If you want you can find a video guide at: (I's not completely up to date, but it's a good place to start, the following written guide has been modified more recently)

This is a guide for the Lite difficulty of the game and has been written with Beginners in mind. However it's best if you have played this game at least once before and have an understanding of the game mechanics. It also would help to have watched a couple of speedruns. It's my hope in writing this guide I can encourage more people to speedrun this awesome game.

** Dos vs Amiga ** It is now preferable to play the Amiga version of the game for speedrunning, the coffin ride in the swamp is almost 2 times faster, also more cutscenes are skippable. Check the forum for details. The Amiga version is playable using ScummVM just the same as the Dos version.

** ScummVM Version ** It is advisable to use Urquan's version of ScummVM to run the game as this saves a lot of time over the other versions. Check the forum post for a link to the download.

** Music Glitch ** While it is called a glitch it's probably just an oversight, by selecting the game on ScummVM's main menu, clicking Edit Game, Audio, in the first option called Music Device selecting No Music, well, you won't have any audio, but as a result some cutscenes that usually wait for a piece of music to end before starting will start right away, saving a good amount of time (around 20 seconds or slightly less), keep in mind that this doesn't really work with Urquan's version right away, to make it work you need to download an old enough version of ScummVM that you can find here https://downloads.scummvm.org/frs/scummvm/2.0.0/ set the audio settings as described before, play the game (we aren't sure how much you need to play but I made it work by playing until after chapter 3) and save, then open Urquan's ScummVM and load that save, from that point onward you will have music glitch active, even if you close and open the emulator again, one quick way to know if you got it is through the only section of the game that is slower because of this glitch, the intro cutscene, if you got the glitch the part of the intro where you get a view of Scabb Island from the sea will last longer, it's easyer than this description makes it out to be but if there are any doubts the community is here to help.

Throughout the guide it will say "Skip Cutscene/s", Press ESC to do so, you can also Press Both mouse buttons (there is a subtle difference between the 2, it will be explained in the last paragraph), keep in mind some parts of dialogs can be skipped this way, so every time I say to skip some dialogue I'm referring to cutscene skipping. Also you can Skip Dialogue by Pressing . (period) Key.

Anytime the Guide says "Dia:" it means you should Press that number on your keyboard during dialogue sections or select that option by clicking on it, this is (in most cases) much faster than using the mouse cursor to select them and certain sections go by faster when you say the correct things.

I will also use this symbol: ⊕ every time I'm omitting an advanced strat, you can find all of the advanced strats at the end of the guide.

There are keyboard hotkeys for all the command options in the game, they are as follows (for Lite while you can use different verbs to do the same actions you can run the game while only using Open, Use, Pick up and Give, every time you want to talk you can rightclick on someone):

P: Pick Up T: Talk To U: Use G: Give L: Look At O: Open C: Close Y: Pull (Yank) S: Pu(S)h

Note, that the commands (Talk To) (Look At) and (Open/Close) are also the default option when clicking Right Mouse Button. Depending on circumstance. (Eg: use it to Talk to Bartender or Open doors) I would recommend a slowish subtitle speed like 100 (while playing, press F5, go to Options). This is useful for when fighting LeChuck, get used to dialogue skipping, also pressing F8 allows you to restart the game, useful when resetting runs.

ScummVM has a cool feature, you can press Ctrl-m to lock the cursor into the game, meaning you will not accidentally move your cursor out of the game window (to undo this option press Ctrl-m again)

-o-

** CHAPTER 1: **

Timing starts when you select the Lite difficulty of the game, there are a few cutscenes to skip right after so be ready to skip them, First thing to do is to walk to trigger Largo's cutscene, it's faster to walk right but it might be slightly trickier, whatever you decide to do be ready to skip Largo's cutscene. Go to Wally's room and pick up a piece of paper from the stack of paper on the right, exit and go to the bar.

Talk to the barkeeper, ⊕ you can skip the first part of the dialogue then Dia: 1, skip after the barkeeper has said 3 lines of dialogue then Use paper on spit (the spit on the left wall), talk to the barkeeper again, skip then Dia: 1, 1 (you can skip some stuff in between, it's easier for you to chek it out yourself than for me to try and explain it), go to the kitchen on the left and go out the window (it's faster to walk behind the table than to walk in front of it).

Go to the hotel, Pick up the rope, skip the cutscene that plays roughly right after Guybrush stands up, ⊕ Open the door on the left, enter the room, Pick up toupée and shirt, get out of the hotel. go to the rightmost part of Woodtick, Pick up the shovel then leave Woodtick.

