Simply put, would blowing the house up count as killing the other two characters after showing off the "secret hamster sequence"?

I think it makes sense, so I wouldn't mind allowing it. What do you guys think?

The arguments that I can think of against allowing it is that the ending cutscenes are different and that you don't actually kill the characters but assume they die in the explosion.

My opinion is that if all the current PBs have "the 3 tombstone ending", then such should be the rule (making this more of an "ending category" with other requirements). I am not sure if such is the case or not with the current runs.

I'd agree with NP that the issue is more with the naming and rule set of the category. Most game will have things like "good ending", "bad ending", "true ending", "best ending". If the ending is what defines the run, then just update the rules and/or category name and everything will be more consistent. Very cool Idea for the Nuke by Ness though.

IMO blowing up the house is not the originally intended ending. We get the all the kids are dead and the Edison's win in Hamsteak%. If we let the reactor blow up that is the "You Nuke the house and everything in a 5 mile radius" ending. This is a meme category though so there is a lot of room for interpretation as to what constitutes victory.

The background of this whole thing was get the hamster , nuke it and give it to Ed. Noisepolice suggested at the time that we should also kill the other kids, first and then end the game when we give the exploded hams to Weird Ed and the game ended then since no further input was possible.

I propose we add an addendum to the rules stating that you must obtain the "All the kids are dead ending" as it provides for more variation and routing options as well as sticks to the initially intended thought of the run ending when NO THANKS appears and no more forward progress can be made in the game without starting over.

Just my 2 cents. if the change is implemented to allow the nuke I guess I'll have to do a new run :D

Sounds like the general consensus is we need to SEE some tombstones and dead children.

Popcorn_Cannon had come up with the nuke strat, I just added some additional tech to it to speed it up. It was definitely fun to try, and nice thinking outside the box by Popcorn_Cannon to really think about killing the children "by any means necessary".

I updated the category rules for hamsteak% to be a bit more strict! It now says;

Timer ends when "No thanks" appears after returning Weird Ed's hamster. The other 2 kids must have perished before returning the hamster. 2-character glitch is not allowed in hamsteak%. *"The three grave ending" is required.

Thanks for putting this to the community Niss! and Ness for bringing it to the table as well as Popcorn_Cannon for the suggestion!

In a similar vein, has anyone had success getting the Nuclear Meltdown to trigger in that quick glimpse of the full graveyard before the hamsteak game over screen shows up? It seems like it might be possible with the right keypad/doorbell timing. Not sure its worth the trial and error to nail but itd be wild seeing the three headstones followed by the meltdown animation. What would you even call that?