Recently @RoyTheDragon has put up a time for Flash Mode, utilizing a glitch near the end to complete stage 10 faster.

Normally, in this mode, a magic gem appears every 150 gems you clear. However, if you time clearing your last flashing gem so that it crosses a multiple of 150, you will instead get a magic gem to start the next stage!

And not only that, you then get another one just about 46 gems afterwards instead of the normal 150! I tested and confirmed this with stages 1 and 2, and I even also confirmed that after these two glitched magic gems, they appear every 150 gems cleared as normal (so the next one would be at about 196 total, then 346, 496, etc.)

It does seem like there's a risk to using this: if you miss the mark, you'll have spent the extra time for nothing. It's probably best to use it before the stages where you need a few magic gems to beat them, thus saving you the most time for the risk.

I have a Super Columns time pending which would be a WR if approved, but unfortunately I also discovered that day (Christmas) that I played it that the only moderator of the specific game had "left the building" (they'd totally disappeared and taken all their times with them) and thus it is now up to one of the current two moderators of the whole Columns series to decide if this run is legitimate or not. I've messaged them both about this.

For this one, the game "recommends" but does not require timing split software. An earlier run of 15:55 of this game was approved without it, kind of like this one. If this WR does get rejected, I would be willing to accept that timing split software is required for a WR time, since my earlier one was not a WR, but in 2nd place.

This is a game with very few players, by the way. I'm lucky it's even on SRC at all these days, and was able to submit this!! There's only three times total after the original mod's disappearance (along with a time of 17:55 in the category.)

UPDATE: After I contacted SRC support, I have actually been made a moderator of this game and was allowed to self-verify this one as a WR!!! So it's official now and I will do my best to mod this, having been given the title so I could verify this.

I had to split this into two posts because of what is apparently a 4,096 character limit for each post, so here's the rest of this right now:

2. What does "crush damage" / raises your opponent's floor

You may know already that creating chain reactions (clearing a set of gems that causes another to fall into place by gravity and clear as well) causes this "crush" attack to become available in Columns III and Stack Columns. But Super Columns does work a little differently, such that clearing four gems in a row in a single clear will also do one "bar" of such "crush" damage, 5 in a row will do two, and multiples also count such as two 3-gem clears in a single iteration doing one.

So this means combining chains with 4- and 5-gem line clears, as well as multiple line clears, will ultimately raise your opponent's floor the most and help you beat opponents quicker to help you get a faster time at this game!

With the "no items" category, I'm taking it to mean that the "special attacks" I described in my (longer) main pointer #1 are not allowed, so the knowledge I have for this #2 point would really be mainly how to get a faster time for this "no items" category.

One other thing I'm going to say about this is that gems clearing take quite a bit more time than just placing pieces without clears, which makes single 3 gem clears less favorable (since they take some time and do no damage) in comparison to building up something I mentioned above to actually do some of this "crush" damage from clearing it.

If you really want an intriguing method I wouldn't have thought of before, just go check out the current WR for the "History Mode" category for this game that allows the use of "items"!

History Mode in 15:43 by Acmlm - Super Columns - Speedrun

It basically mostly just rapidly laid down pieces to fill the board with a hole left in the 4th column from the left, but still managed to beat my time by 12 seconds by getting lots of chains and other "crush damaging" clears once pieces were dropped into that remaining open column!

Though if I were to try that last kind of strat, I would probably leave my 3rd column open instead so I can just rapidly drop pieces in and not have to move those to prevent myself from topping out (that is, of course, unless that column gets filled up!)

I really hope this information helps and that I can get some actual forum discussion going for this game! Feel free to ask me any questions about how the game works or what I have written here about the Super Columns game, particularly for speedrun purposes in any category.

