I strongly advice all future runs to be recorded with higher gamma! Note that playing with higher gamma and recording with higher gamma are 2 different things, but I strongly urge any runners to do both, in order to better the playing and viewing experience of this game. How to do this is shown in the bottom paragraphs here, as well as in the Main Rules of the game

I hope I'm not alone in thinking that this game is too dark, and I don't mean that metaphorically, when I see let's plays or when verifying runs of this game, 90% of the time 90% of the screen is pure darkness. This makes the game unappealing and disorienting to watch, and weirdly enough straining for the eyes over longer sessions. Because of this, I want to strongly encourage all runners to make sure your recording setup records footage with higher gamma. Whether or not you also want to boost the gamma while you play is a separate issue, but I'd also recommend doing that too. This of course gives a decent advantage, simply because you're able to see more and scan rooms quicker, so there is an argument to be made that this shouldn't be allowed. But I have found the game to be much more enjoyable to run with these settings, and there's also no way as a verifier to know whether or not someone has played with high gamma on their screens, so to make things nice and easy for everyone, I'd encourage all runners to up the gamma on both the recording and on your screen while playing.

How to up the gamma when recording on OBS (do this before you record your run):

1. Right click on the source of your gameplay (usually either display capture or game capture)
2. Click on "Filters"
3. Click on "+" in the bottom left corner
4. Click on "Color Correction" and give it some arbitrary name
5. Put the Gamma-slider to the max (a value of 3.0)

This ups the gamma on your recording, but not on your screen while playing. If you want to play with higher gamma, you can follow these instructions to boost the gamma of your screen (Windows only):

1. Press the Windows-Key
2. Type in "Calibrate" and open "Calibrate Display Color"
3. Hit "Next" in the bottom right corner 3 times
4. Put the gamma slider to the top (or as high as you want to)
5. When you're done playing, set it back to normal

Optimal Sprinting

• You consume your stamina while sprinting, but it starts recharging as soon as you stop sprinting
• Which means if you tap the sprint button, you'll enter a sprint and lose some stamina, but it will immediately start to recharge
• So by continuously tapping sprint, you can keep moving at a high speed for extended periods of time
• If you bind 2 different keys to sprint (i.e. Shift & F), you can alternate between tapping those, which seems to be the optimal way of doing this

Exit Reload

• By clicking on "Save and Exit" right before you clear a level, you will skip the elevator rising up
• You can click "Save and Exit" while still turning the wheel to exit by using right click. Do this when you're between 3/4 and 1/2 way done turning the wheel to get the fadeout right after you finish turning the wheel
• Saves about 10 seconds all 8 times you can do it in a run

Elevator Tech

• You can briefly view the map while descending/ascending down/up to the levels by jumping on top of the handle
• In Night 4 & 5 you can use this extra height to start the level a bit earlier by walking/jumping off the handle
• When you find the Power Switch, you can hear the exact direction the elevator is, and to a certain extent how far away it is
• Can use this to sort-of triangulate its exact position (can draw a line on the map that points in its direction for later use)
• When approaching the elevator to escape, you can do a sprint jump to reach it, which will let you keep the running speed, without risking running out of stamina prematurely

Breakable Walls

• Has a ~3s timer starting when you first interact with it
• After these ~3 seconds, the next time you interact with it, it will immediately break
• Sometimes you can interact with it, then search the rest of the room, before you come back to instantly break it

Doors

• Can be opened while looking at your map
• If you close doors behind you and Mary spawns behind them, she'll have to pound on it to get past, which will let you know where she is and buy you valuable time to search and get away from her
• The doors may do the "screaming door" jumpscare, which allows you to run past the door without opening it (although you'll probably have to open it later, anyways)
• The doors can sometimes be used to push yourself for more optimal movement, most notably in-between the nights in the hotel when you can't sprint
• If you've already taken a hit, the door-spike-scare may kill you or prolong the damage, this can be avoided by tapping the door when first interacting with it

Monsters

• You can run past Mary in hallways, as you survive 2 hits from her
• The background soundtrack will fade when she's present on the map
• You can also run past the Tortured Soul and the Dark Skeleton without dying
• Best way to deal with Skeletons (especially on Night 6 & 7) is to conserve your sprint beforehand, and quickly run past them, only looking back at them once you've passed them at a safe distance
• The Flying Skull is usually best dealt with by letting him get a hit off on you
• Note that the background soundtrack will fade when he's present on the map
• Fire Babies can be run past without getting hit, but you won't die even if you get hit by them once
• Asmodeus will usually be a run killer if you free him on Night 4 & 5
• On Night 6 & 7 he usually won't spawn in time to be a threat

All of these examples has been changing P+ time into the standard PM time If you want to do it the other way around, you use the table in the opposite direction

You can use this table to quickly convert from P+ time to PM time. Note that you only need to do this for the digits behind the decimal point, as time in seconds and minutes are unaffected by version.

