Hi, I'm a longtime moderator of a few obscure games on this platform and I've run into a potential issue regarding a newly released game in which a very significant skip seems to (at this time) require quitting to the desktop and restarting the game.

I'm just here to solicit opinions regarding whether or not this is allowed in your games, maybe reasons for or against it?

My concern is that it opens up windows for cheating, and I know a lot of games typically don't allow it, but I know a lot of other games do. How do you or your mods typically handle these sorts of skips?

Thank you for your input :)

i used to run the waveland demo in which after you complete the last level you would close the game and reopen because it puts you at the start of the hub world where you have to enter a thing to end the run. i see no problems with closing and reopening the game. skywardsword and tp(?) also have a glitch involving resetting the game (as you die)

Personally, i find it wrong to entirely quit the game during a speedrun. Closing the game has nothing to do with the game itself - so if a game has no main menu to save & load, but have to quit to achieve the same effect... welp. you gotta deal with it. I mean, anything goes "within" the bounderies of the game. not outside of it. Otherwise, you may very well allow people to rigg the consoles/mod the game behind the scenes.

PC Plants Vs Zombies bans this due to inconsistencies in load times when the game starts up. Just an example of it being banned. I don't run the game so I can't really give an argument for or against it.

@Intuition I don't think it's really fair to compare this to rigging the console or modding the game, given that quitting and resetting only really requires the base game to do. There's no use of third party tools or any alteration of the environment in place here, just using an intended feature of a game (namely, to be able to close the game and reopen it at will).

That's not to say you shouldn't be able to restrict it, but I thought it'd be good to mention this.

I am sorry, i exaggerated. the point was to clearly convey that the moment you "quit" the game. the speedrun should stop right there. you're no longer playing the game the moment the game is closed. Again, this is just my own opinion on this matter. just because i don't approve of it doesn't mean i'll prohibit everyone else from doing it.

I definetely agree that allowing this could make it hard to define when a run finishes and another one begins.

For example, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone they once had a controversy about a skip they had found where if the player started a game, played until a certain point and then reset and played a New Game, they'd be able to bypass a level of the game (a quidditch match). In their case, they came to the conclusion that they should restrict the use, given that it wouldn't really be NG but rather NG+.

Personally, if the skip doesn't affect a New Game, I'd have no problems allowing it, but this feels like it should be something to be analized on a case-by-case basis and, more importantly, with a consensus amongst the respective game's community.

I really appreciate everyone's input on this! We're going to consider it within the context of our own game and community and figure out how to move forward.