Personally i'm all for the NG+ for this category. In the end, the only difference with a NG is the waiting time at the starting area. The NG+ is more interesting to run (and to watch).

But i agree that it's needed to understand the glitch a little more in order to make a definitive choice.

The glitch was only discovered less than 2 days ago and we're constantly discovering new things about it. It's no use to rush anything yet.

I don't think you're 100% wrong. As i said it's possible that the smoke particles are coded differently from others and causes the glitch. For the moment i have no idea how to confirm nor deny this hypothesis though.

Regardless of that i just did a NG+ IGT broken run and got a 2:53 time.

I managed to save 10s using a neat trick we all forgot to use. It's simple, as soon as you get the gun, before the character even start to talk, just save and exit then reload your game instead of trying to get to the lava in order to kill yourself. You'll get automatically transported to the last checkpoint (the beggining) with the gun. Since the run is real time and not in-game time this trick is perfectly allowed (i guess).

Wow, very good discovery. It explains all the small changes in time for triggering the glitch i saw between different run.

I managed to replicate it easily following your instructions.

So, we have two new possible categories as you said, NG+ broken and NG broken, each one with it's own set of rules. In the end, either we make these two categories or we choose to keep only one of them. I'm really curious about what prettz think about all this.

I'm still not entirely convinced about your explanation about particles because a lot of thing in the game create particules: Blue beams touching a wall, teleporting, landing after a jump, destroying a block, lava, etc... The only difference between the smoke particles and all the other one i mentionned is that smoke particles are round whereas others are squared. Also, after the glitch triggers, even if the smoke particles disappears the others are still here. Maybe these are coded differently? In this case your explanation would make sense. I tried to replicate the glitch in other area and never succeed so the explanation is definitely something linked to the starting area.

But anyway, very intersting discovery. We now have to decide how will we change the categories.

I use a certain setup for this. I start at the broken bottom rock then go left and i use the noise of footstep that goes tac-tac, tac-tac, tac-tac. Between the 5th and 6th step is where i jump. When using the same set-up without the glitch i arrive at the same place your picture show so i think it's pretty coherent.

Thank you very much. I will try to set this up and make a run later.

Also, good news everybody, i found a consistant and fast way of getting to the last boss trigger. I did it 3 times in a row first try. Here is how to do it:

1. Go left for about 1~2 seconds.
2. Jump to the right.
3. Go right.

It's pretty easy once you get the timing. Here is a video where i show it with the buttons i'm pressing:

Also for some reason, i just noticed that the timer get back on when the final battle start. Weird. I also confirm that once you do it, you can't do it again on the same save file, if you want to do it again you have to erase your save then start overa new game.

Well, i managed to replicate it as well:

I also discovered that if you fail at the last boss the game softlock and you hear both the final boss music and the starting music. (and you get a beautiful crash screen)

It also appears than in both of our run (and in some of my previous run) the glitch appear after staying 2m42s at the starting area. It doesn't seem to be linked to the music since the loop appear at 3m18s.

Moreover, i think i understand why i had trouble triggering the last boss. Because each time i tried i used my previous save but apparently it doesn't work anymore after the first try. I had to start the game over to trigger it in the previous video.

Personally, i totally agree with making a new category. Even if it's the fastest way it makes the run less interesting because it skips the best trick of the game.

Also, since this run is based on a game breaking glitch there is still a risk that it gets patched in the future.

I'm still curious about the way you managed to get to the boss trigger after getting to the left of the screen. It's the part that i have trouble figuring out. I'm also curious about what causes the glitch if people have any idea...

Anyway, congratulation on breaking the game and getting a new WR :p