As is common with point'n'click runs, the main timesave comes from optimizing what things to do in what order. This game is no exception, and to my knowledge there are also no useful glitches. However, there is still some tech to this run, and the purpose of this thread is to document all of it. In case anything else is found in the future it can simply be added to this thread.

• Fast screen transition

This is a classic that is present in most point'n'click games: changing scenes by double-clicking makes the transition happen instantly, thus skipping the walking animation.

• Frame-perfectly skip all dialogue

There are three known ways to skip dialogue and cutscenes in this game: left-click, right-click, and spacebar. What is special about space is that holding it skips all dialogue as soon as it comes up. An example of this can be seen in this run (with input viewer).

Notably, this seems to be an "accelerating feature" similar to writing text where holding a key takes a split-second before the key is entered continuously. As such, holding space to skip dialogue should happen ~1 second before the actual dialogues would show up for it to skip all dialogue frame-perfectly. Holding space can be buffered throughout some, but not all screen transitions; moreover, clicking on things while holding space does not always work. Thus it is recommended to only hold space when needed.

• Language differences

Because of frame-perfect dialogue skipping, even if there were dialogue differences between different languages they would likely not matter. However, there is a more interesting version difference, specifically between the German version and all other versions that I tested: only in the German version can you talk to Victoria after realizing that the door to William's chamber is locked (Chapter 1, ~6-7 minutes into the run). In the other language versions, trying to talk to her gives the "I should leave her alone for now" dialogue, but in the German version checking the door gives an additional dialogue which roughly says "I should ask Victoria about the key" (Samuel does not say that in other versions) which unlocks going to Victoria early. This is a big timesave as well as an argument for the German version being the fastest one for speedrunning. However, beyond that I am not aware of any testing that has been done in terms of different languages so this is by no means a definitive statement.

Before locking this thread let me point you to different setup videos for jumping on the crow, hopefully one of them helps. If it doesn't, then---as Smath said---feel free to join the PoP speedrunning discord to get more help:

"jumping on the crow is [...] a glitch"

No, it's not. That aside, you can run No Major Glitches and just not do that skip if you find it too hard.

PoP1 SNES Romhacks can be found over at popot.org—click here & scroll down to the bottom of the page—or on romhacking.net. Some ROMs may also be found in this leaderboard's "Resources" section.

We'll gladly add any hack to the leaderboard that has a speedrun already.

...by @vo1dm1nd; for the sake of completeness, because it's currently not on the board:

In August 2024, this game was finally released on Steam (as version 1.4.0). In particular, this means that we finally have the ability to downpatch to 1.4.0 and above through Steam, so runs done on these versions are safe to play on in the future. As a result, however, we had to do a final clean-up of runs and archive old versions that cannot be downloaded or accessed anymore. Given this is the last time we had to do this, we were able got rid of the temporary "Old Patch" misc category and, instead, archive all pre-1.4.0 runs (including all detail) in this spreadsheet! And with this, the patch wars come to an end. ☮️

The current rule is that restarting the game is no problem, if

1. you "continue"/load a save made during the run; loading a save made prior to the current run attempt invalidates the run.

2. you keep the timer running throughout the re-start. While there do exist speedgames where re-starting the game is subtracted from the final time, this does not apply to the Deponia games—at least as of now—because there has never been a widespread reason to implement this.

Ah that's the yellow parry clip then, my bad

Guess it not only works through doors but only on slopes? Would need a video to conclude more

Thank you for letting us know! If you're talking about this enemy

then getting past them has been fixed in the latest patch (which is already out everywhere but Xbox Series X|S and the Switch):

Sorry to hear that the autosplitter is causing you trouble. Here's how to raise the issue to the developer:

Record your runs with DebugView (see tutorial) and raise an issue on GitHub with the recording of the problem. Both a recording with DebugView as well as using GitHub are necessary for the programmer of the load remover to be aware of the issue.

Some people from the PoP community already got the chance to play the full game a week early, and hereby all strats and glitches that have been found are being shared. All findings are compiled in this document and are being updated with new tech as it's found. Also contains a table of all amulets & their impact on damage values, a list of all Athra surges (and their location), as well as all puzzle solutions.

Some people from the PoP community already got the chance to play the full game a week early. As such we'd like to share the strats and glitches that were found so far. All findings are compiled in this document and are being updated with new tech as it's found.

Edit (Jan 15th, 2024): The full document containing all known glitches & tech has now been released!

By @Samabam and me

PoPRuns 2016: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – (Schedule does not exist anymore); event took place from Oct 21-23, 2016

PoPRuns 2017: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – Schedule

PoPRuns 2018: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – Schedule

PoPRuns 2019: Youtube playlist – Twitch playlist – Schedule

PoPRuns 2020: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – Schedule

PoPRuns 2021: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – Schedule

PoPRuns 2022: Youtube playlist – (Twitch playlist does not exist anymore thanks to the impending storage limit) – Schedule

PoPRuns 2023: Youtube playlist – Twitch playlist – Schedule

PoPRuns 2024: Youtube playlist – Twitch playlist – Schedule

I don't know why I never posted this vipeazone video here so let's rectify that:

Thank you for bringing this up! Following your suggestions I just re-worded the timing rules as follows: "Timing begins on the first frame the Prince is standing upright after selecting "Game start" on the menu. Timing ends on the first frame of the Prince's final frozen position at the finish line on level 20.". In addition I have adjusted the times of the runs on the board (excluding obsolete runs) to match the new timing rule.

After some discussion among the PoP leaderboard moderators we have decided to rename "No Major Glitches" to "No Exit Glitch" in order to more reflect the true nature of the category. Moreover what was "Any% (Warpless)" previously has now been bumped from a subcategory to the new main category "All Levels"; again, in order to clarify to new runners or viewers what the category is about.

Done at PoPRuns 2022: