Speedrun Tricks and Techniques
Minor amendments made to the "Helmet clipping" section on 6/3/2025
Here I’ll cover everything from intended game mechanics to major glitches that can be used across all categories and rate the difficulty of each on a scale of 1 to 5. Even if you’ve played this game before there are a few intended mechanics that are important but not immediately obvious. You can accomplish very respectable times with strong glitchless gameplay.
"Gun running" and Double jumping
Intended mechanic
Difficulty: 1
Movement in this run is very reliant on the recoil physics that comes from shooting a gun. Shoot any gun, and you’ll be nudged backwards. In general, the bigger the gun, the more recoil you’ll get from shooting.
To double jump, just jump in the air while holding a gun and the recoil will send you upwards. How many times you can double jump and the strength of each jump is dependent on what gun you’re using. You can see how many times you’re able to double jump by the number of yellow bullets that appear in your HUD while midair.
Because of how recoil works, walking backwards with a gun while shooting will push you backwards much faster than you can walk. We haven’t adopted a formal term for this, but for the sake of this guide, I’ll call it “gun running.” Think of it as a sprint that’s tied to your ammo. Gun running and routing around reloads is an easy way to optimize how quickly you move from place to place before you obtain the car. You can either aim or no-scope while doing this. Aiming is easier to control, but it’s blind, while no-scoping is not blind but uses inverted controls, since the camera is facing opposite of your squirrel.
If your gun running speed feels inconsistent between runs, or you notice a speed discrepancy between when you and other runners using this strat, it might be worth improving your game performance. I’m confident that lag hurts the effectiveness of gun running (with the SMG at least), but this has yet to be formally tested.
While driving the car, you’ll automatically shoot behind you to propel yourself forwards super fast! No need to aim for this.
Hyperfocus for free guns
Intended mechanic
Difficulty: 1
One mechanic that is heavily used in the run is called hyperfocusing. By pressing F on KBM, or R3 on your controller, the game will move in slow-mo and a wave of force will be emitted around you. We use this in short bursts for a few tricks in the run that I’ll be covering later.
You can use this to snag any gun that an enemy’s holding for free. Simply activate hyperfocus by pressing F or R3 near an enemy, and they’ll drop whatever weapon they’re holding.
Perfect reloads
Intended mechanic
Difficulty: 2
You can obtain ammo charges which will allow you to reload by either killing an enemy or walking through a red flower. These are visualized as red bullet pinecones.
When reloading by pressing Q on KBM, or B on controller, if you let go of the reload button within this timeframe (0.84 to 0.98 seconds), you’ll get infinite ammo for a short amount of time. You’ll also see a white circle close in on your squirrel when reloading- you want to release right as the circle closes in on you. It sounds precise at first, but using sound cues and knowing the rhythm, you can get to the point where you can do it blind.
This makes it easy to zoom across the map for longer periods of time, or scale high, hard to reach acorns in a matter of seconds. For example, instead of climbing trees to reach this acorn, or the cactus to reach this one, you can fly to these using the unlimited height that comes from the SMG. It also works on this giant skate ramp in Mean streets for 2 acorns if you don’t have a car, or to traverse between these flying platforms in an unintended order.
Doing this on command unlocks an incredible amount of routing potential very quickly.
Car farming
Exploit
Difficulty: 2
I won’t spend too much time covering this trick because they patched it. But if you’re downpatching, it’s worth knowing about this. To do this trick, you need to be playing on any version before 1.3.0.1. While in the air in the car, press either left or right twice, holding on your second press. You’ll spin around very quickly and collect normal acorns at a rapid rate. This makes routing around normal acorns in earlier patches irrelevant.
The “Super Yeet”
Glitch
Difficulty: 2-3
Even though you’re a squirrel, you can throw items farther than the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks. Just charge a throw and use Hyperfocus right as you release the item, and it’ll go flying. This works great with lighter objects, but if you’re throwing something heavy like a rocket launcher, it doesn’t work as well. We use this mainly to throw the football helmet across the Mean Streets map to set up for a clip, an essential item that I’ll cover later with Helmet Clipping.
Tip: You can combine Super Yeets with prop throws to launch yourself even higher in the air!
Rocket riding
Intended mechanic
Difficulty: 2-3
This is the last intended mechanic I’ll cover. If you press your grab button on an enemy rocket as it’s about to hit you, you’ll grab onto the rocket and control where it flies. Yep, that’s right, you can fly in this game, even before you buy the drone.