Not too long ago in terms of the Columns games on SR.C, I had a 15:55 speedrun of History Mode (items allowed) (which I think of as Story Mode, special attacks allowed) approved in 2nd place, about 12 seconds behind the WR, and I have some insights that could help competitors with me going forward for this game:

1. What the special attacks are and how to use them

In case you didn't know how to use the special attacks (the ones that use the 1-5 meter in the center), you use it by holding UP on the D-pad (or as assigned to represent such) and while holding it, press the button you normally use to rotate your pieces into a row (the B button, which, by the way, is allowed in all categories to my knowledge, even though I don't (at least not intentionally) do that in my run, because such rotation serves more to confuse than help me, given that the other Columns games are played without this ability at all.

You can also hold UP and use the A button (the one you normally use to shuffle your pieces around in your column like normal) to change between "menu options" with a given amount of special attack that you have. This is particularly useful if you go over your intended attack strength (and effect) which you were going to use, to use your attack like you had wanted to do it. So, for instance, you could drop a level 4 to a level 3 by UP + A once, then UP + B to use the level 3 attack to force your opponent's pieces to drop fast. In this case, it will leave you with a level 1 attack on the meter.

So the special attacks themselves are:

1. You send a set of stone blocks to your opponent, which cannot be cleared by normal means and cannot be rotated into a row. They can, however, be broken by another automatic "crush" attack you send (that attack which raises the opponent's floor) and sometimes you might be lucky enough to get one such set of stone blocks of yours broken by your opponent getting such an automatic "crush" attack (which there is no choice in when to use in this game - it's just automatic like with either the witch in Columns III or the "Beginner" control method in Stack Columns.) Also, a "magic gem" placed with a square down on top of one of these "stone blocks" will clear every stone block on the board, allowing great relief from several of these attacks!

2. You temporarily cause your opponent not to be able to shuffle their gems around in their column or rotate theirs into a row. This can become quite a problem for the faster CPU opponents in this game as they (usually) won't slow down in the face of it and can get their gems piled up from it! Against Surhand, I've found it best to use that attack (in the category where it's permitted) at the above described two levels. However, against the other four enemies, I've generally found it better to use it at the following level:

3. Your opponent temporarily has all their pieces fall very fast, albeit with a fair amount of "lock delay" which still makes it playable, kind of like a very high level of the "Endless" mode of this game (and the other Columns games that have it!) This one usually finishes the first four opponents for me after I've put what I call "good old fashioned crush bar" on them like from Columns III and Stack Columns - they just can't handle it at all at this point, allowing me to win rounds faster!

4. Your own "crush bar" drops by three bars, like with the default use of the "magic gem" in Columns III or Stack Columns. It strikes me as a weak defense for how much you have to build up to get it (200 gems, or 50 gems per level, at least according to the manual) and I think if you do get up level 4, it's actually better to hold up and use the A button (the one you normally use to shuffle your pieces like normal) to drop it to level 3 (or 2 or possibly 1 at Surhand) to go to the next "menu option" that you have available at least.

5. This level attack will give you a "magic gem", though I don't really like this level either, because of the 250 gems it requires to get there, just to get something that is, unlike in Columns III or Stack Columns, purely defensive. None of its uses actually hurt your opponent - and, in fact, all three of them can only clear gems for you, and neither lower your "crush bar" nor raise your opponent's!

There is one guide from @SegaJunkie under "Guides" for this game that nicely explains how to set up chains on purpose. The part about setting up chains starts at about 7:48. And as you get more practice doing this, you can figure out more situations later on in games where you can set up chains like this.

https://www.speedrun.com/columns_iii/guide/b0lqm

Indeed, I taught myself to do so in order to beat the Mummy and the Sphinx. The main thing is to get used to intervening gems on what would otherwise be matches that can form chains, and this can even be sometimes used to turn mistakes into chains (or bigger ones!)

Using SegaJunkie's tactic, at the Sphinx, if the gems line up for you for an easy 3-chain, actually expect the Sphinx to do the same right with you! This is because of the identical sequences of gems (apart from magic gems, which follow different rules) that players get for fairness, so if it's that easy for you once you reach the Sphinx, it will be matched nearly every time. So what I do about this is, instead of using my 20-point attack immediately, I wait for the Sphinx to use its attack and for its flash gem to come up, then use my attack to throw the crush bars back at the Sphinx and break its flash gem. Then, the Sphinx often ends up cursed instead of me!

