My name is Steve and I have a new book series that is being published by Hagen's Alley (www.hagensalley.com). The book series focuses on creating the easiest ways to complete hard video games and is aptly named "The Easy Way" it doesn't involve any speedrun stuff for the most part but that leads me to my next point. I have been researching this game for close to a year and I believed I had all the information available for the game or at least all the information I deemed relevant to my book. Unfortunately for me that is no longer the case and I am faced with a very strange dilema. This will be a bit long but I think it will provide some needed context by telling the whole story.

My book is already funded and I was doing final edits on it yesterday. While I was playing on emulator I noticed an interesting quirk with Jason where he will sometimes respawn on the screen without it scrolling. You can see this in PGH's run on day 3 and In the TAS but those both happened in the woods and this happened on the path. I will link a video below for everyone to check out. Since I am friendly with PGH because he was on my podcast before I decided to send him the videos and we got on discord to discuss. This is where things got worse for me. I realized after talking with him that I had never fully analyzed his run. I had watched it many times before but I never sat down and actually mapped out what he was doing. As we talked more I began to realize that his run disproves a lot of documented and known information about Jason’s spawn points, pathing, and the alternating path A to Path b scenario proposed by Valentlink. The more I dug into it the more confusing it became and more established data was seemingly now false.

I do not want to release my book with knowingly false information even though the information does not affect the teaching method inside the book it still makes a difference to me. I would like to collaborate with anyone and everyone to figure this stuff out. Valientlink, dvstinjames, PGHguitarguy, or anyone else that wants to be involved please speak up. I want to be clear that I am asking for a completely open dialogue and collaboration between all parties. This means sharing documents, spread sheets or any other bits of information that we may be holding onto. I do have some information that will likely allow for runners to take the record a lot closer to the TAS time and with some luck and teamwork we may even be able to take it lower than that. I have already started work on this and created my own sheets mapping seeds and experimenting with Jason’s behavior. Anyone that contributes and collaborates in some tangible way will be credited in the book. If anyone knows how to contact KLMZ (The Tas Creator) please let me know so I can get him involved. The best contact method for me is actually FB but you can message me on SRC or join my discord.

Discord: https://discord.gg/TAbVHMj Jason No Scroll, No Chase 2x: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q6-KfJWXM09qhs0sBU4sBSZZW9lPj-CA

You can find out more about me at www.8bitsteve.com

I'm aware for my A and B routing pics (which are not super well made), I don't explain the woods very well. That was an area I never put too much thought into and is a big reason I overlooked the current routes possibility. Other than that I don't see any issues with the A and B path theory, this is one thing that is correct. He always alternates between those two routes and will never take the same one twice.

As for the insta spawn, yeah in some areas Jason will basically stay in the same spot for a brief moment and you can get him to spawn right away. The example you posted was used in the old TAS route, also in the woods on day 3. He's still following the usual path of A or B route. Jason also never spawns from the left side of the screen even if he's actually moving to the left or leaves to the left.

So yeah other than not including his movements through the woods, the A and B data is accurate. That was also just a WIP I made years ago in a couple minutes. There hasn't been any big demand to fix it (I'm also just largely an Ocarina of Time speedrunner) but maybe now would be the time. I'll admit I was also very confused with the current record route in how Jason moved through the woods.

This is the only thing I don't truly understand. I know he will enter the north woods to cut into the Lake on route B, and that's what record takes advantage of. I know he also cuts through the south woods to get to the southern cabin beginning route B after attacking the children. But when he is actually moving left or right I'm not sure. Either way this is the only thing I can think of being inaccurate about the A and B route data. His route taken and cabins visited are all correct. I'll try and contact the TASer to see if he can weigh in on that.

I haven't slept much and I have been hammering away at this since before I put the post up. In reference to your post above I have never encountered an error with woods pathing once. So as far as I can tell they are all correct. The issue lies in PGH's current run. I couldn't figure out why Jason was entering the upper woods after starting on path B. After racking my brain and a lot of testing I figured out that Jason doesn't alternate paths when a new day starts. This means that in PGH's run he is on path B the entire time and is the only thing that makes sense. I believe the error is that Jason only switches paths after he has completed a path fully or at least up to a point that is unknown to me, I would guess it’s after the lake attack though as my data seems to point towards that. If switching on a new day were true then after killing Jason on Day 1 he would spawn on path A by the cave or Path A to the top right. The top right makes sense at first until realizing that he enters the uppers woods. That would mean the path A route is wrong and he enters the upper woods for a bit. That is quickly debunked though as he does not continue along the top route in PGH’s run and instead goes down towards the lake just like in Path B. A small note of other clarity is that if Jason selects Path B on Day 1 he doesn't start in the lower woods he simply starts right next to the Main Path South cabin but thats not really an error its just not very clear in the data. Additionally, does it not make more sense to call the cave spawn point Path C. I find that less confusing personally.

Conclusion: The most likely thing is that Jason does not alternate paths on a new day. This explains everything that happened and it disproves the least amount of known data.

I have confirmed that there is a static route Jason takes, with 3 possible spawn points, but ultimately all end up the same route, and if I remember right, only certain sections of the route that you can run into Jason. I was working on a video explaining just what that path is, but then got distracted from finishing the editing and I don’t know if I backed up the Final Cut Pro project. I might try to release it at some point, but it’s mostly moot now because the current WR route is the fastest and Jason will always go that route. But I suppose it’s worth noting just in case anyone manages to play around with seeds enough to figure out that there’s a faster route that someone can maybe hit a sub 2:50.

My testing also confirmed a single route with three spawn points. It was later cemented by Slush.Filter's work with the rom. There is a 50% chance Jason will start by the cave, 25% by the upper right hand cabin, and a 25% chance he will start at the bottom center cabin (Current route). The counselor seeding pattern is separated from where Jason spawns based on my current knowledge base. It is possible for someone to map out of all the possible seeding combinations from the spreadsheet that Slush.Filter made but I personally am not interested in putting time into that. If someone did that we could then find all the possible routes that might be viable for WR based on mark, laura, and crissy spawn locations in relation to the torch cabins.

My testing also confirmed a single route with three spawn points. It was later cemented by Slush.Filter's work with the rom. There is a 50% chance Jason will start by the cave, 25% by the upper right hand cabin, and a 25% chance he will start at the bottom center cabin (Current route). The counselor seeding pattern is separated from where Jason spawns based on my current knowledge base. It is possible for someone to map out of all the possible seeding combinations from the spreadsheet that Slush.Filter made but I personally am not interested in putting time into that. If someone did that we could then find all the possible routes that might be viable for WR based on mark, laura, and crissy spawn locations in relation to the torch cabins.