This is my first speedrun on the site...

I started speedrunning through the indie game Monaco:What's Yours is Mine ... Specifically we would do Multiplayer IL speedruns.

The context between the butchered state of the leaderboards, is that between Septetmber 2015 and March 2016 I DID make a big hyperlink table linking speedruns of all 41 levels and were rejected by SDA, which led to use retreating back to just using the In-game leaderboards / our own youtube/twitches for evidence . I think in 2018, The speedrunners on s[eedrun.com (seperate from the main community) reached out and got some of us to to be moderators of the monaco board , which led to a few more runs going up... howeever frequent changes of the category organization led to problems, eventually killing interest in getting a complete record of Multiplayer speedruns to the site (I think by late 2019, Mr. U and Monkeypocket both have complete set on their own youtube... Their would be a renaisannce of Singleplayer Speedruns for Monaco, which naturaly were easier to record and submit. The main recordboard is now on a Monaco Discord + a google excel sheet Mr U keeps updated

I think I never recorded my own video until at least 2018, despite appearing in MANY speedruns that were recorded by some other player in the 4 man group. I would record singleplayer speedruns for other games. I am occasionally in a "reunion" IL run of Monaco and in modern times we usually get the viewpoint of all 4 players recorded.... we still are pretty bad about sharing anything on this site instead of our own sites though.

No portal spawner isn't that hard to execute, but playing the Hyperspace theme on loop for minutes on end is a bit annoying.

Let's all agree to pretend that the true low % where you wait 2 hours for the Death march so you can skip the Taallo Shield and Ultron parts doesn't exist.

I do kind of wonder about Flagship with Default modules only / no sell - It changes the begining of the run since you can't just buy tons of fuel off the bat, and probbably causes you to visit a rainbow world so you can refuel on melnorme (due to having only 60 fuel max)

Your idea of no starbase recruitment / gift ships mainly changes fighting the Sa-Matra guards (I would probbably drag 1 HP fwiffo through the entire run, killing Ur-Quan with Arilou is something I save for SC1) The change to Druuge/Umgah fights are fairly minor.

I hope people have fun with it but for me just playing an arilou vs Sa-Matra in SuperMelee probbably gets the highlight of this.

I love and (prefer) doing ILs, but I think the biggest thing is that they just didn't benefit from the boost that the twitch era as much as full game RTA ---

It's MUCH harder to get an audience to crowd around a half hour of the same 2 minutes of gameplay than it is to see something they can relate to their casual playthrough

IL speedruns also reach hardcore level even in small communities, while RTA runs of new games can be in the fun/discovery space before becoming a competetive grind.

Welcome to the community, and added.

You can do Indiviudal Level speedruns for any kind of game, but for most games IL speedruns are just for practice attempts of longer categories

Only a few genres are dedicated to IL runs being a main category over ANY% - typically Racing Games, Real Time Strategy Games, and games that forcibly return you to a stage select main menu with no overworld whatsoever.

There are a couple of comunties in genres that would normally be ANY% who have chosen to favor ILs as well - Goldenye 007, Super Monkey Ball, etc.

I personally prefer individual levels because they allow for really extreme strategies, while most Full Game type speedruns will usually being their life with a lot of safety strategies and then over years gradually get pared down (causing a lot of mental stress) as players play more dangerously.

I originally noticed this in a speedrun, but this is just a deliberate attempt to intensify the effect

Oh yeah and the time Star Control 3 forgot to give me a game over And then it retroactively "remembered" 5 minutes later

Stuff in monaco Multiplayer speedruns lead to silly shenanigans in chat all the time, but sometimes the game itself does things (lag assisted wall clips, bullet losing and regaining their hitbox mid flight, the infamous wrench rubber) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=529480895 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=512500171

monaco : What's yours is mine in-game-time leaderboards through the multiplayer lobby and ending up with the then speedrunners who let me tag along because they all thought I was someone's friend, but the 3 of them didn't ask whose friend it actually was.