I have a speedrun time of 30:08 which is in 5th place, and I either go for a 3-chain at the beginning, or else more rapid-fire 2-chains depending on the gems. If the gems aren't right for a decently quick 3 (oftentimes with a drought of pieces with two of the same color), the Sphinx often doesn't know what to do about it, and can quickly pile its gems up trying to get that 3 instead of successive 2's like I would do with those gems, which can allow for a "quick kill" of the Sphinx that round! Especially so for a speedrun where item use is allowed, and I've got a Magic Gem item, or a few of them! Even better coupled with a Barrier item so that gem can't be broken!

It seems fairly unlikely on SR.C, because moderators are supposed to reject runs that are clearly not trying to beat the game quickly, but has one perchance slipped through on this site?

If I slowrun a game or level and want to put it on SR.C, I would put it in a forum post for the game, or perhaps in this thread!

One example for me might be the first enemy in Columns III (the spider), of course without pausing, and I'd just not use items if it's a later enemy to uphold not pausing. I usually save them all for the sphinx anyway. The snake is also a great bet for longest time against any enemy, because it will always wait for you to use the "crush bar" attack before retaliating, so if you never use it, the snake won't either, and won't pile itself out! It knows how to keep from topping out this way. If I slowran two out of three for the match (or even the whole game!! - very challenging to get the sphinx at the end, especially without items so I don't pause!! [Or maybe pause but I need to pick and use an item in 5 seconds or something]), I would start the next rounds immediately like it's a speedrun to uphold the spirit of not pausing (just go slow during actual play.)

Maybe that last paragraph belongs on the Columns III forum, but there's only one sporadic user besides me on it, and I got a completely dead one to a little life at least while I was working on speedrunning that game.

It seems to me for this game like there is a great deal of skill involved to have any hope of beating the sphinx or putting up a speedrun time for Hard (the only difficulty anyone has taken interest in thus far) but also, the luck of the gems that fall (even the same sequence for both players for fairness) no doubt contributes to the overall times possible in a given run.

There is one additional factor that also contributes to luck to me in this game: the behavior of the mummy and to an extent the sphinx, mostly with aggressive/conservative build strategies with the mummy.

Sometimes, for the mummy in particular, it will use the speed it has acquired by going through the pyramid to build high very confidently, raising the possibility of beating it very quickly with the right timing of attacks from people who would actually speedrun this on Hard, and quite a few victories under 30 seconds for one round have happened against this character. And I did once find out for sure the mummy was doing it this way both games while I beat them both. The mummy seems to be random with this build-high to clear an early chain strategy or a more conservative one more like the witch, making for more work for the player to build crush bars on this mummy and making it take longer.

Even the sphinx can sometimes get reckless like I described with the mummy, but it's really freaking fast, so one hesitation or mistake and my plan to defeat it could be ruined. Still, this could make for a miraculous comeback in the end, especially if you got a few "magic gems" which can be used to just crush bar the sphinx to death that way by just using them one after the another, or just one of two or two of three where you think that will be enough, especially if you have it coming up "for real!" I've used this strategy to defeat the sphinx, and did use one of those in my final game for my speedrun when I was at 10 lines clear (20 to get the magic gem normally, but occasionally sooner) and "carried" the resulting two crush bars on the sphinx to my magic gem "for real" and ultimately won after successfully using it. It is especially good combined with a barrier so the sphinx can't break it, particularly as it intentionally targets your magic gems, breaking it every time it gets the chance to!

So here's the information I thought could be useful for people looking at this.

So, what do you think are the overall roles of luck and skill are for this game as opposed to other games that are speedran?

