Well darn anyone who uses a timer mid-run is cheating too RIP everybody.

More seriously- I would draw the line at a tool telling you what to do. A calculator or spreadsheet (or notes) to track HP, help remember routes or determine what RNG seed you're on? That's fair game. A solver telling you what to do? At that point, you'd basically be a proxy for the tool playing the game. (word games come to mind for this) A sokoban solver, however, would be a route planning tool and would be fine- the player still has to learn the route. For a calculator or spreadsheet, the player still has to interpret the results and determine what to do next.

Updates:

Original/Remaster is now a variable to select for runs- for now, they're compared together, if a compelling reason to split them comes up it's trivial to change to a subcategory. Normal/Expert is now a subcategory of the three main categories, which are any%/100%/any% NG+. Rules for all categories now have timing and run requirements.

Alright, thoughts on new organization...

1. Remaster/Original can be compared together, mostly. If you leave the mouse where you need it to be, it loses no time to keyboard navigation. I think this should be a variable instead of a subcategory. The main difference as far as a run is concerned is that the Remaster doesn't allow you to buy book upgrades, and even that isn't much of an effect as those are overpriced compared to just getting the XP anyway.
2. Every category (any%, NG+, 100%) has an Expert modifier. Expert is a perfect subcategory!
3. Rules are pretty poorly done, not going to lie. At a bare minimum every category needs timing rules and what the run actually entails. When does timing even stop? It's not clear from the rules themselves. Also, 100% is still undefined despite the forum discussion- you posted in that thread with a request to contact you elsewhere. Why aren't the forums good enough?
4. I'd be willing to fix up all of the above & be a second mod to make sure runs keep rolling through when submitted- one mod is usually enough for smaller games, but it's always better to avoid single points of failure.

Existing runs would be left as is as better times are attainable with default lives, the added lives had no effect on the run and grandfathering.

Right, but that still leaves the question of the quests- should they be a part of the definition? They don't carry a grind and do require shifting playstyles throughout, which I think is interesting.

Having now attempted a run of what I leaned towards: no, bad idea.

All stars + quests is fun and interesting. Achievements turn into a needless grind, with the 3,000 word achievement existing. I finished all stars at less than 1,500. So, I would go with all stars at a bare minimum, but do think all quests should be a part as well. Other opinions?

You have more than enough bombs to get through every spellcard in the game. Bomb damage is reduced against nonspells, so not bombing is always faster for a nonspell. Some midbosses are timed to the music, others aren't.

Even if that's not the case, default settings is a standard elsewhere- and routing when to suicide and which spells to spend 2 bombs on is part of the game that gets reduced by starting with 4 (!!!) extra lives. I don't buy the argument here- at that point, why not allow a continue to give even more lives? Why force a 1cc if failing to 1cc would end up faster?

Currently, more starting lives is just more safety buffer for mistakes during stages. I'm in favor of a default lives start because this actually makes skill matter more- not so much for easy, where capping everything is borderline trivial, but for higher difficulties where preserving bombs through stages and nonspells to speed up spells becomes a risk-reward problem.

Any% and NG+ are pretty obvious, but what is the definition for 100%?

All stars? (120 stars + 40 challenge stars. This is obviously part.) All achievements? (these are tracked by save file) All quests? Shop sold out? Max book levels? (distinct from shops for remastered)

Personally, I would lean towards all stars, achievements and quests, but could see an argument for any of those. It'd be nice to have confirmation before doing a run to make sure my run is valid, or doesn't waste time farming unnecessarily.

This is a thing that I'm in the process of doing, and Monster Lab is already good to go- just need to write a program to iterate through the random seeds until it finds the one 5 before the given seed, and then translate that to a date (to the second) to start the set on.

Exactly what the title says- I can remove existing icons fine, but when I try to upload a new one (square PNG, with transparency) the site just goes back to the old one.

Am I doing something wrong here, or is it still bugged? I remember having this issue over a year ago...

Individual levels will get to the point of being solved, but I'm skeptical of a full run being done optimally. It could happen but I don't know if anyone would actually get that run.

I grabbed one of the keys in the middle- 5EHLR-QW64J-8G6QJ

edit: Well, I was going to try the runthrough... but attempting to capture the game fails, giving a white screen or whatever windows are behind it. Looks like a fun game though, it'll be nice to be able to go through on my own time instead of trying to rush through all at once.. again. (I've done it with a few puzzle games now)

It's worth noting that there's actually enough time to start the challenge, grab the nearby environmental puzzle and get into position for the first panel before it spawns.

Wouldn't a better set of items be the relics introduced in Crash 3- platinum / gold / sapphire?

If a layout change was just rolled out, PLEASE revert it ASAP. I can't find the site bugs thread or new layout thread, so here's the best place to post feedback on what I see.

Profiles: http://prnt.sc/ec5xo9 The sidebar on the left is unnecessarily huge and cramps run information into a smaller space. You know, the more important part of a profile page.

Forums: http://prnt.sc/ec5y4i Half of the page isn't even used.

Front Page: http://prnt.sc/ec5yjj "Latest Tweets" bar almost doubled in size, and as notated on the screenshot, can that bar be made optional? Even the previous size for it took up a lot of stagnant space that I personally didn't really care for the contents of.

The worst that's happened to me didn't actually happen to me- it happened to the person I was racing! We were doing a rematch of a 30+ hour FF9 category because it was fun the first time, and at the end of Disc 1, about 4 hours in... he got called into work on his day off. We rescheduled for the next day and I lost 40 minutes to trying to get the friendly Mu the second time around.

https://www.speedrun.com/Clue_1998 I think this is the shortest non-IL run on the site.

edit: 0.733 is shorter than the 1.13 mentioned below, and it's for a main category instead of a misc. category to boot.

In addition to just winging it or trying to execute the 402, I've found a few different approaches of handling this level reliably with minimum difficulty.

First up is a 361 from a year ago- there isn't much "one attempt" timing involved here and you can always save the level with careful rams.

Secondly is a 370 from today- a little more of the level is choreographed and it shows a more timing intensive method of dealing with the start and end areas.

Last is a route capable of 376 with all waits and slide delay bits planned out. You can drop moves throughout the long hallway and still make it, but this is definitely more prone to failure. That being said, it's still easy enough that I'd feel confident using it in runs.

36 hours is quite doable in one sitting if you're determined enough- I've done it twice myself.

Incredibly draining, but oh so satisfying too.

In the case of a local tournament in Australia... Penta has max stats in everything on PAL and NTSC-J and would be the optimal choice if available.