KINGraider_125's Assortment of Findings and Ideas

I've looked into ways to save time in this game and honestly haven't found much. However, since I'm not sure how much longer I'll invest into this I'm collecting all my thoughts here. 

## Time Improvements from St0rm's 7:46 Any% Run

- The largest time save would come from a cleaner final boss fight. Using a deathless setup, you could save around **7** seconds here. 
- The next time save is from accidental deaths or platforming errors. Around **3** seconds could be saved from not dying in the water room (on the way to get slide). Another **2** seconds were lost from missing the triple jump on the final escape. Around **1** second could be saved from more optimal warping in the warp spam room. 
- The next way to save time is from micro-optimization starts. Spike skip (St0rm's previous WR record did this) saves around **1** second. You can also save **1** second from not killing the bubble in one of the red rooms. On the final escape, there is a section in red where you slide under a mound. Shooting the door and warping out saves around **1** second IGT. 
- Finally, time can be saved with optimal RNG. This run already had good bubble RNG to begin. However, a better bubble placement in the dash room could save **1** second. Additionally, there is a *very* small chance in the first red room the bubble will block the cannon shot for you, allowing for a 0 cycle and saving **5** seconds (although getting this in a real run seems highly unlikely). 
- In short, the IGT record could feasibly be lowered to around **7:20** with the strats I know of at the moment. With a magical 0 cycle or even better movement overall, 7:15 could be a possibility. 
- I tried creating a TAS but it's beyond my ability, so this is of course all speculative. 

## Other Random Stuff

- I haven't even touched 100% yet, so I'm not sure what time save is possible for that category.
- I'm using Flashpoint to run the game since Flash no longer works.
- I've perused the game's code, and from what I can see there is a map maker of sorts in the code. If a way was found to access it, that would be fun.
- It's possible to go backward after getting jetpack by warping in the HOPE room and double jumping to the higher door from out of bounds. Useless as far as I know but funny. 
- If a way to get extra height was found, you could sequence break by getting the second plasma gun early among other things.
- Collecting an item, exiting to Main Menu as soon as you hear a sound, then creating a new game transfers the collect item screen to the new game. Unfortunately, this doesn't do anything to my knowledge so no new game+.

St0rm's Skip guide

There are plenty of skips in this game some are easier than others to do but here is a list of what we have found.

The very first skip we found was the duck skip and I found this by accident because I was new to running the game. You damage boost and use i frames in order to get past the cannon shot and it is not needed until you get sliding duck. The developers didn't think anyone could get past it so they didn't make any other of those sections. 
The next major skip we found is the manipulation of the last bosses which saves the most time out of everything. If you can make the boss get into the lower blocks and you are standing a block above him he can't shoot you. This applies to the other bosses as well and the second to last boss can be manipulated by his movement as well and can be shot while he is sitting down making it very easy to kill the last as well. Shooting the yellow doors before the power up to break them is given damages not only the second to last boss. but the last boss as well. 
The last major skip that we found was very recent and is quite difficult to execute found originally by mariofan366 and named warping. This is when you press left/right with sliding duck and on the right frame stop holding down and you will be pushed all the way right and down a block on the screen and if there is no block you can warp to you will fall out of bounds and must quit the game to get back in. There is one exception to this rule though. If you fall out of bounds and very quickly jump into the load zone of the next room (sometimes you have to shoot the door you can do this backwards as well) you can go from out of bounds into the next room. Note that YOU ONLY SLIDE FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. (If there was a way to slide from right to left KOLM 2 could be beaten in less than a MINUTE.) One strategy to warp is to very quickly hit the down key to get the correct frame.
Last skips would be things such as dying on purpose in order to spawn closer to the door such as the hydravtior.
Using edge cancels to speed up things and using jumps optimally for movement.

Name	Author
KINGraider_125's Assortment of Findings and Ideas	KINGraider_125 1 year ago
St0rm's Skip guide	St0rm 7 years ago