I don't have much to say other than I'm happy to see alternate endings being added, so thanks! I hope/plan to submit my MM runs eventually... DON'T BE A TUNA HEAD!
Some more categories would be interesting to add. Off the top of my head we got:
Dave Solo % (alright challenge but gets boring waiting for needed cutscene skip to trigger) Feed Meteor to Plant % Dead end % (fastest to reach unwinnable state) Glitchless % Michael % (same ending as most of em but largely different gameplay)
Also came up with a meteor police variant called The Cheese Stands Alone, based on an old Magic card. Its not really competitive though. More a proof of concept than anything.
At this point in time, maybe a "NMG" or "Glitchless" category would be worth thinking about adding.
How "by the book" would we be playing? I assume no New Kid exploits? What about giving green tentacle a pepsi? The programmers clearly wrote specific text for green tentacle to say when given a pepsi... Maybe they didn't know it would disappear afterwards. Would that be considered a glitch? Hmmmm...
With the Pepsi Pause, and I guess the 0000 door code too, the line blurs. They seem unintended by the devs but are too easy to come across in casual/novice gameplay to be classed with the dungeon doorbell skip or Tele-death glitches for example. Would it be less fun if there were separate, tiered strictness categories (any%>pepsi required>meteor mess required>100%/all obstacles)?
We could carve out a lot of space on the board for different configurations but where to start?
Now that a good amount of us seem to be getting the Dr. Fred skip down, the playing field seems to be about ready to go for contesting some new alternate endings that require it. Pardon any redundancy here from other threads, but here's a compiled list of proposed additional speedrun categories:
Michael Ending/Glitchless (There's enough waiting built into the Michael ending that glitches seem to save a negligible amount of time)
Triple Threat (Talkshow/Meteor Police w/ Weird Edsel launch)
Talkshow w/ Weird Edsel Launch (no Meteor Police)
Super Hamsteak% (any% w/ extra turn and Hamsteak ending)
Meteor Police/Hamsteak%
Talkshow/Hamsteak%
Final Fortune (any% w/ extra turn & meltdown ending)
Dead End% (Unwinnable w/o game over)
Feed Meteor to Plant%
Dave Solo %
100% (we'll have to iron out how to define this)
Personally I am against "flooding" the leaderboards with miscellaneous categories, especially if there is no more than one runner.
Concering how to define Glitchless I would prefer if the developer lab code (4x0) was banned. -edit- Actually, I believe "guessing" the code should be banned. A true glitchless run would in my opinion show how you got the code.
Yeah, we gotta actually have runners willing to attempt something to make room for it on the leaderboard. I hope once there's enough runners submitting any% with the new strats that they'll use the same tricks to go for the real strange stuff. If something's gonna remain uncontested though, I agree it would be kind of a waste to recognize here.
Regarding glitchless, your proposed door code restriction seems reasonable. Michael run vid title updated.
This is basically a load of nonsense that isn't what it looks like. Only Cheese in the inventory, You Won The Game displaying with music, but it's not the mythical Cheese Stands Alone ending, just comical timing during post-game exploration.
TL;DR
Getting caught by Purple Tentacle is not a game winning skip but it can be dressed up as such if you cut enough context out.
Let's do Dave Solo%, I think it's a valid run idea, It's been around a while on youtube prior to any of us running it; capnshrimpy and myself have run it recently, it's pretty interesting run.
This rules. Yeah, with NeSs7or9 coming through with that top solo time maybe this is ready to become a category. Definitley the most accessible unlisted category beyond Michael Ending. If this is approved, can we retroactively add elmagnificodep's original run to the board? It's much longer and doesn't have the reset at the beginning, but its where Dave Solo was invented so, while it'd be great to see them participate more, I'd vote to grandfather their run into not requiring a reset to make it on the board.
In my opinion the new kid button should be banned in a solo category to add some kind of variation from the any% run.
Since we are on the cateogry subject I might as well throw in that it might be time to retire the 2-character one.
I'll leave it to the others to weigh in on new kid menu in solo but I agree that 2-character% should be retired. Ever since we started just doing 2 character parties in regular any% runs its seemed like it would be bad sportsmanship to continue submitting new PBs under the 2-character% heading.
I haven't really tried implementing anything risky yet, I feel like by the time it's all said and done Solo% won't look too much like any% if we keep New Kid. I think I've got a way to set up the "Fred Speech Skip" with just Dave, but I'll need the Rusty Key, and New Kid glitch to be able to do it.
I'd like to see New Kid stay, but if you want to ban using New Kid in solo%, it's going to slow the run down significantly.
As for retiring 2-character, I say go for it.
From my perspective, "dave solo%" is just a slow version of any%. Not using new kid would force you to figure out an alternative route. Sure it would be slower but it would bring something new. Then again, that is just my opinion.
Anyhow, I don't think anyone other than us three would be interested in such a misc category. So if you both prefer to use the new kid command I won't stand in the way of it.
I like the idea of a Dave% or solo run. I think it's a little more interesting than 2 kids as a concept.
In regards to the idea of disallowing New Kid, I can see both sides having pros and cons. If you disallow New Kid, you'll have to reroute or try to find new tricks that might not quite be as optimal. This would definitely make the solo route slower, and I'm not sure anyone would want to take the time to do that. It would make the category more unique from Any% though.
Also your aim is always to beat it as fast as possible, the Any% strats are obviously the most efficient way to end the game quickly. The current 2-Character category allows all strats too. But that's also why I've never ran the 2-Character category personally. Every run I did with 2 characters I counted as Any% because I never felt there were rules that separated them enough, so why not go for the main category?
That's my two cents. I will give this category a look sometime, but I think the rules should be determined between you guys since you'll be running this category the most. If anyone else has interest and reads this, hopefully they'll add their opinion as well.
Dave Solo (new kid menu allowed) floor is currently 8:1X, and without New Kid menu its around 11:5X, so that's more time and complexity, but still shorter than talkshow. The 8:1X routes are pretty optimized but getting a reliable Fred Skip in that time range is still a frontier. I think the biggest challenge in solo% is reducing wait time as much as possible. It inherently comes down to when a cutscene triggers to get past purple tentacle. A good route with the New Kid menu should trimsthe wait time to under 20 seconds and its quite a challenge. Waiting for the cutscene with New Kid banned often takes more waiting time than Mark Eteer in Talkshow, etc. Not making a point so much as describing some details here.
I have some time this weekend to playtest, but I believe using new kid would be way more complicated than an any% run and never as fast. You would have to rely on timing instead of cues, and then spam new kid to delay pool and a cutscene for red tentacle. I am sure that emulating any% would be the fastest route, just much more technical.
Alright, so what I'm finding is that No New Kid Dave Solo% really comes down to outrunning the package delivery. I think it made about a six minute difference. I only had to wait about 31 seconds from going in the Outer Lab door and "Oh the Doorbell". I think there's a circuit breaker strat for this but I haven't been able to get it to work.
The strange thing about this run is that Dave's Theme plays over the Dr. Fred cutscene instead of the NPC theme. I think this is because I was a little slow going back into the lab after using the switch and Dave was in between Meteor's room (no music) and Outer Lab (Fred music) when the cutscene triggered. I don't know, but Dave's on screen when the cutscene scrolls before the menu returns.
