Does this game even have any know glitches that affect the run? I don't see any in the world record, I couldn't find anything while playing and there are none mentioned on the wiki.

https://www.speedrun.com/users/HeatherHallum

Any decisions should also be put through nodrog first. I understand that it says that he hasn’t been active for months on speedruns website but this community has been dead for 3+ years. Most of the original guys are still in talks about it too. This shouldn’t be the decision one or two people especially if they are just now talking about it

I agree, this should be a decision made by the whole community.

I am for allowing the window to be extended, it does not give any significant advantage, at least in this game, the serpents always move the same way. As for the sound in the runs, it should be specified that the game sound is required and the save state is optional, because it does not make any difference. I am of the opinion that the time should start from the first frame, when the game menu starts to fade and the level number plate becomes visible, and the run should end on the first frame, when the "skip" message is visible after killing the serpent. What do you think?

That seems reasonable. Like I said at first, the most important thing is that the rules are clear on what is and is not allowed, no matter what decision is taken in regards to game audio and window size requirements.

The biggest problem I have is with the records in individual levels because you can start the level from the menu and in this way you have to wait for the character to fly down to the serpent which adds about 3 seconds to the run and there is also a second way, namely clicking the next level after killing the previous serpent which cancels the whole time you have to wait for the character to fall, only the problem is that in order to have one attempt to kill the serpent as quickly as possible you have to kill the previous serpent each time (or die and click restart level). In your opinion, should both methods be allowed or only the method of starting levels from the menu?

I don't think it makes sense to allow both methods; you should pick one, for the sake of simplicity/convenience and to ensure all IL times can be compared with each other. I think starting from the menu makes the most sense, but as long as it's possible to start from a reset after a failed run, either way is probably fine.

Do not delete the runs and don’t ban extended window my dude that’s like the only way to play old flash games

I agree that deleting old runs after a rule change is something you just don't do, for the obvious reason that they were valid when performed, and also to preserve the category's history.

However, it's definitely not true that playing with a resized/extended window is "the only way to play old flash games". For one, if you play through a browser (either the original Flash version, the HTML5 port, or through Supernova), you can't see anything beyond the standard window borders at all. And even if you don't use a web browser, the game is still playable through Flashpoint (some setup is required) or an unlocked SWF. You're able to resize the window then, but I don't see why you would need or want to.

I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to share any links here, so feel free to join the Nitrome Speedrunning Discord server if you want more information on different methods of playing the game.

After the WR was beaten recently, it has come to my attention that there are multiple problems with how the boards are currently set up.

Problem #1: Inaccurate times. The final time for the current WR run is wrong, as are many of the IL times; they use the LiveSplit timer time instead of a proper frame-by-frame re-timing tool like SPRT. This should be rectified, especially for ILs where milliseconds actually matter. On that note, it's generally improper to list milliseconds on full game times unless the category is competitive enough that the top times are only a couple seconds apart (which is not the case here, at least not yet).

Problem #2: The rules don't require game audio. Requiring audio is a very common rule across most games (Nitrome or not) that mostly serves to enforce a higher standard of proof and help prevent cheating/splicing. The game rules (NOT category rules) should therefore reflect this and specify that all runs require video proof with game audio. Even if the community is fine with audio not being required (which for all I know, it may be), the rules should mention it considering how common it is for speedruns to require game audio in general.

Problem #3: It's not clear enough when time starts and ends, both for full runs and for ILs. For the sake of clarity, the rules should say something like "Time ends after defeating the dragon on level 15 (on the first frame the skip button is visible)" rather than just saying time ends after defeating the dragon. Same goes for the start time (maybe "on the first frame the screen starts to fade" ?) and IL start/end points ("immediately after entering the level" in particular is not clear enough).

Problem #4: It is not specified anywhere whether you are required to start from a fresh game file or not. To the uninitiated, it's not immediately clear that the "fast level start" technique can be done on a save file where the levels are not already unlocked. Since there is a trick that involves going back to the level selection screen, the category rules should be clearer. Even if starting from a fresh file is not required, the rules should still say something like "It is not required to start from a fresh game file, but you must play as if the game had been reset. You are allowed to use the fast level start trick after defeating the previous dragon, but you are not allowed to skip a level without defeating its dragon."

Problem #5: The rules say nothing about resizing the game window. When playing Nitrome games straight from a file, rather than through the website, you can sometimes resize the game window to allow you to see more of the game than the default window size allows. This is banned in most games, especially when you gain an advantage from it, because it's not something you're able to do when playing the game on the original website (or through Supernova). Again, even if you wish to allow it for this game, the rules should be clear, because there is a precedent of banning it in most other Nitrome games. Ex.: "You are (/ are not) allowed to stretch the display in a way that lets you see anything outside of the basic window size."