This is only relevant in the last area of the game, the waterpark, but makes it so much faster when it comes to accessing the platforms. Keep in mind that some NPCs are more reliable than others and tend to shoot you instantly when they see you. I cover which ones in my Routing guide. There’s this guy to the right of Mother’s Tower, who I use to access the platforms, and this one to the left of the tower near the back, who I use to access the haunted house area.
This trick is a lot easier if you’re standing still to set it up. If you’re moving, it can get difficult to jump to the rocket and catch it. It’s intimidating, but just like using perfect reloads, you’ll get a hang of the timing pretty quickly, so definitely give it a try. Otherwise, I used to get runs going by using this blue helium canister and double jumping to the inflatables with this free pistol.
Prop throwing
Glitch
Difficulty: 3
Prop throwing can be used to make your squirrel jump much higher than usual with the help of throwing a prop. It’s most importantly used to skip the first acorn and its cutscene, which shaves about 2 and a half minutes from the run. Not only can it be used to open the run, but to grab some hard to reach objects or acorns if your in a pinch.
To do a prop throw, simply charge a throw and hold your jump button. Before you hit the peak of your jump, throw and grab your object again very quickly. Your squirrel will fly in the air along the trajectory your object would have flown in. Keep in mind that the timing for when you release the object changes depending on the object you are using, and some objects can’t be used for prop throws at all.
Checkpoint loading
Exploit
Difficulty: Varies
You can take advantage of the game's checkpoint system by loading checkpoint to quickly travel to any given checkpoint spawn. Whatever checkpoint you load into, you'll spawn in with the last gun you held, so this can be advantageous by skipping the need to buy or otherwise obtain a gun.
You'll always load into the last checkpoint that you touched the ground of. So, you can further exploit this by traversing checkpoints without touching the ground, and then loading a checkpoint to fast travel even farther distances. Simple example
Checkpoint loading is most commonly used to quickly travel from the In Landmine Guy's House acorn to outside of the fenced block. Other uses are more niche, but include:
- Rocket riding to the Rocket Ragdolls platform, then loading checkpoint (trying not to aggro the agents) to reobtain your last held gun.
- Rocket riding through the Pumpkin Patch checkpoint and loading checkpoint after collecting Spooky roof. Clip
Helmet clipping
Major Glitch
Difficulty: 4-5
We use this trick to traverse any area in the game, ignoring OOB walls, and to clip through the door to access Mother’s Tower without pressing buttons. Specifically, I don’t recommend implementing the clip into Mothers Tower until you’re at least somewhat committed to improving your times, as it is the most difficult clip and most costly if you mess it up.
This trick specifically uses the helmet that spawns on the touchdown of the Gridiron. Be careful if you’re going for the touchdown acorn, because this is the only helmet you can pick up, and the football players will drop theirs when you kill them. To perform a clip, all you need to do is grab the helmet, get in a car, and put it on. Voila, you’re falling through the map! You’ll be pushed towards whatever direction the bottom of the helmet is facing, and you can somewhat control this by aiming upward in any direction with the helmet before putting it on, so that the bottom is facing sideways.
Important note: If you hit “Load Last Save” after you perform a helmet clip in a run, or if you accidentally drop the helmet below the map, the helmet will spawn back at the Gridiron and you will lose access to it. Be careful using this trick!
We use this trick 3 different times to access otherwise inaccessible areas:
- Tough Streets -> Mean Streets: To get to Mean Streets, you need to go so far out of bounds that the game warps you to 0,0 in the game’s coordinates, which is the middle of Mean Streets. There are 2 ways to do this.
- The fastest, but less reliable way is to drive to the back right corner of the Gridiron area and clip underground right before you hit the OOB barrier. Aim as far out of bounds as you can and hope that you push your car far enough outward that you warp to Mean Streets. If you’re still too close to the Gridiron, you’ll respawn wherever you summoned your car last.
- There’s an easier, more reliable way that's a little bit slower. Go to the electric pool and set up by the grassy patch on the left, close to the OOB wall. Clip downward and get out of your car once you're decently far underground. There is water under this area, so you can simply swim out of bounds for an easy warp. You have to be sure you’re far enough under the wall when you start swimming out. If you fail, you can swim toward the pool and you’ll get zapped back to the surface with your helmet and your car, so you can try again.
- Mean Streets -> The Waterpark: The method described below is an easier method, but please refer to this video for a slightly faster method that saves 10 seconds (Labeled "Newest Warp").
