Hey guys. Thread topic in the title.

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The act of using external music – that is outside of the game - when doing runs is something that’s definitely uncommon in the speedrunning scene.

Most speedrun communities disallow it, either through a rule, or in the unsaid.

The leading reason usually being, it goes against the integrity of the game and speedrun.

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But some communities do. Like the Sly Cooper community, with the first game of the series. Players there are allowed to play with music. The current world record does.

Well, this isn’t entirely exact. These players are still required to record the game locally without the music.

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Alternatively, it would be very plausible to imagine certain games having it.

Games that don’t have any music on them, may allow players to use some as background audio. I don’t know of any at the top of my head, but they must exist.

Technically, in games where you can turn off their music, you could imagine communities allowing external music to be played.

As of today though, we have no community consensus about it. It was never discussed.

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More importantly, there are no rules about it, which is a transparency problem.

Runners could accidentally submit speedruns with external music in them, not knowing whether it’s allowed or not. As a matter of fact, it’s happened.

The question of allowing or denying the use of external music in speedruns isn’t an easy one to answer. Because it’s a clash between run integrity and runner convenience.

While it is true that for the Klonoa games, thus far, we have been prioritizing run integrity the most, I think this issue can’t objectively be answered. It comes down to opinions.

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For now, a temporary stance needs to be taken so that at least the runners can be informed.

I would suggest taking the safe route for the time being, by adding the following rule to every Klonoa games :

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You may turn off the game music in your runs, but the sound effects must be kept on and be audible. You may also play with external music during your runs, but if you do, in your submission, you must provide a link of a version of the run without the external music.

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(Note that as of right now, the only game in which you can turn off the music is KPRS.)

The rule would be changed as soon as the community collectively decides on something.

This thread will serve as a reminder of this topic.

Change done. At least now, we have temporary rules in place about the use of external music.

We can have a complete discussion later.