Oh shit guys, how did none of us notice???

Yeah, Earthbound is a very expensive game so unless money is no factor, I wouldn't suggest it. A cheaper option than NTSC console + game, or even a Mister, would be a SNES Classic. Software emulation (as opposed to hardware for a Mister) but it would get the job done.

Which emulator is loaded onto the pi? That could be a place to start, though I can't remember if emulators were tested or not for RNG manip.

Very interesting. I think if you were to use it at the beginning of the last stage that there may be enough apples to re-collect the required 35'ish to fight the final boss? I can't remember.

Good eyes, I meant to say that they will not be accepted. I've edited the original message as such.

Thanks!

Hey all,

Recently we've had a huge influx of submissions for Aladdin which we have rejected for various game or site rule violations. I would like to remind everyone of those rules so that your submissions can be valid runs and valuable additions to our leaderboard.

• No save states or other emulator-specific functions. Not even for reset!

You can not load your game from a save state on the main menu. This is both against our game rules and general SRC submission rules. Players using emulators must either perform a soft or hard reset of the emulator in much the same manner that console runners reset their consoles for each run. It is generally a good idea to show your reset in your video submissions, and while not showing that isn't explicitly a part of the game rules, there are many other games boards out there that will reject a run without a reset present in the VOD, so it's a good practice to get into.

-Please specify the emulator used. Different emulators handle the lag differently.

Only GPGX, BlastEm, and Fusion 3.64 are approved emulators. Older runs using other emulators are grandfathered into the leaderboards but new runs using miscellaneous emulators will not be accepted.

Furthermore, while not stated in the game rules but is generally known as a global speedrunning rule, you can only run on official versions of roms. Translation patches, rom hacks, and other non-official roms will not be accepted.

If there are any questions or concerns regarding these rules feel free to reach out, myself or Svipur can do our best to help.

What exactly are your questions or concerns?

Oh I also see that the board is set up to not include milliseconds. I had kept it on Peta's run but I see now that it's not there on the main leaderboard. We can always go back and edit those times after the fact.

We could include milliseconds for runs which are faster than 15:30, that seems like a good threshold. I am only a verifier though so I can't change any timing rules, that would be up to the full moderator to decide.

I also vote in favor. There's not much difference between the two categories, so if normal is going to consistently be the faster route then I'm for it.

Follow up point for discussion: this was brought up on the discord server. For emulator runs of practice mode, once the theoretical best possible time is reached by runners, the world record holder will possibly end up being the person using the least accurate emulator which we currently allow. We would likely limit the emulators which could be used for the runs. Is that understandable?

As for verifications, I would suggest we have some cutoff time, where anything faster needs to be frame counted. The onus would be on the runner to do this, possibly even having them submit their start frame and end frame in the comments section as verification that a proper frame count has indeed been performed.

Hey all,

The topic of the Practice Difficulty sub-category has come up again, as it usually does from time to time. In the past we have declined adding the practice difficulty as a board category for various reasons, mainly due to its short length, relative lack of challenge, and incompletion of the game, which may lead to a situation where everyone essentially ties the best possible time and we end up with what's close to a meme-styled run.

That being said and in the interest of being completely fair I'll pose the question to current and potential new game runners. Would you want to have the Practice difficulty added as a sub-category? YES or NO. Feel free to elaborate on why you feel the way you do. Anyone can chime in, but the opinions of people who have current times on the leaderboard OR people who would submit should a new category open will carry the most weight.

Hey all,

To the Moon has been on my long list of "games to learn" for quite a while now. I decided to take a look at the WR run this morning but I noticed that the video is no longer available. Anyone know if this video is available elsewhere?

EDIT: Now that I notice it, there's only one run on the leaderboard that still has a video.

Hey Sprash, welcome! We've had a few Arnold Palmer tournaments during Sega Crew events. Last time around we decided to go with stroke play instead of speedrunning, which was a nice twist.

If this is something you'd be interested in feel free to DM me on here or on Twitch.

Someone was working on this earlier in the year, though I can't for the life of me remember who it was. I think they had found a few new things but still was nowhere near 100%.

Obviously I don't speak for the community, but I'll give my two cents worth. I don't think this game really needs a "glitchless" category. I see merit for glitchless categories of games where the any% category is full of game breaking or game altering glitches and exploits, something like Earthbound or Gen 1 Pokemon come to mind.

In the standard run of this game there really isn't anything I would even consider a glitch, with the exception of falling through the floor in stage 2. The frame perfect see-saw jumps and stapler jumps are more tricks than glitches, and even if you were to ignore these tricks you can still post a very respectable time on the leaderboard. I can't see any situation where having two separate categories for this game would result in two very different runs.

I guess since there's no set rules for these categories then it's completely up to interpretation for now. I would personally think that for low% would imply no pickups, which would include coffee/boom box. That would make the category longer than any% for sure since I think you would have to fight Freddy at least once, possibly twice.

Of course since there is no official category or rules, you can tackle it whichever way you'd like!

I wonder though, for Pacifist, are you required to hit all boss skips for the run to be completed? Would that include Freddy? Nothing says true pacifist like skipping the spawn of the final boss and letting him get away haha.

Hey all,

After the leaderboard has come back to life with a new runner, I've noticed that the rules for this game are undefined. That's likely lead to some inconsistencies in how runs are timed & verified, and a change in moderation team in the past has probably made things a bit more confusing than they need to be. To make things as easy as possible for current and new runners I would like to post some game rules for everyone to see.

So I pose a question to the community: how would you like to see this game timed? From pressing start at the main menu to seeing the final scene? Character control? Let me know what you'd like! If any changes impact a run on the leaderboard I'll be more than happy to retime and update.

Thanks all

Hey all,

Pretty new to the game, I'm still learning the basics. I had something pretty odd happen tonight while doing PB attempts on twitch. After defeating the stage 1 boss my health and special weapon meters refilled while the stage end music was playing, instead of after when it usually happens.

Not sure if this is known or not? Information on this game is pretty hard to come by.

How long have you waited so far? There's not much SRC can do unless it's been 30 days or more.

SelfDestructor has their Twitter account linked in their bio. You could try reaching out to them there.