Set your car up at the corner of the map behind the cookout and umbrella jumping areas. When you get out of your car, you’ll see a pool of water that covers the entire waterpark area. Get out of your car and land in it. To get above ground at the waterpark, you need to float to the area past the river that surrounds Mothers Tower. From your POV, this will look like a blue wall that you need to pass under. Simply leave the pool of water and jump back in from the side until you're deep enough that you can clear the wall whilst floating upwards. Then swim to the tree to your right near the wall of buttons. Once your head is hitting the ground above, throw the helmet and climb the tree. Hold up while jumping off the tree to clip into the waterpark!
- If your squirrel is screaming, you won't be able to climb anything until you walk on solid ground. If this happens, after you throw the football helmet, go to the left of the cement wall around you and swim to the other side of it. You’ll see solid ground to jump onto to stop the screaming, with trees nearby to finish the clip.
- Waterpark -> Inside Mothers Tower: YOU NO LONGER NEED A HELMET FOR THIS CLIP, IT IS NOW FREE. YOU SHOULD BE USING THIS NEW METHOD EVERY TIME.
This is the hardest clip to pull off that can kill a lot of runs, but saves you a lot of time by eliminating the need to press buttons. To set up for the clip, call a car from the pause menu below the staircase to Mothers Tower and walk up it before it spawns into the map (driving up the stairs is a pain in the ass). Set your car up in the right corner of the door, facing the right wall. Aim your helmet upward and towards the door. Take the helmet off and on in quick bursts to push your car into the wall a little bit at a time- this way the clip is much more controlled. If you fall to a grassy area below, keep trying. The goal is to push your car sideways into the door, then into the room on the other side. So long as you’re clipping into the right corner, you’re safe to leave your car and drop your helmet once you're most of the way into the door; just jump and walk towards the corner of the room and you’re home free!
- If you end up in the water below, that means you clipped too far downwards. To reset, you need to use the football helmet towards the hole in the ground, then downwards, until you respawn where you summoned your car at the stairs.
Infinite prop throwing
Glitch
Difficulty: 5
This strat is currently too difficult and niche to be needed for runs, but it might make your life easier if you can get it down consistently. It’s a lot easier on the controller than KBM.
To do this, you need to cycle between quickly pressing your grab button (left click on KBM, or RT on controller), your throw button (Shift on KBM, RB on controller) and repetitively jump. This doesn’t work if you use your grab button to also throw. Repeat this process very quickly as long as you have upward momentum, and you can basically fly.
Telekinesis
Major Glitch
Difficulty: 5
That’s right. As a squirrel, you are omnipresent and all powerful. Duh. You can collect acorns using your mind, and teleport around the map in the blink of an eye. But how? And more importantly, do you really want to do this in a speedrun?
To perform any of these tricks, find any ledge that your squirrel will anchor to when you jump on it (Trees, mailboxes, telephone wires, etc.) where the game will prevent you from falling off without jumping. Jump onto the platform, and right as you land on it, activate hyperfocus. Physically, you’ll stay on whatever ledge you perch on, but for some reason, the game will think you’re moving across the map at hyper speed, as you can see by any NPCs watching you move nearby.
Both your frame rate and the weight of any guns you’re holding will influence the results of this trick. Also considering the extreme precision involved, plus the risk of triggering cutscenes, setups for telekinesis are usually very inconsistent.
There are 3 ways this trick can be used:
- RNG Manipulation: This is currently the only consistent form of telekinesis that can be relied upon in a run. If you get bad red flower RNG, you can use telekinesis to try to turn a white flower into a red one. Normally, if you leave an area and come back, the flowers despawn then respawn. But once a flower is red, it will stay red. You can use telekinesis to make the game think you’ve left the area for multiple chances at red flowers.
- Grabbing Acorns and Collectibles: Because the game thinks you’re moving around the map, you can collect acorns or wedges remotely while standing on a ledge. For whatever item you want to collect, be sure you are on a ledge at the same height as the item. You’ll have the best luck at collecting it by facing or aiming in the opposite direction of your collectible when jumping onto the ledge.
- Zipping: Sometimes when using telekinesis, you’ll be teleported to a semi-random location. The details of how to make zips reliable are not yet known, although it seems that you have better luck of zipping from the purple truss on top of the floating platforms.
As of the time this tutorial was written, it’s not necessary to implement any of these tricks into high level runs, but it’s very fun to mess around with. Who knows, maybe you can use this to discover something useful (and consistent)!
That's it! You made it to the end of the guide!
If you have any questions about running this game, join the SwaG speedrunning discord and ask there! Also don’t hesitate to comment or PM me directly if you have questions about anything here.
Huge thanks to SabulineHorizon, Gary Asher, and iswimfly for their amazing input and help with this guide!