My first, and only so far, speedrun on SR.C is Columns III in 30:16.60 according to me retiming like someone showed me how to do here, and is listed as 30:17 which is just fine by me as it rounds to the nearest second. I also have a commentated version of it on YouTube which plays windowed - the one I'm linking first is the one I submitted, without commentary and with full-screen gameplay, which got approved:

And here's the other, commentated version of it I have that proves I never paused emulation during timing, which could potentially gain a small advantage so I want to make sure not to do it, in case you want to hear "live" commentary as I'm playing the game knowing anyone in the world might see it:

I'm making some occasional attempts to improve this, and may pick up effort and really gain a better understanding of the effort and attempts it takes to get top speedrunners where they are. This game only has a few times, but they're good, with a very challenging WR. A few more could be added from YouTube and Twitch, intended as speedruns and posted on those sites, but not SR.C as of yet.

Speedrun.com's "Knowledge Base" (available in the "More..." menu), has a section on "Moderating a Game" that has some good information on how this is to be done. Since the OP has already become a moderator, I will list the links to each page in the KB about how to moderate properly:

Creating the Leaderboard https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/creating-a-leaderboard

Editing a Leaderboard https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/editing-a-leaderboard

Moderation Rules https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/moderation-rules

I don't moderate any games myself, though I have read the moderation rules to get a better idea how to get games added to the site, since if you request a game and it's accepted, you generally moderate it. So here are a few pointers for the moderation itself, which I quote from the "Moderation Rules" page:

• "Leaderboards should be viewed as owned by the community and curated by the moderators. A user who requests a leaderboard does not own the leaderboard."
• "The users moderating a game should represent the consensus of the players of the game. If it is evident that moderators are not representing consensus among runners, site staff may change moderation."
• "Moderators should typically speedrun the game, or at a minimum be heavily involved with the community." (For me pioneering a game not yet on the site such as Stack Columns or Super Columns, that would mean me speedrunning the game, knowing how the run worked for me, and knowing any easy ways to cheat so I can catch it.)
• "Moderators must remain impartial in their treatment of community members."
• "Although game rules may reference additional community sites and suggest submitting to multiple, game rules cannot require runners to use those sites instead of SR.C, nor require runners to submit to external sites in order to be listed on SR.C"

I will give you the entirety of the "strictly enforced" rules:

"The following rules will be strictly enforced:

Do not list a player's runs on a leaderboard if they explicitly do not want it listed. Do not copy or reupload a player's video without permission from the user. Do not list a player's username on a leaderboard if they explicitly do not want it listed. If a player does not want their top time listed, it is acceptable to just not list the top time. It is also acceptable to list a top time with the username "Anonymous" and no video linked. An anonymized reuploaded video may be used only with the explicit permission of the player. It is generally acceptable to document a top time without contacting the player, unless the individual explicitly requests it not be listed, as described above. Do not copy other online leaderboards without permission from the owners of those leaderboards. If moderating a board and in need of advice on handling a controversial situation, feel free to reach out to site staff."

Some other pointers from other categories I'd like to point out:

Rules

• "Do not require a timer on a video unless there is a good reason to do so. A good reason might be a game that uses an auto-splitter to track time without loads."
• "Turbo is by default disallowed for runs unless otherwise specified in the game rules. If a game chooses to allow turbo, it should typically be tracked with a variable for the runs."

Run Requirements

• "A minimum effort requirement is reasonable. It is recommended to at a minimum accept a first playthrough done in one sitting with an intention of playing the category quickly."
• "It is reasonable to expect that the video must be of a reasonable enough viewing quality and stable framerate to clearly see everything going on in the game. It is not recommended to set a strict threshold such as 720p."

For verification, I will list them all: "- It is generally left to the moderators to determine a necessary level of scrutiny for a run.

• For the top time in a category, it is generally expected that the entire run be watched.
• For times that are not particularly notable, reviewing small portions of the video may be sufficient.
• A run should be added it meets the burden of proof the game's community expects for the legitimacy of the run. It is neither "innocent until proven guilty" nor "guilty until proven innocent" With the information provided, does the community of the game feel that the run is legitimate, or does the community feel they need further proof? A run does not have to be proved to be cheated to not meet the burden of proof.
• The time of the run is the time in the video from starting condition to ending condition. It is not the time shown on the timer program, which is started and ended with human error. Be aware that post-processing video can have minor effects on video framerates.
• Please do not reject runs just because they are obsoleted by a newer submission. They still go into the database to show history over time.
• Moderators may generally self-verify their own runs. Some boards choose to disallow moderators from self-verifying.
• It is left to the game moderators to decide whether they want to track runs played by users banned from the site or not."

