After the WR was beaten recently, it has come to my attention that there are multiple problems with how the boards are currently set up.

Problem #1: Inaccurate times. The final time for the current WR run is wrong, as are many of the IL times; they use the LiveSplit timer time instead of a proper frame-by-frame re-timing tool like SPRT. This should be rectified, especially for ILs where milliseconds actually matter. On that note, it's generally improper to list milliseconds on full game times unless the category is competitive enough that the top times are only a couple seconds apart (which is not the case here, at least not yet).

Problem #2: The rules don't require game audio. Requiring audio is a very common rule across most games (Nitrome or not) that mostly serves to enforce a higher standard of proof and help prevent cheating/splicing. The game rules (NOT category rules) should therefore reflect this and specify that all runs require video proof with game audio. Even if the community is fine with audio not being required (which for all I know, it may be), the rules should mention it considering how common it is for speedruns to require game audio in general.

Problem #3: It's not clear enough when time starts and ends, both for full runs and for ILs. For the sake of clarity, the rules should say something like "Time ends after defeating the dragon on level 15 (on the first frame the skip button is visible)" rather than just saying time ends after defeating the dragon. Same goes for the start time (maybe "on the first frame the screen starts to fade" ?) and IL start/end points ("immediately after entering the level" in particular is not clear enough).

Problem #4: It is not specified anywhere whether you are required to start from a fresh game file or not. To the uninitiated, it's not immediately clear that the "fast level start" technique can be done on a save file where the levels are not already unlocked. Since there is a trick that involves going back to the level selection screen, the category rules should be clearer. Even if starting from a fresh file is not required, the rules should still say something like "It is not required to start from a fresh game file, but you must play as if the game had been reset. You are allowed to use the fast level start trick after defeating the previous dragon, but you are not allowed to skip a level without defeating its dragon."

Problem #5: The rules say nothing about resizing the game window. When playing Nitrome games straight from a file, rather than through the website, you can sometimes resize the game window to allow you to see more of the game than the default window size allows. This is banned in most games, especially when you gain an advantage from it, because it's not something you're able to do when playing the game on the original website (or through Supernova). Again, even if you wish to allow it for this game, the rules should be clear, because there is a precedent of banning it in most other Nitrome games. Ex.: "You are (/ are not) allowed to stretch the display in a way that lets you see anything outside of the basic window size."

Problem #6: nodrog has two visible runs on the Any% leaderboard. It seems to be because this one has no Platform specified. This should be a very easy fix.

I realized today that I never shared this run outside of the Discord server, so here it is.

It's important to note that this segmented run is NOT a perfect run. Many levels could be made faster, either by just playing better or by finding a new route. I doubt the best theoretical time is ever going to dip below 13 minutes, though.

This game has a level skip glitch like many other Nitrome games. Here it is in action:

Found by RetroTreasure in 2018:

I didn't time it, but it seems slightly faster than the strat the current WR uses.

The run has no audio so it's probably unsubmittable (and there aren't any level categories at the moment anyway).

First of all... good luck.

I'll start by explaining why I'm making this forum post: recently, we realized that the Nitrome series on speedrun.com was almost complete, missing just a couple of games. One of these games was Ice Breaker: The Red Clan. I started playing it to try and build up to an actual speedrun, expecting a similar experience to what I'd gotten with the sequel (Ice Breaker: The Gathering), which was somewhat difficult and sometimes frustrating, but ultimately very manageable.

As it turns out, Red Clan is significantly worse. It has many more levels where it feels like you have to slice correctly to the millimeter and be forced to reset if you fail. In other words, in this game, it is sometimes possible to do everything correctly and still lose. Thankfully, this isn't the case for every level, but it was enough to overpower my motivation to complete a full run. After a few initial attempts, I wasn't having any fun running the game anymore.

I did, however, run all 40 Individual Levels. I figured it was better to share them with the world than leaving this game's leaderboard in its sorry state, even if I wasn't going to complete a full game run. I did come up with a few strategies on my own, but most of them were taken from 15 year old YouTube guides.

I hope my level runs can be useful to anyone who may want to run this game some day. If you follow everything I did, you should be able to get a time of less than 25 minutes, at minimum. I'm sure there's potential for a much faster run though.

