No I record them locally, I find that already complicated enough as it is ^-^ I'm currently trying to find the sweet spot for video quality, what bit rate setting are you using ? Can I lower the fps to 24fps or would it look weird ? I'm thinking about sacrificing some fps to get better video quality...

Turns out, I've already received my new Hdmi splitter ! I didn't expect that. I guess the Ebay seller has an Amazon prime account or something. Ordered Saturday evening, delivered Sunday at 11am... I just need to find 3 hours of spare time now !

I got my HDMI splitter, it worked fine... for an hour and then stopped working... I ordered another one, more reliable... according to articles I've found online. Geee, I'm out of luck lately !

Technically, I could, but I ordered an HDMI splitter and some RCA-to-Jack 3.5mm connectors. I have a cheap capture card (that doesn't even accept 960p so I'll have to capture in 480p) and to get the sound off of my TV as well as the capture card, I need to unplug several things and have cables running everywhere. So, early 2019, I should have a better setup, way more convenient. Don't expect me to beat your awesome run anytime soon though, I haven't made a proper run for a while now.

Congrats on your run !

I've received my Toro VGA box today... 3 days late...

And make speedruns more enjoyable for everyone.

To celebrate this very special Christmas, here are my findings for this game. Fans might be interested in those little anecdotes... I know I would ^-^

SPOILER ALERT LEVEL 4 !!!

The meaning of the names :

Nephilim : means "Those who have fallen" in Hebrew which is a reference to Nephilim falling from the sky.

Jascony : is a reference to Sinbad's 1001 nights tale, Jasconius is the name of the island which is actually a giant turtle ! In reference to the Dinosaur island which is an egg basically.

Eliot : Again from Hebrew, the prophet of Israel "Elie". Eliot is the hero and has been chosen by Nehilim.

Aegis : Means "shield" in Greek, and Aegis is the satellite that protects the island.

About Dogs Bower :

Dogs Bower's boat is called the SS Deanna which comes from Diane (in Latin) or Artemis (in Greek) which is the goddess of hunting and Dogs' main weapon is a bow...

Something I've realized pretty late in my life, is that Dogs was most probably in the helicopter that crashed in the very first cutscene. This would explain why he appears on the pier and then disappears. Maybe he went back to the helicopter to get his bow... Who knows.

Infinite boss :

When you enter a boss room, the condition for the boss to appear is the presence of certain items in your inventory : the item they give you when they die.

So, if you kill a boss and quickly leave the room, you can re-enter and fight it again... and you can repeat that as much as you want. Handy if you want to practice fighting against some of them.

Crates glitch :

If Eliot is equipped with the close quarter weapon "Iron fist" you can push crates by hitting them. It's slow, seemingly useless so far but maybe one day someone will find a way to make that useful.

If you place a crate close to a wall but leave enough room to let Eliot stand between the wall and the crate, you can punch the wall and get pushed backward, you'll end up "stuck" in the crate. Again, so far, it's useless but maybe someday...

O² reserve :

Maybe you didn't notice, but you can only spend 40 seconds underwater. Once you have the O² reserve, you can spend up to 1 minute and 20 seconds underwater.

Cut-scenes, radio calls and CG length :

The combine length of the cut-scenes, CG and radio calls is around 58 minutes. So basically, Blue Stinger takes roughly an hour of actual gameplay.

Out of bounds (OoB) :

I've been able to go out of bounds once in almost 20 years, but don't get too excited... My character got stuck... and it was underwater... so I've watched my character suffocate and couldn't do anything about it. Why is it important : Going from one place to another one requires you to use doors and apparently you can't move if you're out of bounds. This indicates me that going out of bounds will most likely never be useful in Blue Stinger.

There are items out of bounds ! If you place the camera at certain angles you can get a sneak peek at what's out of bounds and sometimes, you can see an item. From what I could see, there is an OoB item out of each room where you'll get an item (from someone or something). My theory : Items need to be loaded in the scene when you enter the room. So, the item(s) you'll receive in this room are stored outside those rooms and copied when needed.