It's cool when it's a small game that is popular in other ways (eg a cult classic) it's cool but if it's a game that is small because it's bad I feel bad about it, especially if people DO join in later and you have to introduce the "to a whole new dimension of uglyiness" like I did with Star Control 3.

Real Time Strategy

Most RTS AI is a pushover, but almost any RTS kind of doubles as a fun puzzle game when speedrunning because often you can bypass base building for half the run and hurl your starting army into their base. Sometimes the lategame levels/missions are still fun too because actually using an economy and A-moving is a break after getting used to the rest of the run.

Add starting Reserve Human to original colony = Rejected - Max Colony Population of 240 anyway Pick up Ur-Quan upgrade = Rejected, Eltanin in 12 minutes (and soon even faster) precludes time taken away from colony fuel to reserach upgrade Vux Ultron - yes it's really mandatory Vux Ships - ACCEPTED - messing up is pretty bad but of the 10~ DAK fights I usually get 8 and it faster than flagship

5: Use Gienah instead of Typhon during the Meet Crux races part of run - WAY more fuel effiecent, ,so much so that straight from Orz > Enkidu>Argus>Gienah > Refuel(Hypnus or whatever)>Ceberus instead of current Orz > Cerberous > Typhon > Refuel > Enkidu > Argus

6: Kill Alula Owa Early - Before VUX leave since they are even weaker to it than Daktaklak...also sets up for Change 7

7: Collect Rainbow World Antimatter during the 110 day wait - technically possible BUT adds some revisits - It is possible to collect antimatter (scoop+container only) without allying Clairconctlair, but it is not possible to land (so no getting the daktaklak datapack + Mhhhrmm on the first two rainbow worlds).... Those two rainbow worlds + Owa Homeworld will all have an extra trip, additionallly conversatinos must now be had on all rainbow worlds (since K'tang will not be pre-allied now)

4: Collect 3 Vux - in this game (at least vs SINGLE daktaklak) their starting angle seems to be fixed at facing downright with daktaklak at a complete stop right in front of you (no matter how many times the fight is repeated... which is a lot) a very brief thrust + leftturn movement essentially gurantees the fight ends instantly.... Note that Multi Daktaklak fights (ploxis Cyro/Lk quest) are not worth using Vux on because they can't remotely touch the 2nd Daktaklak.

reset early reset often - you can finish bad runs evey once in a while just to keep motivation though

1: Add starting 200 Reserve Human crew to original Colony to improve colony growth/fuel rate

2: Pick up Ur-Quan ship upgrade (Pfunk Daktaklak) since taking that fight is mandatory to learn Daktaklak language anyway

3: Is the Vux-Ultron fight REALLY the trigger to make LK spawn (I went through a LOT of save files with only 1 variation each in the event chain to come to that conclusion in first place)

I can narrow it down to three at least

Elminage Gothic Any% : It's such a struggle that I haven't thought about it in months after that initial routing --- I hate knowing that Bosses "CAN" die to low level charathers and dread having to force it to happen on a new run.

Star Control 1 All Full game Missions w/ Awesome Cyborg : Level 1-9 You play as the Alliance and it's easy, but then the real run begins and you have to play as the Hierarchy -- They almost always build Arilou, and their AI involves teleporting 1 frame before any projectile hits them, so they're only vulnerable because the transitions between angles in SC1 are technically too rough for them to detect (sometimes) but other times they just eat up their own counters.

Star Control 3 Any% : In terms of being a bad game it takes the cake rather than a bad speedgame.. Game was full of undocumented stuff during the routing process as nonsensical parts of the game are connected via Event Trigger (you must do half of the Ultron quest, but don't actually have to turn it in... in order to affect the Clairconctair!?). Unlike SC 1-2 The run is mostly a breeze in execution (Massive numbers of free ships and the GOAT flagship does that) so it mostly comes down to managing conversations (3/4th of which are filled with non-standard game overs) and avoiding strange and unknown bugs such as ships returning to your roster after being killed and then the game "remembering" to retroactively kill them only when you start another battle.

