This is a game I've been looking at with some intent on running. I'm talking 28 attempts later on a game with no set categories until say three days ago when the any % showed up on this so I don't know what is allowed and what isn't.

Personally I've been working on a post game run, Dealer you can go die for ruining all attempts with your curses. Meaning You've beaten the game once in your free time and can use whatever cards you have to make the fastest deck. Upside no menus besides boss selection. Downside every fight has the potential to pull the hardest enemies in the game. My last run had an ambush that was a 3 of dust and a Minotaur which could be completely avoided in a new game run by never doing the Minotaur card

To get back to my original point what would the possible categories be for this game? Ideas: Any % (new game beat all the bosses as quickly as possible) , Post Game(What I've been working on and only listed because who hates to see wasted work), and 100%(You know for people who just like tokens).

I see more to this game than just your traditional new game run but I'm also new to the community and could be out of line. Looking forward to everyone's thoughts

I think for any% it would be great to go from new game to the end of the cabinet. Maybe have any% custom deck for post game. Not sure about dealer runs though.

With the easy mode patch having any% ending at the final hit on the dealer isn't an issue. The dealers comment about playing without risk when you select Apprentice Fate is very true as you have Guardian Angel for most of the game and if you need it you unlock Nymphs, a card I used to swear by before I started running this, at the end of the apprentice chain.

Starvation is less damaging and you start off with a decent money and food pool so you just have to manage your curses wisely, a lot of curses don't even need to be removed because they don't do anything, and don't be afraid of taking some minor hunger pain later in the dungeon.

I think my latest any% run on the leaderboard shows a pretty awful gear run for setting up my dealer deck but it is to be expected. Also that run has an 11 minute time save at the Queen of Skulls even if all of your combat cards are bosses you should be able to best my run. (I missed a new PB by two minutes because the game pain carded me to death on the dealer so I had to rush his dungeon but every combat after the King of Dust had at least one boss).

All of that said on any% I will be dropping a post run later after I finish the Dev's challenge of speedrun with every single fate and rate them from fastest to slowest. Spoiler: Apprentice is fastest and Warlord is slowest

Since I'm not taking too many classes this semester I've been thinking about getting into running this game kind of seriously. Unfortunately, I cannot commit 2+ hours to grinding a single run. Therefore I have a few suggestions for runs.

My first suggestion is a New Game + category that you touched on. the run would consist of running through the entire cabinet after having unlocked everything with a custom deck of your own choosing. You would have to go through each boss in order and you would not be able to change your deck through the run. I think not be able to change your deck through the run would keep the run interesting and would add some testing for the best time saves by determining which cards in the deck would help save the most time.

My second suggestion would be Suit runs. IE: killing all Dust or killing all Skulls etc. Again once you started the run you would not be able to change your deck.

My last suggestion would be artifact runs. For example, Goblet runs would be the three bosses before getting the goblet, Jack of Dust, Jack or Bones, and the Queen of Dust. A Sceptre run would be the Jack of Plague, King of Dust, and the Jack of Scales.

I'm hoping that there are quite a few different runs to try out since the game is so compartmentalized.

Shortening this game into part showcases would definitely be more appealing to some than a full 2 hour run. Also looking back on it having a separate category for Dealer and no Dealer would not go amiss as the difficulty spike on that level is slightly absurd.

I know that during AGDQ I spent a good few hours in the PC room, far far away from the action, trying to figure out how the expansion updates play into the route because the route I used is no longer possible due to base cards being moved behind expansion stories so everything is back to a clean slate

Looking into this myself... Given the "Wildcards" DLC, I would assume a normal any% wouldn't allow any role changes? (i.e. one might select "Shadow Agent" for Queen of Scales to counter her making chance cards more difficult) Then again now that I look at OneWingedA's run, he/she did choose Apprentice; whenever I've tried partial attempts I've always just gone with the default difficulty.

I do also think BenEBeats has an interesting idea with NG+... Anyone know if it's possible to successfully back up/restore a save without losing all progress?

edit: got it, it's under Steam\userdata<profileID>\266510\remote\HandOfFate. Back up player.profile and you can swap it in/out as needed.

another edit: Got a bone to pick with you OneWingedA... The run rules say "only use recommended decks" yet you customized your weapons deck for the final Dealer fight, mainly to add Time Heals. Is deck customization allowed for the Dealer?

Any% in just about every game I have seen means beat the game by any means so long as the community doesn't decide it needs it's own category, OoB vs No OoB, so customizing decks for an an any% run to improve my weapon selection would be allowed.

A lot of what is done in that run isn't even possible anymore with the free card updates and changing the unlock paths to things.