Squirrel With A Gun(2024)

Any% Routing Guide and Run Walkthrough

Updated 5 months ago by squirrelpascals

(Updated 01/09/24)

Intro

The great thing about running SwaG is that it’s very versatile with plenty of backup routes and options for acorns to grab. Strong movement and execution will get you a lot farther than routing the run “correctly.” However, the more you look to optimize the route, the more you’ll realize how much needs to go right for stronger runs, between NPC behavior, finicky physics, helmet clipping, and more.

I don’t expect anyone to read this whole guide, but if you do, you’ll know as much about routing the game as I do.

Before you run

Downpatch your game to 1.2.0.11 or any patch before
Familiarize yourself with the sped tech I'll cover in this guide

Where to start

If you’re new to speedrunning SwaG, you can skim through the “Recommended beginner route” that I cover in each area for a great place to start. The route collects 41 acorns instead of the required 40. You can either:

Cut your least favorite acorn from the run. "Flash Fried Patties" or "Door to the Spooky House" are good options.
Consider one of the acorns in pool as a backup acorn if you don't get a fast Jogger Stopper.

This spreadsheet lists the location and viability of each Golden Acorn. Use it to pinpoint which acorn is where and start crafting your route!

Routing Intuitively

Improving your run via routing requires intuitive thinking and game knowledge that I aim to provide a baseline for in this guide. Since the run is so volatile, I try to explain as much as I can so that readers can learn to pinpoint solutions to problems that arise in their own runs, and so they can gauge what might and might not work when looking to improve.

Objective

The objective of the run is to collect at least 40 golden acorns and 400 normal acorns, which will allow you to buy the drone in Mothers Tower and defeat the final boss, Mother, to complete the run. There is currently no known way of skipping the drone purchase.

Fundamentals

First, I’ll cover general strategies that are crucial to use throughout the entire run

Gun Choices and Usage

SMG: The top gun of choice for speedruns. Usually used throughout the entire run because of the precise control and movement consistency it offers. This is by far the best weapon to use for gaining height because of the size of the mag. In the first area of the game after completing Bunker, you can snag one from an agent by the Yellow House.
Shotgun: This weapon has the strongest recoil out of any gun, which makes it the fastest for short bursts of gun running or double jumping. Only 2 shots per reload make it very limiting, however. Some runners grab the acorns at Fenced Block after Bunker, and will start their run using the shotgun.
Pistol: Mostly used to navigate through Bunker. Every agent also carries one as a secondary weapon, so it can be used in a pinch.
Rocket Launcher: Although you can buy these in the streets, you’ll first come across them in the Waterpark during a speedrun. Used to snag the Rocket Jump! acorn, and press buttons if you’re not clipping into the tower. Can also be used to access the swim hole and complete the Anchor Management acorn.

Run Flow

There are 5 main areas in the run: Bunker, Mean Streets, Tough Streets, Waterpark, and Mother’s Tower. Each area is divided into sections, labeled on the top of your screen and in the spreadsheet. As a rule of thumb, it usually makes the most sense to finish grabbing all the acorns you want from each section before moving on to the next one to avoid too much back and forth.

The most common run flow is Bunker / Mean / Tough / Mean / Waterpark / Tower, which is what this guide will cover. It uses helmet clipping to skip buying the boat and, optionally, skip pressing buttons to access Mothers Tower (although this makes finishing runs harder). With this flow, you’re also able to obtain the “Jogger Stopper” acorn without buying the car, which is available for free in Tough Streets.

I cover how to get from area to area using Helmet clipping in my Tricks/Techniques guide.

If you don’t want to do any Helmet clipping at all, then you have the best shot at running Bunker / Mean / Tough / Waterpark / Tower*.* To access the Waterpark from Tough Streets, you need to purchase the boat, which costs 400 acorns that can most easily be obtained using Car Farming.

Collect every acorn in Mean Streets, except for Jogger Stopper, before advancing to Tough Streets.
Kill all the agents along the waterway to spawn the “Gold Agents on the Waterway” acorn.
Don’t go down the waterslide at the end! Leave the boat and use an SMG to fly and grab the newly spawned acorn without touching the slide, then fly to the side of the river.
Walk above the waterslide and around the OOB wall and to the right along the rocks until you’re past the pine tree. This skips a cutscene that's about a minute long.
You’ll need to press buttons later to access Mother’s Tower. I walk through an efficient way to do this in the Waterpark section.