Finally, the page lists guidelines for community consensus, but my post is getting long, so I'm just going to leave users to click the link to learn the rest of it. I thought I would give some other important pointers I found in there, looking for how to add a game to the site.

The rule about accidentally passing through things that cause damage in the glitchless category for this game is listed as:

"In case you pass through spikes, axes, etc. by accident, you must turn around and receive damage from them to keep the glitchless run."

Should I one day decided to try this run, I would like to know if I merely have to go back to the far (in the game) end of the hazard and take damage from it (which does slow you down for a while until you find another Jet hat) or if I actually have to go back to the near end of it, THEN take damage to keep the glitchless run. Perhaps it's OK if I take damage passing back through it as long as I get all of Wario past the near end, then presumably just walk under it as small Wario.

As for non-damaging things I might accidentally glitch through... I would actually prefer to go back to the near end and hit them to keep the glitchless run - I don't want to ever actually take advantage of anything considered a glitch by the community in ANY game's "glitchless" category! But is this an official rule for this game? Should it be?

Even if I never attempt any speedrun of this game, I would still like this clarified for other, future runners of this game. Maybe I can watch some videos in the "Glitchless" category to see this going back and taking damage to compensate for an unintentional glitch in action - probably more likely for the slower times where I would think this can happen.

For my Super Columns, I actually had a backup recording which I just put on YouTube, in fact kind of speedrunning getting it on YouTube and Speedrun.com in this thread, and am now just about to finish a speedrun for getting it posted here, in order to resolve a video/audio sync issue with my Fusion recording. I noticed just now the audio/video went off with my initial post and have now quickly put my backup recording with my "double recording" on my computer I am capable of with this game to get it right. It seemed right at victory over Surhand, so it seems right here and, while I don't have a real speedrun time for the secondary "speedrun" of getting it quickly on YouTube, I at least got it now and here it is, as far as I can tell for your audio/video synced pleasure (good thing I used OBS Studio as well as Fusion's recording!!)

I can see where new users could be rushing to try for moderator status while honest: they could be trying to get runs there aren't game pages or categories for on Speedrun.com.

To get a new game altogether added on Speedrun.com, you need to moderate it. And, as a rule on the site, moderators should "generally" speedrun the game, or at a minimum be "heavily involved with the community." So that means unless I'm actually qualified to be a moderator for the new game (which, for me, would be me making some sort of worthwhile speedrun of the game, knowing how the game worked for my run as well as knowing any easy ways to cheat so I can spot them), I cannot add any new games. I have requested in the forum for the Columns series, Stack Columns and Super Columns, for someone who had already moderated it or someone else better qualified than me to add these games so I don't have to get myself accused of "mod farming" when I don't have to try for any moderator status at all!

For Columns III, there is a page for it on SR.C, and there are a few good times on it, but my own time (nowhere near the WR) is still awaiting approval while there may have been no active moderation when I submitted it. So I have more patience than normal for SR.C for that one to be approved.

Here is a run I did today for Super Columns, not currently on the site at all:

And here is a run of Columns III I did, still awaiting approval on a leaderboard with little (but still some) activity over the past month:

So these speedruns pretty much capture what I did that's not officially recognized anywhere yet. I also have in mind another category for another game that does have some real activity, but it's long and difficult to pull off, so I guess not enough people have taken interest in it. That's OK - the Discord people on it did advise me that it's OK to just run a game without it being anything official - at least it would be on YouTube!

Anything from me would be a while in the future. I understand that it takes some actual runners interested to get it to happen. I just thought I would throw the idea out there. Yes, it is a long run, but at least I found people responding right away here and on Discord! Thanks for the feedback.