Go to the cemetery ⊕, go to the graves in the background ⊕, use shovel on grave skip cutscene a bit after Guybrush turns around, get out of cemetery. Go to swamp Use coffin, go to the right click on giant skull, go right you will automatically talk to the Voodoo Lady you can skip after almost every line you say so this is one of the trickiest dialogues, anyway Dia: 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, if you keep holding period and skip right after this dialogue you can save 1 second because the screen will start scrolling earlier, click on coffin to get out, get out of the swamp.

Go to Woodtick ⊕, go to the woodsmith, Pick up hammer and nails, go to Largo's room in the hotel, Use pins on voodoo doll skip cutscene, get out swamp, go to the peninsula ⊕, go to the boat, Talk to Dread Dia: 1, wait till Dread says something then skip cutscene, skip 1 line of dialogue then skip cutscenes again.

** CHAPTER 2: **

⊕ (you can use a different route that goes to Booty Island first taking advantage of a newly discovered glitch, I'll put the differences at the end with the advanced strats even thought the version of the glitch which is humanly possible is not particularly difficult to pull off)

Phatt Island:

Pick up chow, go into the boat, skip cutscene Dia: 1 skip cutscene, select Phatt Island, skip cutscenes, Pick up mattress, Use Stick with the skeleton's leg (called bone by the game) skip cutscene, Use bone with dog, skip cutscene, Use key with cell door, Open envelope and finally get out of the prison (you can also Pick up the envelope and Open it right after, if you do it optimally it doesn't lose time and it sets up the inventory a bit better if you go for advanced strats with LeChuck at the end of the game).

Go to the alley, Talk to the dealer Dia: 1, 1, skip cutscene, 2 (actually the second dialogue option doesn't matter, anything between 1 and 5 works), get out go all the way right to exit the town, go to the waterfall, go to the gaping hole, walk right to immediately get out, exit to the map, go to the cottage, Open door enter the cottage, open the trap door (you can't do it with right click), left click on it and skip cutscene, Pick up map piece, go out from the left, go out to the map and finally go to Dread, Skip cutscene, select Booty Island, skip cutscene.

Booty Island:

Open door of the shop on the left, Pick up map piece, Dia: skip Guybrush's dialogue then skip cutscene, 1, get out, enter costume shop, Give invitation to shopkeeper, skip cutscene, Pick up costume, get out, go to Stan, open door, enter, skip cutscene, Dia: 1, skip cutscene, ⊕ close coffin, Use hammer with nails, Pick up key, get out (keep holding period while going out), walk out of town by going to the right.

Go to mansion ⊕, skip cutscene Dia: 1, skip cutscene, 1, skip cutscene, 1, skip cutscene, go down to exit to the map, skip cutscene, go to mansion, go the mansion again, Open the door, enter, Pick up map piece, go out, skip cutscene, next dialogue is random, you need to look for the right option 4 times (the right option is always the one that is not a really stupid thing to say to your ex-significant other when you are trying to win them back, sometimes there are 2 options that work, but it's rare), skip cutscene, get out, Pick up map piece, walk down, walk right to go to map, go to Dread, Skip cutscene, select Scabb Island, skip cutscene.

Scabb Island:

Immediately go right to exit Woodtick, go to cemetery ⊕, use key on crypt, enter crypt, Open the second coffin from the left, use period to skip Guybrush's dialogue, Pick up last map piece, go out, go to Woodtick (if you click on Dread by mistake then click on Woodtick you will warp to Dread, to avoid that, after you accidentally click on Dread just click somewhere randomly on the map then click on Woodtick), go to Wally, Give a random map piece to him, skip cutscene, exit Woodtick, go to swamp ⊕, click coffin, go to Voodoo Lady, Dia: 1, skip cutscene (you can do a scroll skip similar to what you can do in chapter 1), go out, Use crate, skip cutscene.

** CHAPTER 3: **

Hold period to skip Guybrush's dialogue, walk right, in the mean time Open juju bag, skip cutscene, continue walking to the right and up the stairs, walk to the back tunnel on the left, walk to the left again, Open door (you cannot open it by right clicking, you have to select the Open option), walk in, Pick up the key, skip cutscenes, you will find yourself in the torture chamber, skip cutscene twice to skip some dialogue, when LeChuck says something like "I'm tired of your stupid questions" skip 1 line of dialogue with period then skip cutscene, Talk to Wally, skip cutscene, Dia: 3, skip cutscene, skip a bunch of dialong by holding period, Use matches, skip Guybrush's dialogue with period, skip cutscene.