Movement and Reloads

Chaining reloads together in tandem with gun running using perfect reloads is going to be your main source of speed for any part of the run that doesn’t involve driving the car. This is how you will travel from section to section the fastest. You can obtain reloads (the bullet pinecones) in three different ways:

Picking up a red flower
Picking up a wedge
Killing an agent

Optimally, you should be grabbing reloads as you gun run from point A to point B. Try to have a reload ready whenever you can! There are also guaranteed red flower spawns in each area that you can route around, which I’ll cover in each area.

If you're ever near a wedge en route, you should grab it! Not only do they grant you a reload, but for every 4 wedges you collect, you can store an additional reload. That means you can reload twice with 5 wedges, three times with 9 wedges, and so on. Having 2 reloads is a huge quality of life boost for the Waterpark, where you have much more distance and height to cover between acorns.

Run Breakdown

Next, I’ll cover area-specific strategies and routing philosophies. This section of the guide includes a beginner friendly route that anyone can start out with!

Bunker

Starting the run: It’s more common not to grab the first acorn, and to use the panel to prop throw through the roof to skip the first room entirely. You can refer to any top Any% run to see and refer to my prop throwing guide to see how this is done. If you’re struggling to get prop throws consistent, it’s completely fine to start by grabbing the first acorn just to give yourself finished runs and time save for later.

Be sure you grab one of the wedges from the lower bridges after the second room! Reloads won’t function as intended otherwise.

After the first few rooms: There’s plenty of ways you can quickly complete this game’s most frustrating level. I’ll explain both beginner-friendly and advanced methods for each acorn. When a specific combination of backward shots and upwards jumps are needed to get from one location to another, I’ll denote the movement pattern using B’s and U’s.

Scorching walkway

Simple method: Wait for the elevator to lift you up to the acorn, then grab it while gun jumping to the platform by the bridges.
Harder method: Instead of waiting for the elevator, you can use three double jumps to reach the acorn. Then, shoot backwards towards the other side of the bridge once, and double jump one more time to land on the bridge (U/U/U/Turn/B/U). This also lands you near a wedge.

Polecat… err… Polesquirrel

Simple method: Climb the first pole to the higher platform as intended, grab the gun at the back right, and use four double jumps to reach the acorn.
Harder method: Trigger a perfect reload from the platform with the reload circle. Use 4 jumps to land on top of the last bridge that’s facing towards you. From there, turn to face the opposite of the acorn. Jump and shoot backwards, do 4 double jumps, and shoot backwards one more time to reach the platform with the acorn (B/U/U/U/U/B). This is blind, and the hardest Bunker shortcut that you should be implementing last.

Hiding Underneath

Just double jump underneath the platform to access this acorn. Try not to backtrack when doing this.

Tippy Top Secret Acorn

SMG method: You can carefully route around collecting 99 acorns in Bunker in order to afford the SMG and fly to this acorn using a perfect reload. iswimfly does this in their run here.
Pistol method: Keeping the pistol, you can use 3 or 4 double jumps to jump to the light panels on the right, skipping the need to fight the agents. I would recommend using a perfect to do this, so that you can shoot backwards on the lights and double jump to the higher reload area without climbing the pole. Then, double jump your way to the fifth reload platform and wait until your full mag is loaded. Use 4 double jumps to jump on the light fixture above you, then 4 more to jump to the last reload platform. Both of these jumps are pretty high, so be sure you start double jumping at the peak of your jump.
Difficult pistol method: Instead of jumping to the light fixtures on the right, you can jump right over the lava pool by facing backwards, shoot in this pattern: B/U/U/B/U/B/U/B. You can also skip the fourth reload platform by shooting backwards from the third platform and towards the fifth one, and doing four spaced out double jumps to it. Proceed using the method above.

Other than using the skips I mentioned, the easiest time to save time in Bunker is to minimize time spent moving backwards, and to shoot behind you to propel yourself forward faster whenever possible.

