Hi. I just wanted to make a post here asking a question. As I am rather new to the speedrunning community, I'm quite eager to learn more about the technical stuff of speedrunning. The question I am here to ask you is:
How do you know when to start and stop a run? Is it the same for every game where you start the timer as soon as you press something like 'Play'? Is it different depending on the game you play?
Just something I was wondering about.
Thanks,
Vertigo
It kinda depends actually.
Technically, if you want to be really competitive, you should start when you gain control of the character and stop when you lose control of it (like after a final boss for example).
Otherwise well... it all depends on the game i guess ? Some games you start when you can move the character, or start reading dialogs (like in Digimon World i guess).
In my case, for Boktai, i start it when i start the game, after putting a name for the character. There's still an intro where i don't even need to press anything, but i don't care about it that much, to me it feels better that way, mostly because it's simple, and, to me again, it makes sense, since the intro happens after choosing the option to make the game start.
It depends on the community and game, like DrHell said.
Starting at gaining control is the classic method that some games - e.g. the original Crash and Spyro trilogies - have retained, and makes sense as it's when you actually start playing. Starting at a new file is the most common nowadays, as it's usually agreed that this is when the game starts. Most, if not all, games end on the final input, which can be either the final hit on the final boss, or, like in HP2PC's case with the House Cup Ceremony, when you reach a certain point to trigger the final cutscene. Also, if there is an in-game timer that has no chance of abuse (e.g. if you reach a checkpoint at 6:40, and die at 7:22, it doesn't reset to 6:40), that's usually used, like for a lot of Individual Levels.
Oh and as a side note, tool-assisted speedruns start timing on booting up the console.
