Hi everyone! I hope y'all are doing good :)

As you may know, there are several versions of ObsCure, and even though almost everyone here plays the Steam one, and said version is linked through the button that says "website", it's not specified in the rules which version should be played when speedrunning. I've seen a couple of speedruns here using the Improved Version of the game (released in all countries except Germany and Spain), which features some changes that make the game a bit longer and harder. For example:

• The need for keys to exit the library when Walden locks you there
• The biters at the ground floor of the classrooms
• The need of lockpicking the toolbox in the dining hall in order to get the fuses

The Steam version is based on the Basic-German-Spanish version, so it doesn't feature all of that, and therefore might be faster to complete. Not only that, but it is the only version where the elevator's security in the Amphitheatre is switched off from the start. I think it might be a good idea to specify which version of the game should be played, just so there are no doubts, or maybe make another category for the Improved Version (but it might be a bit tedious to create all the subcategories 1/2 Controllers, Special Mode, Co-op, etc).

On the one hand, I think it might be interesting to keep a category for said version, since it creates new paths, but on the other hand I think the difference is not so noticeable and therefore isn't worth the creation of a new category. In the end it might be better to just keep the Steam version, but sadly I guess that would mean some speedruns here should be deleted or made "obsolete" :/ and that's a pity because they follow the existing rules by the time they were uploaded.

I wanted to bring this topic up because I think it's worth the debate/thought.

There are too few runners to create another category, after all, speedrunning is about finishing the game as quickly as possible, it would make no sense to use a "slower" version.

Yes the steam version is the european version. The american version has the changes that you mentioned. The ObsCure fan wiki should have a list of most, or all changes. It is not really mentioned here, as it is also the slower version. Creating a new category is something I really do not want to do, as the game really has enough at this time. If there would be enough runs of said version we could create it, but I feel like it is very unlikely. However the game page is being updated in near time with specification of rules, recommendations, usage of autosplitter and updated LRT times of the runs. What I might see us doing is adding a variable to the runs to identify the versions used, but not as a new category.

Oh that's cool thank you! Yeah I agree that there are already a lot of categories. Now that you mention the Wiki, I updated the Different Versions article not long ago with all the findings I made during my research. Mainly that the "European version" is actually the German-Spanish one, and the "American version" is actually the French-Italian-British-American-Russian one XD.