Glitches

One of the rules for this speedrun is that no level can simulate with a score of zero for a run to count. That may seem strange, I mean how can a level simulate with a score of zero? It’s because this beautiful and amazing game has some pretty great jank built-in, free of charge!

When playing later levels in the game, there is a chance of encountering a glitch where a level simulates but no cars are driving on the road. Each level can “jam” if the traffic gets backed up without any movement, but without any cars on the road the game just scores that level as a zero. There’s no fun to the speedrun if the levels aren’t doing anything, so this must be forbidden in the rule set. There aren’t any guides or fixes on the internet that I found, and I believe that it doesn’t really happen in a casual playthrough of the game. Debugging the glitch took some time and is still ongoing, but what I do know about it is described below.

My first guess was that each level was impacted by the levels around them and by levels throughout the map screen. There is a feature unlocked when you get to the last square of levels (the full 80 levels unlocked) where you can click on a button of a helicopter in the overworld and watch a single car drive through the map as a whole, going from level to level until it gets to where it wants to go. I guessed that, if there was a blockage or slowdown in one part of the level, it may impact the number of cars going to the next level. Enough blockages or slowdowns could compound together and create traffic jams blocking vehicles. There are a few tough levels in the game that, during my first speedrun of the game, I technically completed the level right before it would have considered the level ‘jammed,” so I figured that the game glitched out enough to stop cars from going to the later levels.

I’m not 100% certain that my first thought was wrong, but testing seems to disprove that theory. I took a completed world after a speedrun and recorded each score. Then, I adjusted one level, simulated it, and then simulated each level in a row afterwards. Most levels saw no change, some levels did significantly better, and one level even ended up jamming. It wasn’t conclusive at all and felt more like random chance. However, it did spark my second theory, and it is centered around levels 4. 36. 43, and 71. 

Those levels are designed to be completed without bridges, and the game should keep the player from placing bridges. However, my guess is that the code to remove the bridge feature from those levels only starts when you reopen the game after closing out of the application. If you restart the game within the application, the game doesn’t run that portion of code and you can play through the game placing bridges on those levels. On my next attempt at replicating the glitch, I restarted the game and drew a bunch of bridges on level 4, a level which I didn’t normally use bridges anyway because it was less time to keep everything at grade. Within a few more completed levels, the game encountered the glitch, and I started simulating each level with a score of zero.
Before my testing, I had only encountered the glitch late in the game, around levels 57 and onward. I believe that is because I used bridges in level 43, and it eventually broke the game once I had gotten further into it.

Now, I do think that some, if not all, of the levels are interconnected somewhat. There are a few levels that do not simulate (levels 23, 41, 64, and 78 specifically) by design, they are weird levels that just bring the map together. When I first started running this game, I didn’t complete any of the levels – the levels could either be skipped entirely or just had a small piece of road draw into it to trick the game into advancing to the final level set (in the case of level 64). However, when troubleshooting the glitch some more, I noticed that I could get cars moving through the level by connecting the roadways and completing the level. Even level 23, which has no road sources or destinations in it, allowed some levels much later in the game to have better scores. I haven’t the slightest clue why this happens, but it does.

To conclude, the glitch most likely is caused by the player placing bridges into levels that they are not designed to be in, which will certainly break the game within a dozen or so levels. To avoid this, restart the game and, before drawing a single road, stop and restart the application. This will trigger the lines of code that stop the player from building roads. However, due to level interconnectivity, the performance (or lack thereof) in some levels will potentially cause the glitch. I recommend the following rule of thumb: if the level would jam if you doubled the amount of simulation time, try to get the level working a bit better. If it would hum along just fine, you’re golden. If you do encounter the glitch, try going back to earlier levels if you weren’t sure how well you did in them. If that doesn’t help much, stop, and restart the application.

Location of all 24 Pictures

Use for reference as needed if you are going to attempt an all-pictures run.

![](/static/blob/wzxvm7er.png)

Mechanics, Tips, and Tricks

Welcome to Freeways! Freeways is a game about drawing the best roadways design to clear each level with the highest score possible; however, the game takes on a new theme when trying to complete a set of levels as quickly as possible. The guide below aims to serve as a base for starting a speedrun of the game. This guide goes into the mechanics of the game and tips/tricks for completing the speedrun. 