Skipping Bunker: If you ever want to skip Bunker entirely, after prop jumping onto the roof of the first room, prop jump up to the cylinder you see on the edge of the upper ledge. This will warp you right to Mean Streets. This isn’t really used in Any% runs because of how quick the acorn grabs in Bunker are, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

Mean Streets (Part 1)

It’s usually worth picking up all of the acorns in Mean Streets, since most acorns here are easily accessible or require easy objectives. If you plan on returning to Mean Streets after Tough Streets, you can do however many or little of these acorns before Tough Streets as you want, though I’d recommend entering Tough Streets with the SMG.

Start/end points: It makes the most sense to start with the Fenced Block or Yellow House, since you can steal guns from agents in each area, and end with the Spicy House, since it’s closest to the skip you’ll be performing to get to Tough Streets (and not covered in mines, lol). One common start is to use a prop throw or scale the outhouse to access the Fenced Block, use Landmine Guy’s shotgun to collect the 3 acorns there, and load checkpoint after collecting ”In Landmine Guy's House” to spawn back outside. You can also steal an SMG immediately from an agent next to the Yellow house.

Movement: You won’t have access to a car for this part of the run, which means you’re relying on red flowers for speed. There are a few guaranteed red flower spawns you can take advantage of:

The corner of the Fenced Block next to the Pistol (by spawn)
Both the side yard (by spawn) and the backyard (closer to Skatepark) of the Yellow House
A row of flowers in the backyard of the Spicy house
A row of flowers behind the yard with the birthday man / row of umbrellas

If you want quick access to the skatepark acorns, charge a reload in the Yellow House backyard as you grab another. Use your first reload to gun run to the Skatepark, and your second reload to scale the ramp. Be sure to kill the agent at the top of the ramp, he has infinite aggro range and will prevent you from loading checkpoint.

Avoid the crossroads between the Yellow House, Skatepark, and the Fenced Block at all costs!!! There is an invisible cutscene in this area that will cost you 55 seconds if you step in it.

Recommended beginner route:

Scale the outhouse from the inside to get into the Fenced Block. Steal the shotgun from the Landmine Guy.
Collect “The Sovereign Citizen,” “Squirrel on a Hot Tin Roof,” and “Inside Landmine Guy’s House.” Load checkpoint immediately. (7)
Steal an SMG from an agent in the Yellow House yards.
Collect “Top O' The Yellow House,” “Crawl Space Maze,” and “Chiropractor” (10)
Make your way to the cookout party. Throw 4 patties from the grill to the floor, right next to the grill, but in between the grill and the NPCs sitting at the tables. Throw the 5th patty at the golden gas tank, and it will explode and cook your patties. Serve the patties for the “Light the Golden Gas Tank,” and “Flash Fried Patties” acorns. (12)
Gun run down the row of red flowers behind the Yellow House Yards. Using a perfect reload, fly above the umbrella outside the yard to collect “Brolly Bouncing.” (13)
Gun run to Spicy House. Use red flowers in the backyard for another perfect reload to scale the house. Collect “Top Shelf Prize,” “Climb and Leap to the Roof,” and “Floor is Lava.” (16)
Do Father Skip (with a reload ready if possible).

Father Skip (Getting from Mean Street to Tough Streets)

This is the easiest skip in the run that saves the most time from vanilla gameplay. All you have to do is go to the corner of Mean streets, behind spawn closer to the Fenced Block. Jump on top of the red bushes and walk as far into the corner as you can. Load checkpoint. Ta-da, you’re in Tough Streets! You can only get back to Mean Streets from here using Helmet clipping.

Tough Streets

Start/end points: It makes a lot of sense to start by grabbing “Canopy Crossing” first. If you’re entering Tough Streets with a reload, it takes about 10 seconds to go back and forth from the acorn to your spawn point once you load in (Start flying up to the acorn from a distance from the agents. Your next priority is going to be grabbing the car located between Yeehaw Zone and the Matrimonious Place. You can collect acorns from either of those areas first, just grab the car before you do Matrimony and use it to go from place to place. The car is open for free by default, so if you pick it up here, you can call it from the pause menu for the rest of the game. Most of the time, it makes the most sense to end Tough streets by collecting any of the two acorns from the Gridiron regardless of your run flow, since it puts you closest to the boat and the Helmet clip setups.

