So, hi. I'm a programmer of that game and quite conflicted on current state. First of all, I'm seriously impressed anyone even considered running it, but here goes the conflict. Right now I'm kinda fear fixing the zeppelin blue gate skip, as it would invalidate the current runs. And with finding of rocket warp glitch that doubles the conflict. Additionally, fixing reset skip on location which supposed to gate player until he gets the warp device will invalidade no-warp run (and make it pretty much impossible). I see several exits from that:

1. I will fix above bugs but will create a separate steam branch with older version of the game. That will conflict with plans on additional content.
2. I will do the special setting/launch param that will disable fixes. That would require additional coding, but ultimately would allow content updates. + I can add additional functions like faster location transition.

I don't really know how to solve this conflict. As blue gate and warp gate skips may tamper with regular players experience, and I wanted to fix them quite some time, but did not solely because of speedruns. P.S. I may also provide developer build executable with functions like collision rendering if it's interesting.

Hi Yan!

Firstly, thanks for making this game. I love it and it was a blast of a casual play and made me want to run it :)

I don't think blue gate and warp gate skips would need to be patched, as they are the kind of thing that casual players are probably excited to discover since you can somewhat stumble upon them. They are sequence breaks but don't break the general rules of the game ¤too much¤.

From a speedrun perspective, once we have more people running the game then there can be more categories added which can focus on doing runs with specific glitches or exploits, like an Any% No Rocket Warp. I appreciate you wanting to patch out unintended stuff and won't tell you not to if you feel inclined. I just really like Rocket Warp as it adds a different layer of puzzle to the game where you trade off the difficulty within the room for trying to optimize where you warp to for setting up a needed RW shot. The tradeoff is that it does make some rooms crazy easy; you can clear the last puzzle in the Caves before getting Yumo's Artifact with one really quick RW.

If you did a steam branch, would it be possible to just have current patch as a "legacy branch/patch" and that it's clear it won't support the DLC that the newer patch versions will? Any work you do on this aspect should be minimized since these aren't game-experiencing-ruining things (and we want you to focus on more content!) Also, would you like it if I started a bug/glitch/exploit thread on here for you to be able to reference? I've found several other things which don't currently effect the speedrun or are just weird/cosmetic.

@Gqro Having the version accessible is pretty straighforward in regards of Steam, as it's just creating new branch and setting build to it. So yeah, having build available is easy.

@Rarelikeaunicorn While blue gate skip is not that harmful (at least because blue key is EXTREMELY hard to find), warp gate skip may harm player experience, because later levels are expected so player does have a warp. As of "DLC" - most probably new content will be pushed via patch and not separate DLC entry, so obviously older version won't support it. And I think you can just post found stuff (bugs/glitches/explits) here.

So far I'm more inclined to add toggle for experience tampering (mainly warp gate) fixes, as that would both fix issue for regular players and preserve build consistency. Btw, what could be considered 100%? I want to add completionist counter for post-game, and thinking on how to measure completion. All artefacts, obviously. Entire map discovered. Maybe diary entries.

If you feel strong about blue gate skip or warp skip, cut 'em :) Re: 100%, there hasn't been a category for it yet which I think is common for games that aren't explicit about percentage or obvious in what would qualify. I'm still not even sure I've seen everything in the current version and I've done every room/achievement/diary entry... that I'm aware of. I'd say visit all rooms, get all items, all diary entries, and both endings should be what factors into 100%. Future content would change this to something like 100% Original Campaign or make it a legacy category if the new content becomes part of the main campaign, sorta depends on how it's structured and what the community wants.

I can do an abridged version of what I've found/noticed here. I'll do a longer version in a google doc or as a stream where I cover incidental stuff. I will say that some of the stuff I've listed as useless could possibly be exploited and I just haven't found the setups yet or might require an additional trick.

Major Glitches

• Rocket Warp: Use Warp Device after shooting a Rocket and before it collides with anything to warp the Rocket with you to the destination room. Used to quickly bypass puzzles by spawning Rockets at what should be impossible coordinates in various rooms. (Examples in our two Zepp% runs)
• Hook Warp: Use Warp Device during the quick animation of a block being pulled toward you by the Hook to cause the block to ignore gravity and slowly move towards its intended destination. Block will not rise/fall on its own through the slow movement and afterwards. Block can be pushed by player but is not susceptible to another Hook or a Rocket until you push it I believe. Used to let the player stand on a block that should have fallen/risen and gain an unintended jump/Hook/Rocket positioning, or to stop a laser for an extended duration as the block passes it. Probably other uses. No optimal uses in current runs AFAIK.
• Crashes: I can consistently crash the game in room 23 by doing a room reset after turning the valve (might also require grabbing the Launcher?). I don't think the game likes you trying to redo a permanent change? This needs to be tested with other stuff like putting the Gears in their places and such. I have also crashed from getting too many items in too short of a time window (for example, buying Red Key and then instantly warping to Bulb room and getting that if you've already solved the puzzle, probably also happens with other item combos). Lastly, I had a semi-crash/softlock from similar circumstances and a lot of warps in a very brief window but haven't replicated it yet.

Minor Glitches:

• Moonwalk: Pushing a block onto a button while standing on a lowered retractor block and then immediately (within a few frame window after the push input) pressing the opposite direction. Causes the block to go forward as normal and TimTom's forward progression getting canceled, with him sliding backward onto the y-coord he started from. Example in my clip on twitter, also possible in room 51 (although probably not useful). No current implications for the speedrun or puzzle solving.
• Reset Shot: Doing a room reset and then shooting a Rocket in the following few frames, which maintains the Rocket through the reset while everything else reverts. Potentially allows you to augment puzzle solutions but no useful situations have been found yet.
• Half Tile Glitch: If you warp in 87 after being tele'd there and before Yumo's Keeper teleports you the game permanently offsets TimTom's visible sprite from his collision box by a half tile. This is repeatable and stackable, so you can push the visible sprite super far from the collision box. See my last screenshot on steam for an example. To be honest, this is just really funny and I only found it this morning but I wanted to show it off.