Problem #6: nodrog has two visible runs on the Any% leaderboard. It seems to be because this one has no Platform specified. This should be a very easy fix.

where can I report an inactive mod

@usefulorange if you cannot get in contact with a moderator of a game you run, you can request to become a moderator of the game through the support hub.

You will have to prove that you have made a serious effort to contact the current moderator(s), as well as have at least one run that's been awaiting verification for more than 21 days.

I realized today that I never shared this run outside of the Discord server, so here it is.

It's important to note that this segmented run is NOT a perfect run. Many levels could be made faster, either by just playing better or by finding a new route. I doubt the best theoretical time is ever going to dip below 13 minutes, though.

I've never heard of this game before, and I'm not exactly an expert on the Sega Master System, but I can try to answer some of your questions.

It looks to me like this leaderboard has not had a lot of effort put into it by the moderators; the game has no rules, platform or cover.

So what emulators are accepted for the Sega Master System?

As far as I know, every game has its own rules on this. In this particular case, there are no rules so... yeah. Hard to say if your run breaks any rules when we don't know for sure what the rules are in the first place.

Also, the run have notifications on the corner, as I was getting achievements. Are they allowed, or I have to submit a run with a "clean" screen?

It looked fine to me. As long as the notifications aren't covering up any important information in the game, it's no problem at all.

As for whether you can become a moderator for this game, maybe? But it depends on a few things.

1. You have to wait a reasonable amount of time for the moderators to verify your run(s). You submitted your run 7 days ago; if it still hasn't been verified in 14 more days (for a total of 21 days since its submission), you can move on to the next step.
2. You have to make a serious effort to contact the moderators if they remain inactive. Send them a direct message through the site, but also try to get in contact with them through their other socials (Alanim has a Twitter account linked, and Zenavathar has both Twitter and Discord).
3. If you cannot get in contact with the current moderators, you can go through the support hub and request to be made a moderator for the game. You will need to have a run pending (which you do) and enable two-step authentication for your account, but you also need your account to be at least 30 days old, which it's not. Maybe you can do some more runs of the game in the meantime? :v

This game has a level skip glitch like many other Nitrome games. Here it is in action:

Found by RetroTreasure in 2018:

I didn't time it, but it seems slightly faster than the strat the current WR uses.

The run has no audio so it's probably unsubmittable (and there aren't any level categories at the moment anyway).

https://www.speedrun.com/users/YANGU10086

First of all... good luck.

I'll start by explaining why I'm making this forum post: recently, we realized that the Nitrome series on speedrun.com was almost complete, missing just a couple of games. One of these games was Ice Breaker: The Red Clan. I started playing it to try and build up to an actual speedrun, expecting a similar experience to what I'd gotten with the sequel (Ice Breaker: The Gathering), which was somewhat difficult and sometimes frustrating, but ultimately very manageable.

As it turns out, Red Clan is significantly worse. It has many more levels where it feels like you have to slice correctly to the millimeter and be forced to reset if you fail. In other words, in this game, it is sometimes possible to do everything correctly and still lose. Thankfully, this isn't the case for every level, but it was enough to overpower my motivation to complete a full run. After a few initial attempts, I wasn't having any fun running the game anymore.

I did, however, run all 40 Individual Levels. I figured it was better to share them with the world than leaving this game's leaderboard in its sorry state, even if I wasn't going to complete a full game run. I did come up with a few strategies on my own, but most of them were taken from 15 year old YouTube guides.

I hope my level runs can be useful to anyone who may want to run this game some day. If you follow everything I did, you should be able to get a time of less than 25 minutes, at minimum. I'm sure there's potential for a much faster run though.

Here are some notes on the harder levels:

• 11 - I have two runs for this one. The slower one is easier and can be used as a backup if the faster way does not work.
• 14 - There are two ways to beat this level, and I have runs on the leaderboard for both. One is significantly faster, but both are horribly inconsistent, so I'm not sure which one is truly better.
• 16 - This is a prime example of a level where you can play perfectly and still lose. I don't have any tips, just get lucky.
• 17 - This is another very random one. I cut up the ice wall at the end more or less on a whim, but it seems to be the way to go to prevent the vikings from getting stuck on that wall at the end.
• 24 - I was unable to replicate this.
• 26 - Good luck with this one. Here are some other ways to beat it that I either found too inconsistent or wasn't able to replicate at all: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• 27 - It doesn't look that bad, but this level is easy to mess up. The first three vikings can randomly refuse to slide down the slope(s) or get stuck during the fall. The fourth one is also tricky: sometimes you can't get him to slide down properly, and if you don't cut up the ice in a certain way at the end, he will overshoot the boat and fall in the water.
• 29 - This one isn't hard, but there's a slightly faster way that I wasn't able to replicate.
• 31 - The ice cube does not have to hit the viking, it can hit the rock and the strategy will still work (slowly).
• 32 - I couldn't get this strategy to work.
• 33 - The third cut is deceptively difficult to get right.
• 37 - Very easy to mess up.
• 39 - This one is slow by design, but I didn't try doing it this way, which seems a little faster.

