Update 2017-05-29: Time ends on first non-black frame of the kissing cutscene.

Below is the old post from 2017-03.

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Covert_Madness wrote in https://www.speedrun.com/titus/thread/152l1 : Start: I would say start button pressed. Finish: I would say exit of level 20 (when black screen is seen).

I'm good with starting time on pressing START in the main menu. Main menu fade-out and level 1's title count towards the time.

To clarify the exact end of time time: You probably mean "exit of level 14" instead of "exit of level 20". Black screen after level fade-out means that we should cancel the music before stopping time, okay. But what happens if you get extra lifes after level 14, should they count towards the time? Can you get extra lifes here in the version without the kissing cutscene?

In 2017-04, Neither Covert_Madness nor I wanted to step forward and agree on an end time. We figured it should probably be one of these:

A. The SDA-conforming control loss of main character. This is when the end-of-level jingle starts after level 14, or, if you disable music, screen after level 14 begins to fade out.

B. On first frame of the kissing cutscene. This would measure the extra lifes.

We defer this decision to when more people begin running Fox.

-- Simon

I've written into the rules: "Time ends on first non-black frame of the kissing cutscene."

Reasoning: For the past weeks, I've ended time on first frame of kissing cutscene. Rikus practices any% code and times in the same way, even though he hasn't yet submitted a run to this site.

-- Simon

Wouldn't it make more sense to end at last input?

Calling time on last input wouldn't make runs re-timeable from their videos.

There is a screen that reads "Level 15, Just Married" in golden text. I will call this screen level 15's intro screen, L15IS.

This is the final part of a run:

1. Titus walks to end of stage and freezes
2. Music plays until disabled
3. Screen fades out
4. Screen is black
5. L15IS converts extra bonuses, then waits for Enter press
6. Screen is black
7. Cutscene fades in

Last input happens about 250 ms before the cutscene fades in: Pressing Enter dismisses L15IS and loads the cutscene. We could call time here.

But speedruns should be re-timeable from the visuals alone. Therefore the best rule for last input would be "time ends on first completely black frame after level 15's intro screen, right before the cutscene fades in". Problem: Is it possible to dismiss L15IS so quickly that you cannot decide between the pre-L15IS blackness and the post-L15IS blackness? If you called time on the post-L15IS blackness, you couldn't re-time runs.

Splitting on first frame of cutscene doesn't have this problem. The cutscene is unique.

-- Simon