Part of post removed because of wrong information

I developed a good way for a beginner to handle the first anvil in the castle: you can damage boost off the Knight using i-frames to get through without being frozen in place. NOTE: you can see my button inputs top-left, you have to register two jumps because the game swallows the first input every time.

Just a quick note for any other beginning runners, when you're using the barrel glitch to defeat the Chocolate Bar boss, be careful to only hit him FOUR times - I just had a run end when I blundered and hit him a fifth time which caused his health to circle around to some huge level and ruin things. Oops!

Obviously pinball games are high-score affairs but the site has tables for Pro Pinball among others. Is anyone interested in starting a community for Psycho runs? I did a semi-casual run in October for time to 100million, thinking we could have categories for score barriers and jackpots, and maybe highest score in x minutes or something.

OH so you can use the same speed preservation that you get on slopes, at any damage boost spot? That hadn't occurred to me at all! Btrim you should mention that in your tutorial, it isn't at all obvious and the physics seem quite counterintuitive.

Hi btrim, it was a shame I didn't hear back from you about testing the AKIMW hack. Anyways, thinking of picking COI up after many years away. Got the hang of preserving slope speed, having some issues with Leaf strat. When I boost on to the caterpillar leaf, the next one never seems to be in sync, not sure why since it doesn't seem that I'm activating the loading zone early. Here's an example:

As a mere mortal of speedrunning I've never touched on a game like NES Tetris and nor do I intend to 😂 But I've come to a point where to better a time in one of my runs to WR level I need to hypertap with my middle finger for short intense bursts, so the more windows of runs I can have per day the better my chances. I'm doing really good at it and eating more helps a bit (as in Xmas levels of sugary stuff, I'm being careful about that) but I am curious whether anyone much more used to constant hypertapping or mashing has any specific exercises they do to maintain or increase their finger stamina/power. At the moment I am not able to run as many times a day as I want to because I lose power.

If you are very determined that 30 minutes is your upper limit, I could recommend you run individual levels of Lemmings, I have found the Master System version very good for having the more challenging control system (no mouse, no button based increasing/decreasing RR). The very first thing I ran was SMW 11 exit back when there were no glitches, and I think that would be a great fit. You could also look at various disney platformers: Castle of Illusion, Quackshot, etc. If you want to be very obscure, I'd love to have more runners on C64 Flimbo's Quest - short, but tough.

I've compiled a report explaining a bug I've found with SHO's game timer for Genesis and MAME Arcade. You can find the report including video proof explaining this, in this document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nacQxW7NjZH69N_BUHT3QWxEFGUY7RqAtx3-WWDVeu4/edit?usp=sharing

Please note this is NOT based on different frame rates and is a bug in the program itself. Jesse, I added you on Discord so if you need to discuss anywhere, let me know.

Since I started speedrunning properly last year I've dabbed a toe in platforming with Flimbo's Quest, run and gun with Mercs, pure puzzle stuff with Lemmings, and sport stuff with Super Hang-On. I'm looking to get a capture card at some point so I can also run The Unholy War. These haven't really been optimised run at all before - there's something extra special about exploring and uncovering the secrets behind how a game works, how to optimise it, being the discoverer as well as the runner.

These games have a very well-defined strategic element, you can definitely imprint your style on to them in terms of what choices you make, and in which optional paths or methods you use to achieve your aims.

I looked through the list of all the games I used to play/own several times though, and nothing stands out as particularly well-made/interesting for speedrunning. As a crude example I had looked at something like Zool or Global Gladiators, but they seem quite inaccessible (the former for its controls and camera, the latter is just a horror show to run fast). It would be nice to end up running something Nintendo but frankly anything from C64 to PS1/N64 I'm open to as long as it's relatively unexplored and strategic, and not massively long - I could be comfortable with anything up to an hour maybe. The one proviso I want to impose on this is no excessive menuing. I was going to jump into Wonder Boy in Monster World but I honestly hate the idea of losing records based on menuing alone.

Can anyone make any recommendations of games they know and love which have some strategy and similar traits to the games I've played, and which haven't really been explored as far as being run?

Super Hang-On is very challenging!

I don't know whether it's just me but I really struggle with the poor boundary on SMD controllers between U, UL and UR, and that's using a mk-1650 with the ballbearing in it, and it's impacting my runs. I love the crispness and responsiveness of the face buttons though. Can anyone recommend a controller that doesn't have this d-pad problem?

