Excellent! I'll add that as a category and add these runs to that board.

I've found specific ways to get to the big jump in Antarctica fast enough to jump over between wind cycles.

1. For wind of back, forward, back:

Be aware that for this one, you have to be pretty reactive for the next jump to avoid the swordfish.

2. For wind of forward, back, back:

In both cases, the jumps you do are pushing your x-pos forward slightly enough that you can get past that yeti then stop moving for a beat. Note that back-back screws you either way.

This should hopefully make faster cycles a bit more consistent and give us more chance of lower times.

In the Castle, Sacrieon a while ago found a way to skip the final Knight spear cycle. After looking into it, it turns out the flame's fall trigger is slightly before the last spear set. So the most reliable setup is to do some comfortable movement that drops the flame early. That gives you far wider margin to jump forward without being hit.

I've been appointed as super due to previous mod inactivity, and fellow runner AntBlueR has volunteered to join so we have a better setup now.

I've verified my run but I also wish to inform you that I created an OBS overlay of PNG's of map routes which I used to play. I feel like this is reasonable/legitimate tech because the game is very jumpy with input anyway, so route help far from guarantees a good time, but I'd welcome discussion of this and agreement of it. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

In addition to the free HP beside the round 2 star location, there are FOUR further free drops that are easy to get for beginners. This should make completing your first runs much smoother because you can avoid game overs and even consider some i-frame mashing damage on some bosses.

For round 1: drop your jetpack by the bird, crawl into the space, and shoot the back wall until HP appears.

For round 3: once you get to the underworld, kill the chyme (circled), grab its pointball, and fly over the platform for the HP to appear beneath it, drop jetpack, and crawl in.

For round 4, shoot the right side of the warp platform in the overworld after the Akubutsus.

For round 5, shoot the right bricks beneath the underworld portal.

NB: On more than one occasion I've seen the HP in 3 spawn in without the preqrequisite actions. I believe this is due to something I shot/grabbed in overworld, because I've also used the same idea to despawn bullets from the top cannon before the exit in 4 by doing a small delay after crossing the skull, keeping something on screen long enough that the game can't draw bullets for top cannon.

If you want to get enough score to get max rank and upgrades, avoid all stars - you'll loop back to the first stage and can grab HP ad infinitum. If you finish loop one with n stars, you will start loop two at round n+1.

NB: Don't die by falling in holes if you do this, or you lose all that precious HP.

Now that Beginner is getting optimised, I thought I'd ask what you guys want for timing: do we stick with seconds, or add ms?

GG! ❤

I see no reason to ban non-Fusion submissions for SMS, it's easy to show a reset and the "no movie active" prompt. Fusion is infamous for being inaccurate.

Due to previous mod inactivity I've been appointed as super. I've verified my pending run and I'm tendering for a second mod as best practice. You should preferably intend to run the game, or at least be an experienced SMS runner. Don't worry if you haven't modded before, I can walk you through it. Reply here or PM me any time!

I'd be interested in picking the game up, any setups, routing info, tech stuff you can share would be much appreciated.

Heya! I feel we need to discuss the new run submission. Andres, I think you're clearly fantastic at this run and if we grind we can take it very low, and wonder do we want to create a longer category too: a first thought would be max-score or 999999: something that people can point-press but that we can tear into as well. I really appreciate that you ran again, I love the competition, and I hope you understand my prior objection was not a function of your skill. <3

For this submission I have to raise the severe framerate drop in the middle of the run. It's normal for emu to do a frame skip and occasionally mark 49/51fps to keep things accurate. I've had CPU issues in the past where it's made things unworkable, eating input, etc, so I've experienced the frustration, thanks Windows! If a run has a momentary fps drop it's not an issue, eg at 7 seconds in.

However, there's a near 2 second period from 0:31 to 0:33, and 10 second period from 0:37 to 0:47, with massive fps volatility down as low as 35. This level of frameskipping by the emu could potentially introduce inaccurate emulation behaviour, and at this length of duration, it creates a potential advantage. I wish to emphasise potential, and it can also clearly hamper a run. But I do feel that the severity of inaccuracy/slowdown here is beyond a reasonable level for the run to be verified.

