A few pointers for new Any% runners

Just dropping some hints and tips since there are a few things I do during runs that aren't overly obvious or I don't openly discuss.

# Cutscenes

You don't have to watch all of the cutscenes, but *some* are mandatory. - Off the top of my head, the following are required watching:

- The first gramophone record and the guests entrance
- Edward Knox's death in the attic - This is somewhat unique as there's no puzzle to solve at the time, but if you leave the room early to go down to the basement, you *will* have to watch it again when you return.
- The pre-ending encounter with Stauf
- All room completion scenes

And I really do emphasize the last one. DO NOT leave a room upon completion of the puzzles, and playing of the cutscene, until you either hear the clock or (more safer) the room transitioning to it's 'clean' state. - If you leave too early, you may have to watch the cutscene *all over again*.

And in regard to 'watching' the cutscenes, this isn't necessary. Once you've triggered the cutscene, spend your time collecting coins or getting next to the exit ready to leave. Just DO NOT LEAVE until the cutscene is over or the room will not be logged as completed.

# Cutscene Triggers

Cutscenes have a trigger point. Somewhere you need to stand to get them to activate. Learn where these are as they can pretty quickly mount up to some impressive time saves.

# Movement/Quick Travel

Get familiar with the quick 'jump' movement system. I use both systems in my run. The 'jump' movement is a lot trickier (and prone to mistakes - overshooting, etc.), but if you only manually moved you could easily add 15 minutes to even the most efficient of runs.

# Learn the Puzzles

Take the time to learn the solution to each puzzle. Even those you skip. - As part of the Any% category, the key is clearly the best optimisation of the 'auto-solve' feature, but what's fast for others might be slower for you. My skips are generally based around 3 factors; those that take the longest to solve, those I find the most difficult/clunky to solve quickly, and those which can be squeezed in without impacting the puzzles within the above two criteria.

As you practice more, you might find yourself changing things on the fly. So knowing the solution to all the puzzles will help you best find your path/routing.

The only puzzle you *must* *not* be waiting on a cooldown for is the final 'SOS' battle with Stauf. This is quite literally the last input you may have to make and any standing around is pure time loss.

# The Route

The current route is *not* written in stone. There are times where you have limited access to other rooms and *sometimes* skipping between them can be advantageous. There might, however, be puzzles which you'd prefer to skip meaning you might want to look at your own personal route optimisation.

# Which Puzzles to Autosolve?

This will depend on your routing, but I would strongly recommend the following based on their long completion times:

- The train (Knox bedroom)
- Doll Guillotine (Doll room)
- Bathroom escapades (the third cockroach puzzle in the bathroom)
- SOS (Final encounter with Stauf)

Some I'd recommend skipping (because they're clunky):

- Path of Life (Julia's room)
- The meat puzzle (kitchen)

# General Musings/Tricks:

- There is an actual tech to rowing the boat at the time, big long strides, particularly those that stretch behind you, work much faster. Try and get one of these in just before you hit the dock though (this can save you around 5 seconds as it speeds your entry up a little).
- The 2nd part of the doll puzzle can be done while waiting for the first part's autosolve to cool down. Just get the dolls where they need to be, and when you autosolve the first part, literally pick up *any* doll and put it back down in the same place. Alas, the second solution doesn't trigger automatically, but finding this saved me a LOT of time.
- Train. You can glitch the train in the Knox's room. Wait for it to butt up and hit the compartment, then quickly toggle the 'forward/backwards and neutral switch'. You'll clip through it and can simply reverse up to attach to the carriage.
- Don't bother pre-emptively positioning the guests death location in the attic house puzzle as some kind of time save. They reset every time you leave the room.
- You shouldn't need to pick up any more than around 26 Stauf coins. You require 10 to quicksolve the last puzzle though so bear this in mind. - There's nothing wrong with picking up as many as you like though, and particularly so kill time during cutscenes.

collectibles WIP

# General:

Start Cutscene, then collect Chronicles, then coins

do we need to take the map, do we need to play grammophones?

