Version 2.0 is now live and makes some significant changes. The majority of the settings have been removed and the autosplitter now works off of your split setup in LiveSplit to determine what to check for. It does require that you follow the standard split setup provided in the resources folder as it assumes a certain order. It covers every single split for Any% and 100% with the exception of the final 100% split as there is nothing we can do with that.

See the readme in zip file for the autosplitter for more info.

Having spoken with Troy I am happy to say that the new setup has now been carried out. Everything should be categorised as was laid out in the document. Some small changes I have made include rolling 1.0 and 1.4 into a single category of 1.x (you'll see this as a general theme) as there were no runs submitted prior to 1.4 and I really don't see people back-patching to those anyway.

If you think I have missed anything then please let me know. It was a fairly manual process as SRC's tools are garbage so something may have slipped past me

I have discovered that there's a lot of info I can pull from the timer so I am going to look into rewriting the autosplitter to read which split you are on and determine what to do based on split name and category.

It should be easy enough to get us Any% and 100% up and running soon and then I can look into Surprise Party.

Hello all,

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of significant changes come to the game which has prompted some adjustments to the boards. having had some time to sit down and assess all the changes and how they affect the game moving forwards as well as discussed with some folks issues they have running the game or barricades stopping them from starting running the game I have come to some conclusions on changes I feel we need to implement to these boards for the long term health of Squirm as a speed game.

Below you will find a link to my doc outlining all the major changes I believe we need to make to the board. Look forward to having a discussion following on from this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BedL5KPFOv3PF1lpwWsl4P8_qqkOfGQpHYGXNFZsTsg/edit?usp=sharing

Version 1.1 is up now by the way which supports splitting on bosses as well as on the final couple of splits we use in Any% (reaching Crackers and making it to the screen after last boss)

Ok version 1 of the autosplitter is up and ready for community use. It should do the job for Any% and 100% in getting all the Keys and Stars.

Note that it won't do the Defeat Float, Final Any%, or Speak to Heart split as those are not supported in the save.

There is a bit of manual setup required so please read the included readme doc.

Download link in the Resources folder. Once we confirm it's working I will look to get it integrated into LiveSplit itself

Hey all,

Thought I'd give you an update on where we're at with the autosplitter.

So Alex has made the save file a plain-text readable one so I can hook into it to update splits.

- I have all the keys and stars hooked up for splits although have not tested them yet.
- I have got it tracking which level you are on which we will be able to use to detect when you reach Crackers
- I can use this to allow an auto-start feature so you don't need to start your timer
- I can also use this to remove the initial 6-8 second load time upon hitting new game if we want (but that would invalidate a lot of runs)
- I might be able to use this to detect starting the DLC and Surprise Party Category

Here are some limitations that I don't think I can work around
- Cannot detect the end of the fade for Any%, only when you actually load the next level
- Cannot detect speaking to the Heart at the end of 100% (as this is not saved out)
- Cannot detect defeating Float for the 100% split (as this is not saved out)
- Cannot detect finishing surprise party (as this is not saved out)
- Cannot detect finishing the DLC (as this is not saved out)

The biggest limitation however is that Alex chose to use the save file that lives in the game folder on your PC rather than somewhere like appdata which is where the Unity output log (which I originally asked alex to update) exists. What this means is that the autosplitter has no way to automatically know where the save file is located. The only thing I can do here is require you to set up an environment variable on your PC to point at the squirm directory. It's easy enough to do but does require that extra manual step which is annoying.

Overall though I think we'll have a pretty decent tool that will help with every Any% and 100% split except the ones listed above. At the very least it will take the effort out of hitting the split during active gameplay moments as all the remaining ones are either waiting for a timeout or pressing Y to interact with something.

Once I can confirm that it works for 100% and Any% completely I will upload it here for initial testing by the community before getting it integrated into Livesplit itself.

Oh wait I see, it's not a variable but an additional column.

I also just made the mistake of accidentally resubmitting my Any% run when I went in to set the version number on it not realising it counted as a new submission...

Am I missing something? I'm not seeing the version number as a selectable variable?

Sounds good.