I know communities that make categories where new game + only adds skip dialog only their default category... It's pretty unusual for a game with item carrovery etc to make new game + a default category. -- I would definately do it if it I was the solo runner of such a game or if it were a cartridge based game that is cumbersome to fully reset.

I want to keep Melnorme trades out of this because that pretty much automically adds visit all rainbow worlds to the run (since paying with Bio is so much slower than rainbow worlds)

They also aren't that mechanically interesting (text mashing!) Maybe you can argue that the ship upgrade only (they appear on the save/load screen technically) and going through only one trade branch can be done with only 3 rainbow worlds iirc.

Egg Case - is it being considered for its quest use only or must have 1 in inventory at end (because in the any% etc it is used for quest AND sold)

Umgah - I thought getting Umgah ships was pointless, BUT technically you never see the Umgah conversation portrait in any% (even though the Dynarri makes you fight them) - They do also give a 1 time 1000 Bio unit reward in one of the conversations before the gift fight.

Syreen - is the final conversation (post ambush) necessary or same as Any%

Unzervalt - there is an Ur-quan with unique dialog here, but unsure if killing him should be put on the same level as saving the Zoq-Fok-Pik.

Pkunk - Does succesful coronation count as keeping them alive - there sphere of influence still disappears but they still exist in the lore (pre-sa matra cutscene etc)

This question Kinda puts me in awkward position after being made Star Control series mod though lol

It'll always be Monaco : What's Yours is mine , even if s leaning toward singpleayer speedruns instead of multiplayer speedruns the game remains, It got me into the hobby and I can still do it now- both for short hour before bed sessions and for heavy duty weekday evening grinds.

I'll hopefully finally get cracking on some WIP runs for my secondary games this month.

I actually liked the first game more despite less content, and iirc my reasoning was mostly that it felt like BBBP had a short timer for counting things "mid fall" that getting some Golds could be awkward because the very last throw etc would cause slow chain reaction style falls- The first game was more consistent about waiting for all movement to stop before declaring that your turn limit was going on to the next throw.

Anyway speedrunnning this does sound like it would have some interesting unintended fun stuff

I love watching Descent stuff and 8 Degree of Freedeom games

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm ready to untrain myself in just turning while flying and learning how to fly on 3axes at all times to increase speed.

It's kind of a mix -

1: Check to make sure if the events in the story actually work the way that they are presented to the casual player --- A lot of older games have events that are tied ONLY to a location (such as a late game city or room) and can be triggered early simply by entering that area --- even if you haven't actually did the stuff leading up to it - These sequence breaks are super useful and don't even tricks to pull off (Playstation 2 onward era games tend to be foolproof against this though)

2: What fights can actually kill you? Can they be beaten with the bare minimum of experience points and only the weapons found along the way? Varies wildly, but a lot of RPGs with a Square Enix style Snes/Ps1 esque enemy balance are doable with surprisingly low level gear and have final bosses that don't require doing the sidequests to get the final weapons/summons (or sometimes getting just 1 charathers is enough).

2b: I feel like the majority of RPGs aren't actually routed around fights, but exceptions would be things like Romancing Saga, Etrian Odysseys, Lunar Silver Story (Lunar and certain Saga games being a subtype of all grinding being for the final boss specifically)

2c: if full party building is allowed what works best? -(usually something stacked like 3 damage dealers + 1 healbot, sometimes things like 2 damage dealers + 1 "taunt guy" + 1 healer)

3: What is the best way of avoiding random battles? Some games have a "holy water or Repel" item that you can buy large quantities of for a super low price - Other games have no way of avoiding having them at all, but do feauture a "smoke bomb" item or ability that can be used turn 1 of a fight to immediately escape --- Note that succesfully avoiding random battles sometimes causes a lower total experience to such a level that you have to redo step 2 due to now dying to some bosses that were no problem before!

4: Raw animation - especially in easier games - if you have two ways of killing random encounters/(even bosses) but one has less animation time (even if it takes 1-2 more battle turns) it can be better to go with the simple thing rather than a spell.