Mechanics

You control the game almost exclusively with the mouse and use the cursor to draw roadways. There are a few helpful shortcuts on the keyboard – “a/z” raises and lowers the road level, “t” will simulate the level once complete, and “c” will clear the level. Right-clicking will also raise the road level, but only while holding the right mouse button. Once the mouse button is released, you’ll draw at the lower level. 
The goal is to connect each traffic source to their destination. You can click on a traffic source to start a roadway, or you can draw a roadway at any point on the map by clicking and drawing. Most levels allow the player to use bridges and the grade of the bridge can be adjusted by clicking the menu buttons that are usually at the bottom corner of the screen. I highly recommend watching Real Civil Engineer’s series of this game, it’s a good series and he does a great job explaining how the game works. One thing you won’t find is an undo button…by design unfortunately but doesn’t impact the speedrun of the game too much. 

Once you’ve connected each traffic source to their destination, text will pop-up and you will be allowed to simulate traffic flow through your roadways. In a normal play-through, your goal is to achieve the highest score by balancing high traffic flow with the amount of concrete used to build the roadway, and the score is given to the player once the simulation is complete. The amount of concrete available is shown with the dump-truck on the menu bar, the level of gray concrete will decrease as you place more roads. However, you have a LOT of concrete at your disposal, the chance of you running out of concrete is slim.

This, however, is not a normal play-through of the game. In a speedrun, all we care about is that the level works. The traffic can creep along at 5 freedom units pers hour but if the simulation completes then the level is successful. (Your RUN may still be impacted, read on for more!) Thus, your goal is to figure out the quickest way you can draw roadways to complete the level, with faster execution leading to better times overall.

Tips, and Tricks

When building new roads and bridges in real life, there’s no way to undo mistakes. Just like in real life, you also can’t fix a mistake in this game. I’m going to assume that it was an intentional design choice instead of the developer embracing pain and suffering. You have only two options once making a mistake: erase the level in its entirety and start over or live with the mistake and work around it. You’ll make mistakes, but most mistakes you can work around just fine.

Speaking of bridges – of the two ways to place a bridge, the fastest (and thus most recommended) method of placing bridges is to right-click as you’re drawing a road. A key to faster speedruns of this game is to minimize the amount of time your cursor is not drawing a road to complete the level. Where you can avoid using bridges, do so. Where you must use a bridge, work on using the right mouse button to draw the bridge. However, there’s a catch of finnicky mechanics that make this technique harder to use: if you click on an existing road to make a junction, and you make the bridge too close to the center of the existing road, the pathing will “cut” the original road and essentially remove that path you’ve already made. Use all the space available to you and work on delaying the bridge creation to avoid this glitch from happening. If it does happen, just use a road to connect the broken path back up. 

Another tip – if you do have to place a bridge with a right-click and have it connected with another bridge already made, then the process for doing so is…finicky. If drawing a bridge with a right-click, then you stop drawing the bridge by releasing the right mouse button while holding the left mouse button and you can continue to draw a road. However, if you have your cursor drawing the bridge over the bridge you want to connect with, and you release the right mouse button, you’ll just start drawing a road instead of connecting the bridges up. I recommend avoiding connecting bridges wherever possible, but there are few techniques that will work decently quickly. One method is to hold down the left and right mouse buttons and draw the new bridge past the old bridge. If done correctly, the new bridge will connect with the old bridge. Another method is to draw two bridges somewhere else, and then click one of the bridges to start a new path. Doing so will start drawing a bridge instead of a road without holding down the right mouse button. The final method is to draw the road out a bit, stop drawing, then press “a” to raise the bridge without right clicking. Make sure to move the mouse a bit ahead of the direction you were drawing the road to reduce the amount of time not spent drawing roads.

This ultimately is a pretty simple game, best of luck in your speedrun!

Name	Author
Glitches	ChairmanMeow 2 years ago
Location of all 24 Pictures	ChairmanMeow 1 year ago
Mechanics, Tips, and Tricks	ChairmanMeow 2 years ago