Hello - Have we established at what point submitted times should be recorded? - I've been going from 'first' input (on the boat) to last input (walking into the portal in the end game).

Any issue with this?

Hi Mike, just finished watching the run. Yeh for some reason we don't have that written down here, I'll have a chat with Die4ever to write down the precise timing definitions. It should be from hitting "new game/yes/no" to the full fade to black when exiting the final puzzle. It looks like I did not retime my run, which, by this rules would be 56:33. And I would retime your run to 47:04. But I'll check with Die4Ever first

Okey Dokey thank you - I wasn't sure as this game is a pain hitting the splits with the headset on to begin with.

My only mild issue would be that something glitched on the initial load adding around 20 seconds of time (I have no idea why, but in my other runs the boat usually spawned within 3-4 seconds of me hitting the timer whereas on that run it didn't actually load up until WAY later. - You may note at the start of the run I said 'I hope I'm in the boat' as I was running between my desk (to start the timer) and the middle of the room so I didn't keep whomping my hand on things. The issue was I would end up being stood in the lake rather than on the boat :D

On the "running around to start the timer" issue, I have a guide on how to tie livesplit hotkeys to VR controllers. It's written for a different game, but the process should be universal as long as you are on SteamVR. (Standalone Quest or PSVR might be harder, but maybe it'll give you ideas and if you work something out, we can add it.)

https://www.speedrun.com/scannersombre/guides/lwj8v

If you're timing on a different computer or using something other than SteamVR, you might be able to use a usb foot pedal (I'm doing this for my cat's so-far unsuccessful gyromite run) or maybe one of those laser pointers for presentations that clips to a finger and has built-in page control buttons (untested but I have one if you want me to try it out before you go get one).

(I'll eventually get around to running this game, I promise. I should have my living room back in a couple months or so.)

I think starting time when starting the new game is fine but might have a variable loading time? Alternatively time could start when the first frame of the game is visible, idk if the game accepts any inputs before that though.

We could just use an honor system that if you're not grabbing the paddle to the boat you're fine. - Usually I wouldn't have a problem with the 'new game' start point but on my submitted run (for reasons unclear) it took around 20 seconds to boot the game. And with that being said, I've never really checked that it's consistent.

I'll happily take the time loss as I can improve upon my submission, but if it's going to be an inconsistent point then I think, as you said, maybe kicking things off on the first frame out of the black transition makes sense.

How about this then, for all future submissions we hardcode in the rules that at least 1 second of the boat is shown without touching the oar. Then time starts the moment the oar is picked up. All previous runs start on the fade-in onto the boat. Does that work for everyone?

That sounds perfectly fair and reasonable to me. Picking up the oar is literally the first meaningful input with nothing you do prior having any major effect (if any at all).