1. Introduction

Hello there! In this guide I’ll show you everything you need to know about speedrunning Cactus McCoy 1 any%. The goal of any% is to beat the game by any means necessary. In this case, it means beating all 12 levels with the last level being the final bossfight. Timing starts after you create a new save file and click the “skip” button in the cutscene. Timing ends just as the screen fades black after the final bossfight. Cheats, mods or macros are not allowed.

2. Setup

You can play Cactus McCoy by downloading a standalone Flash Player emulator and an .swf file or preferably, you can use the Flashpoint archive and play Cactus McCoy there. Your in-game controls are linked to your save file, meaning you can’t change them before starting your run. If you want to change your controls, you can either: change them after starting your run - losing you time, or use external programs like Windows Powertoys. For recording, I recommend using OBS and the LiveSplit timer.

3. Basic Speedrunning Tips

There are many things you’ll need to keep in mind during your runs. Here are the most important things to remember:

Jumping over an enemy is always faster than killing them

Always try to just jump over the enemies that you don’t have to kill if possible. Sometimes you might get stuck inside an enemy, or maybe you want to try your luck with getting a certain weapon. In that case, it’s fine.

Punching in the air makes you less likely to get stuck on enemies

McCoy has a tendency to stick to enemies after touching them. This is probably a conscious decision by the developers to make killing enemies easier, but in a speedrun we obviously don’t want to do that. Punching in the air makes McCoy not turn around when you don’t want him to, but you need to be careful not to punch anyone, as that slows you down.

Use punching and swinging weapons / Upgrade punching and swinging as fast as possible

Most of the weapons you’re going to use during the run are punching and swinging weapons. They’re easy to find, deal massive damage, you can machine punch with them (see machine punching down below), they’re (for the most part) very durable and their upgrades are cheap. Avoid using any other weapon type, unless you know what you’re doing.

Try to bring a weapon into a bossfight

This one is pretty self-explanatory. There’s a lot of enemies you have to kill during a bossfight, killing all of them barehanded is really slow. Make use of the set weapon spawns throughout the levels.

Machine punching

This is probably the most important trick in the entire run. You can cancel the lag after you’ve hit an enemy by turning around, then you can turn around again and hit the enemy again before the lag would normally end. You can punch and swing enemies much faster with this trick, which is useful throughout the whole run and especially during the Hatfield bossfight. Here’s the easy way to do it: hold down the arrow button going towards the enemy, then quickly alternate between attacking and the opposite arrow button. You need to time your button presses really well and also have great mashing skills.

Learn the most important weapon stats

It’s important to know which weapons you should pick up and which ones you shouldn’t. Very good weapons: all punching weapons, club, mallet, bone, cutlass, katana, scythe, longsword, morningstar Okay weapons: 2x4, nightstick, machete, axe, pickaxe Avoid: pool cue, stick, bat Honorable shooting/throwing/whipping weapons: teargas, lanterns, crossbow, shotgun/blunderbuss, flamethrower, cat o’ nine tails, meteor

Learn the most important enemy stats

There are many different enemy types in this game, each varying in health and the weapons they use. Most enemies have a 15% chance to dodge your attacks and a 20% chance to drop their weapons. For the sake of this guide, I’ll be calling them by their colors:

• scarecrow (20HP, can be one shot with anything other than the starting fists)
• green (100HP, wields two-handed swinging weapons)
• white (150HP, wields one-handed swinging weapons)
• blue (150HP, wields throwing weapons)
• red (250HP, 20% dodge chance, wields punching weapons)
• black (150HP, wields one-handed shooting weapons)
• brown (200HP, 20% dodge chance, wields two-handed swinging weapons)
• yellow (150HP, wields two-handed shooting weapons)
• purple (200HP, wields whipping weapons)
• bazooka guy (250HP, 0% dodge chance, 10% weapon drop chance, wields a bazooka)
• gatling guy (250HP, 0% dodge chance, 10% weapon drop chance, wields a gatling gun)
• Hatfield (4000HP, 30% dodge chance, you’ll learn more about him in level 12 tutorial)

Use your invincibility frames wisely

After dying, the game gives you about 2 seconds of invincibility frames. It may not seem like a lot, but it’s enough time to go past enemies, crushers, fire traps and more. Keep in mind that after respawning, you’ll need to repress the movement button, there’s no buffer for it.

4. Main Skips

The speedrun route contains 3 major glitch skips that combined can save you over a minute of time. It’s important to learn these skips as soon as possible after you get comfortable with the game mechanics. Difficulty goes from pretty easy (Level 7 boss skip) to really damn hard (Gorge skip). Here are the glitches in order of when they are performed in the run:

Gorge skip

This is probably the hardest trick in the entire run, but it also saves the most time (over a 20 second time save). It skips the entire gorge area in level 5 by going through the smaller area that you can’t access normally from the left.

Explaining the trick: This trick works by cancelling the boulder throwing animation after getting hit. When McCoy performs a throw, the animation shows him swing the object from his back to his front. The hitbox of the object stays true to the animation, even if the animation places the object in a wall (this is also true for the turnaround animation, and will be useful later in level 7 boss skip). If we interrupt the animation mid-swing, the object’s hitbox can end up inside a wall. We can then climb the half-stuck object and jump up to the previously inaccessible area.