There is an OoB item in the room where Roland is (the Hello Market manager) and it looks to be pretty big, the size of a decent weapon. Here, I have a theory too : I think the Shotgun you get from saving Roland was initially planned to be handed out to you directly by Roland. But devs changed it while developing the game and left this weapon OoB as no one could reach it anyway.

How to know EXACTLY when Nephilim falls :

During the cut-scene in the Gigadent, you can see exactly when the Aegis satellite was destroyed. In all the gibberish written on screen, there are actually some "useful" infos.

Here you go, those are my little known facts about Blue Stinger, they are all listed on my website for a while now but since the site is in French, I thought I would share with my fellow English speaker speedrunners.

If you have theories, cool facts, anecdotes and/or glitches to share, I'm all ears !!! Please share them below ! Happy very special Christmas !

@Rodas_13 I'm watching your stream right now. I notice you're using a cheat sheet, here's a link to my website where you can screenshot mine if you want/need : http://blue-stinger.hebergratuit.net/english/pense_bete.php There are all codes, CB codes and the Power plant sections listed. Maybe yours will be good enough, but just in case.

You're a lucky man ! Guess what, I have the TV, the OSSC, 4 versions of the game and... no cable ! I've ordered a VGA box from Beharbros thinking I would receive it for Christmas but I didn't. =( I had another VGA box, flying from UK to France that I offered with the Dreamcast I gifted my friend back in France. I'm glad my post was useful for at least one person though, that's great !

Hi, Saihawkeye

I don't know enough about emulators myself to classify an emulator as more accurate than another one. Therefore, if I had to take care of the emulator category(ies) myself, I would either :

• place all emulators under a single category (which would be unfair I guess)
• find which one is the best one and only allow the most accurate one (which would probably create a barrier of entry)
• place each emulator under separate categories (which would reduce competition)

The best way of doing things would be for me to add a new moderator to Blue Stinger leaderboard, someone with deep knowledge of Dreamcast emulators to take care of that side of things. Someone able to create the perfect balance, allowing as much emulators as possible, entertaining the competition (if there are three separate categories and 3 runners, everyone is #1 and no one competes with anyone else) and making sure everything is as fair as possible.

In the meantime, if you have a run ready to be submitted, submit it and I will create a new category (called "emulated runs" for now). So long as there is only one run, multiple runs from a single person or multiple runs from multiple people but using the same emulator this could do the job.

As soon as someone else shows up with a different emulator, things will start to get complicated and I won't be able to guarantee fairness. So I would most probably create a different category for each emulator, unless someone can take care of this side of the leaderboard.

So, to answer clearly to your question : ANY emulator is allowed for now

!!!--- But ! If someone comes to moderate the emulated runs, I can't guarantee that this person wouldn't ban one or multiple emulators. And I wouldn't interfere with his decision(s), he will be the one in charge of emulated runs, not me ---!!!

I'm open to suggestions, how would you handle things ? How should I ?

And a quick PSA : If someone is knowledgeable when it comes to Dreamcast emulators and Blue Stinger, would you like to become a moderator for emulated runs on Blue Stinger's leaderboard ? It's not the most overwhelming task in the world, there aren't many Blue Stinger runners.

The 24th of December 2018 is the exact date when the events of Blue Stinger take place ! The meteor (Nephilim) hits the Aegis satellite at exactly 14h35 and 52 seconds.

If you start the game at exactly 14h31 and 49 seconds, you will play at the exact moment where the game is supposed to take place ! How awesome is that !!!?

Here are the exact moment when you'd need to start the game to be synchronized. Press "New game" on the main menu and let the introduction roll out, the moment when Nephilim hits Kimra Corporation's satellite will happen roughly at the same time it would happen in the game.