P+ --> PM .00 --> .00 .01 --> .02 .02 --> .03 .03 --> .05 .04 --> .07 .05 --> .08 .06 --> .10 .07 --> .12 .08 --> .13 .09 --> .15 .10 --> .17 .11 --> .18 .12 --> .20 .13 --> .22 .14 --> .23 .15 --> .25 .16 --> .27 .17 --> .28 .18 --> .30 .19 --> .32 .20 --> .33 .21 --> .35 .22 --> .37 .23 --> .38 .24 --> .40 .25 --> .42 .26 --> .43 .27 --> .45 .28 --> .47 .29 --> .48 .30 --> .50 .31 --> .52 .32 --> .53 .33 --> .55 .34 --> .57 .35 --> .58 .36 --> .60 .37 --> .62 .38 --> .63 .39 --> .65 .40 --> .67 .41 --> .68 .42 --> .70 .43 --> .72 .44 --> .73 .45 --> .75 .46 --> .77 .47 --> .78 .48 --> .80 .49 --> .82 .50 --> .83 .51 --> .85 .52 --> .87 .53 --> .88 .54 --> .90 .55 --> .92 .56 --> .93 .57 --> .95 .58 --> .97 .59 --> .98

Example: You get a time of 2:14.34 (2 min, 14 s) in P+, and you need to convert it to a PM time. What you need to do, is look up .34 in the table, and replace it with its corresponding number (.57), like so: 2:14.34 --> 2:14.57 As you can see, the only thing that changed was the number after the decimals, and that change is found in the table above

If you don't want to use the table, you can always use this formula directly: (PM time) = (P+ time)/60*100

Our current policy is just to convert all P+ times into seconds & milliseconds, which makes them directly comparable to all the previous runs from PM

To convert frames to milliseconds, you simply follow this formula and round it the the nearest whole number: (milliseconds)=(frames)/60*100

If you're not sure if you've applied the formula correctly when submitting a time, the mods will convert the time for you and make sure it is correct

It may also be beneficial to convert the old PM times to frames, to compare them to P+ when doing attempts. If you want to do this, simply use the formula in reverse (and round to nearest whole number): (frames)=(milliseconds)/100*60

The way I timed things was by using spikes. When they disappeared, that seemed to be on the first frame that the "congratulations" screen started to fade in. This is a really consistent way to time it, but it relies on having road spikes present, which is not utilized in all categories

Your proposed solution seems fine to me. As far as I know, these projectiles disappear before road spikes, meaning if you re-time old runs, all of them should get a slight improvement, if anything. So even if this timing method introduces a minute level of RNG, its consistency more than makes up for it imo.

Also is there a discord for this game? The invite in the forums doesn't work

I'm not following any of this, like at all. What's this about? Did someone do something? And how does playing on mac factor into this? Is there any context to any of this??

A Discord Server for Monstrum Speedrunners

https://discord.gg/UvCmVYM

In Co-Op runs, the rules says that

"One runner must be server admin (op) and is the one who must provide video proof."

Does this mean that ONLY one runner can be admin, or that that both can be admins, as long as the one recording is?

I could wish there was a better way to search for new games. One way to do this would be to have more parameters to sort by when looking through the list of games. If each community is given the option to tag their games by relevant tags (i.e. RPG, Horror, Stealth, Adventure, etc), similarly to how it's done on Twitch, then you could sort by a tag when you try to find new games to watch or pick up. I feel like this could help a lot, making it easier to navigate through the games and find and explore new games and communities.

I noticed that the run that's here splits when you get to the ladder, which is definitely not the end of the game, considering you have to climb up the ladder while Sullivan is chasing you, and then choose if you want the bad or good ending. I see no reason to not move this final split to the actual end of the game, which is when you reach the door, leaving the mansion. Also, I'd say it's more natural to start the timer when you press the button to start, but if you'd rather start it when you gain control of your character, then I suppose that's fine too

Also on the topic of good and bad ending, why not include more categories? The difference between good and bad ending is pretty negligible, so I could see why you wouldn't create a separate category for it, but there's the timed mode in the game, too, which for sure deserves its own category. Also, I think we could make ILs categories, considering the game saves 3 times for the duration of the story mode, so 1 IL per save/chapter (or whatever you wanna call it)

Lastly, some observations I've made playing this game

• Running diagonally is faster than running straight ahead
• You don't need to pick up Sullivan's Key Card
• You can pick up some of the fuses through some smaller objects
• It is possible to fall through the floor (happened in chapel), but it seemed random. It won't be useful if less we could find out how to clip through walls (mostly in the final room before the ladder)

