Quick guide for my route:

GENERAL: -While standing still, if you jump, you will instantly reach max speed, while if you walk, there's a short buildup. Therefore, any time the game makes you stand still, it's faster to jump as soon as you regain control. This includes stuff like buying items and reaching the top of ladders. -Dirt piles and platters can be shoveled while moving by doing a short hop and immediately attacking. You can use this to grab a handful of gems or health without stopping, provided they're on a straight path.

PLAINS -You can make it across the second moving platform without waiting if you time your jumps. -You can stunlock Black Knight by constantly doing short hops and attacking in mid-air. Try to start with a high jump so it's harder for him to hit you.

(You can do either Specter or King Knight first. Specter is probably smarter to do first because there's more RNG.)

SPECTER KNIGHT -Break all checkpoints. -Don't get the Phase Locket yet unless you plan on getting more health/mana/items than I do and need to save money elsewhere. -In the first room with platforms that sink when there's 2 things on them, you can do short hops on the one below spikes without hitting the spikes, if needed. -In the final dark room, to cross the two platforms with skeletons, you can either bounce off the far right side of the first skeleton, or land to the right of him and very quickly jump and attack right. -If you get good RNG and he teleports to a lower corner on the same side of the screen you're on, try to get behind Specter Knight. Repeatedly do short hops while attacking to land a ton of hits. When he's at the top again, you can repeatedly bounce on him to keep him on one side of the screen. Note that in the Steam version, currently Specter will ALWAYS teleport to the opposite bottom corner on his first teleport.

KING KNIGHT: -Break all checkpoints. -Don't get the Flare Wand yet unless you plan on getting more health/mana than I do and need to save money elsewhere. -In the first two rooms it is possible to make it past the oil pots without stopping. -In the first room with a mage it's possible to make it to the same floor he's on before his fireball can hit you/the wall, provided the rats don't troll you. -You can run through the outside room with propeller rats without stopping if you attack, jump and bounce in the right way, again if they don't troll you. -King Knight can be hit repeatedly (2-3 times) by bouncing on him as he does a high jump. it's also fairly easy to just stand still, jumping in tandem with him and attacking to get pushed back and keep hitting him as he moves forward.

DREAM #1: -Don't move immediately, wait until all four skeletons are on-screen. If you move too soon one of them will likely stay off-screen until you get very close which wastes a ton of time. -Kill all skeletons and try to be near the center of the screen when the last one dies. -Bait the knights into holding their shield up by jumping above them and then do short hops and attack them from the front 2-4 times. -Try to catch Shield Knight as soon as she appears. It's fairly easy to predict when this is by listening to the music. -If you don't need money, you can end this dream faster by dying. Get hit by the skeletons' sword swings to do this as fast as possible. -Open the chest and get the meal ticket if you want some extra safety in exchange for a small time loss.

VILLAGE: -Buy the Flare Wand and Phase Locket in the basement. If you want to get the Chaos Sphere it'll cost you 500 more, so you need to drop the Flare Wand and another item later in the run, or get extra cash somewhere. Note that this is a guide for my route, so the rest of this guide won't mention the Chaos Sphere strats. -Grab the music sheet hidden in the wall in the basement for extra money. -Buy one or two mana upgrades. -Exchange a meal ticket if you have one. Don't buy any more. -Sell your music sheet to the bard if you got it. You can press start several times to skip through all his text. -Exit left, it's faster.

MOLE KNIGHT: -Break all checkpoints. -In the first giant beetle room, you can phase locket with good timing to get across two of the gaps without having to wait for the beetle. If you decide to wait, you can break the tough blocks and dig up the dirt pile for about 550 gold. There's even more in a chest in the wall at the far right. -Buy the Dust Knuckles. -At the section with the slime ball and two slimes, you can stand inside the slime ball, fire your flare wand to kill the slimes, and then shovel to hit the slime ball without having to move around. -Knuckle through the second giant spear dude, some of the blocks in the second beetle room and the ones in front of Mole Knight's room to save some time. -You can fire two flare wand shots where Mole Knight is coming out of the wall, then hit him twice more with your shovel as he flies by every time. If you do this perfectly you can kill him while he's sliding around on the floor. If he's not dead by the time he stands up, get behind him and just wail on him. -If Mole Knight lives long enough to cover himself in flames and start throwing fire at you, the glowing fire can be attacked and knocked back at him to deal damage.

