Note: Discord appears to now be adding expiry information to URLs from their CDN, so continued (ab)use of Discord's CDN for speedrun.com guides and other content, as advised by this post, may be nonviable in the future.

Yeah. All of the ports (and there are a lot of them) are pretty different from each other, and I was expecting to start to have to split categories for platforms as runs come in. I did split the orb-glitch and no-orb categories as recommended; the no-orb rules now recommend a hard reset to avoid carrying over data between runs.

I made a pass on a few of them a couple years back:

• DOS and Amiga seem to be pretty close, but also: having to remember spells by number? oof.
• Mac is a lot slower because everything is point-and-click (and IIRC there were some minor quirks that were different between "B&W" and "Color" builds?)
• Genesis seems to at least have the most broken glitches (at least that we know of), but IMO I think is the best port overall in terms of playability
• The EU SNES version (published by Elite) seems to be pretty close to the Genesis version gameplay wise but doesn't seem to have the view-char glitch (offhand I can't remember about the teleport-after-rest one)
• The JP SFC version (published by LOZC/StarCraft) is very different, with JRPG stylings and random encounters.

I haven't tried any of the other versions. Looking at screenshots/youtube videos the PC88/PC98/MSX versions have yet another drastically-different UX to them, but I don't know enough Japanese to be willing to make an attempt at them. (I'd probably be willing to allow translation patches where available; I was experimenting with a route using the patch for the SFC version, but I haven't seen any for any of the others.)

So, you're right. It fits the current definition of the rules, and I don't like that there's a loophole. :) It is a good find though-- I went through every encounter sprite I could to try and find more of the key items, but I never thought to look after the WAFE animation or after a soft-reset.

I'm a little surprised that there's no memory-clear on soft-reset, but also I guess the sprite buffer was always supposed to be temporary storage anyway, so I guess it's not too unreasonable that it ended up that way? And then "Initialize Game" only ever touches the battery-backed memory. So. Yeah. Ugh.

The intent with the initialization rule was that you're starting from a fresh state, but as you pointed out, the runs that are up now have leftover detritus from prior runs... on my 19m16s run, after Corak's ghost, the glitched "26th character" has an Ice Scimitar, Photon Blade, etc and 3211K gold, but that same character is all-zeroes after Corak's ghost after power-cycle; Jason_D's 17m07s doesn't even see Corak first and has that same loadout for that character. But yeah, clearly none of us are starting from a fresh-power-on state either, since the initial character page should be blank. And in my run I snag gold from that initial character, so technically I am using preloading. (Jason_D's run switches to the character page with the Shaman Pipe first, which is there after power-on, so you could make an argument there that while there is preloaded data from an earlier run, it's not being used.)

I think I'm generally okay with the idea of memory preloading in a category entitled "Major Glitches"-- I asked around for precedent here and got pointed at Vegas Stakes (SNES), where you can pre-seed an event so that it immediately triggers in a new game (where the timer has started). They actually did choose to split the boards between the main category and "single segment" (e.g. no event preload), but there are so few runners here that I'm not sure I want to complicate things in that way. We do already have a "Glitchless" category and I think that suffices.

I think I have two concerns here:

1. Can no-memory-clear-on-soft-reset be used to exfiltrate items between runs? So far I haven't had any luck with this-- it looks like character slots 1-8 get cleared and initialized properly always after exiting character selection, so you can't, say, scoot the Orb and Talons into character 6, reset, come back with a party of one, then glitch your way over to what is now an unoccupied party slot. I think it's valid for a run as long as it's done via sprite manipulation (and thus are limited to the set of items you can pull in that way), but I'd be more inclined to forbid this if you can use it to sneak an arbitrary party inventory between two games (because then essentially you've just invented "New Game Plus").

2. original carts on original hardware should not be disadvantaged, and allowing preloading via save-state disadvantages original carts on original hardware. Which implies that you'd have to execute the preload off of a prior game completion each time, even though that wouldn't count against the time of the run itself. Looking at some of the Vegas Stakes runs not all video submissions include that part though, so there's no way to verify that save-states aren't in play? Hrm.

(also, a bit of irony, I guess: since this did entail memory manipulation I switched from Everdrive to original cart to avoid anything from, say, the Everdrive menu potentially affecting anything. I've presently only got an X3 though, so no save-states.)

New Emulator Options:

• Emulator-specific notes have been added to "Game Rules" instead of being repeated in each "Category Rules" section
• We're now allowing Genesis Plus GX and BlastEm, as these seem generally accepted by other Genesis boards. This provides more options for users of OS X and Linux, where Fusion is unavailable.
• For submissions from emulator, please note the name and version of the emulator used. (This does mean that if you continue playing on Fusion, then adding "Fusion 3.64" in your submission text is a new requirement for you.)

