Hello, I'm here to propose some new timing rules for when the timing for runs should end.
Why?
Recently there was some discussion about the top 2 runs in BTD1 glitch%, with two runs that were of a very similar time. For the discussion see: https://www.speedrun.com/bloons_tower_defense/thread/aft7e I misstimed my run by timing a local file while youtube seems to introduce some lag, but for fairness sake timing should ofcourse be done by the youtube videos. The problem with ending the timer at "congratulations" is that it fades in, so if the video is blurry, what resolution is used, and how readable the text should be is all pretty much arbitrary choices as anyone who has timed bloons TD runs would know.
The solution?
End the timer on the first frame on which no projectile particles are visible on screen after the last bloon is popped. That's darts, tacks, bomb explosions etc. https://imgur.com/a/y6U2NpM for an example. The downside of this is that sometimes darts will fly for many frames before leaving the screen, but atleast it's objective when time should end.