Due to the way the game is programmed, running diagonally is actually faster than running in a straight line. I was surprised to see that none of the wr runs uses this technique, so I felt like I had to share

Using this, you can actually jump down from where the Life Raft is, all the way down onto the door next the one you usually land on (the one that is further towards the center of the ship)

I've made some changes to the leaderboards, most notably:

• Merged the individual fastest night times into one category that you can play on any night. In such a run the night you play matters very little, so there wasn't much point in keeping them separate
• Instead, we now have separate categories for consecutive nights, for those runs that starts out well, but then gets ruined by a bad night. Now you can submit the good part of such a run, and so it will still count for something
• Another item-related glitch was discovered, which allows you to collect more than 100% of the items very quickly, and I have therefore made 2 separate 100% categories, one with that allows the use of such glitches, and one that doesn't.
• We now have 2 "Fastest Death" categories, the first one being from Night 1, and the other one being on any other night of your choosing
• And finally, a "fastest win while dying" on Night 7, which is the crux of the 13 Night run, is now its own category, for the best times highlighting this trick

If anyone has any suggestions or feedback, then feel free to discuss it here

I'm currently looking into some of the "all character" categories, and startet wondering about some of the technicalities of these runs. Specifically...

• Can you use SoPo instead of Ice Climbers?
• When does it count as beating a stage with Sheik/Zelda?
  • Do you have to play the entire level with only Sheik or only Zelda?
  • What if you start out as one and then transforms into the other one before you complete the stage?
  • What if you start out by immediately transforming into the other character?

I feel like the SoPo case is a bit weird, because SoPo isn't banned and is a (somewhat) unique character that you can play as, yet, it doesn't seem like he is required in the "all character" categories. This makes sense, as he is a "hidden/bonus" character, and unlike Giga Bowser and Wario-Man, he isn't inherently broken. But if he isn't a requirement to play as in this character, can we still choose to play as him as a replacement for Ice Climbers if we so wish? Seeing as how he shares his time with Ice Climbers (and even in-game counts him as them) and isn't banned, then I don't see any reason not to allow to use him instead of Ice Climbers if someone would want to do so (seeing as it actually makes Target Smash level 5 easier and more consistent with SoPo).

And about the whole Sheik/Zelda mess. I can see it going either way, tbh. On one hand, the entire point of all characters is to show off all the characters, but then again, part of Sheik and Zelda's moveset is the ability to change between them, so why shouldn't we be allowed to highlight this mechanic as well? This of course sparks the discussion of what counts as Sheik and what counts as Zelda. If you start with Zelda and transform into Sheik during the run, does that count as beating the level with Sheik or Zelda? Does it matter when you transform (i.e. if you immediately transform vs transforming right before beating the level)?

I know that when viewing replays, the game only shows the character that you start the level with. In this case we could argue that the one you start the level with is the one that counts. But if I recall correctly, when beating Classic mode or All Stars, it counts as the character that you end up with (i.e. if you start with Zelda, but win with Sheik, it counts as winning with Sheik, same goes for Samus/ZSS in brawl). By this logic, it only matters what character you end up with when beating the level. This would imply that when I get to Sheik, I can beat the same stage twice with Sheik, only that I transform to Zelda at the very end, before beating the level. Alternatively, I wouldn't have to exit the stage to select Zelda, and could immediately change forms to quickly start out with Zelda, instead of having to leave the stage, selecting Zelda, and then starting the level.

...So any thoughts on all this?

I feel like some optimizations can be made here. I think it should go something like this for each character:

• Hit the one right above you
• Jump to the barrel, shoot the one on the top right
• Throw it to the left, and either

1. You hit both of targets
2. Hit only one target
3. Hit none targets

• Fall down and hit the one slightly below you, while landing on one of the platforms
• Destroy the one that is now slightly above and to your left (the last one that was broken in the vid) If 1. - Go to the Beam Sword and do what was done in the vid If 2. - Either hit the target on the bottom-left corner (if you can easily do that without dying), or go to the sword and break those targets first, before going to the last one If 3. - Go to the top and destroy the 2 targets while falling down, recovering either to the ledge, ground or onto the spikes for a nifty damage boost, before taking the sword and breaking the last 4 targets with it