# Coins:

1 Foyer Flowerpot left

2 Foyer ashtray left

3 Foyer Cupboard left

4 Up Hall Dumbwaiter

5 Up Hall Left cupboard behind dumbwaiter

6 Up Hall Windowsill Statue

7 Dining Scales right

8 Dining Pot

9 Temple right of swordchest

10 Temple hat trick

11 Heine behind drink puzzle

12 Heine Cupboard Top shelf

13 Knox nightstand

14 Dutton left drawer

15 Library, right desk drawer

16 Library Globe

17 Kitchen Dumbwaiter

18 Burden in Cupboard

19 Gameroom Queue Rack

20 Cupboard in corner

21 Nursery behinmd guillotine

22 Nuresery dollhouse crayons

23 Music room harp chair

24 Music Room Violin Case

25 Cellar Storyboard

26 Cellar Winerack right

27 Storage room Pig Troth room

28 Storage room spider Barrel

29 Storage room Jam shelf

30 Storage Room Poop Coin

31 Bathroom Toilet water reservoir

32 Bathroom behind Soap

33 Attic seat near knox hideout

34 Attic Stairs way up

35 Attic Dutton hideout shelf bucket

36 Stauf Bedroom under book right

37 Stauf Bedroom Bookshelf right

38 Upper Attic, table near final door

39 Upper attic lamp tabel right pew row

40 Upper attic front pew drawer

41 Attic Dutton behind vase left

42 Dutton Bedstand

43 Burden behind Mirror

44 Foyer Library Door

45 Kitchen Shelf Jars right fo Sink

46 Knox behind Train set

47 Game Room Right side of bar, bottles

48 Cellar Woordworking Table

49 Attic behind Grandfather Clock

50 Attic minihouse, near Temple's figurine

# Chronicles: (need to watch to end, don't pick up mid cutscene, pick up when butterflies fly)

1 Foyer Table left

2 Temple Table

3 Dutton Desk

4 Library Table+

5 Burden Dresser

6 Game room corner

7 Nursery Fireplace

8 Music room left of fireplace

9 Stauf Bedroom footrest

# Musicbox:

1 Dining Windowsill EdKnox

2 Temple Swordbox Temple

3 Heine Nightstand Heine

4 Knox Windowsill Elinor

5 Dutton Fireplace Dutton

6 Burden on Bed Burden

7 Stauf Bedroom Tad

Puzzle Cost WIP

General: 

(*) means progression locked behind other puzzle



Dining Room:



-Maze 1

-Plates 1

-Cake 1



Temple:



- get hat 1

- *nightstands 1

- *closed cabinet 1

- *disappearance box 1

- cup and balls 1

- *tricky trunk 1

- *all-seeing trunk 1



Heine



- Graveyard Slide 1

- Drinking Game 1

- Path of Life 1

- *Broken Mirror 1



Knox



- Model Train 1

- Comptometer 1

- Toy Blocks 1



Dutton



- Sliding Fireplace 1

- Wardrobe Code 1

- Money Trophy 1

- Hidden Safe 1



Library



- Locked Book 1

- Moving Bookcase 1



Kitchen



- Wine Rack 1

- Meat Tower 1

- Handle on Ice 1

- Pantry Cans 1

- Stauf's Soup 1



Burden



- Jewellery Box 1

- Jewellery Buste 1

- Mannequins 1



Game Room



Nursery

- Toy Guillotine 1

- Tea Party 1



Music Room

- Teremin Melody 1

- Harpsicord 1

- Knights Journey 1



Attic

- Power outage 1

- Model Secrets 1

- Crime Scenes 1



Cellar

- Power outage 1

- Swan lock 1

- Hexagram Altar 1



Bathroom

- Faucet Insect 1

- Crossing the Sink 1

- Bathtub Expedition 1

- Roach Cabinet 1



Chapel

- Shadow Play 1



Altar

- night and Maiden 1

- Tad's Doll 1



Final Puzzle 10

Start of the Run

This is a rule change to increase fairness and consistency, introduced in late Feb 2024.

Your recording must include you hitting newgame/yes/no in the menu, as well as one second after the game has loaded before you pick up the oar. The picking up of the oar must be visible

The reasons are as follows:

1. If you don't include the menuing, we cannot guarantee that when you pick up the oar it is the FIRST time you pick it up.
2. If you don't include a moment of idly looking at the oar, we cannot determine the exact frame of picking up the oar, which might otherwise happen before the game is visible. 
3. Timing after the boat has loaded makes sure the loading time is not part of the run. 



This rulechange only affects new recordings. For older recordings timing will start on fade-in of the boat.

Any new submissions where the oar pickup cannot be determined will be timed from the menuing and will include the loading time.

strategy notes WIP

General:

Grammophone Clockwise



Start:

- Run up after gate open

- Grammophone

- Position: center circle

DiningRm:

- Maze has 2 hand support

- Cake:

--Start at bottom chicken, all the way to right

--other bottom chicken left up up

--center chicken up right right

--center chicken tetris T

--Top chicken linear

--final four

- Position: in front of cake

Foyer 

- Position: corner of rect carpet in front of them



HeineKnoxDuttonTemple, order unknown.