Movement: Besides having access to the car for free now, there are a few red flower spawns that can come in handy:

Various locations surrounding the “Canopy Crossing” acorn. One of these is a few seconds from where you spawn in.
Surrounding the wedding structure behind the Matrimonious place. Depending on your system, they may take a few seconds to load in.
On back balcony and roof (in version 1.3.0.1) of the Saloon

Recommended beginner route:

Gun run and fly to “Canopy Crossing,” then to the car. Use the guaranteed red flowers and kill the agents as you run backwards from “Canopy” to keep moving fast. (17)
Drive the car to the Matrimony backyard. Use a perfect reload to fly up to the back balcony, and hyperfocus to push the husband down. Collect “Certified Greek” and “Bachelor Party.” (19)
Drive to the Yeehaw Zone. Use a perfect reload to collect “Catupuncture.” (20)
Shoot the saloon sign before entering the shootout inside. Collect “Stealing from the Till,” “Saloony Goons,” and “Under Old Management.” (23)
Call a car in the street and drive to the Gridiron. Staying in your car, score a touchdown to trigger the fight. Direct the fight away from the football helmet on the ground. Score a field goal and collect “Touchdown” and “Field Goal.” (25)
Drive to the left of the electric pool holding the football helmet. [Helmet clip](Tech guide is posted! https://www.speedrun.com/squirrelwithagun/guides/xygsz) there to get to Mean Streets.

Returning to Mean Streets

Start/end points: The very first thing you should do upon spawning in is call your car (if you're not in it already) and look for the Jogger in hopes you can snag “Jogger Stopper” right away. Assuming you’re helmet clipping, your next priority is to set up for the Waterpark clip. You can reliably Super Yeet the football helmet with a strong throw between the Spicy House and Yellow House yards to set up for this. If you’re only going for “Jogger Stopper” or aren’t picking up any acorns, the Super Yeet isn’t necessary and it makes more sense to just drive there.

From there, whatever acorns you pick up on your second round of Mean Streets is up to you. Some runners only go for the jogger, while some pick up a few acorns before advancing to the Waterpark- I go over the advantages to doing that later.

The Jogger: The Jogger is the biggest wildcard in a run, and can be either a huge time loss if you rely on chasing her, or a huge time save if you cross paths with her along your route. Her path is predetermined; she will run in the same path every time and gets more predictable the more you run the game. One advantage to picking up a few acorns after returning to Mean Streets is that it makes you more likely to cross paths with her so you don’t have to seek her out. Collecting Brolly Bouncing here is a good option because it puts you in a high-traffic spot where the jogger is likely to pass by while you’re collecting it. The top of the big skate ramp also gives you a good view of the whole map, so you can see where she is from up there.

Mobility: Another big advantage is the obvious increased mobility with the car. Another reason why I like grabbing the Skatepark acorns after Tough Streets, for instance, is because it feels out of the way otherwise. Any acorn that feels out of the way at the start of the run might be faster to pick up now using the car.

Another reminder to avoid the crossroads between the Yellow House, Skatepark, and the Fenced Block at all costs!!!

Recommended beginner route:

Super yeet the football helmet to the end of the map between the Spicy and Yellow houses. Call your car.
Steal an SMG from the agent you didn't steal from before in the Yellow House yards. Drive it to the top of the big skate ramp at the Skatepark.
Collect “High in the Skate Park” and “Highest in the Skate Park.” Kill the agent at the top of the ramp. (27)
Look for the jogger and collect “Jogger Stopper” if you haven’t already. You can do this at any point after returning to Mean Streets. (28)
Drive to the back of the map where you threw the helmet. Pick it up and [Helmet clip](Tech guide is posted! https://www.speedrun.com/squirrelwithagun/guides/xygsz) into the Waterpark.

Waterpark

The Waterpark, also dubbed “Pool,” is where good runs go to die. Even if you’re not on a great run, I find it worth it to stick it out to practice this section, as that’s where mechanics are tested the most.

Start/end points: If you’re helmet clipping, you’ll start off in the yard between “Tower Reservoir” and the Spooky House. If you’re not helmet clipping, you’ll end up closer to “High Speed Pneumatic Tube .” Either way, these are both solid options for first acorns to grab, with the drained reservoir giving you easy access via halfpipe to “Truss Me,” “Gold Agents on the Highway,” or “Industrial Drainage Pipeline.” If you plan on clipping into Mother’s Tower, you also want to set up for that before leaving the drained reservoir by carefully throwing the helmet close to the entrance. Be careful not to throw the helmet into the river, since it will be difficult to grab without the diving suit! (Except if you’re going for “Jelly Jumping,” which you should use the suit for anyways.)

