This is an announcement that I am offering several speedrun bounties for the 2020-21 2D Action-Platformer ‘Phoenotopia Awakening’ (Five Star) 100% category.

The current record in that category is 7:28:33 by @polecat. I am paying $11 per minute under this time to the person in first place (up to $1000), $5 per minute to second place (up to $500), and $1 per minute to third place (up to $100) at wherever the boards stand at 11:59pm June 1st, 2023 (although any runs underway at that time will still count).

Also, I love fully commentated runs and am offering a bonus payout of up to $300 each to the top 3 finishers based on the 'Quality' of the commentary, at my sole discretion. I know 'quality' is subjective, but I will generally look for -Breakdowns of in-the-moment thought process/decision making with regards to movement/RNG/strategy etc… -Conversations on game/run trivia and history -Summary of story/world elements and character dialogue as they occur, since cutscenes and text boxes will be skipped as much as possible, and the Story and world of the game are really cool, and I don't want new viewers to miss out. The format of the 'commentary' isn't important, feel free to use captions, talk during the run, do a post commentary, or whatever you want.

Finally, I am offering a 'tech discovery' bounty to anyone (not just the top 3) who discovers any new tech and/or skips. The payout is $0.10 per second saved over the course of any of the top 3 100% runs (in the time saved in one of the runs, so like if it saved 5 seconds in the first place run, that'd be 50 cents).

Bounties will be paid via Venmo, Cashapp, or Paypal. If a runner can't or declines to recieve payment, the bounty will go to a charity of their choice. The main bounty will be paid immediately after June 1st at 11:59 PM (EST) 2023 (unless any top 3 runs are underway at the time, in which case they can finish), and 'tech discovery' bounties will be paid out whenever they are found, once the community can figure out how much time the discovery saves. Commentary bounties will be paid out no later than June 30th at 11:59 PM (EST).

The boards for this game can be found at: https://www.speedrun.com/phoenotopia_awakening/full_game#100 and any rules for the category listed on the board must be followed.

Quote from my recent post:

      Hey Everyone, just wanted to check in on my bounty as we head into the holidays here in the States.

First of all, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine a sub 5 was possible! It's amazing what the Japanese any% runners have managed to accomplish, and I am honored and humbled that they were willing to dedicate their talents and skills to my bounty. Thank you so so so so much <bows deeply>.

Second, while I currently feel that the winners of the Grand and Second place prizes have probably been decided, I definitely think that the Third place spot is still competitive, and if anyone has thought of giving it a shot, I promise you will love this game, so go for it!

Third, I want to add some spice for the non-runners in the community! I have decided that while I will still be offering my commentary (voice or text) bounties to the runners themselves, I'm adding ANOTHER bounty that is open to anyone with a microphone!

In the interest of creating the highest commentary possible, I am offering a SINGLE -Voice Only- commentary bounty, again of up to $300, open to ANY individual OR group who wish to record a commentary for whichever run ends up holding the 100% world record as of May 1st, 2023. Same quality rules/guidelines/expectations as the main commentary bounty, except that I am only interest in fully voiced commentary for this community offer.

Spread the word to anyone you know who is knowledgeable about the game, whether they run it or not, or even just anyone that you know who just VO work, whether amateur or professional, let them know so they can give it a shot! Let's all have fun on our way to the finish line in June!

GLHF!

sounds cool, maybe I'll check the game out

here's a link to the game's boards for anyone interested: https://www.speedrun.com/phoenotopia_awakening/full_game#100

I also DMed you a revised version of this post since you asked + some tips about it

Thank you so much! Your suggestions were awesome, and I will message the mods for the game about how they would like me to establish proof of the bounty. If they're willing, I'd like to ask them to hold the funds in trust, but that's obviously up to them.

This is awesome. You must really love Phoenotopia. 🙂

Dang, this is actually really cool

[quote]at wherever the boards stand at 11:59pm June 1st, 2023[/quote] So is this a typo, or are you giving more than a year for this? I mean, it's fine if you are, I just want to make sure that's the case.

Yeah, more than a year. It's a tough run, and I'd like to get lots of people involved.

which is fair also because so much money is being given out

My thoughts exactly 👍

alright someone shot me a message about this. I've been wanting to improve my time so I'll be working on the run again, but in the interest of being fair I will give some information and my old notes. I can see the run getting 2 hours or more faster (sorry to omninoid's wallet), that's not a joke it's just aged like milk compared to any%.

The category itself:

• the easiest category this game is filled with brutal categories. the any% runners that have taken the game as far as they have are truly gifted. 100% allows for a lot more mistakes as you do need to increase your health value from 30->250. additional items allow for best item in most situations
• mistakes are punished hard even as the easiest category you can be blow up by 1 bad jump and a missed tech, see;
• basically the better completion run all badges has so many quirks, it's zero trial (think 0%) into max completion. all the frustration of 0% all the chore and more of 100%
• controls take time getting used to phoa is like this in general. a game i would love to use an arcade stick for, but can't as I need a 360 degree of directionals
• fights most optional bosses these fights are honestly good and a good chance to show skill. unlike just combo-ing a lot of the mid game story bosses to death. phalanx is the hardest fight by a mile
• allows for a lot of creativity slingshot bouncing, remote bombs, ect. these can be used as intended or for weird secondary purposes

My run is:

• outdated tricks have improved since then, I more recommend watching an any% run to get an idea of what is going on. some minor re-routing is due to some of these tricks. mostly moonstones as hitting certain quantities is important at multiple stages inventory re-route. mostly for money reasons, its very important in the run and any% is much more optimal in this regard
• sloppy a death against phalanx. honestly its the hardest part of the run, you just will lose to error/rng/something you weren't prepared for missed a moonstone. this doesn't sound bad, but its actually terrible, the back up is paying an npc to check your moonstones with 1/3 to get the one you missed as 2 still need to be collected my menuing is bad, probably always will be
• bad movement dash jump, roll cancel movement was found the week i did the run. it is a significant timesave in movement to be able to perform this.
• nintendo switch family of consoles was originally excusive there, now no longer. switch indies occasionally lose on load times if there is enough of them. which i would not be surprised

these are my old run notes, they are very basic. it mostly lets you know what song you may need to play, answer to a puzzle, and what item you are collecting at that moment and where you should be. Think of it like a map. they do not include how to's for beginners; https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_ExaDyaDCBH6uOF_X-yevAW7vPidwk4zT8Aa4NZRj8k/edit?usp=sharing

I will probably be updating these and may post it later, but I am also lazy

Hell yeah! I posted this bounty fully hoping that I'd have to payout the max purse! I asked around a lot to try to come up with a run length that was tough but possible, and you've really put a smile on my face! I can't wait to see what y'all are gonna accomplish!

Bumping this as it's still active for a year

Just had a thought: have you reached out to the developer and/or publisher about this? Given that it’s a sizable bounty, they may be interested in advertising it. You get more eyes on it, and they potentially get some extra game sales.

Yeah, I did! They tweeted about it, and a speaker is including both the game and this bounty in his talk at a Japanese gamedev convention.

That's pretty cool.

Still not sure when I get around to this / how much I'll do it personally (I find it harder to do longer runs nowadays lol), but I'll at least contribute a few runs by the time this bounty is up.

Bumping this again since this end in exactly 11 months.

Usual bump.

Should be about 8 months left now?