Speedrun video games

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/12127557

Big PB for me since v2.6 (which changed a lot for the speedrun)

After months and months of pain losing runs nearly every day to Library and some beyond, I have finally broken a minute barrier. This has been one of the most mentally taxing things that I have done. This is one of my favorite games of all time, and being tested by it and trying to perfect it has been quite the journey. There is still timesave to be had, so I will be trying to go for a low 1:02. I don't know if I could get a 1:01, but who knows.

If I look giga over it at the start of the run, it's because the 2 days prior to this didn't even have a single run to library. So I was getting quite frustrated. But I refused to give up. Since I knew I had the ability to do it.

Twitch VOD w/ music: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2071831690 Half-Life leaderboards: https://www.speedrun.com/hl1 Watch me try to get sub 26 here: https://www.twitch.tv/muty

Took me 3000 attempts since September to get a new proper PB and beat Kana by one second. Many unfortunate moments in the run, I even felt the WR slipping away in Xen, but I clinged on and managed to finish it. The race for sub 26 is firing on all cylinders now, here's hoping that third time lucky after all those battles with Maxam and I get to be first to break a minute barrier, this time against Kana. After that, if no major breakthroughs happen in the game, I am retiring from this category for good. It's been an amazing 5 years.

Muty has an impressive SRC profile: https://www.speedrun.com/users/Muty

https://www.twitch.tv/esamarathon

Stream 1 schedule: https://horaro.org/esa/2024-winter1

https://www.twitch.tv/esamarathon2

Stream 2 schedule: https://horaro.org/esa/2024-winter2

(Note this event does not run around the clock anymore)

The first world record for this category set with the new gamecube-only Dynawarp glitch that is capable of warping anywhere in the game! This saved more than a minute over the previous route mostly due to being able to warp straight to ganon, bypassing the tower collapse cutscene. This is my first (and probably only) world record in this category, really hyped to have been a part of this discovery, route development, and getting my name in the WR history of another category! This beat the previous WR of 11:47 by lozoots set on the previous route, and was retimed to exactly 11:41.317.

initial explanation of the new glitch here: https://youtu.be/iTpuiVs_0po

During the production of this video, it was discovered this glitch can lead to wrong warp chaining on the Gamecube version https://youtu.be/VHSClx5n9g4?si=9QMAzfL0tKzwGEDN This discovery will lead to an even faster route for Defeat Ganon, as well as other categories. Keep an eye out for a video from DannyB

more about this glitch, from dannyb https://youtu.be/Lg0rECFZdRQ

Old record: ZeroMaster 17:49 2023-12-21 (-12s)

Comment:

so after ZeroMaster rerouted some of the Ep1 route, I had to give getting the record back a shot. Was more difficult than expected, with a lot of retrying E1M1 over and over before a run could start.

Might look at Ep2 next

E1M1: 0:34 +0

Not a great time, the absolute maximum I'll accept to start a run. Last Imp tanking two shots and the first area was a mess. Best time is 4 seconds faster than this.

E1M2: 1:42 -5 (-5)

Average time for me, the first area was good (With only the imp not going down the elevator being annoying), maze was sloppy but ended with an ok time. Best time was 6 seconds faster than that.

E1M3: 2:38 -4 (-9)

Very good time, fast first area led me to a good time here. Best time was

E1M9 1:48 +4 (-6)

This was a good time, although slower than the previous records (ZM's E1M9 was insanely fast) Got stuck a bit on the blue key area, but only had one pinkie stuck not too far away at the end. Being ahead of the record after this map is a good sign.

E1M4 1:54 -6 (-12)

Where are start gaining serious time. This is actually not the best time due to the zombieman refusing to walk in the right area, losing me about 4-5 seconds as I wait for them then have to detour, and losing another second due to the barrel not exploding. Still gain some time here however as I don't grab the ammo box which is way faster. Fastest time was about 7-10 seconds better than this.

E1M5 2:11 -11 (-23)

Had a good switch room, setting me up for every good time here. Trying to manage ammo for the later levels. Fastest time is a good 7 seconds than this.

E1M6 3:12 +2 (-21)

Had a TERRIBLE start, with the shotgunner refusing to walk into position, and some unlucky shotgun blasts, and made up for it with a faster more aggressive last room (Can be more aggressive if I don't accidentally trigger the second pinkie). Fastest time a good 5 seconds faster.

E1M7 2:44 +4 (-17)

I can't match ZM's speed on the last two levels, so the entire process is just trying to reduce the damage. I lose time here from bad movement, bad barrels and less infighting. Best time is 6 seconds faster than this.

E1M8 54 +5 (-12)

Nerves are a thing here, although I nearly get trapped (Which has only happened to me once before), messing up the positions. Pinkies at the start aren't helpful and lose me another 1-2 seconds. Managed to hit the final trick for a +5 time. The best time is 7 seconds faster than that.

New PB for Ultimate Run Single Segment. It technically isn't submissible for WR since the game minimized to desktop mid-run, knocking out the game capture, which led to me having to close the game and reopen it. I still had my quicksave and was able to continue the run with the timer intact. Also, the Helios infolink that gives the icarus/panopticon login at the end of Area51 glitched out and didn't play, so I technically never got those credentials. Either way, I now have new and better splits that were made on an otherwise pretty clean (and very fun) run that I can now run against. Next goal is sub 2:15:00.