Temple: 

- liberate second hat holding first,

- put nightstand throw suitcase

- cannot put down both hats, keep blue

- head left ears right

- soles left nose right middle up

- can place both coins at same time

- Position: in front of Cups



Heine

- Start 2, then respond so you fill his answer up to 4

- cradle down cross all three bridges, enter grave from right

- Coffins

-- Main Coffin + top right to left, 

--tiny medium and large coffin up

-- all right, tiny down

--main right, all down

--all left, hindrance up, solve

- Position: next to bed



Knox

- Grab E from Cupboard, place E&C&A

XXXX

BCDE

AXXX

XXXX

- frtl 542-521--5321-41-5-3

- train appears to have same speed f and b

- Train (you can go through the mountein, try for faster thanwha t I have here)

--back, flip signal after first signal

--front to tunnel, flip, back to 1

--front, flip back flip front, flip at station, flip after signal, back to 2

--front, flip after signal, back, flip at station to 3

-- front, flip at station, flip on right, back to 4

-- front to station, stops automaticllay

- Position: Trainset



Dutton

-Wheels spin Trisnake, drop,moon,cup, star,k spiral

-Path:

--all right, snake bback left, close cirlce,

-- up circle, sneak goal

Trophy: use 2 hands

-- right up left,

-- full down, full up, down to diamond,

-- left to goal

-Safe:

--Top Right Middle left bottom

-Posiiton: Trophy





nex tchapter

Posiiton: Foyer center cirlce (skippable to lib)

Library

-shine lamp on GFClock, set to quarter past 4

-Bookshelves

--Button Twice, double-2 to top of circle

--Button twice, double-2 to bottom, 3 to circle

--Button Thrice, 3 to goal

--Button once, double-2 boottom of circle circle

-- solve

-Position: Door



next chapter

- Position: outside of lib, skippable



Kitchen

-Wine: 

--yeet out all

XXX9X2XXX

X7XXXXXX8

XXX4X9XXX

-Grab wine and onion from table

-Grab onion(right hand) and crank(left hand), drop onion heat crank

-Meat use pieces tallest to flattest

-cans

--swap 2 and 6

--swap 3 and 4

-Posiiton in soup



Burden

-Necklace: R Y G B P Break

1X1X1

00100

X010X

X101X

XX0XX

XX1XX

-JewelBox:

00101

1XX01

X00X1

2020X

-Can't solve both puppets at same time

-Girl:2241221

-Boy:1123211

-Position: Jewellerybox



Game Room

Billiard:

--9 to front, 5 to right walk to 5 sink

--3 to start, 6 to far left

--go 2 and carry to far right

--carry 12 to far right, sink rest

-place queen get shakeroput in middle

-whisky left rum right

-solve chess

-Position: Follow black diagonal of chessboard 2 steps



Nursery:

-get ben's head from doll house, swap ben and tom

-Angela from far right to tea,

-petunia from tea to center

-lara from center to sugarbox

-momo from sugarbox to opposite cookie

-Kim from opposite cookie to far right

-Petunias head from guillotine to center 

-doll from leftmost crib head to Angela at tea

-doll from chair decapitate to kim far right

-head from crob on right to lara, sugarbox

-position: Behind Angela, Teapot



Music Room

- Pots order 3412, intensity 2314

- Cembalo numbers 121252346 order 646454231

XXXX1XXX

XXXXXXXX

XX1XXXXX

XXXXXXXX

1XXX111X

1111XXXX

XXXXXX11

-posiotion: edge of cicle carpet



Attic 

-Fix Power

-open cellar compartment at instrutcion table corner

-Flip swtich



Cellar

- Fix Power

DON'T COLLECT PIECES, directly input solution, dbqp signify the corners the pieces are in, X is full



dXXb

PP X

  dP

dXPdb

qXXP



Wood thingys

321

321



-posiotion: entrance towards storyboard



Bathroom

-just do.

-position: in front of machine



Attic again (also try: yeet from GFC to table, open left half up on way to dutton, get dutton, open right half on way to knox but place dutton first, get knox, place knox, place rest.)

-Burden -> Foyer, near ddoor to Dutton

-Dutton ->Music room, towards GFClock

-EdKnox -> Attic window oppoisite attic window, open cellar on way back

-Grab Elinor and Heine, Elenor to cellar, heine to top attic



Chapel

-IV eye horizontal, tentacles left

-III Align Eye

-II align to top:solve

-Position: Final Door



Stauf Bedroom(skip?)



Realm

-Solve Face

-position from entryway 2 steps



Name	Autor
A few pointers for new Any% runners	howlin_mad_mike 2 years ago
collectibles WIP	darkshoxx 2 years ago
Puzzle Cost WIP	darkshoxx 2 years ago
Start of the Run	darkshoxx 2 years ago
strategy notes WIP	darkshoxx 2 years ago