Hi all, going to explain 3 glitches available in Escape. The first is very exploitable, the other two may be, but I've not found any use for them yet.

1. Animation layering. This has proven to be a very useful part of the speedrun. First found by thewoofs who discovered you can hammer the inventory key while diving into deep water, and then if you choose the scupperware, Guybrush will double up his animations of sinking into the water and bringing out the scupperware, saving time. Games1ayer found the next one, which is honestly one of the most difficult ones. When walking back to melee with a can of grog, if you hit the "put away" key exactly as Guybrush enters the town, he will double up his "walking into screen" animation with putting away the grog, again saving time. The trick with animation layering is as follows. If you select an action, Guybrush will adjust to do that action before doing it. During the adjustment time, you can do anything with the inventory - bring out or put away an item - and he will do both animations at once. Three examples not currently seen in the WR are: breaking out of the vault, you can double up adding the third sponge with bringing out the grog. Bait shop, you can double up picking up the bait with bringing out the spritzer, and THEN double up adding bait to the spritzer with bringing out the prosthetic hand! Mine shaft, you can double up opening the vent with bringing out a banana, and then double up closing the vent with bringing out another banana!
2. Out of bounds. If you walk into a zone that would trigger an action, while hammering escape, you can walk freely through that zone. This gives access to a whole bunch of OOB areas which I've somehow not been able to make use of. If you do it on the magic door just south of the house of mojo, Guybrush can see Otis and Carla from his position floating in front of the building. If you do this into the LUA bar kitchen, the door won't close and after multiple repeats you can get the LUA bar kitchen door to spin 360 degrees, pretty cool.
3. Ghost banana picker. If you put the banana picker in the giant monkey's nose, and then return to the canyon, there's a hotspot in the distance for the banana picker. Try to pick it up and guybrush will walk back to wear the picker used to be, produce the picker from his inventory somehow, and the game freezes. I was really excited about this one, and still can't explain why it happens (which would help to understand how exploitable it might be). As Guybrush walks over, you can do all sorts, bring out a banana, eat it, whatever. If you quit to map or give a banana to timmy, nothing will happen. Guybrush just gives up on the picker. If you press the hotkey for an item right on the frame Guybrush goes to bring out the banana picker, he'll bring out your hotkeyed item instead, but the game still freezes.

If you investigate any of these and make more discoveries on them, please post here!

An idea that came up in thewoofs' chat today was an abomination% category. On Lucre Island you can create an abomination of nature by redeeming all of the prostheses and combining everything apart from the skin. This abomination can then be released into the wild (it's alive!) or can be used to scare Murray. There may be other interactions possible.

I think it would be a nice alternative to Any% because it would be much shorter (within 10 minutes to release into wild, or within 30 minutes to scare Murray), avoids the RNG of boulders and Monkey Kombat, and avoids all the horrors of the Monkey Island section. It's also a fun little easter egg which we don't get to see otherwise.

Only just discovered, if you have multiple characters in the same location and use 1-4 to switch between, you can move multiple at the same time. This could save a fair amount of time, especially with the factory, where I've previously been moving each character over to the door one at a time - you can move all four over in the same time as it takes to move one!

So one of the most frustrating things is the placement of guests throughout the hotel. The elevator always moves at one second per floor and you cannot do anything else during this time apart from I guess any combining items you need to do.

The first bit is easy. You send an FBI agent to the hotel and they will have to travel to the maximum of Boris and Franklin's rooms. Franklin will have to travel to his room in the flashback, and then back to the lobby. So the total seconds spent in the elevator will be 2F+2max(F,B) And you just want F and B to be as low as possible. Best case scenario: 12 seconds in the elevator. Worst case scenario: 48 seconds in the elevator.

The second bit is trickier. It's clearly best to get all the elevator business done at the same time, and this can all be done after the arrest. It is best with just one character and the ghost, and as Ransome cannot give the pigeon brothers card to the manager, nor does he want the wrench, I do it all with Delores. Finally, once you give Sexy Riker the burger, you need to follow him.

So we have two efficient choices: 1: Franklin goes to M, gets the cake, goes to guest room, scares twice with delores giving the pigeon brothers card in between, follows sexy Riker. Delores then goes from bottom to top, getting the wrench, tools, and sorting out the podium. Franklin heads to the penthouse at the end.

Time in elevator = G + |R-G| + (13-R) for Franklin + 13 for Delores = G+R-G+13-R+13 = 26 when R>G or G+G-R+13-R+13 = 26+2(G-R) when G>R

2: Franklin goes to M, gets the cake, follows sexy Riker. Delores gets the tools then reenters the hotel with the map. Franklin scares the guest twice with Delores giving the pigeon brothers card in between. Delores and Franklin then travel to the top.

Time in elevator: R+|R-G|+(13-G) for Franklin + R+13 for Delores = R+R-G+13-G+R+13 = 26+3R-2G when R>G or R+G-R+13-G+R+13 = 26+R when G>R

So if Sexy Riker is ABOVE the Guest we have 26+3R-2G > 26 so method 1 is better. However, if Sexy Riker is BELOW the guest and 2G>3R method 2 is better.

Unfortunately we pick the method knowing G but not R

Extreme examples: G = 3, R = 12. If we picked method 1 we'll spend 26 seconds in the elevator If we picked method 2 we'll spend 56 seconds in the elevator G = 12, R = 3. If we picked method 1 we'll spend 44 seconds in the elevator If we picked method 2 we'll spend 29 seconds in the elevator

Taking the average of all possibilities for R when G is known, we get that method 1 is going to be a better bet for all but one floor: If the guest is on floor 12, method 2 is better.