Hey @jo141 how did you get a 9:14 from timing this run? I timed it from screen transition on pressing Jump to enter 1-1 and to Bowser's death, and there it's a 9:13. I'm guessing you looked at when I pressed jump on my input display, but does that mean every run of this game has to include an input display? :O Also is there a discord server or anything? I know there was a general discord server about this game a few years ago, it might still exist, but idk how much it applies to speedrunning this game.

Sorry, just now saw the series submission rules. I don't think I really violated anything beforehand until now - just to clarify (it's in the video title but I had to truncate it) the emulator used was KEmulator Lite v0.9.3.

@607 Oh, and Dizzy the Adventurer was also released on the Sega Game Gear as part of the Excellent Dizzy Collection (it was never released on the Sega Master System despite the Game Gear version being a Master System game in a convertor). Seems like there are some enemies that are present on the Game Gear, but not on the NES. So I don't even know if the Game Gear version should be its own category or not.

To activate the cheat mode, type "iamstuartsidley" on the title screen, then during game press C. You'll be able to change screens using the ZXKM keys. That's for the Spectrum version; I'm actually not sure if the CPC version has that - CPC-Power has no mention of any cheat code, and Yolkfolk.com says "Cheat Mode (Spectrum)". I want to try it on the CPC version, but I don't know what is the most accurate CPC emulator.

Here's a video of the C64 version. Actually, the framerate looks like it's inconsistent, like in Dizzy 1 for the Spectrum.

@607 On this leaderboard, the Amiga, ST and MS-DOS versions are put into 3 separate categories, while the Spectrum, CPC and C64 are in the "8-bit" category. I'm not sure if it's a good decision. This game isn't my specialization (my specialization is Fantasy World Dizzy), but as far as I know, the C64 version of Dizzy 3 (which is how Fantasy World Dizzy is also known as) uses a different engine from all other versions, with slightly different physics, inventory mechanics and some other stuff. Meanwhile, the Amiga and DOS versions of Dizzy 3 (and most likely the ST version as well) use the same engine as each other (but obviously a different one compared to the Spectrum and CPC versions), with the same easy softlock that you can do at the very beginning. The only gameplay difference between the three 16-bit versions seems to be the loading times. As for this game, it seems like the C64 version uses the same engine as the C64 version of Dizzy 3, and not only that, but Dizzy runs at a really fast speed in the C64 version of this game (which wasn't the case with Dizzy 3). Not sure if it's an emulation thing or if it's like that on real hardware. And I haven't played the 16-bit versions of this game in a long while, but I'm quite certain that it's the same situation as with Dizzy 3 - different loading times and that's it. Correct me if I'm wrong. So if what I said is true, then I think it would make sense to have these categories: 16-bit, ZX/CPC, C64, Mobile, Dizzy the Adventurer. I'm not telling you to change all that (I think discussion is good, maybe you'll provide some good arguments), it's just what I think makes sense. (Sorry if any of that sounded rude, it wasn't my intention)

Also, the rules for the Spectrum, CPC and C64 versions should probably say something like "bird cutscene" instead of "balloon cutscene", since the bird cutscene is the equivalent of the 16-bit versions' balloon cutscene.

What do you think of adding "Cheat%" as a (sub-)category in this game? The ZX Spectrum version (don't know about any others) has a screen warp cheat code, and I think it might provide an interesting challenge of its own. There is no guarantee that I'll ever run that though, so if you don't want to add this category, then please at least add something like "Cheat mode is banned" to the rules.

@Alayan @UbuntuJackson I asked about whether or not the STK 0.8.1 addon server is still open for submissions, and Arthur said "No it isn't, you'll have to distribute outside of the add-on server system".

(Something tells me that I am forgetting to write something here, but I don't know what. It happens to me all the time.)

@Alistair_Findlay "Add 0.9.4, but set 0.9.3 to show as the default category. The game has been patched and fixed to make a better casual player experience, it's a better game, and we are respecting that version by not running it, the game is "too good to run"."

