Use this thread to discuss strats and tech for specific levels.
CORPOREAL: Elevator cancelling: Most levels have moving platforms you need to bump into an operator to activate. What you'll see me do with a handful of them is to position myself between its path and another platform. This causes them to stop preemptively, which is most often useful for maybe a .3 or .4 second timesave, but a select few can be cancelled in a way that makes riding them obsolete. For example, on the screen with two officers and a row of employees you bounce on and then return to a few screens later, the moving platform can be cancelled by placing yourself between the operator that drops the box on the second operator that lowers the platform, halting it in such a way you can immediately jump on it and then continuing to the above area. Bear in mind, if you don't position yourself correctly you can either miss the cancel altogether, or even worse get trapped beneath the bottom of and the floor, which results in an almost guaranteed reset. Also, the physics apparently get confused when you do elevator cancelling because when you get on top of the stopped platform your dude can start twitching and erratically "fly" a couple pixels into the air. Perhaps this can be used for breaking the game eventually, but so far it's much too unpredictable to be useful.
Elevator pre-positioning: All levels have elevators and the way you leave them depends entirely on your position when you "lock in" when entering them. For example, if you are on the right side of the elevator when it closes, you will pop out on the right side as well. It's worth mentioning the position is fixed within the elevator's entity, i.e., regardless of the difference in rotation, position or scale of the entry elevator, you'll exit by the position relative to the sprite. For example, the first elevator in Purgatory is flipped upside down between entry and exit, and if you enter the elevator at the "bottom" of it, you'll exit at the "top". When you bop the elevator operator, you have a second to readjust your position before the doors close, allowing you to position yourself more optimally for when you exit. This is probably good for .2 seconds, depending on the elevator. Elevators are also very finicky when they determine whether you're in them or not when they close. I find that they're more reliable if you're unstickied and standing still. The trickiest positioning are those when you want to be in the air when you're locked in, e.g., the first elevator in Purgatory and Event Horizon. The timing is very tight, but just keep practicing and you'll get a feel for it. Also, elevators really don't know how to handle you if you're moving around after you're locked in. This is only applicable to the final elevator in Purgatory where you're floating into one. You'll exit it in weird positions and still floating upwards. This could probably be used to position yourself further to the right than it should be possible, but I haven't found the spot for it yet.
CORPOREAL Tractor beam hopping: Purgatory and Event Horizon have tractor beams that trap you and transport you in the direction they are flowing. This is quite slow, even when moving within them. Thankfully, you can still jump and quickly drop through them by unstickying. The horizontal tractor beams can be traversed far more quickly by "skipping" above them by jumping when you make contact with it. E.g., the first tractor beam on Purgatory with the string of notes. If you time your skips nicely, you can skip exactly between each note which feels and looks cool. XD When you're in vertical tractor beams, you can climb them much faster by just spamming jump or descend them by holding unsticky. Controlling yourself inside vertical beams is really awkward, so be careful not to accidentally shooting out on one side and smacking yourself against a red wall!
(Can only be performed in the first level of a run) Quickwarp: this tech lets you skip through rooms or certain parts of the screen for any screen that has an object that you need to enter to get to the other side, like at the start of thermogenica or in any level of the album "Cities", this does not work with elevators or the tongue warp (the one in thermogenica)
To actually perform this tech, go to a warp object, enter it and before you leave to the other side, pause and retry, the next time you get to that screen you should seem like your teleporting to the next screen when the music beat cycles back, which is also when the warp is triggered, if you seemingly dissapear its because you paused too early, you can also stack warps into the same attempt aslong as you set the last quickwarp first and the first quickwarp last
Although this seems like its only useful for any%, there are some cases where there isnt any notes to collect or you can get all the notes before you get warped, like at the 3rd screen of touch the people, aslong as you enter it right after the warp cycle happens so you have the most time, get slope boost and not be stuck on the yellow triangle guy (idk their name), you actually can get all the notes before the warp happens, really hard though so it might take a while before an 100% IL run even gets it
I've made a short video demonstrating quickwarp in a custom level, 0:00 - 0:50 is the setup, 0:50-1:10 is the run with all of quickwarps set up
wow, that's incredible. BrofessorScales noticed this glitch many years ago and tried figuring out what was happening but it eluded him at the time, so it's awesome to see it in action. this has a LOT of cool potential, keep it up!
I should maybe write up a couple of strats I found years ago for some levels I still see people not doing that definitely do save time since Sound Shapes is seeing more activity as time goes on
yea I do need to write up the ending strats I used in my touch the people run aswell, though recently while running city IL I became quite curious if quickwarp should be an allowed or banned strat, or even if its worth a category split (probably not since there already isnt that many players/runs) since in a sense you are taking more time in rta to get a faster time ingame
!! i had no idea quickwarp wasn't known, i found it a couple years ago myself
didn't know you could chain it like you do in that video though, nice find !
So, in Any% speedruns, can Quickwarp be used? I mean, without affecting the category, I hope.
I honestly don't know if quickwarp should be accepted in runs or not. I tried it out a bit in some levels, with the any% category, and the truth is that the time reduction is too much, haha. In Beck and Beyonder albums, it might be a little more useful; the time reduction is noticeable. It might also be useful for the 100% category in levels, but I'm not sure. For now, I've just been testing to see how much the times can be reduced, but I won't be using it.
yea looking back maybe quickwarp shouldnt be allowed, i dont think it rly is fun and you also just waste more time irl to be faster ingame, i guess it could be cool for a glitched category since i did get some lvl in under 60 seconds with it and it felt satisfying, but imo a glitched category shouldnt exist yet due to lack of players
Well, I'm here to share a strategy in the game tutorial. (Although I don't know why there isn't a speedrun option like this, but anyway.) First, the start is normal; you just have to go fast and never stop. You have to switch to normal mode at the right moment when climbing, then quickly move and get out. In the part shown in the image, you have to jump to almost the bottom and then push yourself off with the other piece. If you're lucky, you can push yourself off with the last edge of the block. That way, the momentum will be much greater, but it's a matter of luck whether that happens.
This is the reference image for the part.
In this last part of purgatory, you can easily enter from the right side when you exit. Only when you go up quickly should you move towards the doll that has the animation and stand on the left side. Then, as it is inverted, you will literally appear at the edge of the elevator on the right side. In the end, if there was a way to shorten this part a little, you wouldn't have to exit in a random position.
In this part of Mechanica, you can skip most of the hooks. When you reach the first part, you just have to run down and climb up to the second one. After that, you have to make a precise jump. If you do it right, you'll land right on the edge of the platform, and you'll be able to continue, jumping for about 1 or 3 seconds, I think, but at least for the any% categories, they do work. Although if you don't want to take any risks...
Another strategy in Cities is to position yourself in the second column, which launches you directly toward the other spear in a perfect way, giving you time to adjust so you can be launched better toward the next spot. Although I also keep in mind that Cities depends a lot on luck, with all the objects and movements being synchronized to make it the perfect run, but even so, it's still good.
I'll stop posting like this because it takes up too much space. I'll possibly make a video explaining in more detail all the strategies and things you need to do to achieve a perfect run, but possibly only for the any% category. Even so, I hope this serves as a help or guide, because I'm not going to spend half a year writing all the strategies here, sorry.
