The game SuperTux Advance is still in development, however it has already gained a fair number of individual level runners the past month. People are already interested in submitting these runs, but I'm not sure if it's time to request a board yet. I have read the guidelines for submitting games that are still in development, but I still want the community's opinion on this. I have seen demos on speedrun.com previously so having a board this early doesn't sound impossible. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

You can submit the game as a prerelease, and try to see if it works.

Thank you, I will give it a try! I wish there was a way to contact the admins so that I didn't need to make a whole thread about this.

The problem with games in development, is that runs might become obsolete very quickly.
Suppose the developers decided to change the design of some levels, or change in-game mechanics, or fix bugs/glitches that are found during testing; then you will have to scrape the relevant leaderboards, and start all over again.

At least, it depends on how close the game is to be "finished", and you know that better than me.

The rules are intentionally written in a somewhat vague way to account for subjective rulings, with factors like popularity taken into account. This is why there are some games that are allowed pre-release on speedrun.com but not others.

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Well-known users or moderators of other games in a series may request unreleased games beginning 21 days prior to launch. In rare cases, requests for unreleased games may be accepted by well-known users and only at site staff discretion. Series moderators may also add games to complete a series. Games will not be added prior to release for users who are not well-known.

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Early Access Titles Games in a very early development stage will be examined much more thoroughly, and if balancing and bug changes are happening quite frequently we may hold off on accepting the request for a board until the game is more developed.

https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/game-request-rules

General advice from someone who has moderated "live service/ in development" games:
- Pay attention to how the game in question is updated, and if it is an Always Online title.
- Note that in some cases, it can be hard to downpatch games via Steam (I believe devs now have to specifically allow certain patches to be downpatched nowadays on Steam). If it's too hard to downpatch for whatever reason, you may need to

If it's Always Online game or otherwise hard to downpatch, then you need to make sure the main category is only for current patch runs/ runs that are possible on current patch, and reject older patch runs/ move older patch runs to an archived category.

Otherwise, if the game can be downpatched easily, it is up to you whether to keep all runs all in one category or separate runs by patch. This probably depends on the general community interest in running all or only some patches.

Another concern is about full game runs. You only mention individual level runs here, but full game runs may be something of interest later.
You want to avoid making a full game category too soon (ideally wait until development is over), or else the developer may release more levels in the future and you will have to redefine what the "full game" category means. Otherwise, you may need to split categories.

For instance, Dark Souls 3 has a category for "All Bosses (with DLC)" and another category for All Bosses (no DLC), as the All Bosses (no DLC) category was created and run before the Dark Souls 3 DLC was released.

@Oreo321Oreo321 @Solderq35 The reason I would like the board added even though levels could be changed an invalid is because the game gained so much popularity and I thought adding a board would make it so people can have competitive fun without waiting for maybe years. I would be quite strict with what versions you can and can't run on though to not make the board too messy. Like Solderq35 said, only individual levels would work for now.
Another solution would be to just make a google docs sheet.

Hi, moderator of SuperTux here.

The main reason I haven't submitted a game request for STA yet is because the game is still in volatile development - for example, some levels have been changed in nightly versions to make them mildly easier, etc. There's no reason to have leaderboards for the game when there are A: so many nightly versions that one might be advantageous for one specific level vs another specific level that needs another nightly (this makes switching versions painful, needing to reinstall the game constantly), and B: there hasnt been a significant update yet (like supertux has).

SuperTux has major versions, released once every couple of years, but STA has literally been in development for a couple of months. While there is competition for speedruns at the moment, a leaderboard will need to have stringent laws on what nightlies are allowed and what aren't. Ideally nightlies that the community agree on being allowable and ones that arent.

I think a google docs sheet is ok, but it doesn't exactly make the runs discoverable.