Collecting Souls quickly could be a very fun skill to develop, but there was no good showcase for it, since only two categories required Souls:

• Individual Levels, which used to be unwieldy and are now less prominent
• 100%, which is intimidating, a big commitment and a long run, requires save deletion, and runs on RTA (which breaks convention with every other category on the board)

With the recent category cleanup complete and the IL spreadsheet created, I was thinking about ways to bring Souls back to the SRcom boards in a cleaner way than before and had two ideas.

1. A Levels category called "20 Souls" - just like "Base Levels (01-20)" but with the requirement that a soul must be collected in all 20 levels.
2. A Full game category called "120 Souls" - 100%'s little cousin; the Speedrun mode with "Whole game" selected, "Include bosses" off, "Include races" off, "Include apocalypse" off, and the runner must collect all 120 souls during the run.

Both of these categories would feed nicely into the new IL spreadsheet so we can get some Soul IL data, overlap/compliment each other without overlapping other existing categories, and do so in a way that maintains the cleanliness of the leaderboards. I could see 120 Souls being a bit overwhelming and seeing zero submissions, but if that's the case, then we could reevaluate 100%'s presence on the board for the same reason.

Are either/both of these categories something y'all would be interested in running? Do y'all have other ideas/suggestions?

Nice suggestions as always.

I think we can straight up delete the 100% category for now, nobody runs apocalypse levels yet as they are really brutal. 20 Souls runs seems like a nice twist on single world runs, I like the idea.

For 120 Souls I think the main issue that may arise is that if you clear a level and you missed the soul, your run is basically over since you cannot go back to the level you just cleared unless you play without using the speedrun mode and use the main menu to play levels (which is slower, because you get the cutscenes after the bosses). Maybe we would need some sort of toggle in game in the speedrun screen to restart the current level if the soul has not been collected. (that could be used in 20 Souls runs as well) I am not saying this is going to be implemented but that would be a nice thing to have if people want to run "Soul" categories.

What do you think ?

I think we can straight up delete the 100% category for now

I'm not opposed to archiving it for the time being, and reimplementing if there's interest in the future. The biggest issues (aside from being long) is the save deletion requirement and the RTA timekeeping which throw off the cleanliness of other category rules. I'll get that taken care of now before the USC Marathon showcase tomorrow.

if you clear a level and you missed the soul, your run is basically over since you cannot go back to the level you just cleared

The "accidentally clear a level without a soul" issue would be present in 20 Souls as well in theory, it just wouldn't be at quite the same scale. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in practice, I don't believe the souls are anywhere near the doors in such a way where an accident could happen like that.

Maybe we would need some sort of toggle in game in the speedrun screen to restart the current level if the soul has not been collected.

Now that's a fascinating idea! My concern has been making more work from the devs, who have been so gracious with their time and implementing other quality-of-life fixes - but if you think it's feasible (perhaps the Soul unlocks the door?) then I'd be down for it.

I may do a few 20 Souls runs in W1 next week just to try it out, y'all are welcome to test as well, could be good for gathering feedback. They can still be submitted to ILs, and if we create a category, we can submit them to SRcom later too!

but if you think it's feasible

I think so yeah, stay tuned for the next update ;)

Version 1.2.1.3 is here with a "Must collect souls" option in the speedrunning menu!

For now, enabling that option means completing a level without a soul will simply reset the level (to prevent any accidental run-ending). That solves this concern:

if you clear a level and you missed the soul, your run is basically over since you cannot go back to the level you just cleared unless you play without using the speedrun mode and use the main menu to play levels

However, this creates a new question for me. Since I had forgotten when we first had this conversation that the Bonus Races also have souls to collect:

• Should the new category be "20 Souls" or "21 Souls"?
• If the new category is "20 Souls," should a "Bonus Soul" category be created ("Bonus Race with soul")?
• Should the full-game equivalent of 20 Souls be "120 Souls" or "126 Souls"?

Personally, because no one will be combining any% and Souls runs, I lean towards "21 Souls" (completionist). This also answers the 2nd question (not necessary) and the 3rd question (make it 126 Souls) for me. That also keeps the number of new categories down to 2 instead of 3.

That said, others may have differing opinions. What are your thoughts, gang?

Hey ! I agree with you. If a category is to be made with the souls, I think it’s a good idea to play the bonus levels too.

Slightly unrelated but I have an idea for a new category, I call it "Bonus Ending"; the tuning is "Whole game" and "Bosses" and "Races" turned on. The point of it is that you need to complete the game (just like Any%) along with clearing the races but since you need 10 souls in the 1st chapter and 15 in other ones to unlock them, you also have to collect souls in specific levels in order to unlock races for each chapter.