Since I started speedrunning properly last year I've dabbed a toe in platforming with Flimbo's Quest, run and gun with Mercs, pure puzzle stuff with Lemmings, and sport stuff with Super Hang-On. I'm looking to get a capture card at some point so I can also run The Unholy War. These haven't really been optimised run at all before - there's something extra special about exploring and uncovering the secrets behind how a game works, how to optimise it, being the discoverer as well as the runner.

These games have a very well-defined strategic element, you can definitely imprint your style on to them in terms of what choices you make, and in which optional paths or methods you use to achieve your aims.

I looked through the list of all the games I used to play/own several times though, and nothing stands out as particularly well-made/interesting for speedrunning. As a crude example I had looked at something like Zool or Global Gladiators, but they seem quite inaccessible (the former for its controls and camera, the latter is just a horror show to run fast). It would be nice to end up running something Nintendo but frankly anything from C64 to PS1/N64 I'm open to as long as it's relatively unexplored and strategic, and not massively long - I could be comfortable with anything up to an hour maybe. The one proviso I want to impose on this is no excessive menuing. I was going to jump into Wonder Boy in Monster World but I honestly hate the idea of losing records based on menuing alone.

Can anyone make any recommendations of games they know and love which have some strategy and similar traits to the games I've played, and which haven't really been explored as far as being run?

Super Hang-On is very challenging!

I don't know whether it's just me but I really struggle with the poor boundary on SMD controllers between U, UL and UR, and that's using a mk-1650 with the ballbearing in it, and it's impacting my runs. I love the crispness and responsiveness of the face buttons though. Can anyone recommend a controller that doesn't have this d-pad problem?

My work optimising Tricky levels is now virtually complete! You can watch the playlist here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTsjhPmEfJeElqnBUB6wPCj2k98ds9H8

The current estimated fastest completion time for Tricky is 40:11 which is surprisingly quick! This may be subject to further downward revision. Realistically speaking, it would take a lot to remain within the envelope of both no restarts and no significant time loss across each level, so my target for my next WR attempt will be somewhere around 45 minutes, giving me safety margins in deadly levels and accounting for human error.

@fletchr what a lovely thing to offer! I grew up with the game on PAL being from the UK too, and saw Gregg Almond's NTSC 14:11.4 thinking I might never get near it because I always struggled with the bosses and it struck me if I was going to do the run justice, I should play at the slower setting while I work everything out and optimise. I'm a grinder like you, and I stopped at 16:31 because I ran the risk of losing runs simply from mis-menuing in the shops, and it would take large volume of plays to get good boat luck in 4. I intended to try NTSC in time, wanting to avoid the scenario where someone makes an inferior quality run in NTSC, submits it, and splits the leaderboard, but it's wonderful to have a competitor so soon. I don't know if I'll ever be skilled enough to equal that run in NTSC but I'd at the least be open to making an attempt, even if that means tracking them separately. Please do add me on Discord, and I can share all the info I have. :D

To anyone who plays run and gun/platform shooter style games: if your frame rate was fluctuating between 59-61 quite a lot during a run, as opposed to a solid stable 60fps, would it possibly give you any sort of advantage at any points? I'm thinking you would end up with a bunch of points in game where you'd have slightly longer to react to things/deal with stuff.

If anyone else wants to chime in as a mod/runner of their game on what tolerances they allow in frame rates for such console games I'd be most grateful.

I have found a way to utterly destroy Tricky 7. With the normal strat it took 3 minutes 47.

I don't want to wait around though, so I decided to cut 2 whole minutes off.

I did a commentary over the Fun WR and so if anyone is interested, here it is :)

Unsure how many interested readers I have but I've started optimising Tricky levels again, and I'm having a comfy time of it thanks to good RR management and lag management. Check out this insane optimisation of T5, which knocks 11 seconds off my previous effort and is almost frame perfect:

Luckily it seems that it works with the first lemming, it's more a case of timing it to trigger him ASAP then making sure to scroll over and use the diagonal area to set floaters.

I now optimised all 30 levels, I found a perfect reference point to use the long builder in L28 thanks to the brick design in hell, and I found a perfect bridge building point in the cage at L29 too. I'll upload the last few bits and pieces but the estimated perfect completion time so far comes to:

Thirty three minutes, twentyone point three seconds

33:21.3 Based on this, anything below 35:00 is going to take some serious beating. If other systems' respective runners look into their versions it will be highly interesting to see whether anyone can top that; I remember Usumgallu saying somewhere he had a run optimised to within the 30s somewhere.

This has to be one of the most insane optimisations I've found yet. You save time not only by removing lemmings from screen quicker, but also from not bombing them. That is, if I let 20 lemmings cross the screen and have 10 die at the web, that's still quicker than exploding 10 at the start... but what if I kill them another way?