(You can do Plague Knight or Treasure Knight next. If Reize happens to block Plague Knight's stage, do Treasure first instead of trying to reset him.)

PLAGUE KNIGHT: -Break all checkpoints. -The barrels in this stage will start their pattern as soon as the level starts. Try not to mess up a single time in the first few rooms or the first two barrel rooms will be harder to get through. -Knuckle through the first beetle and the two dirt blocks in the first room with enemies. Hop after knuckling to lose less speed. -Keep moving in the first room with the birds and try hit both of the two birds you'll see with knuckles. At the very end of the room you can use the phase locket to avoid having to wait for a platform. -If you reach the second barrel room in time (see my PB video) you'll only have to locket once to make it through and you won't ever have to stop. -Fire three flare wand shots at the alchemist miniboss while moving forward, then quickly knuckle through him twice. Then do repeated short hops and attacks while behind him. It is possible to kill him before he transforms this way, but the timing is very, very strict. -At the end of the room with the flames, you can bounce off the flying enemy to grab an off-screen ladder on the screen above to skip a section of the next room. Note that this also skips a health refill! -In the second room with the clone enemies, you can bounce off the one that jumps down and then knuckle the dirt block above to skip a portion of the room. -Plague Knight is mostly random, but the start of the fight is almost always the same. He'll do a large jump over you to the wall behind you, throw a potion, and then do some short hops forward. After that you'll need to react on the fly.

TREASURE KNIGHT: -Break some checkpoints. You'll only have to break about 3 to be good for money. -You can knuckle through several enemies and blocks early on to save some time. -In the first tentacle room you can fire the flare wand to get rid of some faster. -In the third tentacle room you can hold right as you fall in, attack and then bounce to get rid of the top two tentacles as they come out. Then walk on the third, bounce on it and Phase Locket to get across the spikes. -The fish miniboss can be defeated before he can go to the other side of the screen. Provided he's low enough you can hit him thrice every jump by shoveling twice and firing a flare shot. You can also try knuckling back and forth through the chest but as he keeps moving up and down this is risky. -Buy the Throwing Anchor. -While climbing the ladder into the room with several ladders make sure to get on it while facing right. If you then keep climbing you'll get hit by the fish and knocked left. After that, move left and jump, and you can bounce off the same fish between the last two ladders. -In the first missile platform room, you can knock the treasure off the left wall and immediately bounce off of it to grab the ladder and save a lot of time. -You can hop on the anchors as they fall, this includes the three in a row. If you're not too confident about those last three you can also wait a moment for the flying enemy to fire projectiles at you and bounce on them. Jump right before he fires so they fly at a good angle. -Treasure Knight has a small amount of randomness but is mostly fairly easy. Try to get as many flare shots in as possible when he's further away and otherwise keep doing short hops and attacking. If he goes up to the ceiling you can bounce on him and take out most of his health very fast, though if you kill him while he's up there he will take a very long time to fall down. In this case it's faster to bring him down to 1 hit and kill him as soon as he's at the bottom again.

DREAM #2: -Die as fast as possible. The only things in this dream that will do a full bubble of damage are the exploding potions and the knights' attacks, so try to bait the knights into attacking.

ARMOR OUTPOST: -Buy the Conjurer's Coat and Charge Handle.

