Good evening, all! (Or, you know, anyone who's still here reading this....)
We have a question about run timing, which we probably should have gotten an official ruling on before we just picked a standard and timed and submitted our runs with that, but never hurts to have it clarified, I suppose.
We've been timing our runs with the understanding that the run officially begins when the player is given control in the first actual house stage. That is, when the player begins a new game, there are a few rounds of pressing start to go through some opening cutscenes...
Title Screen (press start) (fade out) (fade in) Title card (The screen that says "A DOG'S LIFE") (press start) (fade out) (fade in) Cutscene (The screen that starts with the dog sleeping in the front yard outside the house) (press start) (fade out) (fade in) <-- TIMER STARTS HERE First stage begins
If one is analyzing footage frame by frame, an easy way to determine the moment control is given is to be holding forward and run as the yard cutscene is fading out, before the house screen fades in. As the house screen is fading in, there should be a couple frames of the dog sitting still (ignoring the input) and then suddenly starting to run as control is registered, before the screen has faded in fully. For retiming purposes, we act as though the run officially begins the frame the dog starts moving.
We also act as though the run officially stops when the dog enters the final exit chute at the end of the final level. This one's a lot easier to explain for retiming purposes: We act as though the run officially ends the frame the dog disappears off the screen.
These seem fairly in line with standard speedrunning conventions, but if anyone else is around to see this, I just wanted to compare notes on that and see if the Family Dog community (such as it is) has some kind of established official standard.
