The leaderboard is for full game runs, which requires both Astro-Grover and Ernie's Magic Shapes in the same run.

Oh and the most important thing. Always hold B to run in this game. Even before you gain the ability to run in the later stages, always hold B while jumping. You will instantly save a ton of time. :)

It is just a matter of timing the jump. The window of opportunity is pretty tight (maybe a couple of frames) if you are holding forward on the d-pad. However, it is possible to stop and line up on specific pixels, the proceed with the jump with minimal time loss. Look at Nontimetis's current PB to see what the visual cues would be.

As far as the zappy tomato, you typically don't have to worry about it if you make those jumps.

Yes it should be its own separate board. Someone will need to request it from the Support Hub. I personally have no interest in running a 20+ minute long Sesame Street game, but I could record a run just to get the request placed. I think the question is, who wants to be in charge of the compilation board?

Just a reminder for everyone that the rules were expanded last month to include some points that I thought were important. Things like game audio needing to be reasonably clear, and resetting between attempts, are standard practice for a lot of NES games, but are sometimes overlooked when recording attempts. These help determine authenticity of runs, and resetting in particular affects RNG. I also added a specific list of accepted emulators that should be used, and these are generally accepted for a lot of NES games. My personal recommendation for emulator is MesenRTA, but they are all reasonably good. Timing has also been elaborated on a little further, but the main difference is that there is no longer a set order for completing mini games. If you want to start with Ernie's Big Splash games first, go for it.

As of today, the Sesame Street ABC & 123 compilation is no longer accepted on this board, as was discussed in another thread.

When going through various runs on the board, I noticed that there was some slight inconsistency in how people were timing runs. I've gone ahead and retimed everyone's runs according to the rules. Runs on the No Cutscenes category were left as is, since the rules are odd compared to the rest of the leaderboard and the times are fairly spread out anyways. It did not seem urgent to frame count these runs yet.

Perhaps in the future, there could be a solution to convert those No Cutscenes times to be comparable to Any%, such as calculating the missing animation time and adding it to the run time. That way, the existing No Cutscenes times can be merged into Any% and all future runs would follow Any% rules. This is just me thinking out loud at the moment, but it may become a separate proposal to be discussed in the future.

Thanks for reading everyone. Now go learn your ABC's. :)

It has been a couple of weeks since this topic started, and it seems like the general opinion is that the ABC & 123 compilation should be treated as a separate game.

The game rules have been updated with "This leaderboard is for the Sesame Street ABC standalone game. The Sesame Street ABC & 123 compilation is not allowed." I will add a note in the description of zxKyler's submissions that this version of the game is no longer allowed as of 10/23/2023, but their runs will remain on the board since they were submitted long before this topic came up.

Thanks for making these updates to the rules. It always seemed like there needed to be these types of clear visual frames in how timing should be done.

I actually offered to help with moderation in the past, mainly because of this reason, so I'm glad to see a new mod has come in to organize the leaderboard.

Ah sorry @CubbyCat , I should have mentioned that I messaged each runner (who has logged-in to the site within the past six months) about this topic and to provide any feedback if they are interested. I'll probably give this one more week before making a final decision. Based on the comments so far, I am leaning towards not allowing the ABC & 123 compilation cart for this board. So, if you are planning on running the game before that final decision, it might be a good idea to stick with the ABC solo cart.

Also, I forgot to mention that if we don't allow the compilation version to be used here, I could theoretically just leave zxKyler's runs on the board and add a few seconds to the timing just to make it a fair comparison, but we can figure that out afterwards.

This is an interesting find, but I'm not sure how I feel about allowing the ABC & 123 compilation to be used for this board. Looks like it saves a little over 3s, which I always like seeing new time saves in games, but the compilation also uses a completely different starting menu (that is part of run timing).

Both versions of the menu take an identical amount of time to select between options, but the compilation version takes an additional 13 frames of loading in before registering inputs, and takes an additional 33 frames to load the next screen when selecting an option.

I wonder if maybe ABC & 123 should have its own board with its own 100% and Any% categories. The main part of the games seem identical, but that main menu being different and having the option to return to that menu without resetting does change the run. Also in my opinion, booting up ABC & 123 and only playing half of the mini games feels like we would only be playing half of the game.

There is currently one runner on the board, zxKyler, who has used this version (for Any% and No Cutscenes). They also use this version for their 123 100% run.

I'm surprised this question has never been asked before. I will consider it some more, and if anyone else would like to share their opinions, please let me know.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

Well that is interesting. I wonder what a real-time run of this would look like.