** CHAPTER 4: **

Walk right, Use crowbar with barrel, Give all the crackers to the parrot ⊕ (hold period after every action to skip the dialogue), walk left and into the jungle, walk to the top-right, Pick up rope, Use crowbar with box ⊕, Pick up dynamite, walk middle-right, top-right, top, top, middle-right, while you walk you can Use matches with dynamite and crowbar with rope, (then you can scroll the inventory up to prepare the shovel), once you get through the jungle Use shovel on the big X, if you're quick after clicking on the big X you can scroll the inventory down to prepare the dynamite, Use dynamite with hole in the ground, skip through Elaine's dialogue with period, Use crowbar 'n' rope with twisted metal rods, hold period.

** LECHUCK'S FIGHT: **

Use light switch, Dia: 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, if you're using ScummVM you can save and load, it's allowed, to do so press Alt-1 then Esc to save and Ctrl-1 to load (you can save in different slots by changing the number, for example Alt-2 saves in slot 2, not many people use multiple slots and it can be confusing, but it might be useful in some cases), this is useful to try and force LeChuck to warp you where you want (keep in mind he can randomly show up and warp you away during this whole section), first room you want to visit is the infirmary which is situated on the far right, (if you get warp in front of the box room instead you can reverse the order in which you approach box room and infermiary, it will lose time due to walking (unless LeChuck is very kind to warp you where you need to go after the infermiary) but it can be better than reloading a lot of times), Pick up the rightmost skeleton's head twice (the first time Guybrush doesn't pick it up), Open trash can, Pick up stuff in trash can, Open medical drawer, Pick up hypodermic syringe, (⊕ from now on there will be multiple advanced strats so I'm not gonna use this symbol anymore, I'm just gonna rewrite this fight at the end of the guide with advanced strats) walk out of infirmary.

Go left to the next corridor room, go into the box room, Open the box on the bottom and Pick up it's content, Open the leftmost box, Pick up it's content, go out.

Go left, go into the room with the vending machine, Use baloon and both surgical gloves with the helium tank (skip cutscene every time), Use coin return, while you wait for LeChuck you can walk a bit to the left, but if you're too much to the left he will not show up, if you stand right of the metal column next to the helium tank you should be fine, once LeChuck shows up Pick up his underwear, scroll inventory up and Use hankie with LeChuck, he will warp you right after.

Get to the elevator room, Use the elevator button, enter the elevator, wait for LeChuck, as soon as he shows up Use the lever, now Use hankie, skull, doll, underwear and the beard that was ripped of LeChuck's face with juju bag (you can also Use juju bag with them or switch between using bag with stuff and stuff with bag to be faster), if you got everything in the bag Guybrush will shake the bag, now Use the lever and get out of the elevator (if LeChuck shows up before you can leave you can Use syringe with voodoo doll), walk to the right near the door (don't go into it) and wait for LeChuck, as soon as he shows up Use syringe with voodoo doll (if you already did it in the elevator of course you don't need to do this, you can directly go to the next part).

Now for the final part, walk to the right, Dia: 3, 4, 1, 1, 1 When outside, Dia: 2, 1, 1 and that's it, you did it!

** ⊕ADVANCED STRATS⊕ **

This is not really an advanced strat but something to keep in mind after you have practiced a bit, you can come up with visual cues to help you move your cursor in the correct position before Guybrush moves to a new area.

There is a difference between pressing ESC and clicking both left and right mouse buttons to skip cutscenes, the first method allows you to easily skip multiple cutscenes and even buffer the action by just holding ESC, the second method is less versatile but also less intrusive because pressing ESC has precedence over every other action, meaning that you cannot do anything else while ESC is held (and even after ESC is released there is a cooldown time in which no action can be performed) not even skipping text with period or clicking to walk somewhere, clicking the mouse buttons still doesn't allow any other action to be performed but you can hold period while you skip cutscenes this way and the cooldown time is much lower.

** CHAPTER 1: **

-In the bar, right after clicking on the barkeeper to talk to him you can move your cursor on the left wall, this way after you complete the dialogue you can move towards the wall, and while Guybrush is walking you can Use paper with spit, be cautious, the hitboxes are a bit janky and it's easy to accidentally walk in the kitchen.

-You can save half a second after you Pick up the rope in the hotel and you skip the cutscene by clicking on a pixel (you can probably get it to work even if it's not that exact pixel, sometimes if you are on the wrong spot you can make it work but not fully, you still save time but not as much) to walk in a more direct path towards Largo's room, of course once Guybrush reaches that pixel you need to click on the door. It's better to put the cursor in position in advance, while Guybrush is walking towards the rope.

