Any%
Route options and benchmark times: best route: ~5:51 "beginner with a plan" route: ~7:04 "beginner with no plan" route: ~infinity (please make a plan)
It is recommended not to attempt a faster route until your time is close to the benchmark time for the current strats you are using. If you are using faster strats and your time is still slower than the benchmark for a route with worse strats, it is recommended that you simplify your route.
Edit by Crackerbean: There are 7 animals in each spawn. for the dogs/foxes this includes the hostile flying animals(2 flying dogs, 1 flying fox) Roaming Animals: 2 flying dogs, 1 flying fox, 2 frogs, 1 sheep, 1 ram, 1 king rat, 1 rat, 1 mouse.(10 total)
¤¤¤ Thanks to a new glitch we can make the game think we are in Punch up Pyramid while playing this level. what this does is it causes none of the text to appear during the level and at the end of the level, saving a lot of time. To do this (frame perfect?) glitch you must hover over Punch up Pyramid on the level select screen and push right and A on the same frame. you will know if you did it correctly because you will get text that says "BORING! You fight like my gran. YER OUT" at the start of BCP. you can attempt this as many times as you like.
If you want to put in practice on this level it is important to note that you need to do the level select glitch. The reason for this is that at the start of a completed Big Celebration Parade it will tell you the old "Station Record" after the roaming animals spawn. This text keeps you from moving but still allows the roaming animals to move, therefore throwing off their positions.
Do not select this level normally, instead perform the level select glitch from Punch-up Pyramid. This replaces the BCP text with PuP text and prevents Dan from talking at the end, saving ~20-30s. If you get the glitch, you'll know because the text will be weird. If you fail, don't worry, you can attempt again after the evil brain segment
Starting the evil brain segment, aim for the doors openings as you walk. Also, try to jump over the doors that open top-down to get over them faster. Whenever an Earth-shrinking cutscene starts, push A to skip it. Kill the brain by holding the B button. After the second text box post-brain kill, you can pause and restart the level and push A to skip the crashing cutscene. If you failed the level select glitch, exit the level instead of restarting it. Retry the level select glitch until it works. It's 100% worth it.
The main segment is, of course, more important than the evil brain section. Its also very hard. In order to play this level well, you need to understand how it works. This will be described first.
How it works: When you start the level, there will be some "roaming animals" running around. Unlike other animals, which stand still until they see you, these roaming animals move around in a fixed route. Because they move, they can be hard to find, so it is important to kill them fast and, if you miss them, understand what their routes are so that you can find them later. There is one roaming fire fox. It flies clockwise around the level in an oval shape, so it does not fly around the frog area or the opposite corner to the frog area. There are two flying dogs. They stay really close to each other (unless airpanes bump into them and cuase them to desync) and fly loops around the buildings close to the shore. These dogs only fly low enough to kill from the ground when they are near the frog area. They also fly loops around the tallest buildings near the mouse area, so you can kill them if you jump onto those buildings (really slow, but if you have to, then fine). There is a roaming rat that runs counter-clockwise around outside of the level. It will drop mines and run away from you when it sees you. There is a roaming king rat that runs clockwise around the outside of the level. It runs away from you and farts when it sees you. There is a roaming walking mouse that hangs out between the frog area and the dog area. TECHNICALLY, there are two roaming frogs and some roaming sheep/rams, but they aren't hard to find and have never caused anyone any problems.
In addition to these roaming animals, the rest of the animals spawn in sets. The trigger to make them spawn is killing enough other animals. This trigger is met when you hear the howling noise in the background music. Furthermore, you must not be standing in their spawn areas. If you are, you need to leave before they will appear. The animals will spawn in this order: sheep, mice, frogs, rats, dogs, foxes. You can find out exactly where they spawn by playing the level yourself since describing locations in this level is kinda tricky unless you reference the animals that spawn there. The exact number of animals remaining to spawn each set of animals is not known because it doesn't really matter. The only exception is the dogs, which spawn when there are 23 animals remaining. This is important because the optimal route kills the dogs before killing the rats, so you need to make sure the dogs actually spawn first.
The optimal route for this level: Coming out of the space station, head straight toward the frog area, rotating your camera away from the city to avoid lag. The roaming flying dogs will be circling the blue building just as you reach it. Jump up and kill both of them. Body-block them to buy yourself the time you need to do this. Whether you succeed or fail, head toward the center of the map and kill the nearby frog. Cut to the left toward the frog area and kill the second frog and the mouse. Watch for the approach of the roaming king rat coming from the shoreline. Wait until it is in a position to run directly into the wall when it sees you, then kill it. As you are doing so or immediately after, the roaming rat will come in from the opposite direction that the king rat came. Kill it too, then jump on the nearby building and face the shore. The roaming flying fox will approach. Jump up just a little bit to body-block it and try to kill it (just like the flying dogs, you might fail, but you have to try). If everything went well, all of the roaming animals apart from 2 sheep should be dead now. Move to the middle of the level and start killing the sheep (9 total including the 2 roaming ones), then travel in a clockwise direction around the level, killing as you go, moving from sheep (9) -> mice (7) -> frogs (7) -> dogs (7) -> rats (7) -> foxes (7). If you don't spawn the dogs in time, you'll have to criss-cross and do rats -> dogs -> foxes.
Understanding how this level works will help you find and kill the animals fastest. Make sure you know where to go and when to go there. Make sure you know the paths of the roaming flying animals. Keep track of the roaming animals you've killed (and the rest of the animals too, really). Pay attention and play well. Also, if you need health, GET IT!
Finally, mcill made this picture mostly as a joke, but people were all like "you should add this to the guide", so here it is. The "best route" isn't even correct anymore.
Help with killing rocket dogs and king rats: These animals run away from you and are faster than you, so you can't just charge them. Control their movement so that they run straight into walls. For king rats (and regular rats I guess), you can deaggro them if you walk up against the side of the level. From there you can kill them without having them run away.
