The need to wait out the demo after each reset comes up repeatedly in discussions, so I thought I'd chime in with a possible solution.

Would this community be open to adding a provision that allows using an agreed-upon romhack which locks the RNG from the very start, without watching the demo?

I've already made such a romhack, the technical part is trivial. But I understand that there may be reservations about using such a romhack.

What I can see as arguments against:

1. Unfair to the previous runners of the game, who had to wait out the demo.
2. Unfair to those runners who run the game using the original cartridge.

My personal view on these (albeit I'm not a CnD runner): no. 2 is untenable in the long run, as there are no new CnD cartridges getting produced, and the old stock is bound to dwindle over time. No. 1 is worth considering, but this kind of disruption would be true for any other new development (e.g. a new skip/strat), and these only receive pushback (in the form of relegating them to a separate category or banning them) if they're viewed as somehow making the speedrun markedly 'worse'.

What I can see as arguments for:

1. Stops you from wasting 16 seconds each time you reset (obvious), making pole climbs much less aggravating to master.
2. Makes the game more appealing to new and returning runners.
3. Can still be used on original hardware using flashcarts.
4. The hack can be easily distributed as an IPS patch or even a link to an online patcher with the prompt to provide the original ROM, which should make it easy to popularise.

So... if the esteemed moderators of this game are open to this idea, I would propose holding a community poll to see if it's tenable.

as a runner I don’t care at all.

but in this situation it would be possible to simply load the save.

and since this is a hack, it is unlikely to be accepted into the main category.

but overall the idea is not bad, people will no longer be put off by the long reset, and there will be more top runners

In general, waiting in the form of a reset is part of the speedrun, but I understand what you mean, I myself don’t like to wait

It doesn't matter for me, I can wait 16 seconds each time.

But for some top runners, it could be really annoying to reset and wait 16 sec because of slow or miss climbing pole. If the romhack doesn't have any bugs, glitches or any anomalies of some sort, I guess why not.

Either way, I'm ok with that whatever the community choose.

I would perpetually vote to get rid of the waiting. They do this in so many other games, and honestly it's highly annoying it's present in this game. I'm 100% for loading a save state getting rid of having to wait 16 seconds each time, especially having run this both solo and now co-op.

In solo, I have 221/3590 attempts. 3590 - 3369 (nice) * 16 is 53,904 seconds. That's 898 minutes, or about 14 hours I've been forced to wait between resets. Co-op with @Kat_kunoichi we had 218 runs/3854 which means we waited even longer than 14 hours as well between resets.

This is the only game I've run where this is a thing. I've basically waited 30~ hours between resets.

I am an "old" runner of this game and don't think it's unfair to get rid of this wait upon reseting.

I also honestly don't think it needs a separate romhack; however, not for just demo mode and nothing else. Loading from a savestate to skip the title is exactly the same as demo mode which would be exactly the same as a romhack that just loads demo mode. I would feel that's unfair, after having put in the time, having to re-run to get the same time on a separate hack.

Especially because the hack one day will be invalidated anyway.

The only time save left looking into the future is running against non-demo mode and getting the god B ship kill, anyway, so at that point when runners really want to challenge themselves in the future, they're going to skip ironically waiting anyway upon reset and just reset and go each time hoping for the good space ship pattern.

There was already discussion in that matter around 3 years ago as far as I remember. It's a little unfair to people, who wants to play on original cartiridges or without possbility of save states.

I will give a link below to previous discussion and will stay for not allowing to skip waiting. I would understand, if it was few minutes, but it's just around 15 seconds and that's most important reason for leaving it as it is. If it's really not too time consuming, then let's try to play as it was originally intended without any tricks. Otherwise, we can make romhack to skip bonus screen between stages and long cutscene after Zone G and then adjust time on the boards, since this wastes our time as well, but it's a little less annoying, so almost no one mentions it.

It's like removing initial cutscene from Castlevania 1, since it takes around 10 seconds and timer starts after that. It is big chunk of reset part for best runners, since they reset a lot after 15-20sec , when they don't get stop watch. However, I never saw bigger discussion about it like in case of CnD here again. Most people accept that, since it was always part of speedrun, it's a cutscene after you push start and game is more slow paced comapred to CnD, so I guess it is easier to go through that, although basic idea is the same: don't use any hack or save state just wait 10-15seconds before you can start the run as the game is programmed.

https://www.speedrun.com/chipndale/forums/z6j32

Nah, that's all extremely hypothetical and no one is going to make a hack that removes all the bonus games and the cutscene in level G, so I think that's honestly weak reasoning.