-You can save .2 seconds if you walk in the right way when you go to the cemetery, after clicking on cemetery you need to click on a specific pixel on the map (you can see it in the picture below) and once Guybrush reaches it you can click on the cemetary again. There's another setup, you align your cursor in the previous room like indicated by a red cross in the picture, once in the overworld you click, then you click on the cemetary once Guybrush is slightly right of the bend in the river.

-This one is actually easy, when in the cemetery to walk towards the graves it's much faster to first click on the tomb on the middle-left of the screen, then when Guybrush is more or less behind the left part of the cemetery gate you can click on the graves. The picture below illustrates with red crosses where you should click and with a white line the approximate path Guybrush should take. But if you feel like spamclicking there's an even faster walk, even if not by much, you click on the red cross then you make Guybrush take the yellow path by spamclicking all the way, it's weird but apparently Guybrush will face a better direction if you do and will walk faster.

-When walking from swamp to Woodtick it's faster to first click on the top part of the screen (above Woodtick) then on Woodtick, ideally Guybrush will walk left for a bit and then diagonally left-up as shown in the picture below.

** CHAPTER 2: **

-There is a new route that takes advantage of a (yet unnamed) glitch, what you need to do is go to Booty Island, go to the shop and buy the map piece the same way you would do normally, then go back to Dred's ship, go to Phatt Island, and here is where the glitch takes place, there should now be 3 cutscenes that will play one after another, the first one is LeChuck being angry at Largo because he let Guybrush get a map piece, the second one shows Dred navigating in a questionable path towards Phatt Island, the third one is important but often overlooked, it shows a picture of Phatt Island and a red line approaching it, to perform the glitch you need to skip the first 2 cutscenes, normally we would just wait during the 3rd one, but for some reason skipping the 1st cutscene gives us control over the cursor, so now we can click on places in Phatt Island! The result will be that we will warp to any place we click on (almost any, the cottage hasn't been unlocked yet), another weird quirk of this glitch is that the game speeds up for a bit, so the idea is to warp to the waterfall, walk to the tunnel, walk out, go to the cottage and get the map piece right? It's not that simple, the 3rd cutscene is still going on in the background, and as soon as it finishes we will be warped back and we will end up in the prison, we only have time to walk to the tunnels but this still saves us time (ok, there is a way to get the map piece during the glitch, reading the book about Big Whoop while walking stops the cutscene in the background momentarily, coupled with pressing spacebar to pause and move the cursor it is possible to do all the actions required to get the map piece before we get warped back, but it's insanely hard, it has been done in real time a couple of times using saves and it took a lot of time every time, but if you feel like giving it a shot go on, it ideally saves a ton of time, I'll leave a tas that was recently done here, it isn't optimized but it shows the full glitch, also if you really go for this insane strat, after the roulette you just need to walk to Dred, there is a better walk you can do from out of the roulette alleay to Dred's ship by clicking on a dark line on the ground, but in general if you try to find a place to walk in a direct path it shouldn't take long to find a place that works. The tas: ) After the glitch you will get warped to the prison, everything else in Phatt Island is the same, apart of course from the fact that you don't need to go to the waterfall again, you can just directly click on the cottage, after that you go to Dred then go to Booty Island, you then go to the costume shop and the rest is the same as the route with no glitch.

That was a lot so let me explain in short what this new route is, chapter 2 begins, you pick up the chow, go to Booty Island, buy the map piece, go to Phatt Island, skip all the cutscenes you can skip right after selecting the island, click on the waterfall, click on the tunnel, wait for the glitch to end (you can hold Esc cause as soon as the glitch ends there will be some cutscenes), go through the prison, go to the roulette to take the invitation, exit the main town, click on cottage, take the map piece there, go to Dred, go to Booty Island, go to the costume shop, and the rest is the same. (This should save around 6 seconds, the almost tas only variant should save almost half a minute) Here's my latest PB (as of the moment I'm writing this) at the timestamp of the beginning of chapter 2:

-While going to Stan's shop you can scroll up your inventory to have the hammer ready, you can do a buffer strat (which means preparing an action before the previous one finishes) basically right after you close the coffin you can Use the hammer and move your cursor on top of the coffin, this way even though Stan gives you an hankie (which scrolls your inventory down) you are still ready to click on the coffin right after and complete the "Use hammer with coffin" action.

