Rules Update Proposal
4 years ago
Florida, USA

I have come up with an updated, more defined set of rules that I would like to apply to our leaderboard. However, I am of the belief that mods should communicate such things with the community and allow for an open discussion to occur. After all, it is the community that makes the speedrun. If you are a past runner, and especially if you are currently an active runner, please post your thoughts and help make this the leaderboard that we all want. My proposed rules are as follows:

-----START-----

Complete the game from start to finish on the difficulty setting associated with this category. The difficulty selection does not need to be visible in your run.

Timing

  • Run starts when selecting "START" on the main menu.
  • Run ends at the start of Simba's animation for the final attack that successfully throws Scar off of the cliff.

Banned Functions

  • Turbo is not allowed as it provides an unfair advantage.
  • Loading from a save state at any point in a run, or to start a new run, is not allowed as it provides an unfair advantage and is not a native function of the original hardware. All runs must begin with a reset that is visible in the submitted video.

Video Quality

  • Video quality should be reasonably clear.
  • Excessive missing frames / lag may be grounds for run rejection. Mods cannot accurately determine the legitimacy of a run if portions of the video are missing.

Audio Quality

  • The game audio should be reasonably clear.
  • Missing game audio may be grounds for run rejection. Mods cannot accurately determine the legitimacy of a run if portions of the audio are missing.

-----END-----

My first goal was to make sure that the timing method is clear, especially since the rules have always been vague about "end of time". I am simply reflecting what most runners, including top runners, have always done in this speedrun. It is a good place to end time because it is also the point where we lose character control.

As far as banned functions goes, not allowing turbo should be an obvious rule, but it really should be stated in the rules. I feel like not allowing save states is an important one, since it is common practice for most speedruns to start runs from a reset. Besides being an unfair advantage over console runners who cannot just immediately jump right into the next run with the press of a button, it is simply just a function that cannot be performed on an actual copy of the game. Even by principle alone, this should be reason enough to not allow save states in runs. I realize this might not be a popular idea with some of the emulator runners, but please try to understand where I am coming from with this.

The rules about video and audio quality should be common sense, but these types of questions always seem to come up in speedrun forums. Even this forum has an old thread where the question of video quality was brought up.

Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post.

Side note to @The_Retro_Challenger , I was going to run this by you first, but it does not appear that we use any of the same types of social media. :P

Florida, USA

I forgot one important thing. No existing runs would be affected by the new rule changes.

United States

This all seems good to me. I'm glad we'll have a little more structure to the rules. I know the SNES board has been updating their rules, it's time Genny did too. Thanks for doing this 8Bits and Retro!

8BitsOfJoy likes this
Nova Scotia, Canada

This all looks good to me too

8BitsOfJoy likes this
South Carolina, USA

The new rules look fine to me. I would also add that the timer must be visible on screen but that should be common knowledge.

8BitsOfJoy likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

sounds good!!!! yall better submit for the game gear version when it goes up i have the request in!!!!

cajink87, 8BitsOfJoy, and Carter44 like this
Florida, USA

Thank you everyone for the quick responses so far. As for having a visible timer, I personally prefer to see runs that have it, and it does make verifying runs a little easier to be honest. I don't think it is actually necessary, but I will add it to the list unless there are objections to its addition. I am also thinking that we can add a line to "Banned Functions" that simply states that level select codes and any use of cheating devices, such as Game Genies, are not allowed. Really just another common sense rule.

Side note: I do need to try out the Game Gear version at some point. :D

Florida, USA

Since it appears that everyone who has submitted a run in the past several months has either voiced their support of the proposed rules here or via Discord, I have gone ahead and updated the rules for each category. I have also added in the line requiring a visible timer, as suggested by Insomnimatic, since that is a fairly standard rule for speedruns. AlfredoSalza was previously enforcing it as an unspoken rule as well, so it's not necessarily new either.

Thanks again, everyone!

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