Dark Vengeance - Trickster - 1.0 / 1.1.0 - Detailed information by quakish - v1.01

This Document is intended to detail the different techs and how a lot of the things works. This is not a guide for the speedrun route but generally useful information for running the game, and it is mainly focused for playing as trickster on unpatched but a lot of information is useful for the patched/other classes

Part 1: Basic Movements

• Running/Aiming

Running is fastest normal movement option. But it's very easy to get stuck on object/walls/enemy's You can aim with both your mouse and keyboard. The mouse controls can be a bit weird at times and it's often preferred to use an combination of mouse and keyboard to aim(my opinion). One of the biggest difference from 1.2.0 is that we have no options for sensitivity. But on the other hand a lot of tricks and strats don't work in 1.2.0

• Slow

There is a key command called slow. what it do is that while you hold down that button both your movement and turning speed gets slower. But the mouse is bugged in combination with the slow key so you can only use the keyboard to control while using it. It's basically just used for precise aiming, which is sometime very important to get setups for some tricks.

• Buffering

This game has a very very powerful buffering system, a bit too powerful... As it works over saves and can be a bit tricky to cancel if you buffer anything by mistakes.

• Cancel [Action/Animation]

There is an extremely powerful and easy way to cancel actions and animations. That is to press the interact button while you not facing an intractable object. It works that when you use the interact it will try to preform a very short animation that overrides your current animation and effectively your momentum if you in a jump or dodge. You can cancel almost all animations that the player them self starts. ex: jumps/dodge/attack/running. But not stuff like free falls. It do have some interesting property's if used in the void but more on that later. From here on out I will be referring to this when I talk about cancels.

• Jumps/Dodges

You have both an dodge and a jump button, combine them with a direction for different action:

• jump + forward = 'normal' jumps

• jump + side = short side step

• jump + back = back step

• dodge + forward = forward 'step' Note: Have slight different length compared to back jump. Note2: Can be used to drop down ledges without gaining forward momentum

• dodge + side = long side step Note: 2nd fastest movement option if you cancel it, but not really worth it

• dodge + back = backflip (Trickster only)

• Quickturn

By pressing jumps twice or by binding a key to quickturn you can preform a 180 turn. After preforming this action your character will step a few steps back. Quickturn is only really used in a few setups, because even if it's slow to turn regularly the few steps back it takes cost more time. Note: the camera will lag behind with the turning but it is safe to do actions before the camera gets in place.

• The Backflip

While all classes have slight differences on the movement options but the backflip is what sets the Trickster apart from the other classes. This move is kinda 'badly'(good for us) programmed (party fixed in 1.2.0) and will more often the not end up in weird places or OOB Use this to:

1. Get on top of high places, much higher then what looks like should be possible.
2. Clipping thro walls / get OOB
3. Get unstuck from an object or enemy, 1 of the reasons trickster is friendlier to play.
4. 'Jump' over enemy's Note: Turning while doing an backflip is possible and will change the property's of how it works, some tricks require you to turn mid backflip.

• Airwalking

Airwalking is a basic movement tech that is very easy to do. All you need is to chain(buffer) 'jump + side' or 'jump + back'. You can end with a 'jump + forward' but can not continue the airwalk after that. But not only that, if you airwalk above an platform that moves up or down your airwalk will follow that height change too Note: Trying to preform an dodge action out of a airwalk will not work, you will fall down as the dodge action tries to take place.

• Double Jumping

With normal airwalking you can't chain forward jumps. But if you cancel your forward jump within a certain height from a surface (walkable) you can very quickly input another jump action. Using another forward jump lets you effectively double jump and gain extra height. Using side or back jump lets you start an airwalk at a higher point then the ground. The timing for this is kinda small, I estimate that the max height above the ground that this works at is about 30% of your forward jump height And you also need to be quick with inputting the next jump or else you fall down. Double jumps are less important as Trickster in 1.0 as we have the almighty backflip.

(update) You can cancel a backflip into a jump action too, the timing on this is much easier then a jump(because of the shorter max height). Tho this yet to be implemented in the route.

