I didn't have much internet for a week.... so I played a lot of cat planet! First, a few discoveries:

There's a glitch where if you restart while on top of a button, the button says pressed. Proof-of-concept-run: https://vimeo.com/353057313

I managed to get under the pole in the fire bar room! Here's the video of the first time I ever did it: https://vimeo.com/353055573

I've gotten it a few more times, but it's really fiddly. The hard part is getting the perfect approach to get under in the first place. I don't think the mashing is too precise if the approach is just right. It's possible one could find a way to make this consistent... but for now this seems just as hard to do to me as the overworld glitches or the glitch used in the any% run.

Speaking of glitches, I got a glitch in the overworld and managed to fall through to the jungle! I lost the video of it though, and the run failed to get the glitch to finish the any% run. It's serious timesave though - a 30s any% is probably possible...

Last and certainly not least... I got the any% no OOB run of my dreams:

Just finished watching the new WR. Actual insanity. I didn't even think that factory strat was possible and it's pretty clear to me that the strat in the 2nd last room saves a lot more time than I expected. There are only 4 or 5 places in the entire run where I can even spot mistakes, and they probably lose less than .1 each. Without the new strat (which is fucking ridiculous by the way, no idea how you got that but now we know it's possible lol) I think 2:32.5 might actually be maxed. I'll have to get back on the grind but I think this time you may have actually killed the category for good, lol

Oh, and I forgot to ask something extremely important: Do you think sub 2:30 is possible??? I'm not sure how much going under the pole thing saves but with that + even better execution, I think it may be on the horizon.

yes, I think going under the pole saves around 2 seconds! Which is why it may be feasible to beat my run using it: you don't need to do all the tricks I did if you go under the pole. But if you did, then you would be pretty close to 2:30, yeah. I bet that the human-sum-of-bests over all rooms is sub-2:30, but it would still be such an absurd grind to actually get it. So yeah I'd say "possible".

in any case, I doubt I have killed the category for good. But it might take a while to get beat :). I hope you find it not-to-hard to get consistent at the new stuff...

I agree, while there aren't any mistakes losing more than ~0.1 there are many that do. So one could make a small improvement by doing the same stuff, but that would be boring :P.

There are two places where I don't do an intentional fire death but I could. I think you usually do them. I'm not sure whether they even save time, and they are slightly risky for me, so I usually skip them. What do you think?

I'm almost certain they save time, as you accelerate to fullspeed pretty quick. I might time them just to be sure though.

OK, a more detailed analysis of the run:

Here's a list of stuff I implemented that I hadn't done before, that I think made a noticeable difference:

• fire bar cycle skip
• factory cycle skip with jumps to get over the next machine
• not pressing right at all in the second-to-last room

you noted all three of the above already. I also made a few minor changes to how I did the underground, which I think also made a difference:

• entrance, mashing the ceiling to fall down faster. If you get the right angle just keep holding right the bounces work perfectly
• drop down into third crow room (2:00-2:01) without pause. This one is pretty tricky
• bouncing off far left wall in fourth room, and not tapping left at all in the fifth room. I think you already do these

Here's a list of all the things which I think could reasonably be slightly improved:

• fall from forest to lava could be a bit tighter
• there are two intentional deaths in the lava that might be worth doing
• after getting past the fire bar a cycle ahead, it's slightly faster to not hit the center pole and instead slow down and jump sooner. This is a bit more dangerous though
• third machine room, could cut the cycle a fair bit closer. Actually I think there's close to a third of a second to be saved there!
• falling down from the factory to lava, either bounce off the left wall or cut the corner closer
• in the room with three crows, I think it might be faster to bounce off the left wall after passing through the second grate
• if you're really feeling risky, you could get through the last room faster than I did...

I didn't even notice the third machine room, damn. That's quite a bit of timeloss, definitely makes the whole run seem less intimidating to beat lol. Falling straight into the 3rd crow room is a really cool timesave which I never really bothered learning. I think it'll definitely be worth using it in runs now though (although I think the way you went about it lost a decent chunk of time from going quite a bit higher than you needed to before the drop). I also think hitting the roof at 2:13 may be a little slower than jumping straight in, at least with how you did it. I can see it being a bit faster if you hit the roof further to the left but the way you did it felt kinda slow to me.