Other notes

• Some with some characters, you can easily break the last 2 targets by jumping towards them, which may be faster than waiting for the Beam Sword to fall down to you
• If you miss the target on the very right side of the map, then you can usually still reach it with most characters. Some only need to double jump to reach it, while some needs their walljump to reach it and Peach needs to airdodge-throw a turnip in order to gain sufficient height
• The characters who don't hit either target when throwing the Cannon-thing, can sometimes hit them if you soft-throw the cannon, so I'd advice going for that, and react to whatever happens. If you break one target, then you don't need to go to the top and fall down to break them
• After throwing the barrel, it can be hard to control which direction you'll be facing when dropping off of the platfrom, so practice which side you want to face while falling down and what aerial is best to use to hit the target that is there

Also, Bowser can also throw the Cannon-thingy to hit both of the targets on the left side

Alright, I've made a quick little guide with both basic game mechanics as well as how the monster behaves and some good tips and tricks for the speedrun itself. Hope this helps, and good luck if you do decide to try out the run!

Btw, if you wanna play the game casually a bit first and explore it on your own first, I'd recommend doing that before reading the contents of the guide, as big game mechanics will be explained and exploited, which may decrease some of the fun or tension you might feel in the game when first playing it, but that's up to you

Really happy to see someone else interested in running this game!

By "finish the 1st night / 2nd night" do you mean finish only night 1 / night 2, or do you mean finish night 1 / finish night 1 and 2? Because I have already added 7 categories, 1 for each night, but if you want me to add categories like finish night 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, etc, then I can totally do that!

Maybe I also should make a thread for relevant game mechanics, techniques and tips & tricks, to make it easier to get into the game for newer runners

If the only reason emulator is not allowed is because of its faster loading time, then I see no reason in not allowing it in a category which has no loading times.

Since there seems to be some decent activity here, I might as well post some tips and tricks for this run that I've picked up over the years. This may help with your movement and can collectively improve a run by a lot when properly implemented.

• If you pick up a Key with Zero Suit Samus, you can Down-B Footstool it, which I think makes you move faster, especially if you're not following a completely straight line.
• Meta Knight moves faster when he's in his Down B, compared to when he's running. Combine his Down B with the Infinite Cape glitch to mave faster with him. Meta Knight also moves faster in the air while using Neutral B, at least from my experience.
• If you land with an aerial where a door is, you can immediately enter the door. This not does not only mean that you don't have to worry about landing lag, but you can also use this to instantly enter the doors when you land. Just perform an aerial and hold up, it's even more practical if you have tap to jump on.
• On some stages, you'll actually save some time if you first enter the stage, then quit and reenter the story mode, only to choose to play on the Intense difficulty, as this speeds up a lot of the processes in the game, most notably autoscrollers. The stages you can do this on are The Wilds (both of them) and The Glacial Peak. The Wilds with Meta Knight, Marth and Ike, you'll have to face off against Galleom on intense if you do this, so that could be a problem, and the other "The Wilds" is really difficult at intense, so it's up to you if you wanna try to do this. The Glacial Peak should be ok, tho.
• Sometimes, it can be beneficial to quit the game in The Great Maze, notably after fighting Olimar and Peach (maybe someone else as well, I don't remember atm). After you beat them, just quit and re-enter the story mode and continue where you left off. Remember to first go into the four "safe zones" along the way, otherwise you won't be able to re-enter the stage where you want to.
• Platform canceling can be used at certain places. In "The Ruins" there's a place where there's 3 spiky platforms that fall down from the roof. You can jump towards them and airdodge to instantly land without lag on top of them. Meta Knight can also platform cancel his aerial Up B by landing on a platform (or any ground for that matter) at the peak of his Up-B, this is especially useful if you're below a door that's located at the top of a platform.
• When playing the subspace levels where you revive the charcaters, you should revive enough characters so that when you later on will choose from said characters, that you can choose Meta Knight by only moving your cursor once. I can't remember who exactly you need to revive to do this, but that shouldn't be too hard figuring out.
• (Double)Jump while climbing ladders, it's just faster. You'll also avoid the animation that plays when you climb to the top of the ladder as well.
• Dash Attack to Aerial Up-B with MK against shadow characters in the Great Maze (alternatively F-Throw into Aerial Up-B).
• Air Dodge after launchers (those things you sometimes find, i.e. at the end of the first Pit stage)(aerials may give you landing lag).
• Use Snake's DACUS (Dash Attack Cancel(ed) Up Smash) when using him (it's easier to perform if you hit an enemy with the first part of Dash Attack first).
• Learn how to utilise DI, Momentum Cancel and SDI, not super important, but useful nonetheless.
• Multihit moves that hit more than two times are generally bad, especially against weaker enemies. There are some multihit moves that are still pretty decent, like Yoshi's and Lucas' dair.

Hope this helps!

You can also glide above 3 staged battles on the very first subspace level with Meta Knight at the end of the level. Also, that sidescroller skip looks really good, nice find!