As the only existing runner, I can also see I have an unfair advantage in petitioning this, regardless of being a retro moderator. With that in mind I'd welcome our consulting others who are neutral to negate that if there are objections. I think we may be best served by appointing a second moderator in this vein so that any future issues can be dealt with outside my raising them, lest this become gatekeeping. <3

What do you think of creating an invincibility glitch allowed category? Could be a good way to get new runners used to parts of the game, and would be sufficiently different from the main.

Hi, just wanted to ask whether there's a reason Fusion is the only emu allowed as opposed to known more accurate ones such as Bizhawk

GG! The game double-counts subseconds so I've corrected the time. Once you're at 280km/hr you can use turbo if you map a button input.

Hey, I shut the discord down long ago due to lack of interest, but the Sega Crew discord has Genesis and SMS channels where threads can be made if anyone wants detailed stuff on O mode for example. https://discord.gg/wYPu3YU95X

What does everyone feel about permissibility of entering debug mode before a run solely to change control method so that A/B are low and high jump? I haven't tried level 2 yet but it strikes me as plausibly more viable with that in place, and the game explicitly offers you the option after you complete level 1 so there's an argument that it's intended.

In addition to the free HP beside the round 2 star location, there are three further free drops that are easy to get for beginners. This should make completing your first runs much smoother because you can avoid game overs and even consider some i-frame mashing damage on some bosses.

For round 1: drop your jetpack by the bird, crawl into the space, and shoot the back wall until HP appears.

For round 3: once you get to the underworld, kill the chyme (circled), grab its pointball, and fly over the platform for the HP to appear beneath it, drop jetpack, and crawl in.

For round 4, shoot the right side of the warp platform in the overworld after the Akubutsus.

NB: On more than one occasion I've seen the HP in 3 spawn in without the preqrequisite actions. I believe this is due to something I shot/grabbed in overworld, because I've also used the same idea to despawn bullets from the top cannon before the exit in 4 by doing a small delay after crossing the skull, keeping something on screen long enough that the game can't draw bullets for top cannon.

If you want to get enough score to get max rank and upgrades, avoid all stars - you'll loop back to the first stage and can grab HP ad infinitum. If you finish loop one with n stars, you will start loop two at round n+1.

NB: Don't die by falling in holes if you do this, or you lose all that precious HP.

I have received no feedback/suggestions on category/board reorganisation since my last post, so I have taken the following actions:

a. The end of lv1 category run had no visible video anymore, but states it's the demo and has a verification by the game dev. I also feel the demo category is another stub since the full game is available and the dev has a run. For these reasons I have archived both categories. If runners wish them to be re-added you can request that.

b. I have renamed any% to Beat The Game and clarified in the ruleset that you may use early dash secret at your discretion without skipping any stages. I have added a no turbo for Evercade rule though if anyone seeing this ever wants to submit for Evercade, I'd prefer you contact me first and show me the difference potential between turbo on/off so I get a better idea whether to make this a category or just a platform variable.

c. I looked at the dev's run and link7777's run. I can see they have been mistimed. Since link's run starts timing only after getting dash secret, it seems fairest to change timer start to this point, so as not to disadvantage him. I have also changed timing end to when you exit the final boss stage, reflecting the dev's split end. With this in mind I've retimed all runs. Time now starts when the screen changes after entering stage 1, and ends when the screen changes after passing the final boss.

You may also be interested to know the sequel has its demo up at https://lowtekgames.itch.io/flea2-demo so the full game will seemingly be on kickstarter/on sale soon.

I can understand your apprehension over TAS powers but it is straightforward to show that no movie/tools are being used during a run, using input display etc. 99% of sega speedrun boards have no such restriction and don't encounter cheating problems above the capability of good mods. I'm sure you'd be just as capable of safeguarding the board with or without it.

Hi, just writing to discuss emulation rules. Specifically I object to the rules requiring use of Fusion - it's well known as a very inaccurate emulator unsuitable outside of casual gaming and there are far better options available such as RetroArch/gpgx, or Bizhawk. Without one of those as permitted I wouldn't be inclined to submit runs.

Hi, just wanted to ask about using Bizhawk/SMSHawk - known accurate emu so to me it makes sense it should be permitted.