Boss Kill% Guide

This comprehensive guide will cover the strategies and materials used for the modern Boss Kill% speedrun route, which involves killing the Giant Sea Eel boss without the talisman. In order to fight this boss, you will need to be playing on a 2017 version of the game, such as CoolmathGames.com Stranded Isle or itch.io P.Craft Deluxe. The boss room can be reached by climbing down a ladder surrounded by gem rocks that spawns inside of the cave.

The boss is a common run killer due to how fast and random his movement is. If you're new to this category, I recommend farming 3-6 apples for healing for each attempt.

Boss behaviour:

The Eel's behaviour can be divided into 3 different phases:

Chase: The boss head charges you in a quick burst of speed every second. Most charges will be aimed at you, but there is a heavy variation in the angle. Also, the head and other parts of the body can slowly move in random directions in between charges.

Electrocution: The boss will attempt to head to an area south of the entrance and start electrocuting the water, making it deal 5 damage per half second. Its body or tail can sometimes move in a way that allows you to get some safe hits on it from the land south of the entrance.

Wander: The boss slowly wanders around without chasing you. This is a double-edged sword, because if you are close to the boss then it means you can get some free hits in, but a wander phase can waste time if you are far away trying to lure it to the trapping spot.

Most of the time it will do an electrocution phase, then a chasing phase that lasts for 3-6 charges, followed by a final charge sound to retreat back down for another electrocution phase. However, sometimes the boss will make the charge sound, but instead do a wander phase. If a wander phase happens, it is usually after an electrocution phase, but it can sometimes happen after 3 or 6 charges in a chasing phase. A wander phase is usually followed by a chasing phase, but in rare cases the boss can go from a wander phase to an electrocution phase. There are a few other rare behaviours as well, such as a chasing phase lasting more than 6 charges.

There are two known methods speedrunners use to kill the boss:

Trapping method: North of the entrance is a 2x2 block of red stone. After the electrocution phase, move up north to position yourself above it. The goal is to lure the boss head to be directly above this 2x2 block when it tries to retreat south for an electrocution phase. If you succeed, the head will get stuck there, and the rest of the body will stretch out, allowing you to safely take out a large portion of its health from the land around the entrance. Due to the random nature of the boss, this is very inconsistent and luck based. Sometimes the head won't go in the right place to get trapped, and sometimes the head will catch up to you while you're in the deep water around the block and hit you several times for massive damage, often resulting in death if you don't have apples. If you survive however, kills with this method are usually under 2 minutes, and potentially as low as 30 seconds if you're extra lucky. Below are 3 video examples. The 3rd video is an example of a slower but still barely successful kill where the Eel was less cooperative.

https://youtu.be/1cJkmK7BJi0?t=249
https://youtu.be/kqSC_F-NLE8?t=263
https://youtu.be/t3-4M-Tu9nM?t=273



Yolo method: This method is riskier, but in my experience, I was able to get sub 50 second kills much more often. It involves using the land around the entrance to try to maneouver around the boss while its chasing you, getting in as much damage on the boss as you can while trying to minimize the damage you take. In some situations you can sidestep the head to misdirect it away from you while damaging the rest of its body safely. This is usually easier said than done however. Also when the boss is about to retreat to its spot for an electrocution phase, you wanna try to anticipate this and be as close as possible when the retreat happens, so you can get some hits in before the electrocution starts. Lastly, keep your eyes peeled for wander phases, because they are a great way to score some free hits if you are lucky enough to get one. If you survive, kills with this method can often be in the low to mid 40s, sometimes even under 30 seconds with near perfect luck. Video examples of the yolo method:

https://youtu.be/fcxp57Vzqmk?t=198
https://youtu.be/wpIrg4keA78?t=235
https://youtu.be/2vu5aSggFL8?t=212

If you want to practice the fight, you can do so by saving your game at the boss entrance with a gem sword and 3-6 apples. Open up a bunch of new tabs and load the game to make copies of that save, and then you'll be able to easily access the boss from each tab, switching tabs each time you or the boss dies. You can also restart the fight by doing a cart reset, but that only works if you can open the menu before the boss kills you. Remember that the run is short, so even if you die most of the time, simply being able to get an occasional boss kill here and there will suffice.


Once you've gotten the gist of the boss fight, you are ready to learn the rest of the run. The pre-boss portion involves gathering the materials to craft a gem sword, and locating the boss entrance.

