop end game spoilers in a forum thread when the game is only a few days old lol.

That said, I tried doing a rough All Figures run last night and it is a LONG run. I was looking at 5.5 hours and less than halfway through. A lot of ooblets require recipes that have to be crafted or won in the dance farm, both of which take a very long time. I’m down to add it to the board, but I won’t be taking another stab at it anytime soon.

Yes, good point: this is a tricky thing about making alt categories: so many of them are intertwined with completing the main story (e.g. all ooblets means finding a lot of recipes, competing the game, having a lot of different crops, visiting all the places, etc)

I wonder if there are also some shorter categories that people might enjoy, but I'm not sure what they may be. Some ideas:

1. Getting the badge for scanning 25 ooblets at the lernery might have some different route options. This is the highest level of this badge according to the wiki. A nice benefit to this badge is when they add more ooblets to the game someday, this will always be similar while 100% ooblets will change. The wiki doesn't say if this is for scanning 25 different ooblets or if it is for scanning 25 different variations of ooblets, so i'm not sure which it is
2. Big House
3. Some sort of silly category like have a squad where every ooblet has a hat. This isn't something I was going for in my first playthrough so I haven't really thought about different ways to go about this or how long it would take.

That badge should include variations, I know it does when scanning 10. I like your idea of the badge though, maybe we could do individual badge or task runs on the IL board. Most of them probably won’t be very interesting, but some could be fun.

I started putting together information for the Scan 25 Ooblets Badge just to get a feel for what it would take. I would think it's reasonable to accomplish by playing the game through Mamoonia. At that point, you can have reasonable access to ~18 Ooblets, and it's then a matter of how you want to fill out the remaining 7 scans that you need. You can certain get a good number of variations for some/all of the scans, but also once you make a swooshler, there are 3 more ooblets that you could get

Sidenote: it sure would be exciting to get a shiny ooblet during a run since you would know that it means one less ooblet that you need to scan

I tried doing an “all figures” run and it was a slog. Hopefully this is shorter and more approachable. I can add this if anyone is interested in doing it. Personally, I’d love to see either All Badges, All Tasks, or a category that does both.

Makes sense. At first , an "all figures" run just sounded to me like a "beat the game run" but only later did I realize that it is a beat the game run where you also can't skip over a lot of the stuff you would otherwise since you need all those Ooblets.

All tasks seems like another "beat the game" run that also now includes needing to get the wildlands up to level 10, something that I was still 3 levels away from in my casual playthrough. Also you may want to hold off on this run because according to the wiki, the badge for being best friends with someone isn't obtainable yet.

So much in this game is linked together that I can see why you might end up making an all badge and task category. That's too long of a run for me, but if you're looking to add something that feels like a "100%" category there are only a few options

There is SO much more to All Figures that makes it a serious grind. A lot of recipes you need can only be assembled, and you can only get pieces so quickly. Plus a lot of ingredients are hard to get, etc. completing All Tasks sounds interesting to me because it requires a lot more routing and item gathering with as is hopefully not held back by recipes and spawn rates.

But for the most part, I’m just looking at any% and am planning on leaving other categories up to whoever wants to run them.

I recorded a scan 25 run and this category is not for me. I stopped having gotten the badge for scanning 10 ooblets given the amount of time it was taking. This took me two hours. I could have cut it down a ton had I not acted like I was trying to go for 25 (e.g I just spent my day watering all my crops and had 2 more ooblets in the ground).

I might give it a go, but not til later. Currently writing up a guide for any% and want to experiment with any potential skips (not getting my hopes up there though)

This game is so buggy on first release I do wonder if there is some weird skip that exists that just hasn't been discovered yet. For example, I had an instance where I walked into a room and then the cop walked in so i spoke to him. My character went to walk to the best place to speak to him which happened to be in the loading area to leave the room, so it made my leave as it was going to talk to him and for a split second a dialogue box came up as i left. There was no effect (positive or negative) on gameplay, but I know the people in the switch pokemon remakes did some wacky stuff with menus being left open.

They're patching bugs as quickly as they can but just waiting for the switch certifications so who knows how regulated they can get the bugs.

Someone did have a bug where it turned every icon in their inventory to the pirate hat: it's a shame there's not one that turns every item into a different item. Also, part of me wonders how they have the entrance coded the final area. I assume it doesn't exist until the task creates the hidden entrance. Regardless, I'm just dreaming with little basis in reality. And besides: I'm not aware of any way to get out of bounds.

If you're looking for glitches, I wonder if rollerskates is a good way to find them. When I tried out rollerskates I kept ending up in weird places like on top of a stack of books on Pantsabear hill. I'm not sure if it's because the skates speed messes with hit detection or if they just are so wonky that I end up accidentally trying to go places that I wouldn't normally try to go.

There is a review online that--before the 1.0 patch--does note

" Ooblets, after all, remains very much in-development. I even accidentally broke out of bounds on Mamoonia once—but was luckily able to figure out a way back in by triggering a conversation with an NPC who was standing just close enough to a fence to force my character to run their way back within the fencing."

Being out of bounds in Mamoonia doesn't really help but figured I'd mention it.

Another place that may not help: On ooblets discord someone mentioned getting out of bounds in badgetown, but now how to repeat it. "Found a bug on Switch — I just did a Wildlands quest (fetching a lost oob) and the door didn’t shut after completion, it let me run straight into the gate and out of bounds. Luckily I could just run right back through the gate (it had closed but it opened back up for me when I walked near, as if triggering the cutscene of me leaving) but I thought it was definitely one to mention. I got a clip of it too if needed."

Mamoonia out if bounds doesn’t help at all, as we NEED to do a full lap to collect all the sprokuts anyways. I have one lead on a skip for port forward but I don’t expect it to lead anywhere. Will save a lot of time farming though. Out of bounds in Nullwhere would save a lot of time if we can get back in bounds in the graveyard. The grand daddy skip would be to get to the lever in Tippy Top without the NPC interactions, or to enter the secret cave in wild lands early. Those areas will have my full attention. Skipping NPC battles would also be cool.

I'm really interested in giving the Figure% run as well as Any% and have been studying Ty's run a bit while also studying the Ooblets and their individual requirements specifically. (I love making spreadsheets.) I know it'll be a bit of a slog, but haha I still want to try it? It sounds fun to me.

I was less than halfway through All Figures by 5.5 hours. But I was winging it. With some solid organization who knows what it will look like. Really looking forward to seeing any work you put into it. I’ll have an any% guide up in another day or two. I also will set up a discord in a bit for better communication now that there are a few people here.

make even bigger house a category :p