Efficiency: Pool is the hardest area in the game to route because of the sheer size of the area and spread between all of the acorns. In general, I find it best to path in a circle around Mother’s Tower either clockwise or counterclockwise while grabbing your Acorns. The Spooky House and Swim hole are the most out-of-the-way sections of pool, offering 3 and 2 acorns respectively, which may be an exception to the circle rule. Both areas offer easy acorn grabs, but if you want to shave time from your run, you can consider omitting one of these areas completely and grabbing acorns from elsewhere. You can't omit the swim hole if you're pressing buttons to access Mother's tower.

Rocket Riding: This is one of, if not the fastest and most efficient way to travel from the base of the tower. I go over how to do this in my [tech guide.](Tech guide is posted! https://www.speedrun.com/squirrelwithagun/guides/xygsz) There are two purple-suited agents with rocket launchers who will always give you a rocket to ride quickly once you aggro them:

The agent on the ground to the right of Mother’s Tower. Works well for accessing the floating platforms and grabbing “High Above the Bouncy Castle.”
The agent to the left of Mother’s tower under the structure and closest to the reservoir. I currently use him to get to the Spooky House after draining the reservoir. You have to be careful that he doesn't shoot the agents around him, who might run toward you once they see you.

For some reason, the others are inconsistent and have a tendency to wait a while before shooting you.

Buttons!!! If you lose the football helmet and want to finish out a run, or aren’t Helmet clipping at all, it’s worth knowing how to quickly press the five buttons to open Mother’s Tower. You can press any button by rocket riding above it and falling on to it from a distance in a pinch. Here’s a good order of buttons to press if you’re routing around it:

Button 1: Use the umbrellas nearby the Spooky House to press the tall-standing button as intended.
Button 2: At the “Rocket Ragdolls” platform, use the rocket launcher to shoot the button below, under the purple truss. (You can shoot through the mountain of rocks.)
Button 3: At the “Bouncy Rocket Blockers” platform, steal one of the agent’s rockets to shoot the button on the ground below.
Button 4: From either of those two platforms, throw a rocket launcher below, pick it up, and drive a car as far as you can into the swimming pool with the 4 colorful waterslides. Make your way to the top of the button, jump, shoot it, and load checkpoint immediately.
Button 5: You’ll spawn with your rocket launcher by the pool. Call a car and shoot the rocks above the swim hole. Collect “Anchor Management,” which presses the fifth button.

Recommended beginner route:

Refer to the buttons section above for how to press each button.

Drain the Tower Reservoir, but don’t pick up the acorn yet. Drive your car to the top of the ramp, pick up an SMG and the wedge, and use an infinite reload to fly up to the Pumpkin Patch.
Collect “Patch O' Jack-O'Lanterns.” Throw 2 Jack-o-Lanterns from the patch to the yard of the house. Collect “Spooky roof,” then “Door to the Spooky House.” (31)
Press Button 1.
Drive to the “High Speed Pneumatic Tube,” and load checkpoint after collecting the acorn. (32)
Call a car to collect the “Tower Reservoir” acorn. Car farm to at least 550 normal acorns. (33)
Aggro the rocket agent to the right of the tower. Rocket ride through “High Above the Bouncy Castle” to the platform with the SMG and buy it. (34)
- Alternatively, you can also bounce on the red trampolines by the bouncy castle and trigger perfect reloads to get to that platform.
Jump down to the platform below to buy the rocket launcher. Use it to kill the nearby agents. If you barely met or fell short of the acorn benchmark, kill the men on one of the platforms using the SMG and pick up some extra acorns. Collect “Rocket Ragdolls” using the SMG to traverse platforms. Press Button 2, and collect “Rocket Jump!” (36)
Use a perfect reload to fly up to the sniper platform. Use the SMG to collect “Sniper Squirrel,” then with a full mag, carefully flutter across to “Truss Me.” (38)
While jumping down to the platform with the 2 rocket agents, trigger a perfect reload and collect “Bouncy Rocket Blockers.” Steal a rocket launcher and use it to press Button 3 below. (39)
Throw the rocket launcher to the ground below, then across the river. Call a car and drive it to the pool with the colorful waterslides. Jump as far as you can into the pool, then leave the car and jump onto the button. Jump and shoot Button 4. Load checkpoint as you press the button.
Call a car once you respawn. Use your rocket to blast the swim hole, and jump in to collect “Rock Smashing Squirrel,” then “Anchor Management,” which presses Button 5. (41)
Load checkpoint to leave the swim hole quickly and drive to Mother’s Tower!