Well, it's WR in my heart. For the record, here's the official WR (2:24:04, also by PancakeTaicho): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/202350259?t=0h0m1s

Anyways, amazing run and commentary while doing this incredibly tightly choreographed run. If you're a fan of GDQ-style commentary then you'll love this.

Here are the insane rules for the Ultimate Run:

• Realistic Difficulty
• Glitchless / Exploitless
• No augmentations / weapons / inventory / consumable items.
• No use of skill points, money, or bio-electrical energy.
• Doors and security terminals can be used freely, although all used door codes and logins have to be acquired legitimately in-game.
• Ultimate Run The Second adds one more rule: No use of medbots.
• Any saves loaded during the run must have been made during the run.
• A run has to be done in one recording continuous - loading save files is allowed, but the timer can no be reset to a previous state.

Clutched the 5:02.6xx in classic Niftski fashion by having a bad first room fast accel and saving it with second room fast accel! I got this in only 7 attempts with the first run out of 4-2 getting it as well! Glitchless is now only 0.2 seconds / 12 frames away from the TAS, which is a 5:02.485. I do not plan on just stopping here, I would love to push this to a lower 5:02.6xx in the future since there are 3 easy frames to save in first room. A 5:02.5xx is possible with third room TAS accel + more accels, but if I were to ever achieve this, it would definitely be my stopping point.

This is a playlist containing new WRs for each of the 4 episodes for Ultimate Doom. Also an older video for Final Doom: Plutonia, but the Ultimate Doom ones are the new ones so I'll keep this post about those.

UV-Max: Ultra-violence difficulty, while collecting ALL secrets (with the exception of those that are unreachable due to bugs), and killing ALL monsters (lost souls don't count).

Episode 1 in 17:49, 51 second improvement over the previous record.

Episode 2 in 23:30, 32 seconds faster than the previous record.

Episode 3 in 16:48, 33 seconds faster than the previous record.

Episode 4 in 17:50, 4 minutes and 4 seconds faster than the previous record.

Read the video descriptions for more info! Zero Master always makes really good descriptions for his videos, with breakdowns of each level.

a literal DOG doing a speedrun of an NES game

This is beating Karin's 1:36:48 from 2 months ago.

This is just 2 days after he was on pace for a 1:35 before losing it to failed carpetless here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2031746157?t=0h27m22s

So I expect to see another WR from Weegee soon. (Now back to watching AGDQ lol)

https://gamesdonequick.com/schedule/46

https://horaro.org/agdq/2024

Definitely don't miss the dog speedrunning Gyromite on Tuesday lmao

https://youtu.be/IvShUE5zIXE?si=uWRhqoiiCXvIu14g

Run using OpenEmu 2.3.3, SNES9x 1.62.3

I started the timer a little late and adjusted the time accordingly.

I was a bit out of practice for this run so there were some rusty parts. There were also a few lucky parts particularly with squidmen.

Below are the major changes I made to routing:

32: Save the speed shoes, use them later...

34: Take the red potion earlier and save the neighbors on the righthand side last.

41: Use speed shoes and get the speed shoes on this level - routing completely changed.

44: Routing completely changed.

45: Use speed shoes.

Beating his own WR from about 4 days ago by 9 seconds!

Beating Suigi's previous WR of 46m41s from 5 months ago

from A Link to the Past Objectively Better Categories Marathon 2018

Max% Rain means get as many items as possible while keeping the rain from the beginning of the game. The rain only stops when you save Zelda, so Glan does tons of glitches to get most of the items in the game without leaving the early game phase.

I love this run for many reasons

• soothing rain sounds
• doesn't save Zelda
• huge variety of glitches while still getting to see lots of the game (Max% means this is almost a 100% run)
• great commentary
  and not too short or too long, nice run length (spoiler)

  1:24:15.69

here are the full category rules from SRC

• Rain must play for the entire run (with the exception of the effect caused by opening Misery Mire). This means the game phase can not be advanced past 0 or 1; that is, you may not rescue Zelda or defeat Agahnim 1.
• You must defeat all bosses (except Agahnim 1) and collect every crystal and pendant.
• You must acquire every attainable piece of equipment, all heart pieces and containers, and half magic. Duping hearts does not count toward collection.
• For reference, the following items cannot be acquired in rain:
  • Bumper Cave Heart Piece
  • Digging Game Heart Piece
  • Pyramid Heart Piece
  • Zora’s Domain Heart Piece
  • Purple Chest Bottle
  • Bridge Hobo Bottle
  • Quake Medallion
  • Flippers

https://horaro.org/pacefall23/schedule

http://twitch.tv/Speedrun

FIRST EVER SUB 8 BOTH QUESTS! After not being able to finish out the sub 8 after my previous two Any% WRs when I had the perfect chance to, I knew I had to return to this category and break the minute barrier. In just 46 attempts of going for this, I was able to get a whopping 8 4:55s in the process: 2 4:55.547s, a 4:55.563, a 4:55.580, 3 4:55.597s, and a 4:55.713, making me 17% at getting 4:55 this session! I hope to lower this even further in the future, and maybe one day to a 7:58, as this second quest route would align with it perfectly after a 4:54.5xx/4xx. :D

A hell of a first 20 for me, even if I never improve this I'm still very happy