United Statesok, this invite should be permanent unless it is revoked manually in the future, so for all future readers try this one first:
wow, sub 40 was real after all! incredible to see a new route shave off so much time, bravo!
Nice AA! And glad to have another runner interested in the game. Looking forward to more!
For future reference, IL records use the exact time from the in-game result screen; frame time is only used for full game runs. This can be found by clicking the Show rules button on the any% leaderboard or any level's leaderboard.
To answer your question, there is no other community or Discord or anything where the game is discussed because a couple months ago there was only one runner, Nyrhtak. There is the Steam discussion board, but that's for all players of the game, and aside from the link to the in-game Leaderboards there's not a lot speedrun-related going on there. If the scene continues to grow I could definitely see the demand for a shared community space, but as of right now talk takes place mostly here and surprisingly on some of my Youtube uploads, lol. But I always link back to here in the description.
I've also noticed the Chair occasionally bouncing or otherwise colliding with terrain. It doesn't seem consistent enough to be usable or totally avoidable, but I think it happens more at low speeds, hence why AA is the most common stage to see it. And I don't know if it's model-based or not, either. If the player model does impact the consistency of runs, it may be worth adding "Chair model required" to the basic any% rules and allowing other models in some broader category. I'd have to do some testing with the unlockable skins and the Workshop dev ball you mentioned.
@BossBacon64 I don't know if I'm the right person to ask, as I don't think of myself as a strong speedrun router. I'm just a grindlord. But here are my thoughts:
Earlier today I was working on Dusty Dunes with a friend I got interested in the game and we were able to get my record down to a very low 1:19, with 1:18 looking possible if we can get another tiny trick he found working consistently. When I started playing, I roughly estimated the limit for any% would fall between 12 minutes and 12:30, but work like this on each stage's times has made it so there are now about 5-6 seconds of leeway between a perfect (all records) time and a 12-minute time, which is more than I ever expected to see! So personally, it is hard for me to claim the routing will be "perfect" for quite some time. Even small improvements in my skill at the game have made the same route run repeatedly end up with faster times. In THIS run above, I didn't expect to make a record time on Volcanic Void, as I was playing it "the usual way"; it just ended up being one.
That said, the nature of the game is there is no progress without prisms. Barring some insane glitch or skips that bypass them (which I can't even imagine), stage times MUST have a limit for how fast they can be, because you can't just rush to the end. I guess the best example of this is Appliance Avenue; that stage is so small and straightforward that it does feel a bit solved. My record on that stage is not something I hit consistently, it is so precise. But some of the larger stages like Volcanic Void or Fungal Forest may still have alternate options that have not been explored (or not by me, at least). I think Volcanic Void could be an especially interesting routing project because the fireworks allow the player to spend far more time away from platforms than anywhere else.
I feel that running this game relies more on improvements in player ability than on dramatic changes to routing; most routing changes I remember feel more like minor adjustments than total overhauls, and I've saved more time on stages simply taking corners a little tighter or keeping myself moving on a straighter path. I can't say for sure if any stage has definitely been brought to its absolute limit, as I am continuing to find ways to play just a little bit better.
youtube title is inaccurate livesplit time, record is timing by official rules (first frame until last frame)
