Apologies for the delay in approval! Congrats this was a very good run 👍

Hi!

I'm honoured that this is your first speedrunning experience, and I hope to assist in any way I can!

For the footage, there are 3 different methods (that I'm know of):

1. A Regular Recording This could be done using a phone camera of some sort, and a tripod - not the highest of quality but definitely the cheapest option. As long as we can see the game footage, it can still be a valid run!

2. Capture Cards I don't know too much about them myself but this tends to be the most common way of recording game footage on different devices or consoles. This is the most expensive option on the list, however that probably means it gives quite high quality gameplay - so it's up to you to decide! (Just make sure you do your research first to ensure that it's the right one for you)

3. Emulators This is the option I'm most familiar with and use for my own runs! This requires you to download a ds emulator onto a PC and also a LPS:Beach Friends ROM (if you decide on this option, I have links to emulator I use and the ROM if you would like me to send them to you!). It can sound a bit complicated at first but it's completely free to use, and is imo still decent quality!

If you decide on using a capture card or emulator, you can record the gameplay by using a recording programme. There are many free and popular ones such as OBS available on the internet, but any screen capture programme should be fine.

For a speedrun timer, LiveSplit is quite popular if you decided on a capture card or emulate the game (http://livesplit.org/downloads/), once downloaded on your PC you can set up hotkeys to start and stop the timer - there are many guides on how to setup LiveSplit but all you technically need is a simple timer ("time splits" aren't necessary, you can include as many or as little time splits as you want) There are also videos out there that will explain how to add the timer to your recording programme!

If you decide to record the gameplay with a hand-held camera, I'm not sure how difficult it may be to add a timer, or to edit one in (i have no idea tbh)?? Hypothetically, I would prefer to have a timer included in any completed runs however, if that isn't possible I or another moderator won't mind examining your run afterwards to determine your time.

Finally, once you've completed and recorded your run, you will need to upload it to Youtube or another platform and in order for you to submit the run!

I hope this helps in some way, and if you have any more questions don't be afraid to make another post or message me/the moderators! (Btw, don't worry you're not stupid! Everyone starts out somewhere - I'm also fairly new to speedrunning so ik how exactly you feel!)