Here are some notes on the harder levels:

• 11 - I have two runs for this one. The slower one is easier and can be used as a backup if the faster way does not work.
• 14 - There are two ways to beat this level, and I have runs on the leaderboard for both. One is significantly faster, but both are horribly inconsistent, so I'm not sure which one is truly better.
• 16 - This is a prime example of a level where you can play perfectly and still lose. I don't have any tips, just get lucky.
• 17 - This is another very random one. I cut up the ice wall at the end more or less on a whim, but it seems to be the way to go to prevent the vikings from getting stuck on that wall at the end.
• 24 - I was unable to replicate this.
• 26 - Good luck with this one. Here are some other ways to beat it that I either found too inconsistent or wasn't able to replicate at all: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• 27 - It doesn't look that bad, but this level is easy to mess up. The first three vikings can randomly refuse to slide down the slope(s) or get stuck during the fall. The fourth one is also tricky: sometimes you can't get him to slide down properly, and if you don't cut up the ice in a certain way at the end, he will overshoot the boat and fall in the water.
• 29 - This one isn't hard, but there's a slightly faster way that I wasn't able to replicate.
• 31 - The ice cube does not have to hit the viking, it can hit the rock and the strategy will still work (slowly).
• 32 - I couldn't get this strategy to work.
• 33 - The third cut is deceptively difficult to get right.
• 37 - Very easy to mess up.
• 39 - This one is slow by design, but I didn't try doing it this way, which seems a little faster.

That's all from me. Good luck to any future runners!

I first experienced this a few weeks ago, but I saw it again just now.

I submitted two runs to a game I moderate, and verified them right away. The date on the leaderboard does not match the date I inputted when submitting: it uses the previous day's date (in my case, 2022-07-01 when I specified 2022-07-02 when submitting). However, when I go back to edit the run, the date is correct (2022-07-02), so the error is only about what gets displayed.

What's going on here? I'm assuming it's an issue with time zones, or something similar. Has anyone else experienced this?

If it's relevant, my time zone is North America / Eastern (currently EDT, UTC-04:00)

Does anyone here have good experience with managing somewhat complicated categories? I'm in a bit of a bind and don't really know what to do with the situation.

Some background information: I moderate a game called Twin Shot. (https://www.speedrun.com/twinshot). It contains leaderboards for the original Twin Shot, as well as Twin Shot 2, the sequel.

• Twin Shot has 50 levels.
• Twin Shot 2 has 100 levels, split into two 50-level sets (known as "Good" and "Evil") that can be played separately.
• Twin Shot 2 has a feature known as "Cheats and Treats", that lets you do things like permanently activate power-ups (e.g., invincibility) after you collect a certain number of coins in the game.

As of now, there are four main categories and one misc. category:

• TS1: beat all the levels of Twin Shot.
• TS2: beat all the Good levels and all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.
• Good%: beat all the Good levels of Twin Shot 2.
• Evil%: beat all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.
• 200% (misc.): beat all the levels of Twin Shot, all the Good levels of Twin Shot 2, and all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.

There are also some subcategory variables:

• Angels: To indicate if the category was played with 1 or 2 players. Applied to all categories.
• Game state: To indicate if the category was played on a fresh game file (NG) or not (NG+). This is relevant when playing with Cheats and Treats, as NG runs still have to collect all the coins needed to unlock power-ups (+ go and activate them in the menu), whereas NG+ runs can have everything unlocked before the run even starts. Applied to all categories except TS1.

Here's the problem: I want to set up categories for Twin Shot 2 runs that do not use the Cheats and Treats feature, as runs that do use it cannot be compared to those that don't, and I want Twin Shot 2 categories without cheats to be "relevant" to run (plus, there are already some "No Cheats" runs on the boards).

I can see two ways to do this, but they both have some problems:

1. Make a misc. category called "No Cheats", with a variable that indicates which category was played (TS2, Good%, Evil%, 200%). This is how things are currently set up; it works okay, but it feels a bit messy, the No Cheats runs are kind of hidden away, and there is probably a better solution.
2. Ditch the No Cheats category and replace it with a subcategory variable, that is then applied to all categories except TS1. This is better in some ways, but it also makes the NG/NG+ distinction irrelevant if your run doesn't use cheats, as playing from a fresh game file or not does not change anything unless you do use them. It's not a big problem, but still kind of annoying. If there is a way to work around that, I am not aware of it.

What's the best way to set this up?

"But why are Twin Shot and Twin Shot 2 merged together in just one game if you can't play the original Twin Shot levels in Twin Shot 2?" I wasn't the one who set things up this way so I'm not really sure. I guess because of the 200% category? It has zero runs though, and as far as I know, nobody has ever shown an interest in running it. The games could in theory be split into "Twin Shot" and "Twin Shot 2"— plus "Twin Shot category extensions" where 200% could be moved (if it's kept at all). I suppose No Cheats runs could also find a home here, but putting them on an entirely different leaderboard does not feel quite right. Re-structuring the leaderboards this way may be the better solution, but it requires a decent amount of work (setting up + moving all the runs over), and considering the very low number of active runners, I would rather avoid it unless it is absolutely necessary.