-You can save almost half a second by walking in a specific way when going to Elaine's mansion. You can click on the mansion, or generally on the top-left corner just to make Guybrush start moving, then you need to click on the red crosses from the one more to the bottom to the one on top (the last click could also be done on the mansion) as soon as Guybrush reaches the cross you clicked click on the next one, if everything is correct Guybrush will approximately follow the white path (yes, there is a weird bend in the path and it's unavoidable)

-After giving the map pieces to Wally you can make Guybrush reach the swamp faster, the first of the 2 pictures below shows a visual cue for where to put your cursor, if you use it once Guybrush exits Woodtick your cursor will be where the first red cross on the left is in the second picture, click there, wait until Guybrush reaches the river then click on the swamp as the second red cross indicates, if you do it right Guybrush will follow the cyan path. Alternatively you can almost spamclick (it's better if you click with a certain rythm and spacing) to make Guybrush walk in a perfect diagonal from Woodtick to swamp, it's not as easy though, more often than not Guybrush will walk a bit horizontally losing time, but it's faster than the other method.

** CHAPTER 4: **

-You can give 2 crackers to the parrot at first instead of 3, the 3rd one will be given to him in the last room before the room with the big X, the idea is, as soon as you enter the room, to click on the spot Guybrush would walk towards when giving the parrot, then prepare the action "Give cracker" and put your cursor on top of the rocks, the parrot will reach the rocks basically at the same time as Guybrush reaches the spot, at that point click on the parrot then walk right to go to the big X room. With this strat it might be hard to get the shovel ready, there are 3 options, either after preparing the "Give cracker" action, while Guybrush is still walking towards the spot, you can scroll up the inventory, you can scroll it up after giving the cracker while walking to the right edge of the screen, or you can do it in the big X room (which means you will have to scroll inventory, Use shovel with big X and scroll inventory again in a short window of time).

-Another buffer strat, this one is easier than the one at Stan's, after you click on the rope to Pick it up you can Use crowbar and move your cursor on top of the box, this way after you obtain the rope you only need to click on the box to complete the "Use crowbar with box" action.

** LECHUCK'S FIGHT: **

-If you decide to go to the box room first it's better to invert the order at which you open the boxes and pick up their contents, similarly you should invert the order of drawer and trash can in the infirmary, this sets up the inventory in such a way that after completing the doll both the syringe and the doll should be available and next to each other.

-After you get everything in the infirmary, while going out you can Use skull with juju bag, you go out, you reach the room filled with boxes, you need to Open and Pick up the contents of 2 boxes, to do it slightly faster you can do buffer strats, you Open a box and right after you click on the box you press P to select Pick up, as soon as you see Guybrush opening the box you can click to also pick up what's in there.

-This one is tough, like you did with the skull you can Use the doll with the bag before getting to the vending machine room, keep in mind if you go through a door while having an action selected you need to select it again (so if you pressed U to use the doll then clicked the doll but in the meantime you went through a door you can't then click on the bag, you need to redo the action from the beginning).

-This strat is much easier if you set text speed to a lowish number, when in the vending machine room, after pickin up LeChuck's underwear you can Use underwear, scroll the inventory up twice (or only once if you picked up the envelope in Phatt Island), click on bag then Use hankie with LeChuk, this way you put the underwear in the bag and Use the hankie at the same time.

-Again, while going to the elevator you can Use hankie with bag, not only if you're one room away from the elevator, but even if you get warped right in front of the elevator, you can Use hankie with bag while walking towards the elevator button.

-When you enter the elevator you can click on the lever to walk closer to it (don't Use it, just click on it, you still need to wait for LeChuck to Use it), you can Use the lever again and then Use beard with juju bag (if you didn't do the previous advanced strats and there are other things you need to put in the bag put them in the bag, then Use lever then Use beard with juju bag), doing things this way makes it more likely for LeChuck to interupt you while you're in the elevator, don't worry he cannot warp you while you're doing actions so just Use beard with juju bag then syringe with voodoo doll.

-If LeChuck didn't interupt you in the elevator it means that you still need to Use syringe with doll, while you wait for LeChuck not only you can get close to the door on the right, you can actually go inside it without going to the next room, to do that click on the door on the right and before Guybrush reaches it rightclick on an item in your inventory to look at it, looking at an item prevents the game from activating the loading zone, at this point you can also Use the syringe and put your cursor over the voodoo doll, this way once LeChuck enters the room you only need to click, then you just need to go to the next room, go through the last dialogue and you're done!

-The last 2 paragraphs explain some strats that are now not being used, but I feel like they can still be useful, what is now done is the same as before until you go down the elevetor, then instead of using the beard with the juju bag right away you can click on the beard to walk closer to it then prepare the action by pressing U, clicking on the beard then putting your cursor on top of the bag, because you haven't completed the doll yet LeChuck can spawn, and on average he spawns much quicker when you are in the elevator, as soon as he shows up click on the bag, then Use syringe with doll, go through the dialogue, exit the elevator, walk in the next room to the right and you now the rest.