Just focusing on what's present ->

Runners wait a really long time between resets. Zone 0 optimized is extremely reset heavy. If you reset within the first 16-20 seconds (on the first pipe climb) you literally have to wait an equal amount of time to start an attempt again. This is annoying.

Why is forcing this on runners good?

As I wrote, I/we wasted ~30 hours waiting between resets.

There's literally no difference in loading a savestate to start attempts to skip the beginning opposed to waiting 16 seconds to let the game enter demo mode. Again, literally none. I think this is the most important part because, if it somehow changed something else, I would be of the opinion you shouldn't use a savestate to start the run, but it's literally the same outcome. The only difference is there is no senseless and pointless waiting between attempts.

It just goes against some old boy's club mentality people are afraid to challenge in 2023.

And lastly, "unfair to people" on real carts might be true, but I refuse to believe a huge majority don't run on Everdrives or emulators with savestates/rewind fetures to begin with. The amount of people on a NES setup that would have only real carts and no other way of practicing would be completely eclipsed by the people who do run off an Everdrive and have the capacity to skip the 16 seconds at the beginning by loading a savestate.

Catering to the 0.5% this negatively affects doesn't make any sense either.

[Edit]: To future proof this on the SRC boards would be simple, too. Just setup a variable to show who used demo mode in a run and allow people who do so, to load a savestate to get into runs quicker. If people on real carts can't load a savestate, then they can wait out the demo mode as everyone is doing right now. Everdrive/emulator users can load a savestate to get into the run quicker, and if they have RNG that doesn't match the well known and documented demo mode -> run gets rejected. Problem solved for all, since in the distant future when the only time save that's left is the god B ship pattern, no one will be waiting/loading save states to get into demo mode, so this will all be redundant one day.

I can't say that I think allowing romhacks into normal leaderboards is a good practice to break the seal on. With that being said, I really don't care all that much either way.

First of all,I won't produce here longer arguments , since I did that already 3 years ago, gave link to them and they stay, so there is no point to repeat myself.

To sum up, it's not just cathering to small amount of people, it's cathering to original unaltered gameplay without any changes with save states or hacks , if they are not necessary. Here, they are not, since it's just 15 seconds and if game started with 15 seconds cutscene like with Darkwing Duck or Castlevania, then we would never have this dicussion in first place, because it would be more widely accepted.

In the end, case is the same, speedrun the game without any alteration, so any way to skip the intro won't be allowed.

It's funny as I honestly agree with you, it's just illogical when it comes to Chip & Dale.

I want(ed) to learn Mega Man Zero 2 on GBA. There's a 60 second "intro" stage followed by nearly 6 minutes of unskippable cutscenes, and there, it's basically, RIP. Even though that really sucks, much more than this, I have the same mentality. It's part of the game and you just deal with it.

Here, and it will be my final reply, this mentality makes absolutely no sense.

Loading a savestate to skip the demo mode:

• Does not change the run at all (compared to intentionally waiting for demo mode).
• Does not offer any competitive advantage than intentionally waiting 16s for demo mode.
• Does not change timing of the run or remove any part of the run used in RTA timing on SRC. You would still start from the title screen.
• Would allow runners to attempt more attempts in a single session.
• Would stop runners from feeling burned out over constant Zone 0 resets and waiting.
• Would raise the overall competitive ceiling considering more attempts over time would be completed/attempted.
• Would make the game more desirable to run to people that might otherwise dislike having to wait.

Forcing people to wait for demo mode:

• ? INTEGRITY ?? ???

There's again literally no reason this shouldn't be a thing.

Especially because end game if you have foresight and imagine the future when no one runs demo mode anymore trying for spaceship RNG, forcing this stance on everyone else will all be for naught.

I wouldn’t have any issue with it, personally. I don’t have a competitive time in this game, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. At the very worst, if it’s controversial, a category could be created and should be sufficient for both camps, imho.

I don’t understand why so many people don’t like waiting for the splash screen - this is done so that there is no RNG and yes - I have 500 attempts at this game and I have never felt any discomfort - yes - I’m not having the best time - but no one does not force everyone to wait for the splash screen - if you don’t like it, you can simply not play this game. And waiting for the splash screen goes like a manip rng - this is part of the strategy of the speedrun itself. And if you remove it, it will be a simplification. To make a good time here, you really need try - but if someone spends much more time on this and therefore waits for a huge number of hours for the screensaver, this is definitely not a problem in the screensaver - it is the problem of the player himself.