I just took another look at your 2:35 to try to compare strats. Some of the places you lost time were just mistakes, not strats, but I'll include them too. Some notes:

• you are 0.3 seconds ahead of me entering the factory! We did pretty much all the same stuff, you just did it more tightly.
• I only gain 0.1s on you in the first factory room!
• your second machine room is slow - you don't ever get to full speed I think
• after the third machine room you're again 0.3s ahead
• you lose 0.75s on the big fall room after the switch in the factory! If not for this we would be virtually tied going through the gate to to the underworld.
• The ceiling mash entry saves 0.15s. I gain another 0.15 on the second crow room. Now I'm 1.05s ahead
• hard to tell for sure, but it looks like the quick fall in the third crow room saved half a second, and hitting the roof at 2:13 saved a third of a second!
• I'm 1.7s ahead going into the third to last crow room. You gained a bit over 0.1s by doing the 3-crow room faster.
• Not having good momentum at the start of the third crow room lost you 0.3s
• The fast strat in the second to last room saves half a second

conclusions: first machine room strat not required. A solid 1.5s of the timesave comes in just two rooms: the factory fall room and the third crow room - and I don't think you especially "messed up" either one. The other 1.2s comes from the 2nd-to-last room and from miscellaneous mistakes. Hopefully this was helpful - it makes my run seem a lot more beatable to me at least!

Thanks so much for breaking this down! Really nice to see where I lose time. How did you gain .15 in the second crow room though? 9 frames for such a seemingly basic room that I thought I was doing near perfectly... There's definitely a lot more to work on than I expected.

Hmmm not sure - you might want to check me on the second and third crow rooms... it's a little more tricky to measure stuff because we don't have the same momentum entering/leaving the third crow room

That definitely makes sense. I'll look into the specifics of how exactly I'm losing time in some of these rooms and hopefully get consistent at the faster methods.

Quick update: After around an hour, I got the skip under the pole! It took about an hour, and I don't think it actually save that much time- I timed it, and it saves just under 2 seconds compared to the ending in my WR, which is slightly slower than the old method due to bouncing off the two walls. Furthermore it will most likely be almost impossible to get it with the current cycle skip strat, which saves around a second on its own (iirc). So I think it may save around 1 second max, if done perfectly, over the cycle skip strat.

I MADE IT AGAIN LIKE 2 MINUTES LATER WHAT

yea it’s ridiculous - it’s all about the angle of approach so I feel like it’s possible to have like a 10% success rate or something with a really good setup. One time I even got it “in a run” (except I only went for it because I had already accidentally died once...), but I butchered the next room. 2 seconds is a lot of time! I don’t see why doing the cycle skip should make it any harder - despite the obvious that the cycle skip is hard. We already bounce off the pole after the cycle skip, so it should be reasonable to attempt going under too.

But sure, to maximize chances at getting it maybe don’t do the cycle skip. One second is still hopefully enough to absorb minor mistakes, but yeah it does mean you still can’t afford to play it really safe after or to mess up worse than a small bonk

I think I've come to the conclusion that using both the fire bar and pole skips in the same run may not ever be viable for runs. Spent about 40 minutes grinding it out with savestates today but this was as close as I got . I got a similar amount underneath the pole a couple more times but it's just such a brutal trick. Doing the cycle skip definitely makes it harder- probably only 1/3 of successful cycle skips end up having the right momentum at the right place to even having a chance at getting underneath. I do hope to do it at least once soon though.

oof, sorry to hear that. I have also never pulled off both at once, even in practice. It is definitely possible to get WR with just one of them though! hope you have more luck with that

ok nevermind I streamed for 5 minutes and got it lol

oh man, that probably takes the human sum-of-bests under 2:30 lol

Yeah for sure. Very glad it finally happened, are there any other theoretical tricks we can implement? You mentioned going under the first spike thing in factory, which has now been done, and the faster 2nd last room has also been done (well that was never theoretical, I just didn't think it was easily doable in runs, especially right at the end lol).

can't think of any other tricks that haven't been done in a run, no. there are just like, lots of corners we could try to take slightly more aggressively, idk. Like the factory has lots of places to shave frames from what we usually do I'd say.