Mother’s Tower… Or not! (Tower skip)

Congrats! You made it to Mother’s Tower! Now, time to skip it completely!

To do this, drive towards the shotgun, past the button and to the very corner of the building (you can use the shotgun for speed on the way there). Be sure your drone is facing forward, position your drone in the very corner, facing the wall. Hold your directional keys/analog stick towards the corner, and pause while holding for about 12 seconds. Your momentum pushing into the wall will be preserved while paused, so when you resume, you should clip through the wall. If you have trouble doing this, try waiting and extra 5 seconds for more momentum.

You’ll likely be flung away from the tower structure. To trigger the Mother fight, drive back into the outer corner of the building while moving upwards and staying close to the walls. You’ll collide with an invisible trigger that will teleport you to the Mother fight.

Shoutouts to Gary Asher for discovering this skip, which shaves minutes!

Mother

Mother has three phases that progressively get easier in the context of a speedrun. Throughout the entire fight, you should be abusing perfect reloads (you’ll get plenty of reload charges throughout the fight) and stay close to reload platforms whenever possible.

Phases 1 and 2 require that you shoot the 3 lights on top of the helicopter to crash it (2 in the front on either side, and 1 on the tail), then shoot the men inside to advance to the next phase.

Phase 1

Go for the SMG immediately, then immediately try to shoot the lights in the front. There’s 2 movement patterns at the start of Phase 1: One where the copter stays distant from you (good RNG, easier to shoot), and one where it moves towards you (bad RNG- trigger an infinite reload and gun run away from the copter to more easily shoot the lights).
After about 15-20 seconds, the copter will shoot rockets at you. Gun run away from this attack and trigger a perfect reload. Don’t risk tanking it, as you’ll lose your gun and a lot of time if the rockets land close to you. After this attack, the copter will turn its tail toward you. Shoot the light to down the copter for the fastest possible Phase 1.
If you miss the lights in the front for whatever reason, don’t worry and keep shooting the copter or the men inside directly if the remaining lights are out of reach. The copter will crash once it falls below a certain health threshold.
Trigger a perfect reload when shooting the men inside the copter to trigger the electric attack and advance to the next phase.

Phase 2

Use your SMG to fly up to the next platform above for Phase 2. The copter’s lights will turn on once the boss resets, and it will attack from a distance.
There are 2 ways you can quickly crash the copter. One way is to hang on to your SMG and just shoot them all from a distance. This isn't as hard as it looks, so it’s worth trying. Using the sniper can be just as fast if you can aim and hit your shots, but try to pick up the SMG before the copter crashes.
Like phase 1, trigger a perfect when shooting the men inside the copter, but try to navigate to the opposite side of the copter as Phase 1, as it’s slightly faster and easier to hit the remaining men in the copter. If you end up on the wrong side, you can headshot the men on the other side.

Phase 3

Phase 3 does not require that you hit the lights on the sides/tail of the copter. Your only objective is to shoot the light on top of the spinning blades.

Hop on to the drone and do this in quick bursts with the SMG. If you aim precisely enough, you can even kill the light before the copter turns towards you!
You don’t need to use the drone in this fight. With enough experience and familiarity with the blade light’s hitbox, you can trigger a perfect reload and try to crash the copter before the lava reaches the platform you're standing on. If you do this, be sure to fly in the air with the SMG while the copter crashes so you don’t tragically die seconds before you complete your run.

Time ends when what’s remaining of Mother’s health bar turns completely red. Congratulations! You’ve just completed a run!

That’s the end! If you have any questions about running this game, join the SwaG speedrunning discord and ask there! Also don’t hesitate to comment or PM me directly if you have questions about anything here.

Huge thanks to SabulineHorizon, Gary Asher, and iswimfly for their amazing input and help with this guide!

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