I think it just has to do with the board in general. @EmilSinkler

I think, if you want to quite simply put it, I don't care about waiting at the end of the day and despite complaining, still reset and wait like everyone else. Is it annoying? Yes. Do I think anything would change if you allowed people to start off a savestate? Absolutely not. It's just Chip & Dale is an extremely unique run in how it developed over time and lack of decisions here created an awkward precedent. I'll try to explain it one last time thoroughly and why I think it's a problem.

First of all, let me preface this by saying I still agree with hirexen in general. Savestates should never be used to start a run, period. Anything that sucks to deal with in your run, like a long introduction or autoscroller you can't get out of, too bad. That's part of speedrunning and sometimes you just have to suck it up and accept it. I agree with everyone who thinks you shouldn't load a savesate, as, I truly and sincerely agree, in every other game, I have that mentality, but I don't have this mentality with only this specific game.

Chip & Dale falls into an extremely unique run where a) the main way to run the game (demo mode) starts before you do anything in the run and timing itself. The entire manipulation isn't something you have to do once you started the run, it has no barring on RTA timing. 99% of other NES games if there's a manipulation for something, you do it while the timer is already started (e.g - early hammer manipulation in SMB3 for example), so treating it as "part of the run" and forcing it to be "part of time" when time hasn't even started yet in my opinion is wrong.

The fact the main way to be competitive in this game is to let the demo mode activate that isn't part of timing is again unlike any other NES game I can think of. The only other NES game I can think of this happening is Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak. Runners there at some point figured out, after a game over, if you started a run immediately again it manipulated some enemies and bosses in the next attempt. So, what the moderators did what was very logical: They allowed runners to start from a savestate after a game over before the game and time began, otherwise you would have to play the game for about a minute each time each attempt and then they separated the categories (manipulated vs non-manipulated runs.) This makes sense to me - both the category separation and not forcing runners to wait a minute each time to run that category if you wanted to manipulate the RNG, because the manipulation in theory can be setup before a timer also ever has to be run. It's all pre-run and very similar to Chip & Dale where to manipulate the game, the timer hasn't started yet.

https://www.speedrun.com/the_flintstones_the_surprise_at_dinosaur_peak

Applying the reverse logic to Chip & Dale is where it becomes extremely nonsensical to me.

Running against RNG will be faster one day. That's the first problem. So it's reverse as it is in other games, like Goof Troop, once you remove the RNG, you have faster overall times by runners. Right now, runners run against no RNG in demo mode, but the RNG route and the spaceship will likely be the last timesave anyone ever runs against this game for a better run demo mode can provide. If I recall, the god spaceship saves about 1.2s or so. It's a pattern you only get running against RNG and it's faster than the demo mode spaceship. When we ran co-op, Kat and I had splits that were faster in every segment by the end than the old third place run we were trying to beat except in Zone B. No matter how much we golded Zone B and continued to gold Zone B, we would always lose time, and that's because they had the RNG spaceship kill back then in Blechy and Cyghfer's old third place co-op run. It'll be the same in solo runs one day that run against RNG for the god ship. This is particularly a solo problem as well, as in co-op, demo mode will likely not be beaten by RNG, since the main problem with running against RNG in co-op is the fact enemies will be different, boss patterns will be different, but the critical thing is flowers, stars and 1 ups will be different. Co-op's current route relies heavily on flowers always being the same (which demo mode locks in bonus stages) which is not a problem you'll ever experience running in solo. So, we have an incredibly awkward situation where demo mode will eventually plateau and not offer any more timesave. 1/2.

So, the fact again RNG will save time one day is problem number 1.

The fact this board never received separation is also extremely problematic and problem number 2. Before the manipulation was found, this board all ran against RNG. You can see this in Footdive's old 9:59 where from over 8 years ago, he died on the climb in Zone 0, and immediately started the run again after a reset. Kavoc from 6 years ago also messed up in Zone 0 and reset, then immediately ran again. So we had at least 2-3 years or more of RNG runs before the manipulation was found, and now we have about 5 years of manipulated runs all mixed together on the same board. One day RNG runs will be faster than the best demo mode run and literally unbeatable - do you separate the categories then?

Almost all SRC/NES boards become separated once a RNG manipulation is found that removes RNG, which now has created an awkward precedent in the future where the only legitimate timesave comes from a run where will be no manipulation. So again, this brings me to my main problem: why does this make sense?

In the future, the only timesave left is again going back to resetting and hoping for good RNG, which eliminates waiting on the demo mode anyway. We've come full circle, and I cannot think of another game where the manipulation is before the timer starts and overall, non-manipulated runs will one day be faster than the manipulated runs, and RNG runs will one day be faster than the current limit of manipulated runs. It's literally just Chip & Dale, and because no board separation ever existed, we've all been forced to wait on demo mode as it was the standard, where one day it won't be.