There are speedrun categories for Any%, Glitchless and Best Ending, but not the combination of Glitchless and Best Ending that I am thinking of trying for this game. This would be a step trickier for me to record than I've done so far, and it would be a while before I could actually pull off a worthwhile speedrun of this, but I thought I would introduce this idea now. If implemented, I could see a few speedruns in this kind of category for my viewing pleasure and study!

Thanks! I retimed my Columns III speedrun (still awaiting approval - small board, only one active moderator) at 30:16.600, which is 0.38 seconds faster than my phone timing! I must have started it a little early as well as stopped late. If I get a human time of 30:00.02 or something, it would actually be fairly likely that I in fact broke 30 minutes, given that I probably tend to err on the slow side with my human timing. Timing started on the frame immediately before the screen starts fading after selecting Hard mode, and ended on the frame the screen was all the way black after beating the sphinx. You can see and time it this way here:

This game is highly conducive to speedrunning, because most of what it takes to defeat the sphinx is also used to beat the other enemies quickly - namely, building attack power as quickly as possible to outrun your opponent with crush attacks. There are also no known glitches that would necessitate a separate "glitchless" category - the one thing it could maybe use is a variable of whether items were used (My speedrun used items.)

But there may be a few subtle differences between "dueling" (playing the game normally) and speedrunning this, having mostly to do with aggression levels.

If I were playing for my life against a weak to mid-strength enemy (the presumed storyline in the game), I would play a bit more conservatively to make sure I win (or minimize my chance of losing.) If, however, I were speedrunning, the run sort of dies anyway if I lose, and in fact it can be better to lose one round quickly than have a long, drawn-out battle ending in victory! So it's better to be overly aggressive for the strength of your opponent, and I did my speedrun basically treating all enemies like the sphinx.

Speedrunning might even help me defeat the sphinx, because I'm already used to the aggression necessary to beat it, and I also have very little time to get nervous going into the sphinx. The only difference at the sphinx is that I use my items first when useful, rather than saving them for the last attempt to give myself a few chances to beat it itemless before resorting to the items. Or if in a time crunch to break 30 minutes or something, I might even play the sphinx like it were the WR holder...

My thread about "no active moderators?" has a link to my run, still awaiting approval. Unofficial time: 30:16.98.

Thank God this clarification happened! Otherwise, my Columns III speedrun could be left in limbo. That board is small (only four times, five if you count an obsoleted one, and one active moderator.) I found a few other speedruns on YouTube, and if I made my own website, I might list those times. I would also list the one without video proof (but with a witness) that's slower than my time, but not if it were under 30 minutes.

I know that initial speedrun times are always retimed to get them to the millisecond, given that even "live split" times are started and stopped with human error. How do moderators get rid of this human error and get an exact time to the millisecond?

I have a speedrun of Columns III on Hard in 30:16.98 according to my phone, started and stopped with human error. I expect the time to be slightly different when it's approved because of this human error. Also since I'm thinking of adding Stack Columns and Super Columns to the series one day, and I would moderate it if successfully added, I also want to know how to do that. My own human error timing (even retiming in playback) seems inadequate even for an obscure game, and I'm still pretty new to be thinking about moderating anything right now.

This may belong in "The Site" or "Speedrunning" but I admit there is no clear-cut category for "request game" to fall into. It's sort of related to recording, in that the problem lies not in getting the run itself, but in getting it recognized. I'm hoping to do this with Stack Columns, a Sega game released for arcades only in 1994. I actually have one 1CC of it intended as a speedrun, but my video went bad, so I can't prove it and won't make any official claim to it. The time wasn't all that great anyway, only marginally beating my personal best score, tied pretty closely to speed, while my previous best fell at the third-to-last opponent out of 11.

To get back on-topic... I was initially expecting it to be an appeal of some kind to the rejection, but instead it was thanks to the moderator for being "fair" and explaining the rules to them! (OP's pronoun is unlisted so I use "them" as the best catch-all pronoun.) This is refreshing to see where you would think a lot of people would take rejections hard.

An important relevant rule: a run does not have to be proven to be cheated in order to not meet the standard of proof. If my video cuts out and I can't see everything going on in the game, a submission of it should be rejected, even if I didn't cheat.