• Landing Lag Cancel

Similar to smash games landing on the ground have some lag, jumps/backflip/free fall all have different amount of lag. If you cancel a jump/backflip in the air you go into free fall (unless in the void) but if timed close to ground you can move directly. Additional similar to double jumps, you can cancel into running while in the air, this makes you character run forward while falling down, getting no lag. Note: This is very minor over a full game run Note2: You can not cancel a jump if you have fallen to far down (only effects if point of landing is much further down the the start)

• Collisions

Walls, floors and ceilings only have collision on the surface they are facing but some objects, enemy's and the player have full collision that can make you get stuck or have weird effects at times

• Top/bottom collision

Floors and ceilings will always only have collision on the surface, this includes other objects and enemy's. And the player only checks collision at top and bottom for them This have the effect that if you get your head stuck pass the roof the roof collision is no more.

If you try jump up against an wall the game will land you on top of it even if you had height to jump slight higher. Also the game can give you a slight extra height this way.

• Side collision

While walls only check collision on the surface the player, enemy's and some objects (like barrels) check collision all around them at all time. This can have the effect that you can get stuck inside enemy's and the movable barrels sometimes get stuck inside you and can be hard to get rid of. Also the game checks collision slight in front of the player. This have an effect with thin edges and pointy walls, like the doorways around doors. If you hold diagonally forward against them you often get stuck because the game checks collision on the back side of the object stopping you from moving forward without holding slight away.

Also while walls only have an surface because the player have full collision even if you get partly stuck inside them you still can't move forward because the back part of the player still checks collision(unlike roofs and floors).

Part 2: (Unique) Attacks

• Attacks

So the game's attack button works the same as jump and dodge, you get different action depending on what direction you press in combination. But not only that weapons in the game is split on melee and ranged. Melee have actions on all directions while ranged only uses forward and back. The current trickster route only gets 1 melee weapon and it's not used for combat at all.

• Forward + Attack = (melee) Medium attack, often extra range (ranged) The only attack direction
• Back + Attack = Block, same on both melee and range. Block uses a shield, but it can be safely ignored as block is only used sometimes in a late game fight(VS Smite) to block an stun projectile.
• Left + Attack = (melee) Light attack, you could use this in early game to destroy an object slight faster but so very small difference that not worth it (ranged) Nothing
• Right + Attack = (melee) Heavy attack, useless for Trickster (ranged) Nothing

As you can see it looks like we only really need forward attack, so we can bind mouse1 as forward attack directly instead of attack to make the button pressing easier and more natural (assuming you want mouse1 for attack)

• Targeting

There is another feature with the attack button. While held you will target an attackable entity. This will show as an red diamond that grow green as it is held. As it gets greener you accuracy increases. There may be other effect(like more damage) as it grows green too, but I'm not sure(hard to test). Sometimes it can be worth waiting a tiny amount to get it to a slight yellow.

Optimally you want both 1 attack bind, to use for targeting, and 1 forward attack, to actually attack.

• Attack Cancelling

You can as said above cancel attacks. Cancelling melee attacks can be a bit harder to time but cancelling ranged attacks straightforward. Once the projectile is spawned the attack can be canceled, meaning attacks with low startup is good as endlag have no effect.

• Weapons

All classes have 9 weapons, 1 started without mana use and 2 for every mana. In the current Trickster route we pick up 4 weapons after the starter weapon. Tho a 5th may be picked up if you don't want to go for a certain trick that somewhat difficult and placed late in the run. The numbers also act as as hotkeys to the weapons, and goes in the order your intended to get them Note: The hotkeys can act weird if you press the same button that you already have equipped. (they start acting like the cycle buttons then)

Starter(1): Knife Starter weapon. Not much to say, very basic melee. Used to destroy some walls but no required combat here. 1st(2): Ice throwing knifes (Water mana) Throws 2 knifes per attack and cost mana per attack. Low accuracy. You can cancel after the first knife. Note: cancels after the 1st knife moves you forward, cancels after the 2nd knife moves you backwards. The amount moved is more the closer to a perfect cancel you get 2nd(6): Ice Crossbow (Water mana) Basic ranged attack, but can freeze after some attacks hits and deals more damage on frozen. Not to much of a time save on cancel. Warning: Can miss if standing super close to a target(specially small targets) 3rd(8): Fire Bombs (Fire mana) 2 part attack, first throws a sticky bomb, 2nd time explodes it. Cancels is hard to get good and not worth much. Note 1: The explosion can damage you(a lot) and deals knock back that loses time. Note 2: You can stack bombs without exploding, more on that further down. 4th(9): Lightning Massacre (Wind mana) Best weapon in the game by far! Almost no startup so you can cancel it to spam massive damage. (Final boss is a joke) Note: Can NOT hit targets that's above you, can be a problem in the final boss if you don't kill him fast. Extra(7): Bug Spray (Earth mana) Low range DOT spray, don't use if you pick up expect for on some exploding barrels that's in the path if you pick it up.