That day still isn't today, but again treating this run like it fits into the cookie cutter of every other NES game "because that's how other NES games do it" is an extremely failed approach and mentality. Chip & Dale is extremely unique in how the route developed over time. Unless something is found where you can match the RNG ship in demo mode, the only time save left at this point is actually going back to running against RNG, which, in that point, even if you wanted to start every run off a save state in demo mode, literally, as I tried to point out in my last reply offers no competitive advantage.

So the fact it's continued to be forced when it isn't part of RTA timing is nonsense to me.

Ideal solutions:

• Separate the boards between RNG and non-RNG runs.
• If that can't happen or won't happen, manually change timing to include demo mode much like the Disney Afternoon Collection does/Japanese RTA timing from console on to off (such as in Super Mario RPG and how they time that game). Everyone suddenly loses 16 seconds on this board, but at that point the demo mode is part of official timing and makes sense to keep in and it makes sense from the moderator perspective to force runners to not start the run from a savestate.
• If no one wants that, and I doubt anyone does, allow people to skip the demo mode screen and start from a save state because this manipulation is not part of RTA timing and pre-run.

As I said earlier, I really don't care, but trying to treat this game like every other NES game doesn't make sense. It's just how the route developed, but again, why Chip & Dale is extremely different and why I have a problem with not being allowed to start from a savestate in this particular game.

Waiting doesn't bother me one bit. I use it as time to catch up on chat, etc. I'd prefer having it the way it's intended even though I don't see it as unfair to myself or past runners. But a romhack skipping the begging for 16 seconds nixes the spirit of it IMO.

I really don't think 16 seconds is "a long time" and I'm 100% sure I've put more attempts into this game than anyone else (because I suck at consistency).

And as Zaelyn says "I can't say that I think allowing romhacks into normal leaderboards is a good practice to break the seal on." -- I 100% agree with that reasoning.

And FWIW, if we did a romhack I'd far prefer that route to loading a savestate.

But I definitely vote for keeping it as is, in general.

I think, the problem with the romhack route to me is it caps out and has the same problem as demo mode currently. If you wanna go the romhack route, you may as well make the romhack contain:

• Fastest B ship.
• Fastest patterns on all enemies and bosses, honestly.
• Ideal flowers for co-op bonus stages.

And just give "best" RNG like other hacks exist like for Friday the 13th or TMNT1 (in always having the best hole 1 RNG, or always starting with the proper RNG.) And there, I also don't agree with it, since the inclusion of such a hack that's better than the current demo mode offering ruins the prospects of running for the best RNG one day.

I promise I'll shut up. :D

I think the dumbest part about this conversation is no one is actually wrong. There's arguments on both sides that are extremely valid and if weighed, I think it's literally a 50% / 50% thing.

If I could control time, day 1 once the manipulation was found, I would have separated the boards and also changed the timing on demo mode to be included in the manipulation. I think, for this to have made the most sense today (to also be in line with the moderation's opinions), the categories should have been immediately separated and timing should have included the manipulation from power on.

It would also incentivize runners running against RNG again not losing 16 seconds for waiting for the manipulation.

If we included time from power on waiting for the demo, then chip becomes slightly more optimized than dale just by menuing

this is the real reason why dave wants that :-P

Yeah, that would be a funny side effect honestly. xD

But, I do think that would be the best way to solve this problem, as one day, some day, if the Chip & Dale community continues to push this game, and they will, this is a conversation that will come up again, but in a different context. Someone at some point will have a RNG run that is not possible to be beaten with the current demo mode RNG (provided nothing else is found there).

What do you do then?

Do you separate RNG/non-RNG runs to the boards can remain competitive in each category, or does everyone's demo mode time just stay on the same board knowing if you choose to run demo mode, it will never be as competitive against running RNG?

At some point it will be non-competitive to run demo mode, which when the demo mode lock was found, probably wasn't taken into consideration as it wasn't known how low it could go. Ironically, with your last record, Tecate, we're starting to see the maximum baseline being reached before there's literally no more time saves left before the next thing to do is go back to running against RNG.

Which circles me back anyway and I know I'm done soon as I just keep repeating myself. If one day demo mode will no longer be competitive, I don't really see why it makes sense if it's not currently part of timing to force waiting at all to everyone who currently runs it.

Or we can make a romhack where Dale is the default character! Problem solved!

There's a loooooooooooooooooot of time save left to go in RNG lock mode :)

while we're talking quality of life...using chip is a massive QOL downgrade ;-)

(edit: was typing this while magic was posting...too funny!)