Inspired by the recent TAS runs and things I've discovered as I've become more and more involved in programming Sonic games, as well as discussions and observations with current runners. I propose we change the Glitchless category to No Major Glitches as the small but noticeable differences in this category much more accurately capture the spirit of Sonic CD. This category change is intended to reward movement skill first, level knowledge second and to be more forgiving of the jank that can happen when playing Sonic CD without incidental mishaps invalidating your runs.

This is the rule list I'm proposing along with explanations of the level design via the community developer tools, and I'm hoping runners can come to a consensus and agree with it:

Rule 1. No MPO (Moving Peel Out), No Major Zips, No Zip Jumps allowed.

Rule 2. Respect White/Black/Yellow Tile solidity as programmed:

• White Tiles are programmed to be jumped through; common examples are floor tiles in most stages. These allow Sonic to jump out of places he would otherwise become stuck after time warping, such as the new MM2 double Time Warp Mini Sonic skip or the secret area in CC1.
• Yellow Tiles are programmed for Sonic to fall through; such as the rooftop at the end of MM1. If you fall through these tiles, or are pushed to the side of them with a minor zip, the run is still within the scope of the category because these are purely functioning as intended.
• Black Tiles are programmed to not allow any clipping at all. If you clip through these or use them to perform a major zip, you disqualify your run. There is one single Black Tile in the Tuffcracker MM2 Time Warp, it's what allows Sonic to continue running to the right, but also what results in the zip to the left if you warped on the wrong frame and thus appeared inside of the Black Tile, instead of on top of it. We respect the solidity of these Tiles as programmed so Loop Skips in SS1/SS2 will invalidate a run.

Rule 3. Appearing inside of a wall via a Time Warp and exiting is allowed. The level designers made most walls hollow and with Yellow or White tile barriers instead of Black Tiles for the player to escape them, such as the double Time Warp route in MM2. (You can jump through White Tiles, or fall through Yellow Tiles or get zipped to nearest non-collision tile if you enter the HandleGround PlayerState inside a Yellow Tile)

Rule 4. The following tricks are now allowed because they respect rules 1, 2 and 3: CC3 roof jump, TT1 yellow tile ceiling fall, MM2 AGF fast time warp, either MM2 time warp Mini Sonic skips. MM2 Vent Jump is also allowed because the vent is phantom; it has no Solidity Tiles much like the entrance to the secret area in CC1.

Rule 5. If we need a microscope, it's not a major glitch. Examples: getting stuck in a Loop and having to jump out; but not loop skipping. Or going fast enough to roll under the crusher at the end of MM1; narrowly being pushed into the ground and almost crushed (this is a frame perfect execution of a Super Peel Out and roll under the crusher.)

In good faith, I've executed a run in the proposed category without doing any of the tricks in MM2 pending discussion and consensus:

I avoided the Glitchless category before, but this ruleset would make me want to run it.

Having ran Glitchless and Glitchless being my preferred way to run (and had a mishap that invalidated my run).

I find this category and ruleset to be genuinely more fun to run.

I wasn't really down to put effort to CD93 as I'm not really a big fan of glitches, and glitchless is pretty boring imo; until PimpUigi proposed this category, and ngl I actually had fun with this one.

inb4 NMG gets added as a main category. eyes

I'll be honest, I had not considered running glitchless or even CD 93 before, but the proposed NMG category was a lot of fun and true to the developers' intentions with features in the game. It is a very enjoyable ruleset that I know I will continue to run in the future.

I think people may argue all day about developer intentions, that's why I stuck to the facts of the programming in the Tile Solidity. Sticking to the facts of what's in the game is easier to talk about than "developer intent" which can be hard to gauge unless they actually answer questions in an interview.

I'll point to an example of many people still coming to my streams to say me jumping on the CC2 roof tops and MM2 roof tops is "cheating" - well there's an invincibility box hidden between two of those roof tops in CC2 Future, with no other way to get it. Did I cheat to get the invincibility I would have never been able to get otherwise??