This saves TWELVE AND A HALF SECONDS :D Total completion time is now in the high 34 minute mark, and with L28/29 to go it could yet go into the 33s.

I had a run last night just as practice that turned into a serious attempt on the WR. Going into Level 29 I was on course for a 38:59, total time, then I flubbed the final bridge to the exit :( I'm just finishing up my last optimisations including copious practice on that level to get a reliable method of bridging, then I should be able to work out the final projected time.

Each between-level transition (from the frame where OUT reaches 0, to the frame input is accepted on the level description screen) takes as an absolute minimum, 240 frames, or 4 seconds precisely. It works best if you hyper tap the 2 button to achieve this, since if you press early and hold the button, the input won't be accepted. So this time added to all optimal levels will be 1:56 at the least, or more like 1:58-2:00.

With current optimal strategies (bearing in mind I am yet to tackle a few of the worst levels), the fastest possible completion comes out at 35 minutes 6 seconds. So it DOES look like you can just about go sub 35. A more realistic target would be sub 36 minutes.

I have a lot to learn about managing around the AI bikes as is clear from my runs, but I'm curious have any of you found differences with them on other difficulty settings? I'm trying to find out whether there's something in my play style that puts me far more at the AI mercy than other top runners. I don't plan to try other difficulty settings for obvious reasons but if any of you notice quirks in my play please do let me know. It might also be because I base my play in corners off this TAS:

Hope everyone out there had a lovely Xmas and New Year! I took a break from the game to pick up something else. Now I'm going to finish optimising the last 9-10 levels of Fun and take a proper crack at a sub 40 minute run. Here's the latest:

Hey, hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! :D I've picked up the game and while doing some general research last night I found out about Rev 00 and 01. I did some stuff and the difference turns out to be about 15%. Pal/Ntsc is 20% so it does make a difference, especially for a game with reactions timing involved for errors/corners.

Then I looked at the leaderboard as is, and timed each run. What surprised me was that Defanged's run seems to be using Rev 00, whereas most others are using Rev 01. Three runners seem to have significantly faster frame rates than DFD(!); guessing that might be caused by individual machines.

Would it be a good idea to standardise which Rev is used going forward? I feel like it'd be better that way than splitting times into separate spaces, and since there are control differences.

Re the discussion of terrain slowdown, here's proof:

Basically yeah; it seems to be like that. A lot of levels in Fun have relatively loose save requirements though, so as you'll see in the above playthrough, I can often kill a few at the start which maximally reduces any potential lag even from on-screen bunches. Calculating travel time across a level also makes it possible in some cases to release late, such as Fun 19, which even reduces otherwise unavoidable lag frames.

Practice run of the first 15 levels totalled 12:39.33, saving 2:28 from the old run. No resets and no flubs.

That's an excellent question which I have no qualification to answer xD If you think of a totally level surface (like level 7), multiple lemmings on that surface cause headaches to draw in unless you scroll away. But a surface that's even slightly uneven seems to drastically change that outlook. I don't think it would be due to pixels on screen because overflow sprites are drawn into the background as I understand it. In any case the lag is pretty easy to manage so far. If you look at my latest video for Fun 3, you'll notice I amp the RR up to 90 and it is the fastest way to get lemmings home - that's partly because after Nuke I scroll the screen anyways, but there are a couple of other levels where you can allow many lemmings on screen at once and have the optimal solution.

Last night I busted Origins and Lemmings down to a 1:39, saving 30 seconds. And I found a one-digger solution for level 13 although using it in a run is a long way off. So maybe I can get the time closer to 35 than 40 minutes!

I don't quite understand either, but I have video and photo proof that appears to corroborate what I say, ie I took a screenshot with 18 lemmings on screen but no slowdown (ie $1ad4 was only cycling between 1-5 not 1-7). I can make a video comparison of two states if you'd like, I can understand it seems berzerk but I think the reason is to do with the way the lemmings are drawn in - excess lemmings means the game switches between animating half on one frame and half on another. Calindro is still looking into what drives the $1ad4 byte but given that going off screen mitigates the effect it seems a logical conclusion that it's to do with horizontal positioning.

I have now padded my playlist of improvements to Fun, to 11 levels, including some massive saves out of nowhere. The total improvement from these is 7524 frames, or 2:05.4. The implication is that a sub-40 minutes time may be eminently possible if I hook up perfectly, and therefore the idea of besting Garbi's SNES time is absolutely doable. Some of these strategies are hair trigger though in terms of cursor movement, but I tend to play aggressively anyways so it shouldn't take many full runs to achieve it and there's far less faffing about in general with Fun levels.