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Is running a game disrespectful somehow? As far as I know, people speedrun games because they like them, not to show disrespect. And I've never said that not running that version is disrespectful. I think the developers expect most speedrunners to stay on the old versions, but maybe someone will come and do a run of 0.9.4, just for fun and memes. Whereas banning new versions restricts the entire community to one person's opinion that most people probably aren't gonna agree with.

"These should be the full game categories: 0.9.4, 0.9.3, 0.9.2/1/0, 0.8.x, Android."

Did something change other than the gate skip? And in what version was the gate skip made easier, by the way?

First of all, I'm sorry if this post has any flaws or contradictions, or if I forgot to say something. I'm tired right now and can't think properly.

"All versions are very similar, and the new ones that comes out won't be that much different either as far as I know." Then why divide one game into a series, if you know that it's pretty much the same thing?

Now, time for my point. If you ban 0.9.5 when that comes out, everyone is going to grind in 0.9.4 for some time, and eventually it will stop being interesting with old runners getting good times, and newcomers being put off by the old version requirement. With new versions being allowed, new runners will have more desire to get into STK.

My suggestion is to smash together the versions into 2 version categories (or whatever they're called) - "0.8.1 - [Last version with the difficult Gate Skip]" and "[First version with the easy Gate Skip] - 0.9.3". (If there are other substantial difficulty differences in a speedrun besides the Gate Skip, then tell me and we'll think some more about it) That would also make people investigate which is the fastest version in each of the two categories, and which version actually made the Gate Skip easier.

What I mean is that for instance, there are a bunch of versions of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and people only speedrun the fastest one and OoT3D (because 3D is a game with some unique glitches that make it a pretty different speedgame), and no one cares about 1.1, 1.2, English versions, and so on. In this case, having a good Any% run in 0.8.1 is much more difficult and much more impressive, and if all versions are joined into one, then that would make UbuntuJackson's effort look like nothing, so I don't see any reason not to use the method used for other games, only with the easy/difficult Gate Skip version split (no, not like a timer split). And I know that I said that prioritizing an old version for marathon runs or the leaderboard is disrespectful to the developers, but besides replacements and additions of 1-2 tracks per version, there's not that much of a difference in the later versions (after all, the version numbers indicate that the later versions are minor releases, not big ones like 0.9.0). 1-2 different tracks, in my opinion, aren't enough to make a ton of different version categories.

I'm not a top speedrunner of this game, but I follow it rather closely, and here are my opinions about this. This was originally supposed to be a Discord PM, but I decided to post it here instead.

STK is considered by the developers to be one game (as opposed to it being several games that are STK 0.8.1, STK 0.9.3, etc.) and most people consider it to be one game as well. And if you compare 0.8.0 to 0.8.1, it's not much different - mostly just some graphical changes and a course replacement (and a tutorial). Something similar can also be said about 0.9.2 and 0.9.3. Now, 0.8.1 and 0.9 are more different, but it's still the same game with similar graphic design, most of the original music tracks (as in, music composed for this game) are still there, and of course (no pun intended), many of the courses are still there - they have changes, but they're still recognizable. And yes, there were several course replacements in the 0.9.x versions, but they followed the same theme as the old ones - city, island, jungle (and a volcano course was added as a return to a course from the oldest versions). What I mean is that STK 0.8.1, 0.9.3 is the same game, it's not a series. The leaderboard is fine, there are only 0.9.3, 0.8.1, and a bunch of misc. versions. Both receive enough attention. The actual reason nobody runs 0.8.1 is because of how hard the Gate Skip is in that version. Not to mention that it would be very disrespectful to the developers - they worked hard on a new version, only for it to get banned for speedruns.

Here's the video I (kind of) promised: These are several attempts at this strat. Some of them were successful, like the first one. Apologies for forgetting to adjust the sound volume.

My video doesn't show the fastest way to kill this phase by jumping from the bottom, it seems like. I might record a video of me messing around with that, but keep in mind that I'm a complete noob when it comes to speedrunning this game (as opposed to casually playing it).

I haven't timed it, so I don't know.