Australia
Added a couple of tweaks to this route a while back and forgot to note them here:
- get the guest room key from the dictionary by typing in "key" (saves having to learn lockpicking/grab a needle)
- added note about jumping to skip the sneaking animation at desert house
Thanks to @SRLGrace for pointing out both of these things to me.
I started learning this game and my first runs featured a looooooot of deaths. Yet despite those deaths, my final run time was looking suspiciously average, as opposed to awful.
Based on that anecdotal evidence, plus some extra testing (loaded up a file on mission 11, stalled out a room for 10+ minutes, then died, then completed the mission) it appears that any room that you die in will not add the time spent in the room to the final in-game timer.
Not sure what implications this might have on the category rules, as it kind of allows for a pseudo-segmented approach - eg. if one room is giving you trouble, you could take an intentional death to improve its time. I don't mind this in principle, but if you do, then some ideas off the top of my head would be to either add a time penalty per continue used, or to require runs under XX:XX to be deathless. I think this would accomodate the existing runs in the leaderboard without requiring a leaderboard split.
Tweaked the route. Changes: • Skips two of the spider combats in the cellar in favour of dropping down through the well. (I'd previously discounted this shortcut because I thought you needed to save the hedge maze guide to be able to buy the tokens...) • Challenge Lord Euston to the most dangerous game when you grab the glass eye, instead of having to return back to the manliness room a second time • Defers returning to the cellar and clearing the level 1/2 ghosts until after digging up Macready https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LQSpbaMQGfzwnaiWlYDhtLYOeDoO5JUagBacOhjC83A/edit#gid=1289492048
Not having to pour all the XP into Gumption to win initiative over the spiders frees up a bit of XP, so some other stuff can probably be adjusted now too. The key part is being able to hit the 15 stats for Lord Euston. I like to use an extra level of Angry for it so that I have the safety if I accidentally pick the wrong dialog option when talking to the other ghosts.
Here's a sample run, picked the wrong horse but other than that things went pretty smoothly.
Okay I've written out the path, it's mostly the same but this one doesn't rely on the hedge trimmers to win combats so it leaves the carriage house until later.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LQSpbaMQGfzwnaiWlYDhtLYOeDoO5JUagBacOhjC83A/edit?usp=sharing
Yes that does work on Switch - I got it accidentally once but wasn't sure of what triggered it. Thanks for explaining it to me!
Oh yeah what I haven't noted in that graphic:
For the pre-game setup: Choose Beanslinger - skip collecting the beans, get cheaper Gumption and myst upgrades Take Lockpicking from your mum and don't forget to grab the needle from the haystack. Then choose: Dark Horse - you have two possible encounters when on the Macready quest, the Dark Horse gives you a chance to skip them. Doc Alice - I feel she's the best for the few combats that you'll do Ruthless - save time on murdering the Chili
on Switch it's easy to accidentally get the menus wrong, which I expect won't be a problem on Keyboard, so I'm looking forward to how you go on the run :D
@Scissortail sorry I missed your reply! I had started writing up the run but it's not done yet. This was my theory crafting for it: https://twitter.com/alecatmew/status/1220860122286542848
@lisarox yeah I love the Switch version, being able to take it everywhere is great. I feel like the loading times are definitely more noticeable but that doesn't matter too much yet. Glad to see you rep Switch on the leaderboards!
I only have the Switch copy of the game which is probably non-ideal for speedrunning, but now that the DLC is finally available I thought I might try my hand at routing out the "best" ending.
As usual, here is a sample run. I'm not sure about the end timing - maybe it should be when the first bell chime sounds?
Sorry about mostly-invisible timer... At least it was kinda a tie with the best time so it basically counts down to the end.
