Hi, P.R. Storm again.

I'm worried that my Lemmings speedruns are illegitimate due to a mechanic I discovered after soft-resetting on the SNES version. I found out that the levels remain unlocked after reset, and, while I have been playing through every level in order, I have been soft-resetting between runs, like before my 45:27 (I failed an attempt that ended at level 3 before it).

Is this discovery going to affect my standing in the speedrunning community? I had no idea that levels were remaining unlocked after resets beforehand, and I don't know if it affects the way the game runs (I still calculate around a 2.80 second delay between starting input and fade to black from 'Just dig!' starting screen), but I still feel like an idiot for not thinking about this beforehand.

I don't think that the level being unlocked means anything. As long as you play them all, in order, with no difference between that and a fresh run.

The speedrunning community for Lemmings seems pretty small still. Doing something accidentally wrong is not cheating and i don't think anyone would be judging you. Just follow whatever the rules are for the category you're running and you should be fine.

Grats on the Genesis WR.

Thanks, Sirbrute. The run still has room for optimization, but 36:40 is a great gold standard for now. I found a TAS just hours ago that cleared the category in just 22 minutes, maybe I can see what’s humanly possible in that run to push it into 35:XX or even lower.

Sorry, forgot to respond to the thread, but yes, since it matters not if a level is unlocked on soft reset in no way affects the run as far as I can tell, no worries at all.