My work optimising Tricky levels is now virtually complete! You can watch the playlist here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTsjhPmEfJeElqnBUB6wPCj2k98ds9H8

The current estimated fastest completion time for Tricky is 40:11 which is surprisingly quick! This may be subject to further downward revision. Realistically speaking, it would take a lot to remain within the envelope of both no restarts and no significant time loss across each level, so my target for my next WR attempt will be somewhere around 45 minutes, giving me safety margins in deadly levels and accounting for human error.

@fletchr what a lovely thing to offer! I grew up with the game on PAL being from the UK too, and saw Gregg Almond's NTSC 14:11.4 thinking I might never get near it because I always struggled with the bosses and it struck me if I was going to do the run justice, I should play at the slower setting while I work everything out and optimise. I'm a grinder like you, and I stopped at 16:31 because I ran the risk of losing runs simply from mis-menuing in the shops, and it would take large volume of plays to get good boat luck in 4. I intended to try NTSC in time, wanting to avoid the scenario where someone makes an inferior quality run in NTSC, submits it, and splits the leaderboard, but it's wonderful to have a competitor so soon. I don't know if I'll ever be skilled enough to equal that run in NTSC but I'd at the least be open to making an attempt, even if that means tracking them separately. Please do add me on Discord, and I can share all the info I have. :D

To anyone who plays run and gun/platform shooter style games: if your frame rate was fluctuating between 59-61 quite a lot during a run, as opposed to a solid stable 60fps, would it possibly give you any sort of advantage at any points? I'm thinking you would end up with a bunch of points in game where you'd have slightly longer to react to things/deal with stuff.

If anyone else wants to chime in as a mod/runner of their game on what tolerances they allow in frame rates for such console games I'd be most grateful.

I have found a way to utterly destroy Tricky 7. With the normal strat it took 3 minutes 47.

I don't want to wait around though, so I decided to cut 2 whole minutes off.

I did a commentary over the Fun WR and so if anyone is interested, here it is :)

Unsure how many interested readers I have but I've started optimising Tricky levels again, and I'm having a comfy time of it thanks to good RR management and lag management. Check out this insane optimisation of T5, which knocks 11 seconds off my previous effort and is almost frame perfect:

Luckily it seems that it works with the first lemming, it's more a case of timing it to trigger him ASAP then making sure to scroll over and use the diagonal area to set floaters.

I now optimised all 30 levels, I found a perfect reference point to use the long builder in L28 thanks to the brick design in hell, and I found a perfect bridge building point in the cage at L29 too. I'll upload the last few bits and pieces but the estimated perfect completion time so far comes to:

Thirty three minutes, twentyone point three seconds

33:21.3 Based on this, anything below 35:00 is going to take some serious beating. If other systems' respective runners look into their versions it will be highly interesting to see whether anyone can top that; I remember Usumgallu saying somewhere he had a run optimised to within the 30s somewhere.

This has to be one of the most insane optimisations I've found yet. You save time not only by removing lemmings from screen quicker, but also from not bombing them. That is, if I let 20 lemmings cross the screen and have 10 die at the web, that's still quicker than exploding 10 at the start... but what if I kill them another way?

This saves TWELVE AND A HALF SECONDS :D Total completion time is now in the high 34 minute mark, and with L28/29 to go it could yet go into the 33s.

I had a run last night just as practice that turned into a serious attempt on the WR. Going into Level 29 I was on course for a 38:59, total time, then I flubbed the final bridge to the exit :( I'm just finishing up my last optimisations including copious practice on that level to get a reliable method of bridging, then I should be able to work out the final projected time.

Each between-level transition (from the frame where OUT reaches 0, to the frame input is accepted on the level description screen) takes as an absolute minimum, 240 frames, or 4 seconds precisely. It works best if you hyper tap the 2 button to achieve this, since if you press early and hold the button, the input won't be accepted. So this time added to all optimal levels will be 1:56 at the least, or more like 1:58-2:00.

With current optimal strategies (bearing in mind I am yet to tackle a few of the worst levels), the fastest possible completion comes out at 35 minutes 6 seconds. So it DOES look like you can just about go sub 35. A more realistic target would be sub 36 minutes.