As the super mod of the game, you can go to https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/supporthub/game-adjustment and select "be part of a series" under the subcategory drop-down. Fill in the game information at the bottom and the site mods will take care of that.

I would add the game to the series myself, but series mods can only add brand new games to the series, and not edit existing games.

I still much prefer the old design with everything more compact and in single rows, but it looks like some things have been fixed.

As already mentioned by others, the text has been resized and run times are no longer dwarfed by the leaderboard ranks. Someone mentioned that we could no longer hover over links for a pop-up description, looks like its been fixed. Also, long console names that took up multiple rows (ie "Nintendo Entertainment System", "3DO Interactive Multiplayer") are now appropriately abbreviated to the way it was before the change.

Not a fan of the new layout either. All the information for each run that used to fit neatly in single rows, is now spaced out awkwardly into two rows... and if you have NES runs then its four rows because the platform gets spelled out as "Nintendo Entertainment System" with each word as a separate row and the age of the run in the same column for no reason. The game titles are also oddly big, probably to distract from the awkward spacing of everything. It would be nice if users could toggle between the new and old layouts, but I imagine that's probably not a simple thing to implement.

As a side note, the ability to re-order runs is neat, as is the supporter-only feature for grouping runs (great idea tbh). I almost want to pay for supporter for that feature alone, and to help support the site, but I really don't want to support this profile design change (as well as the still horrible leaderboard design change and other dubious changes). :p

I'm always willing to help with moderation. I have experience with working closely with the communities where I'm currently a moderator, as well as being able to frame count runs.

Updates to the leaderboard:

-Fruit Fallout category added. -Groove and Move category added. -Rules for Four Scoops have been changed to read [Time begins when "CHOOSE A FLAVOR" text disappears. Time ends when final scoop lands. The "YOU WIN" screen must be included at the end of the run.] -Rules for Conga Line have been changed to read [Time begins when "PRESS X TO PLAY" text disappears. Time ends when leading character falls. The "YOU WIN" screen must be included at the end of the run.] -Game rule requiring resets has been removed.

The new categories were requested by Wenduitz. The rule changes, and the rules for the new categories, reflect a need for clear visual cues for timing that also don't include any loading screens. I have taken suggestions from Wenduitz and PullMatrox into consideration and I hope the new rules are agreeable for everyone. The rule requiring resets has been removed since it currently does not seem possible to abuse save states to any advantage, and the long loading times involved in resetting the game is a burden for such short runs. Thank you for your patience while everything with this leaderboard gets sorted out.

That would be a neat idea. So far that would be D.J. Booth, Tic-Tac-Toe, Four Scoops, Checkers, Daisy Derby and Gems & Jewels. We found out that although Conga Line ends, it technically doesn't have a You Win screen, and I believe Bubble Machine is the same (gotta verify that though). I'm also 99.9% sure that the Groove & Move game never ends. I feel like a You Win!% category would attract runners that would rather play the full game, and this is probably the best solution to that. A longer version of the category could include playing out Conga Line and Bubble Machine until they end, but in honesty I could see Bubble Machine being too long and boring.

As for right now, I have added difficulties for Tic-Tac-Toe, Four Scoops and Daisy Derby. I'm working on putting up times for all of those today, then I'll look into the difficulties for the other categories and then maybe I'll verify all the win conditions for a You Win!% category.

I did not have enough time to look at each game yet, but I have some results for the categories that already have runs.

Daisy Derby: On easy, the solutions require between 1-4 letters. On medium, the solutions require between 3-7 letters. On hard, the solutions require between 4-8 letters. This seems like a good candidate for having a sub category for each difficulty.

Tic-Tac-Toe: On easy, you can win with only 3 moves (the computer opponent doesn't really think logically). On medium and hard, you can win with only 4 moves (the computer seems to always block you if you try to go for a 3 move win), and there seems to be no difference between these difficulties. I will test some more, but this seems like easy can be it's own sub category, but medium and hard will be the same.

Four Scoops: On all three difficulties, you can get the same exact RNG that I get in my 25.482 run. The only difference I am seeing is that on easy, the game suggests a drop spot for each move. With the best RNG pattern, this means that you never have to input left or right. On medium and hard, your turn starts with the scoop appearing in the same spot as your last move. I want to test this some more before I say for certain, but this will probably be the same as Tic-Tac-Toe where easy gets its own sub category while the other two difficulties are the same.

I will keep reporting back what I find.

This sounds good to me. If I have time tomorrow, I will take a look at all of the different difficulties for each game. I just want to make sure that there is a noticeable difference between difficulties (it's probably fine but you never know with these cheap licensed games lol).