The safe route:
Punch 5 wood
Craft wood pick
Mine 20 stone
Craft stonebench, then place it to craft a stone pick
Mine 12 stone
Craft stone haxe and stone sword
Gather 10 wood, 3-6 apples, 25 stone, 25 iron, and 15 gems
Craft anvil, then place it to craft a gem pick
Mine 21 gems and find the boss entrance
Craft the gem sword
Enter the boss room
Kill the boss

Total materials: 15 wood, 57 stone, 25 iron, 36 gems, and 3-6 apples for safety

Make sure you craft your gem sword before you enter the boss room, because once you enter, there is no way out until the boss is dead. Even if you have all the materials, you can't place crafting tables in the boss room.

If you've read this far, you are ready to start doing runs. The above route works well for getting a 5 minute time, and can go sub 5 with good RNG. However, if you want to know some additional ways to save time, or even go for sub 4 (Which I don't recommend if you value your sanity), read on.


Optimizations:
-A bit of menuing time can be saved by leaving crafting tables behind when you no longer need them. For example, not picking up the workbench after you've crafted the stonebench, or the stonebench once you've crafted the anvil.
-Make sure you gather your last 4 gems from the rocks surrounding the boss entrance, since you need to mine one to access the boss anyway. You preferably want to gather your last 5-8 gems here, because mining one of the 4 corner gem rocks makes it so that you have an easier time getting the gems from the final rock without them going into the ladder.


Some riskier strats you can go for:
-Skip crafting the gem pick. The gem pick can mine gems relatively fast and cut through stone like butter, making it easier to reach the boss entrance if it spawns in a bad spot. But if you get lucky and find the boss entrance early on, skipping the gem pick usually ends up being faster.
-Spend less or no time farming apples. Without apples your odds of surviving the boss will be quite low, so whether the time save is worth the risk depends on your goals for the category, and your willingness to grind it out. For sub 4, I had to make do with whatever apples I got in the process of gathering wood for the pick and anvil.
-Skip crafting the stone sword. The stone sword doesn't take long to craft and is useful for fending off zombies, so it's probably not worth skipping unless your pb is already very optimized.
-Fight the boss more aggressively, going for damage even when you'd be forced to take electrocution damage, or take extra hits from the Eel itself. This can often get you killed, but it can also potentially net you a faster kill if the boss is at low hp, or be used as a last resort to try to clutch out a pb if you are running out of time.


RNG factors, and the pace I needed for sub 4:
-Cave ladder spawn. You have less to do in the overworld compared to any%, so finding the cave ladder quickly is even more important than ever. For sub 4, I reset if I couldn't reach the cave by 1:05 with 10 wood (or some iron/gems/progress towards finding the boss room). The best paces I got entered the cave with 10 wood at around 50 seconds.
-Boss ladder spawn. Ideally you want to find the boss ladder while you are still gathering materials for the anvil. In my experience, the best way to maximize your chances of finding an early boss ladder is to find a corner that doesn't require too much mining to get to, mine until water is visible on both edges, and if you don't find it there, check another easily reachable spot far away from that corner. For sub 4, I reset if I couldn't enter the boss room by 3:30. The best pace I ever got was a low 3:1X boss entrance, and a 3:0X entrance is theoretically possible. Even a 3:2X entrance is already hard to come by though.
-Gem luck. Another common run killer when going for sub 4. Gemore takes around 10 seconds to mine, and can drop anywhere from 2-4 gems, so it can take anywhere from 6 to 11 gemore to get 21 gems for the sword, or 4 to 8 gemore to get 15 gems for the pick. If you skip the gem pick like I did, an ideal run is 6 gemore. Occasionally, I could still get a 3:2X entrance with 7 gemore, but if you get 8 gemored you're pretty much screwed.
-Boss fight. For sub 4, the already luck based elements of this fight will be amplified by the fact that there is less room for slow kills, and you'll have fewer apples to tank damage with. With the very limited time you have to chop trees, good "apple luck" is entering the boss with 2 or more apples. During my grind for sub 4, a bad boss kill was 50 seconds or more, a good boss kill was under 45 seconds, a great boss kill was under 40 seconds, and an excellent boss kill was 30 seconds or lower.

Additional notes:
-A stone sword is not viable for killing the boss in this category. Even if you managed to get a kill with it, it would take far too long, because it does very little damage and your bar runs out much faster with it.
-Even though you only need 10 wood for the anvil, it is rarely (if ever) worth skipping the stone axe. It takes very little time to make and chops trees much faster than your bare hands do.
-There is a rare glitch that can occur with the boss, but it has yet to be reproduced, and it is unknown if it could be useful for speedrunning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3RAJ7muPpc

That concludes the guide. Hope it proves to be helpful.

