I went back and forth on this a while in my head, but yeah, I agree that the end of the first loop is the death of the mothership.

Related: I think death abuse in general should be permitted in the run, as it is one of the main speed techniques for this game.

Here is an all encompassing Intellivision discord where people can discuss highscoring, speedrunning, or just casually talk about their favorite Intellivision games: https://discord.gg/jHh7TrV

You can talk about this game in the #ice_trek channel. Cheers!

I'm planning to submit Super Dodge Ball to RGLtv's Retrothon. While I'm willing to submit it as a typical solo run, I thought it would be even more compelling as a 1v1 race.

As such... anyone here up for being my race competitor? I'd prefer the any% category both to increase awareness of it and because I think it would be a more dramatic race ending :-)

Related note: if the idea of Retrothon has piqued your interest, then find out more at http://rgltv.com/

It was discussed in this thread: https://www.speedrun.com/stridernes/thread/kgmes

The answer from the community was that no password screen is allowed in the run, even if you are just accepting the password that is already entered.

Here is a mini-tutorial for just this trick. Hope it helps!

I go for first fully black frame.

(mostly crossposted from the any% rules thread)

I like the idea of only "top runs" having ms. It seems like a decent compromise of mod work, runner work, and of leaderboard fidelity. Well, aside from whatever work there is to edit all the current "non-top" submissions; that sounds tedious and would perhaps cause just as much uproar as the initial change.

Anyhow, I'm curious if that idea would satisfy the concerns of others here.

That said, I've never frame counted any run either as a runner or a mod. The closest I've done is examine Twitch highlights and YouTube videos to make sure the run submission time is not patently off from the time I observe.

I like Kirua's idea. It seems like a decent compromise of mod work, runner work, and of leaderboard fidelity. Well, aside from whatever work there is to edit all the current "non-top" submissions; that sounds tedious and would perhaps cause just as much uproar as the initial change.

Anyhow, I'm curious if Kirua's suggestion would satisfy the concerns of others here.

That said, I've never frame counted any run either as a runner or a mod. The closest I've done is examine Twitch highlights and YouTube videos to make sure the run submission time is not patently off from the time I observe.

Glad to see the healthy debate in here. Since ms have been dropped from the leaderboard, I deleted the reminder post about it and removed the mention of ms from the rules.

Honestly, I'd support a move to drop milliseconds. I didn't create this board, I was just the last active runner before GDQ blew Strider up and got modded to help validate all the runs coming in.

Anyhow, yes, I don't think any of the runs have been frame counted because I don't believe any of the runs are that close to each other to warrant it.

Hi everybody! Everybody is many more people for this community than it was a few days ago, which has already led to a new Red Dragon segment and a new WR!

However, this has also brought extra validation traffic, as well as many relative newcomers to speedrunning. It has also shined a light on the lack of rules for any%.

As such, I worked with SubStylee to form some baseline rules for any%. They are based off of the rules for a much more popular NES game and are intended to keep things as fair as possible without making running or verification onerous.

You can find the new rules by clicking on the "View Rules" button at the top of the leaderboard. To introduce and explain the reasoning behind these rules, I'll run through them here.

Beat the game as fast as possible. All glitches are permitted. This is the typical definition of any%.

Turbo/Autofire and left+right/up+down are banned. This is usually assumed, but this makes it explicit. Neither turbo nor being able to hit opposite directions simultaneously were possible on the original NES controller, therefore it is prohibited to use either in a run.

If using an emulator, please note which emulator was used in the comments. This is important, as emulators vary in their fidelity to the original hardware. If a specific emulator is found to have an unfair advantage over others for this game, then knowing which runs may have been affected is required.

Using savestates to the title screen is prohibited. Use the reset function on your emulator or console and the reset must be shown on the video. This is to ensure that the run is happening from fair initial state.

If you used a flash cart (like Powerpak or Everdrive) or some other way to play the game not on original cartridge, please add that in the comments as well. Flash carts, like emulators, vary in their level of fidelity to the original carts. If you are using one, just note which one in your run comments.

Time starts when you press start at the title screen. That is, start your timer and press start at the same time. Having a good start time in your video makes it much easier to validate.

Time ends on the first frame of the credits screen (i.e. when the screen turns black after the final boss kill). This is a little harder to time exactly, but generally speaking, you should favor hitting late instead of early. Hitting late still allows you (and the validator) to look back at your recording and view the time at the transition more accurately than your ability to stop the timer at just the right time.

Timing must include milliseconds. That means two things. First, your timer needs to be counting down to milliseconds. Second, when you submit your run, fill in the milliseconds part of the time.

Due to the popularity of the game, times below 4:05.00 are treated with suspicion. To maximize your chances of having a run verified it is highly recommended that you stream all of your attempts. This one deserves a little more explanation.

In short, not all runs get the same amount of scrutiny. Mods are volunteers, and have lives outside of validating runs. As such, we adjust our approach to validating a run based on how competitive the time is. 4:05 is where execution in the run needs to be pretty polished. Much farther below that will involve some of the trickier and less accessible tricks of the game. Being able to see your attempts (both successful and failed) becomes useful to build confidence that a your submission is genuine and not falsified.

Are these rules perfect? They are not. I hope they are a reasonable compromise, though. If you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this post or catch me on the Strider Discord: https://discord.gg/VWB4vru

There are four working parts to the jump zip:

1. You need to survive the Africa boss fight. If you double KO, the trick doesn't work.
2. You need to use the "jump" trick from the select menu.
3. You need to jump and get into the ceiling before you lose your horizontally locked status. Your time in menu doesn't matter for this, just out of menu time.
4. Avoid mashing jump past what you need to get clipped. It is possible to jump back in bounds if you keep mashing.

Wow! My gut is that this is faster, and definitely easier. Time to put together a run with that in it.

Now if only the Australia skip could be replaced with something faster and easier :-/

Not that I remember... just the usual grind. I've only ever seen it once.

Anyone else seen this?

Here we go: https://discord.gg/VWB4vru

Is there a discord server where Strider runners chat? The discord servers for other games have been great for both tips and for easy organizing of races.

If there isn't one already then I could make one...