Performing the trick: Grab one of the two boulders placed right before the entrance to the gorge (the first one allows you to have more attempts and gives you more time to line up the throw, but is a little bit slower). Make the black roman candle enemy notice you. Line yourself up with the wall and face left (if you took the first boulder, you should have time to jump into the wall and make a quick left press – that should line you up perfectly). Once the enemy shoots his roman candle jump up high enough to get hit by the shot. Right before getting hit, press the attack button to start your throwing animation. This should hopefully put the boulder inside the wall, letting you jump onto it from the left platform. (Alternatively: you can face to the right and perform the trick with a different timing. I do not recommend this method though, as it is much harder to time) There is a high chance that the roman candle shot expires before hitting you (I don’t what are the exact odds of this happening, but probably around 50%). In case that happens, you’ll need to quickly grab your boulder and attempt the trick again. Every time you throw the boulder, it’s durability goes down. Every boulder has 3 health points before it fully breaks, and you need at least a 2 health point boulder to perform the trick. So basically, you get 2 tries with every boulder. If you grab the first boulder, you’ll have 2 boulders available to perform the trick giving you 4 tries in total. There’s no other backup if all of the tries fail. You’ll have to either reset your run, or go through the gorge.

Level 6 boss skip

This trick lets you skip the entire bossfight in level 6 by clipping through the train wagon’s ceiling and dropping down to the bossfight area from the top entrance that’s normally used to get a hidden treasure after the fight. This saves over 10 seconds from doing the fight normally with a cutlass. This trick is kinda easy and safe once you know what to do.

Explaining the trick: This trick is performed by throwing a suitcase into the ceiling, then jumping onto the suitcase as it falls down and bounces off the ground putting McCoy into the ceiling allowing him to jump through it, clipping out of the wagon. Normally, you can’t jump onto an object that’s moving, but when you successfully throw the object into the ceiling clipping it’s hitbox inside it, the game thinks it has already touched the ground and makes you able to jump onto it.

Performing the trick: Grab the suitcase from the last wagon before the screen transition. Bring it all the way to the wagon right before the bossfight area. Kill the yellow enemy on the platform and align yourself up with the right side of the chimney above. Press the jump and attack button in succession. When the suitcase is about to hit the ground, jump onto it and after a short moment (after McCoy clips through the ceiling), jump again. The timing might be hard to learn for the first time, try practicing it a few times. This trick is basically risk-free, because the suitcase doesn’t take damage. The only thing that can go wrong is the suitcase clipping outside of the wagon, but it won’t happen if you align yourself correctly with the chimney. In case it does happen, there’s another suitcase just down the platform.

Level 7 boss skip

This is the easiest trick in the game. It allows you to skip the level 7 bossfight by going around the arena and entering from the area normally only accessible after the fight. It saves around 10 seconds from doing the fight normally with a chain.

Explaining the trick: This trick involves clipping an object inside a wall and then jumping onto it to get over the wall (very similar to the gorge skip). While standing next to a wall, perform the turnaround animation by tapping the right arrow button. While the turnaround animation is happening, McCoy puts the object and it’s hitbox behind him clipping it inside the wall. If you then drop the held object, it will stay inside the wall allowing you to jump on it. That’s how easy it is.

Performing the trick: Grab the metal crate from the second to last room before the crushers (if you lose it, there’s a backup one down the road near the black enemy) and carry it to the final area. Instead of dropping down into the bossfight, bring the crate to the left of the crusher (you can either throw it or make a precise tiny jump over the gap). Stand beside the wall, tap right to start the turnaround animation and press the drop button (the object will drop after releasing the “d” button, not after pressing it). Once it clips into the wall, just jump on it, go around the arena and finish the level. There’s no risk in this trick. If you fail it, just pick up the crate and try again.

5. Expert Speedrunning Tips

This section is for those who have already familiarized themselves with the game well and want to know about additional ways to squeeze out some really minor time saves:

Coyote jumping

After falling off of solid ground, you have about 3 grace frames where McCoy can still jump. You can use these frames to make jumping over some enemies possible or to make some precise corner jumps.

Corner jumping

Touching corners of walls, floors and ceilings while jumping slows you down a little bit. Try making jumps that don’t touch any corners. This is especially significant in level 2, where you go back and forth through narrow spaces.

Quick turnaround in the air

You can instantly turn around in the air after pressing the attack button. Use this trick to make platforming and corner jumping easier.

Fast menuing

This one is pretty self-explanatory. You can lose a lot of time by spending it in the game menu. Try to remember where the next level button is and preëmptively put your cursor there. Do not press the menu buttons while they’re still moving! This will most likely crash your game! Wait for the buttons to stop. Also, you can press the “continue” button in the level summary screen just before it fully lights up.

Fast juggling

You can juggle enemies faster by hitting them multiple times while they’re still going up. This can make the money trick in level 1 easier, or help you get more chances for a weapon drop. If you struggle to get this trick, try launching them with a crouched punch first, then jumping and punching in mid-air.