Sonic CD has many coincidences like this hidden within it. Ring boxes in areas you can't enter without time travel, no way to exit those areas without clipping in some kind of way. One of those Ring Box rooms legit involves jumping down a Pipe to leave; you warp into collision and fall into the room to begin with. That pipe then zips you to the right and then down where a chute was and then down through its ceiling instead of where that chute normally sends you. Recreating it in CD-R was a challenge. (in CD11 you are just trapped there H2YL)

Was it developer intent? Only God knows at this point, but the coincidences are cool just because of how overthought the level design is. Spider-man with prep time? Sonic Devs with prep time. The only Sonic game that wasn't rushed to release.

CD93 never interested me despite my love for CD, especially as a speed game cause Glitched seemed like much fun as I've never been a fan of doing zips and it doesn't take advantage of the level design in a way where you engaged with it and instead just kinda skipped a lot of it. And glitchless just seemed like it would be slow and tedious in parts.

But after completing a few runs of NMG I can tell this is a game I'll be coming back to. It keeps the pace up throughout the run, making the levels that would otherwise be boring and slugging, exciting cause of the tricks used to not make it slow! At least, that's how I feel.

Either way, I think this is a way more interesting run than glitchless to both play and watch.

Just to note, we have seen this and we are in the process of forming a response.

After looking through the proposal and discussing this with the moderators, we've come to the decision to make the No Major Glitches(NMG) category have its own board. We feel that allowing most of the points that the proposal brings up changes too much of the current Glitchless run, which may alienate some people that may prefer to play the game that way.

From the responses on this thread, there seems to be enough people that would rather play in a NMG ruleset and not a Glitchless, so I'd say a completely fresh board is warranted. |

Here are the rules that we've agreed on for No Major Glitches:

Rule 1. No MPO (Moving Peel-out), Level wraps, Zips/Zip Jumps allowed.

Rule 2. Respect solidity (Sonic shouldn't pass through wall/floor collision where he normally shouldn't)

• Tidal Tempest Act 1 Ceiling Skip is allowed (Respecting Yellow/White collision)
• Metallic Madness Act 2 Vent Skip is allowed (No solidity on the space Sonic can jump through)
• Metallic Madness Act 2 AGF Fast Time Warp is allowed***** (Completely skips the wall)

*****After the Time Warp, if the wall pushes Sonic out to the right without the aid of player input then it's allowed, but if a zip is required to exit out the wall, then it invalidates the run

Rule 3. Boss Skips are allowed if Rules 1 and 2 are met

• Collision Chaos Act 3 Boss Skip is allowed (Running on top of a ceiling is allowed)

All the standard category/game rules will transfer over obviously (No Debug, No Level select, ect..) If folks are okay with this, then we can get started on creating the NMG leaderboard soon for runners to submit to.

Alright, I think that's a wonderful compromise! Thank you guys for hearing me / us out, and while I think it's a shame that the Double Timewarp strat won't be viable since the player must hold left to do a small zip, Vent Jump appears to be doable enough watching Drive-in and Frogger bust it out in full game runs for sub minute times each so far.

The clip that can happen at the end of MM1 should be fine still, and CC1 bumpers (they don't have any solidity either; and I can actually provide script code to show how they're programmed since Ralakimus and I had to reprogram them to work right in CC1)

So I think everyone will be happy! :D

Edit: confirmed MM1 ending roof jump will clip you through the wall when holding neutral. Its roof is phantom. You either fall all the way to the bottom, or can fall straight up landing in the middle of the wall, able to walk left and right without a zip.

And here's the bumpers in CC1:

These aren't programmed like an Object such as a Monitor/Badnik/Floating Blocks/Moving bumpers. They're Phantom Tiles in the level and in essence, they're programmed to be "squishy" and not rigid. If you add Solidity to them, then they work slightly more like CD11's Tile Bumpers, but even CD11's don't actually have Solidity, they're just programmed to be considerably more rigid. CD93's are programed to send you a direction based on your angle of rotation and that can include sending you through them since they're Phantom.

Christian Whitehead did not have access to CD93's source code or a decomp of it like we have now. So he was coding new scripts from scratch and doing best-guess work. That's why Flippers work completely different, why the 3D ramps work completely different, and why 99% of Yellow Tiles were removed from the game.

Edit above went missing and reposted it here c.c