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

A Discord Server for Monstrum Speedrunners

https://discord.gg/UvCmVYM

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've noticed that no runs in any category have been with either Giga Bowser or Wario Man (or SoPo for that matter). I also see that you cannot choose them when submitting a run. Are these characters banned? I don't really see any reason as of why we should not include them, as they are a part of the game/mod and meant to be accessible. I guess you could argue that they are VERY overpowered (excluding SoPo) and removes a lot of the skill, but apart from that, what are the reasons they are not included, and would it be reasonable to add them in the relevant categories?

Hey, I just wanted to know if it would be possible to have a category for a 100% run in this game. I guess there's very little interest, but I still think it would be cool to have some runs like that here. So if this becomes a thing, we also need to know what qualifies as a 100% run. I think all or some of this is what we should use to define a 100% run:

All Tinderboxes, All Oi Potions, All Notes, All Laudanum All Items (Including Weyer's Tonic?).

While things like: All Barrel Oils, All Mementos and All Monsters / monster hallucinations should not be required

Thougts?

Hey guys, I have taken a look at the records both at regular SSBB and PM and have noticed that the runs can be improved significantly. I will mainly focus on the SSBB story mode, as I have played it a couple of times (and also because PM story mode freezes at some specific locations...). It doesn't seem like this forum is too active, but I guess it would only be fair to share everything I have at the moment, and eventually discuss new strats if possible.

First things first. I think we shouldn't specify that the runs is, or has to be, on easy mode. This is because any other difficulty would produce close results, and an any% run is only about trying to do it as fast as possible, regardless of which difficulty it is being played at. The strats I have is very similar to those that a Japanese player known as "Key2019" had, when he made a segmented run of this game on intense which clocked in at 1:50 (in-game time). The main difference between my strats, is that I don't use Stickers (I see this as semi-New Game+). I would only allow the use of stickers if you delete all of your data at the game so you don't have any stickers and use only those you get during the run (which is a really unviable strategy, but could work. The bat would be the best sticker, then the Beam Sword). Anyways, I want you to take notes on the run Key2019 did and try to replicate most of the skips he uses, on the difficulty you want to play at (probably Easy). Here's a link the the first part of his run:

Note that on the Skyworld level, right after Mario joins you and you fall down onto the Purple moving platform, I glide beneath the stage (saves a lot of time). You should also practise that. I also use Sheik's Side-B much more frequent to get onto ledges quickly, especially on the Halberd ship. Lastly, I only use Meta Knight throughout the entire Great Maze, this can be optimized.

Here's a list of the places where you can skip battles, "Easy/Medium/Hard" means how difficult it is, in my experience it is to pull of the skips. Skyworld (last area, with Pit, Hard) The Battlefield Fortress (lots of places, with Meta Knight, Hard) The Path to the Ruins (at the very beginning, with Lucas, Easy) The Wilds I (while climbing on mountainside, with Meta Knight, Easy) The Wilds II (Staged fight #3, with Pit, Medium) Entrance to Subspace (After destroying the 3 portals, with Meta Knight, Hard)

¤The research facility (at the end, with Pikachu, only on Very Hard/intense difficulty, slightly luck reliant)

In the Great Maze you can quit the story mode and re-enter it to skip backtracking, it is very helpful. My current PB is at 2h 19m 40s on Easy, which is quite a bit better than the best one here. I think a more optimal run would be at 2:18, as I did some big mistakes and had a horrible Tabuu fight. I didn't record the run, since I lack the equipment, but I'll figure something out eventually. Hope this helps!