Everything You'd Want to Know Before Starting Any% Glitchless

### First, assuming you're fresh into the game, SUPER basic info:

- The green number shows how much of the item you picked up is in your inventory, and the yellow number is how much damage you're doing to something. Orange is just that but for zombies, and red is how much damage you're taking.

- The version doesn't really matter; P.Craft, P.Craft Deluxe, and Stranded Isle have the same Any%. See the guide on versions for more info.

- You beat the game by placing a boat and leaving the island. Timing begins on first input in a new world, and ends either on save disc's first frame of appearance, or the victory screen, for Deluxe/SI and P.Craft respectively.

### From here, it's a basic Any% guide. I recommend only following this verbatim if you're new, and I'll explain why later:

1 - Get 5 wood by punching trees. You can count to 8 and avoid the slowness effect that happens when you punch too much, by the way.

2 - Place your wooden table and craft a wooden pickaxe.

3 - Get 20 stone, use the wooden table to make a stone table, and use that to make a stone pick.

4 - Things start to diverge here across runs, but for now, I recommend getting 19 stone here.

5 - Make a stone sword, axe, and shovel. I recommend picking up your benches here as well.

6 - Use your axe to get 65 wood, and switch to your sword to kill zombies along the way. Again, different runs do different things, but for this guide let's go wood first.

7 - Head down to cave, and start mining for the following materials: 10 gem, 24 iron, 30 stone. If there's any zombies, kill them.

8 - Shovel up 36 sand, and go back to the surface.

9 - A few zombies from before have hopefully netted you ~7 ichor and some fabric. Now all you need is 27 ichor and 12 fabric total, so kill a bunch of zombies for that. If you can't find any, zombies respawn every time you go down or up the ladder, so just keep doing that until  you have all of the stuff you need.

10 - Now is the time to do "end menuing," which basically has you craft everything you just collected into a boat or something that makes a boat. It goes like this:

- Place down both wooden table and stone table.
- Go into the stone table, make a furnace, and place it.
- Make 8 iron bars and 12 glass.
- Go to the wooden table, and make a chem table and factory. Place the chem table.
- Make 9 glue.
- Place the factory.
- Make 4 sails, then a boat.

11 - Now that end menuing is finished and you have a boat, place it in any tile of water. It doesn't matter whether it's in a cave, in a puddle, etc.

### Using this exact route, you're likely able to get a respectable time. You can improve relatively quickly with a few other things in the back of your mind, though:

A. The entire game is heavily RNG-dependent when doing a run. Every single drop in the game has a chance to be one thing and a chance to be another thing, ex. trees, stone, and ores drop 2-4 at random. (Not if it's in Any% w/ perfect drops, a.k.a. Dream% (Any%), though. The following is still present, though.) Zombies will also spawn at random, and the map generation is almost entirely random, with only the stone around the ladder remaining the same. Even damage dealt is random between 2 values, ex. stone pickaxes go from 5 to 8. All of this to say, you can improve times by simply playing the game more.

B. The seed is VITAL to a good run. A perfect seed has the ladder in view, some trees, and at least a small bit of extra stone, as well as a lot of open area for zombies to spawn. (In my opinion anyway, top runners have a different definition of what is a "perfect" or even viable seed.) A little pond is also nice, but not necessary if water is at least somewhere close by. As long as a seed has some trees and close ladder/stone, though, it's runnable.

C. The route can be switched around with little consequence. It's mostly a judgement call what you do when after a stone pick, ex. getting all the cave stuff may be a lot easier than getting a lot of trees to begin, so it's perfectly fine to start with that and/or move getting sand or stone to the surface for a faster and easier time. As long as you get stone tools before trying to get stuff like wood, it's almost required to break the structure of the route I laid out above to be consistently faster. Being able to mix things up and not stay rigid is the first mental barrier you gotta break when speedrunning SI, alongside multithreading and EBM whenever you move up a notch.