• Disappearing Mana

Some mana (pickups) that is located close to doors will disappear when the doors is opened This effects 2 possible fire mana, but they are not important for Trickster route

• Bomb Stacking

By swapping weapon back and forth you can throw a new Fire Bomb without exploding the last one. This will mess up the damage quite a bit. Stacking a few bomb deals LESS damage then normal. But on Smite you can stack a larger amount of bombs and explode them all at once to get a 'quick' kill. This require either 1 normal explosion follow by 9 or 10 (In all testing 9 was enough but in 1 run I needed 10 so maybe very low chance to need 10) The important thing here is if the bomb stack do not get an instant kill it will deal LESS damage then normal bombs!

• Damage

Damage feels a bit confusing in this game at times. And I'm 99% sure there is a random damage range. Also some enemy's can block attacks taking less damage. Note: The Fire Bomb is weird as the damage looks to be based on when throw the bomb rather then when you explode it. There are also some cases where it looks like you just do 'wrong' damage with weapons that I'm not sure how it works.

• Unique Attacks

In this game all classes have four different unique attacks, they are power ups that you can use. Unique attacks only play a small part in Trickster route, they are much more important for Gladiator as he gain a speed booster. Similar to all other Unique is 1 button that gets different action when combined with an direction. But this feels weird to me at least, but you can bind buttons to get Unique + direction in 1 button to get binds to use just 1 unique. For Trickster we mainly use 2 unique attacks but a 3rd have some use. (order of usefulness)

1. Flash: Stuns everything around you. the most common unique, used to either make platforms of enemy's or in some fights to avoid getting hit (you could use this to make sure enemy's don't block you)
2. Invisibility: Do what you think, tho it is active for 3 seconds then inactive for 1, repeat invisible 4 times. Used to avoid getting hit or to make enemy's not follow you so that they won't block you if your going back the same way. WARNING!: This will save corrupt if you save with it active!! Also if you have it active when loading a new map it will break crash the game + corrupt the save!!!!! (other classes have similar timed power ups but they works fine and instead refresh there timer on save/new map)
3. Stun Mine: Drops a mine that will trigger a area stun(and deal very low damage) if an enemy walks over it. Low usefulness, but can stop enemy's from following you.
4. Not used in current Route

Part 3: The Void

• Void Movements

The void in DV is interesting, you can walk on it as if it where floor, but you can still fall through and jump up and stay on a higher plane. All actions except forward jumps will place you on the same height plane if used, without cancels. But if you cancel a backflip or forward jumps as your moving up you stay on that height plane. Also forward jumps don't stop on the same height plane but continue far bellow before stopping, letting you move downwards.

• Free Falling

Normally if you fall down you enter a state where all you can do is aim until you hit the ground. If this happens in the void there is very low chance of there being solid floor to land on and you end up floating forever (soft lock) Common reasons:

1. Odd terrain: Sometimes odd terrain that in an area that actually unloaded can cause this.
2. An edge: Edges to in bounds areas can cause this at times, walk carefully.
3. Badly positioned backflips when trying to go OOB: Probably The most common reason!
4. Walking up close to some doors while OOB, stay slight away from a the door when opening it. You can avoid free fall by doing an jump action as you can not go into free fall mid jumps. Also you won't enter free fall while standing still.

• Solid Objects

Sometimes you can find invisible solid objects in the void. Most moving objects and models have there physics stay even while unloaded. But sometimes you can find random platforms or big holes in the void. Specially the holes can be unexplainable. If your on or over a solid object then the void movements stop applying and it acts mostly the same to in-bounds.

