Even though there are very little activity in this community, I still feel that there are a few things that could be cleaned up. At the time the game was added to speedrun.com (2019), the game was very different than it is now. In fact the game is more or less still being worked on. But a lot has changed since it was added, and in order to actually entice people to run this, we should clear up some things. Here are a series of recommendations.

Categories

Currently the categories are [Barlow Square, Roanoke PD, Harvest, Last Stop, Biotec, Stone Creek]. These correspond to the maps available some years ago. (1.1) Since then, the maps have changed a lot, which could arguably invalidate some previous runs, but that's another discussion. Now the game also offer a linear campaign, which at the time of writing, is about half-way implemented. (1.2) I think it's too early to consider this a new category, and it would also be a pretty long run to do, even if that's not discouraging for everyone. I will add the maps as levels, as they are released. (1.3) For the stand-alone maps, there's now holiday specials (halloween, christmas). These are actually very different than their original ones, outside of just decoration. I wouldn't want these included as categories, and don't feel runs on them should be accepted. (1.4) However there are two new maps, which should likely be added, which is Camp Whitner and Mont Clair. I will add these.

Difficulty & Escape paths

For some of the maps, there are different endings. (2.1) Currently each of these have their own entry (e.g. in Barlow and Roanoke PD). The time and paths are very different, so they appear as their own entry. Any map with these different endings, will have their own entry. The next multiplier is the difficulty. At the time of making, the game featured a maximum difficulty of extreme. The current maximum is Nightmare. Running solo on nightmare is almost identical to extreme. But currently there are only categories for 2 / 5 difficulties. Is this a good thing? My personal opinion is, I am not a fan of the easy category for this game. You have nearly infinite ammo and health, and with so few glitches and linear pathing, what is the purpose of running it on easy. (2.2) However, I also don't feel it should be removed, as it allows more people to run the game, and there are defintly some cool moves you can do on easy, that you can't do on extreme. (2.3) Then for the question of [normal, hard, nightmare]. I think there's too little incentive and variation, to actually include these. But I would be happy to hear others thoughts.

The rules

Currently the rules are very vague, and clearly made at a time, where the game was different. (3.1) The first thing is the timing. To say it ends when you lose control of your character, and using an external timing program is weird, as the game has a perfectly working in-game timer, which runs a bit longer than when you lose control. It would be a lot easier and accurate to just use the actual in-game timer as shown on the score screen at game end, than to manually have to time up to the point where you lose control. The rules will be updated to reflect this, and hopefully it won't affect existing runs too much. In addition, there are multiple settings now, that are not covered by the rules. (3.2) Infection? I run with it disabled, as it's a weird thing to lose your game over, and would put the extreme category slightly into a "no damage or "pray for random chance" style. (3.3) AI grable? Good question, I run with it disabled, but on extreme if you get grabbed, it's more or less done for anyway. (3.4) Pausable game. I haven't seen a purpose for using it, the game runs are not that long in general, and I'm not aware of any exploits with it. (3.5) Bots? To me, this is a clear NO. Otherwise, you can spawn in extreme with six AI bots, that start with nearly full ammo and weapons, and blaze the game. It's similar to saying, is it okay that I start with full ammo and all weapons?. (3.6) The other settings, e.g. AI zombies, infinite zombie lives, weapon attachment, friendly fire, doesn't matter to the current categories.

Gamemodes

Currently the only categories are escape. (3.1) There's a few other gamemodes such as Flatline and Panic! that might make sense to speedrun, but given the community size, it would likely just clutter. Let's revist them in the future.

All in all, this is just me thinking out loud. Let me know what you think.

The following updates have been applied:

• Updated the cover art, to one that matches the aspect ratio to avoid text cropping.
• Inserted official website link, and discord link.
• Removed miliseconds, as in-game timer is accurate to seconds only.
• Reordered categories (individual levels) to match the in-game order, which is lexiographic.
• Added the two missing stand-alone maps.
• Updated general (common) rules, and removed individually written ones.
• Updated the Last Stop levels, to reflect their actual name.
• Added the remaining Last Stop levels (excluding the non published ones).
• Slight name change on variations.
• Cleaned up previous runtimes to seconds, instead of miliseconds.