The big 3 I saw from looking at the update history were:

- 1.4 where surprise party was added
- 2.0 where the surprise party boss was added along with the first DLC section
- 3.0 where the new DLC stuff as well as all the qol stuff was added

- Interesting. Not sure how I personally feel about a dev re-adding something that was objectively broken to their game to please the speedrunning community but that's the game dev in me speaking I reckon
- Oh yeah I didn't mean to suggest we split the boards up just for patches. It was more to handle the reset abuse situation where it is only available on certain patches so for example we'd need to block attempts to submit to Any% - Ver. 3 - Reset Abuse as that category doesn't exist but the limitations of variables on src would display it
- yeah sorry. I only brought it up because if we need to shift around boards and get rules established for different versions etc. it felt like a time to mention it

Yeah that's a fair point about 100% Reset Abuse.

Another questions is whether this is an opportunity to evaluate whether we want to keep the timing the same.

As IGT now pauses the moment you kill Float and stays paused during the ending cutscene do we want to switch to using IGT as the primary timing method?

Hi all,

As you probably know a new update has gone live and I've had a chance to play the new content as well as check some of the older content to see what might have changed. I will compile my thoughts below. I didn't test Surprise Party but did do a 100% playthrough and do the new DLC.

General Thoughts:
- The new DLC content is phenomenal as a casual playthrough. As speedrun content it is far too punishing for me at least but I welcome the creation of a category for crazy people
- The Jump now does feel a bit more consistent. I used to sometimes land just on the tip of a platform and not have the time to get another jump off causing me to fall. This doesn't really happen anymore
- The Jetpack controls are a lot nicer and in particular make the final section a lot easier
- It seems much less likely that when sliding against walls you'll lose your momentum suddenly. I had it happen once in a 2 hour play session
- If you die whilst holding jump then you will respawn and immediately jump

Changes that affect the speedrun:
- Reset Abuse no longer works
- Certain tricks that relied on the Movement Precision bug such as Ice Skip in the Shadow Realm now no longer work
- This link shows some of the areas where Movement Precision changes have had an effect: https://imgur.com/a/moQUjFf
- The Jetpack's improved controls have slowed it down meaning that both sections that make use of it will see time losses
- Game time pauses when in the post-crackers cutscene before finding out your score

My thoughts on categories:
- We need a new variable for this patch as some of the changes will affect the times
- Reset Abuse should still be a separate variable and the rules description should make it clear that it is not possible on latest patch. Alternatively it could be its own category as well to stop submissions into the current patch table.
- Surprise Party will need its variables renamed from Legacy and Current to something like Update 1 (version 1.4), Update 2 (version 2.0), and Update 3 (version 3.0) I reckon.
- We should probably add the DLC as a category even though it's insanely difficult. Again this would need versioned to match releases. I believe it was added in version 2.0

Another small thing is that the save files have been converted to plain text so I should be able to use them to develop an autosplitter for the game. I have been experimenting with an early copy of a save file Alex gave me and got the majority of what I wanted working. I will keep the community posted on how I get on.

So let the discussion begin

So it appears the content update has actually fixed the glitch....

I guess we need to look into having Patch variables

Was literally just here to mention the rules hadn't been updated haha.

I have also stuck in the resources section a folder with splits for all category combinations (except surprise party legacy cos no one runs that) so new runners or returning ones can get up to speed easily.

I imagine you've already seen but it doesn't work in any of the space levels because the transition isn't instant there.

I mean I'm not sure if death abuse is an apt name as you're not using death as a mechanic. You're using the level reset which is different as it resets everything whilst death just resets cycles.

I know of 2 places it softlocks.

The first is the first ice level.
The second is the first room in the shadow realm where you use the double jump to reach it.

The moment it happened:

Ok so the first order of business is naming the tick.

I called it something like "Reset Glitch" and Lemur has proposed "Screen Warp" or "Ol' Switcheroo"

Version 1.3 now live

- More general purpose fix for the multi-split issue at the end of certain chapters

You may need to force LiveSplit to get the latest file. These steps can help with that:
- Deactivate the autosplitter in LiveSplit
- Select settings to get the location of the file
- Browse to that location and delete the file
- Activate the autosplitter again