Exploits:

• Push Warp/Item Warp: Pushing a block or stepping off a platform and warping as you finish moving into the tile but before your character is effected by gravity, causing you to survive when you should have fallen to your death for example. Useful for grabbing Lantern in 45/Key in 50 without doing full puzzle.

Weirdness:

• Can disable player control of character in room 16 by getting horizontal laser at top of room crossing the ladder, then warping out and coming back in via the ladder. TimTom will start to die in the laser, cancel the animation, and stand on the platform below. Player will be able to menu as normal and can always warp out to reset, so it's not a softlock, but it's amusing.
• Room 24: if you screen wrap vertically by falling upward off a ladder while upsidedown you "land" offscreen. This can be fixed by moving left or right, and this gains you a tile unit of horizontal movement which wouldn't normally be possible during a falling wrap.
• Room 51: Weird death case. If you reset the room and enter it from 52 you'll die on the laser above the ladder. If this happens 4 times in a row (which it will if you don't interrupt the loop) it will reset your respawn point to the one near the ladder from 48.
• Room 57: Similar to the one in 51. Entering the room from 58 after reseting the puzzle skips the laser over the door, but if you walk back into it and die you'll respawn in the laser 4 times before your respawn point switches to the one near 56.

Wow. that's already a list to work with. I won't fix neither rocket or hook warp, as this is pretty finicky bugs and won't harm anyone. Crash in house location: Okay, this is probably caused by scripts (we have internal script engine, used for a few special occasions), as that chunk of code was here for quite long time (that area in first designs was a home to Tim Tom and were made pretty early in development along with fish quest). I'll look into it. Crash with items pickup is strange. Warp crash when you do it way too fast doesn't surprise me, as game does not expects player to reload locations too fast.

Moonwalk: :) (the very first gif of very start of development, I forgot to flip sprite on movement) Reset shot: Basically same as rocket warp, caused by rockets being special entities and they do not despawn on location reload. Half Tile Glitch: Scripts strike yet again! In that scene when player warped to pick up key it's located at half-tile. Because game is strictly grid-based, I had to mitigate it with visual shift of sprite. At least it does not locks out controls of player permanently. Room 16: Hm, overlook this case of entrance deathlock. Room 24: Yeah, ladders are somewhat specific tile, and both solid and not. Player can walk trough ladder, but at the same time can stand on it. Room 51: Yep, we found it pretty late in development, and in the end decided if player will softlock himself that way - we'll just wait until we're sure it's softlock and force-reset location. Room 57: ^ What I just said. :)

That moonwalk gif is amazing! Is it cool if I use that on my twitch stream? It would be super cute as a notification gif.

The only thing that's really wonky to me are the crashes and even then it's no big deal, mostly a minor QOL issue. Everything else was only stuff i found from really testing everything, which most players won't find or will be excited to discover if they're actively hunting for stuff ^^ Feel free to let me know if you're interested in the incidental weirdness stuff too, and thank you again for making this game!

Yeah, go ahead. I also can give just transparent walking animation if you want to do gif without background.

Game already polished as is (apart from french/japanese locales, they are crap, don't buy localizations from flarus), but I still continue working on it, both because the less bugs the better and I want to port game to consoles after I finish with filthy android port (fun fact: game did a lot better on iOS than it did on PC. That saddens me.).

I can do the transparency no sweat, but thank ya kindly. Really looking forward to new content and other projects! In the meantime I'll be able to optimize the runs for the current version of PK.

(Aside: I studied Japanese for years, a bit rusty these days but I could help you with some specific questions probably. The biggest trick is understanding how formality and social standing influence sentence structures/endings to give the language a natural sounding flow.)

Here's the selection of player animations, both for old "mario" style and standard one: http://imgur.com/a/2DdHg As for our current project - it's 5734L3R. There is patreon up and running, but development is in pretty early stages (AI IS HARD D: ) as there is a lot to set up before we'll get to actual leveldesign. Mainly AI pathfinding which is a huge abstraction because WD refuses to manually teach AI how to behave.

We have already translated Japanese locale by Flarus, but it's shitty. If you want to proofread it - I can send you dev build (useful) and a link to copy of our locale table at google docs.

Ok-kay, thanks forum for logging me out and because of that I have to rewrite this message again.

1. I did fixed warp gate skip, but added new hidden pathway in that area so no-warp-device is still possible. I won't tell where it is, but I believe you'll manage to find it. :)
2. Blue gate skip is still present.
3. I've fixed crash on house location. Small script change. When this patch will be live - TBD. Several reasons from being busy with Android port to mostly working on our new game. By the way, I will utilize the bugs with rocket and hook warps in bonus puzzle sets. Because heck, why not. :D If you won't fix it - make it a feature.

P.S. It's interesting how you use different control schemes. I'm glad that making full gamepad support was worth it, as I had to rewrite controls handling from ground up for that. :)

Those gifs are all adorable :3 Makes me motivated to stream more runs soon.

Awesome job on quickly pushing updates! And yeah, I'm definitely controller-oriented as much as possible. I still use the keyboard R to room reset because it doesn't have the startup that controller's does but that's about it.

Looking forward to seeing more of 5734L3R as you continue to develop it, it's been an interesting piece of ghostware for a while now ;)