### From here down, this is stuff I recommend familiars with SI read through to improve their times. I ordered it from generally the most vital to least vital tips for anyone looking to get better with everything above already known:

- Don't lock yourself into doing one thing at a time. Just like killing zombies whenever you can, you should spawn them as often as you can, and also be open to collecting multiple things at a time. For example, after depleting your bar from mining gemore, (gem ore) you may have time to go up the ladder and kill some zombies before going back down and finishing it off. Maybe you need to mine an iron ore or dig some sand along the way there to not lose time, and that's okay. It's optimal, even. This is called "Multithreading" and will massively help you improve your times.
- EBM, or Extended Bar Management, is just not letting your bar completely empty out or completely fill up, to summarize. Always be doing something, even if that means taking an indirect route. Ex, killing a zombie at the edge of the screen, where to keep EBM I break a tree or two on my way. Same applies in caves, too; if an ore is too far away, shovel some sand on your way there. That's an abridged version of applying EBM, anyway.
- All newly-collected items go to the bottom of your menu, and otherwise it's in the order you last used something. Keeping a mental map of your menu, therefore, is fairly easy to do, and can save you some time, especially when you have to switch between tools quite a bit. At least remember where your tables are, so that you can mash directly to them faster. If you didn't know, going up at the top of a menu will take you to the bottom as well, which makes fetching stuff like your stone tools faster.
- "Quick Placing," previously dubbed "Plenuing" and also called "Paul Placing," is basically a frame-perfect button press to place a table without losing stamina. Literally just press the place button 1 frame. Alternatively, whenever punching trees at the start, you can time placing the workbench while hitting a tree to do the 2-for-1 "Plunch," but it's a more niche use case than quick placing.

That's about it! I'll update this whenever either a newbie asks a question not answered here, or an experienced runner wants something added for newer players. Thank you for reading, and I hope you run SI!

(Make sure to look at Andrew's Boss Kill% guide, and keep an eye out for some Misc. category routes being put up in the future!)

Optimizing Your Stamina Usage, aka Bar Management

Intro : ) - This is basically how to best use that wonderful green bar above your health, and it WILL touch on basically everything there is to know. I tried to order it in what people will come across first to last naturally, but that doesn't mean all of it is necessary. If you're new, you can prolly just read the first 2 paragraphs and know enough to get a solid time, but if you've been around a while, you can skip to the 3rd and 4th. (If you even need told about EBM.) I may or may not make this a video to more easily explain things as well, but it's here in case I don't get around to it or I don't think it's necessary. Oh and also gemore stands for gem ore, so that the item and cave block aren't confused. If you're so new you don't know that, there ya go.

Keep A Sliver - The simplest thing to understand is that if the bar bottoms out, you move half as fast for a bit, which will obviously lose time, so just don't do that. You can count your hits, and pause somewhere in the middle of holding mine, so the last hit comes out without bottoming out your bar. Not holding mine for a small amount of time on that tree can save little itty bitty pieces of time, but for the most part this doesn't matter. 

Mine Gemore Correctly - Where bar management is MOST important is gemore mining, since getting gems will take ~25 swings of your pick, or almost 2 full stamina bars, and not mining optimally can easily lose ~5 seconds. If you held mine the ENTIRE time, you would lose time, since the rate you swing your pick is too slow. Instead, stop on the hit that removes that last sliver of stamina, and wait for it to refill. This allows you to not only mine it faster, but collect it when it spreads out quicker than if you had no bar at all. The reason the latter's the case is because you can swing 13 times with a stone pick, and with 2 stamina bars being 26 hits, you still have a hit's worth left that lets you move quickly after mining gemore.

Correct Resource Collecting - There are some things you wanna mine before others. For example, if you have half a bar, you can mine an iron ore, and while you could wait next to gemore and get a full bar and THEN begin mining, that loses time. So make sure you're not hopping from one to the other willy-nilly, but rather a bit more carefully. This is also the case if you're basically out of bar; take out your shovel and get a bit of sand, as carefully pressing the shovel button makes it neigh impossible to lose bar, and you don't lose efficiency either when done right. Getting an order of things that take more bar to less bar could go a long way in helping shave off the last second or so you need.

Extended Bar Management - This is gonna be EBM, or Extended Bar Management, where you're stretching the bar optimization across multiple resources, and it can even go across the entire run. From here, the stamina bar has a bit of control over what you need to do. Not only should you not let it bottom out, but you should try to avoid it filling up completely, as it would lose time. The best analogy is something like overflowing resources. If you don't spend the resources before more come in, you're screwed of some because you can't store it. That's pretty much what walking around with a full bar is doing; you're wasting time when not using the bar to its fullest. If it's almost full and you plan on going to a zombie at the top of the screen, collect some resources you don't have if you can. If trees are blocking the way, go get some wood, and let the zombie come to you. Not only did you squeeze in some wood collecting, but also walked less distance because you let the zombie walk to YOU. This decision-making can be applied basically everywhere and anywhere where two resources are close together, and helps you choose which to go for first.