PROPELLER KNIGHT: -Stop breaking all checkpoints. -You can knuckle through the first two jellyfish to save time. After the second one you can just barely grab the ladder. -In the room with the moving platform you can stand next to the beetle, attack it and then jump and bounce on it to skip part of the room. Knuckle through the mage afterwards. -Break the first checkpoint if you're still low on money. -Fire two flares at the airship miniboss, knuckle through him (3 hits) and then attack him 10 times from behind. Then jump into and bounce on him and quickly move to the screen to the right to skip bouncing on the cannonballs. -If you get to the Propeller Dagger room without enough money, keep in mind there's one pink gem in the nearby room with 5 jellyfish, and another one right of the Propeller Dagger chest, hidden in a dirt block. -Get the Propeller Dagger. -On the screen with the dirt blocks, a moving platform and a mage, dagger off the far end of the first platform and then knuckle through the dirt blocks. You can also dagger into the blocks and then dagger through, but this costs more mana and is riskier. -In the first room with changing wind, enter the room and don't do anything. Wait until your head hits the ceiling, then propeller forward twice and hold right. Propeller once more while above the top block, bounce off the jellyfish and dagger a last time. On PC this setup does NOT work if you have Vsync off. -Only hit Propeller Knight while he's doing his jab attacks and he'll always fly up to the left. You can bounce on him as he flies up to hit him with bouncing or the dagger while he's flying, then finish him off with anchors.

TINKER KNIGHT: -You can use the dagger throughout the first half of the level to save a lot of time. -Using the dagger is NOT faster than running across the conveyor belts. Save mana and just run across them. Naturally the same goes for the ones in Tower Ascent. -Buy the Mobile Gear. -In the room with the big moving platform, you can use the Mobile Gear twice to bypass waiting. -Defeat Tinker Knight in one hit with the Mobile Gear. -During the second phase, throw anchors at Tinker's head until he charges (7 hits). Then wait until he starts backing up, and throw more anchors. If thrown at the right angle each anchor will hit twice. It's possible to knock him down to 1 bubble of health right before he charges a second time. -If you run out of mana, the missiles Tinker Knight fires from his shoulder can be attacked and knocked back at him to deal damage. Mix them up with bounces on his head, and once he has one bubble left, fall down to his right and hit him with a charge slash on the way down.

POLAR KNIGHT: -Knock the right beetle in the first room off his platform and you can bounce up with him. -Dagger through the first few rooms to save a lot of time. -You can throw down a Mobile Gear in the first checkpoint room, jump on it and grab the ladder to skip a large portion of the room. On PC this does NOT work if you have Vsync off. -Knuckle through the dirt blocks and dragons in the first room they appear in. -You can skip having to move the rainbow dragon platforms by just using the Propeller Dagger to cross the gaps. -In the first room with ladder vikings, knuckle through the first two, then climb up and get hit by the third. -Use the Mobile Gear to cross the last spike room. Use the charge attack to knock back the mage's shot and then use a normal attack to finish him off. -Fire two flare shots over Polar Knight's first snowballs to get him to move, then just keep hopping and attacking him. Use the locket to get invincibility when he drops down for safety if you want.

DREAM #3: -Die as fast as possible again. The only things that do max damage are the viking spears and flying knight attacks.

TOWER ENTRANCE: -Lots of dagger and knuckle use. -There's a few big mana pots hidden in blocks in this stage, make sure to grab them or you will run out of mana very fast. -You can stunlock Black Knight in exactly the same way as the previous fight, but the timing is a lot more strict. If he does fly up try to bounce on him while he does, then attack him twice (charge + normal) every time he flies by. If he's still not dead when he summons meteors, finish him off with anchors.

TOWER ASCENT: -In the room with a lot of dirt blocks, you can knuckle through those straight ahead of you, then jump up and knuckle through the last one. -In the room with the rainbow dragon platform you can eventually get up on top of everything and bypass most platforming. -There's no ceiling, so bouncing on King Knight will be a bit less effective. Use short hop attacks instead. -Propeller Knight will not fly up after being damaged enough. This means you can kill him before he gets a chance to fly up.

?????: -The Enchantress's first phase can be killed before she gets a chance to go down, but it requires some luck with where she moves when zipping around. If you fail, you can throw some anchors down or try to jump down and hit her with a charge attack to finish her.