• Enemies

Enemies that are in an unloaded area are still there and can block you/get you stuck in them. Even if they are invisible. Note: it is possible to get enemies properly OOB but no use at the moment.

• Upwarps

Up Warps is a major point in the biggest skips in the run. (Tho the exact understanding of how they work is not necessary to just run the game)

If your positioned under an walkable solid surface while not standing on 1 (standing or falling in the void) the game will try to put you on that surface. Effectively warping you up. But this is not an teleport just moving very fast without collision. Things becomes a bit weird in 2 different scenarios:

1: If there are multiple walkable surfaces possible to warp you too. Like the case of a door, you can stand on the ground and on top of the door. Where the game will put you depends on multiple factors:

• How much under you are when the warp happens
• What forward speed/animation your in while warping (like different jumps/dodges)
• The height of your last known standing position. If you do a forward jump for high up and high the warp while still in the jumps while moving down you almost always get put on a high surface.

2: Using a weird angle (NOT looking forward-ish) or getting under object with weird angled surfaces. (Enemy's can do similar things) In this case you may find your self up warped to totally wrong spots. In general always still OOB

• Void Sinking

If you have lag, (about <40 fps) you will start too slowly go down while standing or walking inside of the void. This can be make setups not work. But if you buffer every action you will not sink. In theory you could use the void sinking to some tricks but it would be very problematic to get consistent. It can be good to figure out what room your fps risks getting very low in. Note: The last room of the citadel is the lowest fps room in the game and the only where my fps goes so low that I get void sinking

Part 4: Loading Areas

The game loads areas in 2 different ways, lets call them visual and physical.

• Visual Loading This loads only the visuals you see and is used by the game to load areas that your currently not in side so that you don't see the void. This is depending on player positions and where you are looking. Have no real effect on the game, so even if you see things they are not actually loaded and can't be interacted with unless you physically load them.

• Physical Loading This is the current area of the game that is loaded. If you get OOB you'll see what area is currently loaded as everything else will turn to void (some part may still get visually loaded) You can only interact with objects that are currently loaded. Some objects (mostly doors) can be part of multiple loading areas. but they may have different property's depending on what area they are loaded in. (some doors are locked from 1 side but not the other) To switch what area is currently loaded you need to hit an loading trigger. These are mostly placed in doorways but larger rooms may be split into multiple loading areas.

• Loading Trigger Loading triggers works like switches. They are connections between 2 fixed areas and when you hit it they will swap what area that is currently loaded. Normally you won't notice this. But if you walk into an loading trigger while OOB you will basically swap so that the area you where in before is loaded and the area you walked too becomes unloaded. This can be used to move loaded area while OOB. Also this means you can never walk back in bounds by walking into and area where there is an loading trigger.

The main problem for most skips is that the loading trigger placed inside of doors, and we want to progress without having to get the key to unlock that door. so we have to use different ways to hit the loading trigger in a way that we can swap the area that's loaded to the other side of the locked doors. Some places have some non-solid surface we can use where in others we have to use a precise up warp to hit it.

Part 5: The Camera

The camera is 1 of the things that got major changes with 1.2.0 patch!

• Camera Bobbing There are several precise tricks in this run that makes you want to use texture setups. But it can be very hard to get consistent setups thanks to how the camera works in this game. When you walk and run the camera will move around, while it do so in a cycle it is almost impossible to get it to an constant position to get any setups. And not only then, any actions will move the camera around. Every action will have the camera end in the same position but every action ends differently.

• Camera Warps The camera in this game acts almost as a separate entity and have several interesting property's about it. First of: It is slower then the player. Meaning you can outrun it. Second: It can lag behind when turning. Third: If it lags behind to far or get stuck on some objects it can warp back to the player character. And by controlling the camera you can to some degree influence how and when it will warp. Moving the camera down or up can change the when and how the warp happens (to some degree at some places) This warp can look a bit weird at times, but it also caries an weird effect that can let you warp through doors.