Nintendo Switch clarification:

• Nintendo Switch users now have two ways to play: the SEGA Genesis Classics version (essentially the same version as X1/PS4/Steam) or Nintendo Switch Online. This needs to also be noted, since the "Switch" platform is otherwise ambiguous.

I'm currently allowing both original disc runs and runs from HDD (on modded consoles) for this game. Some initial evaluation suggests that load times are not considerably improved when running from HDD, and Xbox disc drives aren't going to last forever. I do want to require submissions to declare which they're on, in case we need to split disc vs. installed in the future.

Emulator runs are currently not allowed, but if an Xbox emulator manages to get to the point where it can acceptably run this game I'm willing to reevaluate this rule.

There is a ToeJam and Earl Speedrun Community discord; it consists mostly of TJ&E1 and TJ&E:BitG runners. It's linked-to off of the series page and the pages for those two games, but not this one. https://discordapp.com/invite/NrBtvqK

I also agree that the TJ&E2 board could use more love with regard to categories and rulesets.

Consecutive play sessions would be considered a "segmented run". The risk in allowing segmented runs is the possibility of save scumming, and I'm not sure what you could do to mitigate that.

It looks like other games that permit segmented runs do so as a separate category/subcategory (for example the FFXIV Main Scenario Quest category has "SS" and "MS").

Other games aren't shy about making long runs single-segment (for example, Nemesis under Final Fantasy X). There are also some marathon runs, like the 3D Mario 602, 982, and 1862 categories, which allow breaks but the timer has to be running during breaks.

Animal Crossing 100% has a curious case where they permit stopping recording "while you sleep" but the timer has to remain running.

I gave Random World Cheat% a spin after the weekly races. Got it in 37.63 seconds after a couple tries.

It feels like basically the same as the Hot Tub% category, except with an even greater percentage of the run spent in the 1-to-2 elevator.

For the first year or so that this board has existed, the only accepted version of the game has been the Genesis version. However, Might and Magic II is available on several other platforms; I have updated the board to include all the platforms from MobyGames' release list so that such runs can be accepted.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/might-and-magic-ii-gates-to-another-world/release-info

Hi!

I'd like to request moderation for https://www.speedrun.com/Might_and_Magic_Gates_to_Another_World ... I've had a run pending for five weeks. The moderator was last online "1 month ago", but has no other contact information listed. I tried to track them down outside of SRC, but:

• Their only run seems to have occurred as a guest on someone else's (larger?) Youtube channel.
• They have a "Full Walkthrough" Twitch video guide attached to the board, but seems to be expired and I can't glean a Twitch username out of it.

There is a series mod for the Might and Magic series, but their last login was 4 months ago. I haven't tried to chase them down. The rules for moderation requests only talk about "game moderators" so it's unclear if that's supposed to be an escalation path before coming to this thread.

I'd like to propose two new categories:

Lil' Kid Mode: Warpless%: Start the game on Lil' Kid Mode, proceed through the first five levels. This took me about 25 minutes on my first, unoptimized attempt; with a couple rounds of practice, I got to a 22:24, with plenty of room for the time to come down further.

Lil' Kid Mode: Any%: Start the game on Lil' Kid Mode, activate The Warp Zone, then finish level five. This takes me about 7 minutes.

Memorizing the Hyperfunk Zone patterns is not necessary for either of these runs and also the length is reduced considerably (but not so much to make it trivial). Both of these factors make this game far more approachable, in my opinion.

One minor detail that ought to be worked out: when does the run end?

• When Toejam or Earl says "Ready" to the spring operator (this is the last button press before the "ending sequence")
• The fade to black as you blast through the air and leave level 5 (this is what I've been using)
• During the end sequence, when you initiate dancing with Peabo, Lewanda, and Sharla (and get the "Press any button to reset") sequence.

I'd recommend this be the same as the current "100%" and "Any%" rule categories, except those categories today don't seem to have any rules defined for them, which leaves it somewhat ambiguous.

I agree with several of the above posters that 2FA should be mandatory for anyone with mod-level powers. I don't have a strong opinion on a 2FA requirement for non-mods.

As for "what if I don't have a cell phone": I use a Yubikey U2F key on several other sites and I have found the experience to be quite painless. Implementing WebAuthn as an alternative to SMS-based 2FA would be nice.

For Wii VC, using the Wii Remote alone with the "variation" control scheme (A = Map, B = Presents, C = Action) is not completely intolerable, although the Wii Remote's d-pad isn't a whole lot better.

Additionally you could consider using something like one of raphnet's adapters to adapt a non-Gamecube controller to the Wii (for example, the Genesis to Wii/GC adapter: https://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/genesis_to_wii/index.php )