	One instance of EBM could stretch over almost 3 minutes, which is important to keep in mind. One thing flows into another all the time in this game, so don't treat it as a case-by-case basis, but more so a gameplan and strategy for doing runs. (Which boils down to balancing your bar as best as possible.)

End Thingy - That's almost all this game really has to offer about stamina! There's certain smaller things, ex. better tools let you swing more and have more stamina because of that, but memorizing that is something you could do on your own, and as long as you know fist has 8, wooden pick has 11, and stone pick has 13, you're good to go. Idk what you'll do with this knowledge outside of speedrunning this game, but I'm glad you have it now I guess.

Version Links, Differences, And How to Find What Version You're Playing

Just a mini-guide explaining the "Version" variable a bit.

Versions:

   -P.Craft is the first release, found on Lexaloffle: 
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3200

   -P.Craft Deluxe is the version on sites like itch.io, and is also the downloadable version of the game. It added a boss fight, talisman, and a map: 
https://nusan.itch.io/pcraft

   -Stranded Isle is the version found on places like Coolmath, and is technically the most recent version, but it's not very different from P.Craft Deluxe: 
https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-stranded-isle

   -The MelonkeepR Mod changes all drop rates to be their max, and is a mod of P.Craft Deluxe in particular. You can find the download for it in the Resources tab.

  -Pog Edition v.0.9+ is a mod of P.Craft created by me which offers alternative sounds, music, and also makes the text a bit more natural. (ex. haxe is just axe.) It's available in the Discord server, or alternatively you can DM me and I'll send v.0.9.2 your way.

Differences:

   -P.Craft and -Pog Edition don't have to load at all, making seed grinding trivial and timing a bit more simple. However, you obviously can't run Boss Kill% with them, as a boss doesn't even exist, and the absence of a map makes verifying No Land% impossible.

   -P.Craft Deluxe and Stranded Isle are practically identical, and whichever you play between them comes down to preference. If you want to play a downloaded version, however, P.Craft Deluxe is your only option.

How to Tell Versions:

   -Title screens are the best bet, and the easiest way to distinguish them. It literally tells you which version it is.

   -The pause screen looks different between P.Craft and P.Craft Deluxe/Stranded Isle. Only P.Craft has a semi-transparent black background, as the other two versions just have a solid black one. The options in that menu are also different; note the "Options" and "New Game/Save Game"

   -When fullscreened, there's a slight difference between itch.io and coolmathgames - those things at the bottom of coolmathgames that are "Exit Fullscreen" and the level EXP bar are not in the itch.io version. (obviously) There's also a difference as for where it puts the game: itch.io snaps it to the top middle, while coolmathgames keeps it near center middle.

   -If everything is dropping max drops, and the drops aren't varied at all, then it's obviously the MelonkeepR Mod. 

   -While -Pog Edition is hard to detect visually, audibly it is much different. Music is changed, sounds are changed, etc.

What's It Matter?

   -Play the version most comfortable to you. P.Craft, and its mod -Pog Edition, are easier to seed reset since there's no cart swapping, but they don't allow you to run categories like Boss Kill% or No Land%. Deluxe and Stranded Isle don't have any gameplay difference, however one might not work as consistently for you as another. The MelonkeepR Mod is only to be used for Dream% runs, so if you don't like RNG that much you can always go with that.

Andrew_

HoloKnight

Stranded Isle

PICO-8

DarkGlyph

VegetaTheSaiyan8

P.Craft

P.Craft Deluxe

Pog Edition v0.9+

Glitchless

Glitched

Vanilla*

Dream%

MelonkeepR Dream% Mod

MelonkeepR Dream% Mod Reskin

Xar Dream% Mod

Rythin Timer Mod

Rythin Timer Mod Dream%

Ellie Speedcraft Mod

Ellie Speedcraft Mod Dream%

Ellie Speedcraft Mod Deluxe

Version

Glitchless or Glitched?

Odds Unaltered or Altered?

If there's any month to see a category get a new record, it's probably going to be this one. There's an initiative for every single game developed by NuSan to get a new fullgame world record, and that includes Stranded Isle. Unlikely that every SI category will see a record, but there will be a much

Name	Author
Boss Kill% Guide	Andrew_ 2 years ago
Everything You'd Want to Know Before Starting Any% Glitchless	HoloKnight 6 months ago
Optimizing Your Stamina Usage, aka Bar Management	HoloKnight 3 years ago
Version Links, Differences, And How to Find What Version You're Playing	HoloKnight 2 years ago