That's all from me. Good luck to any future runners!

How do I specify a time of day then? I don't see how to do that using the calendar view that shows up when entering a date.

I first experienced this a few weeks ago, but I saw it again just now.

I submitted two runs to a game I moderate, and verified them right away. The date on the leaderboard does not match the date I inputted when submitting: it uses the previous day's date (in my case, 2022-07-01 when I specified 2022-07-02 when submitting). However, when I go back to edit the run, the date is correct (2022-07-02), so the error is only about what gets displayed.

What's going on here? I'm assuming it's an issue with time zones, or something similar. Has anyone else experienced this?

If it's relevant, my time zone is North America / Eastern (currently EDT, UTC-04:00)

If memory serves, there used to be a Discord server for this game, but it was deleted some time in 2022(?)

The Nitrome series has a few good ones:

• Bad Ice Cream
• Nitrome Must Die
• Square Meal
• Office Trap

There is also the Fireboy & Watergirl series.

Does anyone here have good experience with managing somewhat complicated categories? I'm in a bit of a bind and don't really know what to do with the situation.

Some background information: I moderate a game called Twin Shot. (https://www.speedrun.com/twinshot). It contains leaderboards for the original Twin Shot, as well as Twin Shot 2, the sequel.

• Twin Shot has 50 levels.
• Twin Shot 2 has 100 levels, split into two 50-level sets (known as "Good" and "Evil") that can be played separately.
• Twin Shot 2 has a feature known as "Cheats and Treats", that lets you do things like permanently activate power-ups (e.g., invincibility) after you collect a certain number of coins in the game.

As of now, there are four main categories and one misc. category:

• TS1: beat all the levels of Twin Shot.
• TS2: beat all the Good levels and all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.
• Good%: beat all the Good levels of Twin Shot 2.
• Evil%: beat all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.
• 200% (misc.): beat all the levels of Twin Shot, all the Good levels of Twin Shot 2, and all the Evil levels of Twin Shot 2.

There are also some subcategory variables:

• Angels: To indicate if the category was played with 1 or 2 players. Applied to all categories.
• Game state: To indicate if the category was played on a fresh game file (NG) or not (NG+). This is relevant when playing with Cheats and Treats, as NG runs still have to collect all the coins needed to unlock power-ups (+ go and activate them in the menu), whereas NG+ runs can have everything unlocked before the run even starts. Applied to all categories except TS1.

Here's the problem: I want to set up categories for Twin Shot 2 runs that do not use the Cheats and Treats feature, as runs that do use it cannot be compared to those that don't, and I want Twin Shot 2 categories without cheats to be "relevant" to run (plus, there are already some "No Cheats" runs on the boards).

I can see two ways to do this, but they both have some problems:

1. Make a misc. category called "No Cheats", with a variable that indicates which category was played (TS2, Good%, Evil%, 200%). This is how things are currently set up; it works okay, but it feels a bit messy, the No Cheats runs are kind of hidden away, and there is probably a better solution.
2. Ditch the No Cheats category and replace it with a subcategory variable, that is then applied to all categories except TS1. This is better in some ways, but it also makes the NG/NG+ distinction irrelevant if your run doesn't use cheats, as playing from a fresh game file or not does not change anything unless you do use them. It's not a big problem, but still kind of annoying. If there is a way to work around that, I am not aware of it.

What's the best way to set this up?

"But why are Twin Shot and Twin Shot 2 merged together in just one game if you can't play the original Twin Shot levels in Twin Shot 2?" I wasn't the one who set things up this way so I'm not really sure. I guess because of the 200% category? It has zero runs though, and as far as I know, nobody has ever shown an interest in running it. The games could in theory be split into "Twin Shot" and "Twin Shot 2"— plus "Twin Shot category extensions" where 200% could be moved (if it's kept at all). I suppose No Cheats runs could also find a home here, but putting them on an entirely different leaderboard does not feel quite right. Re-structuring the leaderboards this way may be the better solution, but it requires a decent amount of work (setting up + moving all the runs over), and considering the very low number of active runners, I would rather avoid it unless it is absolutely necessary.

Level 7-B says hi

It's possible ofc but with that sort of precise trick halfway through the run I don't know about it being a fun category to run haha

As a runner of this game, I support sapling's nomination

Many other games have rules on this (e.g. Toxic 2). Most of the time resizing the window is not allowed when you gain an advantage from it (which is definitely the case here).