So far I have found 2 different kinds of door warps

• Moving Door Warp By having the camera warp as your opening a door while move forward you can get warped to the other side. It is possible to get this warp while your more or less on the other side already in witch case it still moves you forward. Is harder to control but works on more doors. Note: At this time I'm not sure how to control this very well and only have 1 door where I can consistently get this

• Static Door Warp Is when you open a door with the camera placed inside the door, meaning you open the door with your back to it. This only works on a limited few doors. The exact angle can be a bit different from door to door too. Position yourself close to the door and look back then open, sometimes you have to move back to get the warp. Warning!: If you move back while opening the door some doors will kill you

Additionally sometimes enemy's can hit in a way you that makes you go though half-opened doors

Part 6: Other issues

• Memory Issues

It looks like there is some kinda bug with unloading memory for unloaded areas. As you keep playing the game tend to get more laggy. It's very easy to fix, open an menu. either esc, f5 (save) or f1 (objective menu). And all extra memory will be unloaded and fps returned to normal. Tho lag can sometime be helpful as there are some edges that can't be walked over normally if games runs at max fps.

• Menu Glitches

There is 2 bad menu glitches.

1. Sometimes when you press f5(save) or f1(unload memory) the game will automaticly open the esc menu too. This looks to be more common if the game is laggy. This is more an annoying then a major lose of time unless the next part happens too

2. Sometimes you can't close the esc menu, this is super annoying and can cost a bit of time too. The length of time you can't close the menu varies sometimes less then a second sometimes over 5 seconds. Why this happens and for how long is not known to me tho for some reason it don't tend to happen a lot in actually runs but decently common when experimenting and practicing with things.

This seems to happen more frequently from after a save (both normal and f5) compared to just pressing ESC or F1.

• Resolution This may be depending on the PC but I can't change the resolution without getting weird results or glitchy menus

• Crashes

• DDERR_NOEXCLUSIVEMODE This is the error message for when the game tries to load an corrupted save file. Most commonly happens because you saved with camouflage active, some other cases of saving in weird places can cause this too (or messing with the save files) IMPORTANT: Every time you load a new map the game treats that as a new save and if you end an map with camouflage you get error loading next map!

• Tabbing out while not paused can cause the game to crash,

• Game Freeze This is an very rare crash I sometimes get where the game just freezes and I can't do anything, including quitting the game. only way out for me is to ctrl-alt-delete into 'change user' Luckily it's very rare and may be depending on the PC too.

• NohBoard For some reason NohBoard refuses to work with while this game is in full screen.

• FPS This game seems to runs fine on modern systems from what I have seen, but if you find fps to be lower you can always use dgVoodoo2 or DxWnd Also I think fps is caped at 60, not 100% sure as it may just be my PC as it is kinda bad.

Part 7: Key bindings

While there is an control option in game it only gives limited options, instead there is an file you can edit or binds manually with. 'DVKeyset.ini' Also in readme you should find info about what key's can be bound to what command

There are some unbindable commands too:

1-9: quick weapon buttons, be warned they are a bit bugged and can act like weapon next/prev at times instead (I suspect it's button 8 that is bugged) esc: menu f1: objective menu f2-4: change camera f5: quick save f8: print current loading areas name f9-10: zoom screen out and in

This my personal binds:

W = FWD

UP = FWD

DOWN = BACK

S = BACK

LEFT = LEFT

A = LEFT

RIGHT = RIGHT

D = RIGHT

V = SLOW

Space = JUMP

Shift = DODGE

X = LOOK

Ctrl = ATTACK

C = UNIQUE

F = WEAPON

MOUSE_ROLLUP = INTERACT

MOUSE_BUTTON3 = INTERACT

E = INTERACT

MOUSE_DOWN = FWD_LOOK

MOUSE_UP = BACK_LOOK

MOUSE_LEFT = LEFT_LOOK

MOUSE_RIGHT = RIGHT_LOOK

MOUSE_BUTTON1 = FWD_ATTACK

Q = FWD_UNIQUE

MOUSE_BUTTON2 = BACK_UNIQUE

R = RIGHT_UNIQUE

T = LEFT_UNIQUE

MOUSE_ROLLDOWN = FWD_WEAPON

[ = LEFT_WEAPON

] = RIGHT_WEAPON

Z = QUICK_TURN

End = LOOK_RESET

ALT = LOOK_RESET

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Warning: Having 'MOUSE_BUTTON2 = BACK_UNIQUE' adds the risk of missclicking and activating camouflage by mistake and that can make a save corrupt.