I use OBS, depending on what console or PC you use to run the game. But I think a lot of people use OBS.

Well, you beat this time several times by now LOL

Overall we are looking to see how many submission we receive for the board and interest in character runs. Something not shown on the pictures above is we require each runner to submit their run and mark which character they used. Then down the line, we can add characters to the category and organize the board to match if there are a lot of submissions worth splitting up. For story mode you are allowed to change characters as you progress, so that board won't have character options. But for Arcade, we are just looking to see how much interest there is to run the game. And then how much interest there is to have the board split up even more by character. We would love to hear everyone's opinion on this.

We came up with what we think will work best for the board right now. We'd like to get runners feedback if you see anything that could be changed. Right now we are looking at using in game time to track the runs. In game time does not include cut scenes, game over screens, or scene selects. It only tracks the time you have control of your character in the level from first frame to stage clear. We decided not to use real time right now because of different load times on console. Because of this we prefer no one quits the run to go back to title screen to continue later. The board will open in a few days (3/17/24) so there is time for discussion and changes.

yeah, i don't really see a dashless category, unless enough people really want it. It would be an extension category. For starting frame, I'm not sure yet. You get control pretty quick, starting point changes depending on if you watch or skip animation. You have control before medals(HUD) appear. Maybe it might be something on when the helicopter starts to fly away? We will have to test.

Yeah, we will update as it goes. And move runs to categories if we create more. I'm just trying to get a feel so hopefully we don't have to move many around. But we will see how much interest there is for speedrunning this game.

Thanks for responding. Should we have story mode as a speedrun category? Or only Arcade? Seems to get fastest time, running on arcade would be the best option. But not sure yet on the full story mode and if it effects things much except cut scenes and stage pauses for dialogue.

Story - Any% Easy, Normal, Hard. Low% Easy, Normal, Hard

Arcade - Any% Easy, Normal, Hard. Low% Easy, Normal Hard.

Maybe similar categories as Any% and Low% but no perks and 1 life. So those two options aren't split up to other categories. Then it will come down to if characters are split up.

Just opening this up to everyone for discussion. With all the option at the start of the game, there could end up being a lot of categories for submissions. But for right now, we will start the boards with an Any% categories for each difficulty. Then down the line, depending on submissions, feedback, and popularity of runs we may split the board up into other categories. Maybe per character, or perk vs perkless, ect. Wanted to start the discussion as we prep the board and since the demo is out right now.

I finally beat the game in pacifist but using the 10 lives code to do it. I know there's been discussion before about the Pacifist route and how difficult it is. I wanted to see if I could do it with the lives code. I was wondering if this could be a category of its own?

dagger isn't necessary unless you are trying to get a single cycle on the Wood golem. I'll have to try the Japanese version some day to see how it runs. I've only played the US version so far.

you can skip dagger in the first shop, i get it to speed up the golem fight just a bit. Dagger can allow you to get a one cycle on him but is very difficult. Without picking up boomerang for Popful or fire for Gaw, the bosses would be really difficult. With you're default weapons, i think you only do one damage to a lot of the bosses past a certain point. But after beating the king penguin thing, you get the powerful weapons. I think I tried fighting fire golem without the boomerang and didn't like it.

This isn't the most optimal route, I just wanted to remove the gold grind. figured I could pick up health items and gold on the move if I eliminated getting armor. Maybe you can save time by not killing enemies for gold and skipping weapons, but would have to compare to the longer boss fights.

As for load times, I was going to do some timing and see how different things are. I don't have a copy of popful mail for the Sega Cd so I'll be using other games. I reached out to a few other people in the sega speedrun community and they basically don't adjust for load times on small leader boards. But make adjustment when the board fills up. I think in my initial timing, fusion actually came closer to the original hardware, and the everdrive was close to bizhawk. But fusion and original console were a bit slower on load times. So as much as I like my sub 2 hours, on original hardware it might not be a sub 2. But I don't really know until I can get some time to do some real time tests.

I'm looking to allow the Un-Working Designs version of Popful Mail to be used for speedruns. Being that it puts things back to the original Japanese settings for damage and item costs. It could be it's own category but I may include it as part of the Japanese leaderboards for now. At least until we have more runners or if we find there are other things that are different. I just wanted to open this up for discussion.

From what I researched, Bizhawk seems to be the emulator of choice for accuracy but I don't have a lot of info on it. I'm getting a Mega Everdrive to do Sega CD runs with so hopefully that is accurate. I never know if I'm really doing things right really. Thanks for getting back on this.

I want to run my Sega CD speedruns using my console, but I need to get it fixed. I'm curious, is there an emulator that is approved for Sega CD speedruns? I've read that Fusion might not be accurate and people recommend Bizhawk, but I haven't gotten it to work with Sega CD games yet.

Not sure how hard these are to make, but would it be possible to get one for Operation C on Gameboy? Would love an auto splitter for it.

Nice, I'm looking at running Lunar and would like to do it on the console if I can.

I still need to learn the waterfall routes but this ledge skip accidentally happened on my last stream. I know there are two already, but is this just a fluke?