Firstly, for anyone who is unaware, Phone skip is a skip in chapter 5 that allows you to skip entering 2 of the 3 phone numbers in the study room where you are ascending the sides before falling down.

It seems that there is an error in the game that if you fail this section and fall while playing casually (or in a run), your game will "remember" this, and on any subsequent travels through this section, regardless of if "New Game" is selected or not, the game still thinks you have failed the section and "Skips" you to the end of it, effectively savings 50-60 seconds.

Until recently I was "stuck" with this, and starting from a new game, ran with this issue happening. However, I have been shown that it is relatively easy to delete the console cloud save game, and reset it to an unused state, which in turn fixes this glitch.

After talking to lanzaa he has let my run stand, but I feel it isn't a true new game speedrun, as it has (albeit involuntary) setups created beforehand. It is sort of a New Game+ run in a way.

I started this thread to get a small discussion to have some clarification, I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

I was wondering about the rule for when timing stops. In the rules it says when screen fades to black before credits. Does this include the wife/child and self portrait endings?

The reason I ask is because movement stops and a small cutscene is played before credits for these endings. The main ending (Loop) has a cutscene and the small epilogue section before timing does actually stop on last input which leads to credits (Pulling the sheet down).

I have been trying to route something with the different endings and this will have an impact on them.