United Kingdom Mon, 24 Dec 2018 20:31:49

Washington DC, DC, USA Mon, 24 Dec 2018 15:31:49

Los Angeles, CA, USA Mon, 24 Dec 2018 12:31:49

Moscow, Russia Mon, 24 Dec 2018 23:31:49

Paris, France Mon, 24 Dec 2018 21:31:49

Mumbai, India Tue, 25 Dec 2018 02:01:49

Tokyo, Japan Tue, 25 Dec 2018 05:31:49

Sydney, Australia Tue, 25 Dec 2018 07:31:49

These things don't happen very often, it happened with "Back to the future" a few years ago, and now it's Blue Stinger's time to shine !

"What are we going to do if the monsters attack while we are butt naked ?!" "We'll fight back butt naked !!!"

Happy special Christmas !

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't get a notification, I saw your post randomly. I've just changed the rules, from now on, we'll have to have a video proof. I've been operating on trust so far, for instance, Neon made a run on emulator for me so he could show me that he had the knowledge/skill to actually make such a low time. That's why I accepted his time, he has since beat it anyway.

As for Goose's video, not everything was relevant, but there were some good points that I was afraid that I missed in my post. That's why I thought it would be a good idea to link it.

Why in-game timer ?

Using real-time clock would create a barrier of entry, not everyone has the mean to reliably time their runs. It would also make runs verification harder, and cheating easier. Real-time clock would also make segmented runs impossible (see next point). The in-game timer is precise enough (down to the second), a full run lasts long enough to make ties extremely rare. And to quote RWhiteGoose - a famous GoldenEye 64 runner - : "who are we to contradict the game ?!". On that note, I invite you to watch his video on this topic as it fits Blue Stinger too :

Why segmented runs are allowed ?

Again, I don't want to create a barrier of entry for (new) runners. Not everyone can sit and play for 2-3 hours at once, I don't want to prevent people with medical condition or kids from playing this game when there is no valid reason to ban segmented runs. Plus, segmented runs don't give any advantage, if anything, the need to save the game makes you lose time.

Missing categories ?

Ideally, the game should be divided in a huge amount of different categories. Easy, Normal, Hard, Easy NG+, Normal NG+, Hard NG+, Easy NG+ Mad mode, etc etc etc. Not an issue in and of itself, but Blue Stinger community is pretty small, everyone would be first with no competition and competition is what most likely brings you here in the first place. If a category is currently missing (NTSC-J Normal NG+ no mad mode for instance) and you desire to run it, I will create the category. In the mean time, I think it's better to keep the leaderboard as tidy as possible so long as there are only a handful of runners.

How does the verification process works ?

Again, we are just a handful of runners so far, so I can get to know and remember each one of us. If I can establish that you have the skill and knowledge to do a low time, then I won't ask for as much proofs for all subsequent runs. If you made a well documented run and beat your time the "next day" with only a picture of the in-game timer screen, I will trust you. Keep in mind that someone can question one of your runs and if I can't make a strong case in your favor then I won't have any choice but to notify you that I will reject your run. Though, you will be notified in advance and have a chance to defend yourself and provide further proof(s).

What about emulated runs ?

They will have to be in a different category. As an example, if the emulator is off by 0.1Hz, you could get a few second (dis)advantage compared to people who play on Dreamcast hardware.

I hope everything makes sense to you, that you can understand where I'm coming from and what motivated my choices when creating the rules. Nothing is set in stone (I won't change the rules overnight though, it wouldn't be fair), I'm willing to discuss or argue any point in this list and find a consensus.

Wow, someone actually watched it =) And to you all, this is the first time I administrate a speedrun leaderboard, so if a category is missing like "emulator run" for instance, I will add it. I want this to be clear, I'd love seeing people playing this game and I'd love even more to see my records beaten ! If you decide to run this game, I'll do anything I can to help you. Most of my knowledge is "open source", I made a (french) website extremely complete about Blue Stinger : http://blue-stinger.hebergratuit.net/index.php I attempted to translate it, but as a French, I think it is unbearable and Google automated translation will do a better job. And if it's not enough, my email address in in the website, feel free to message me as much as you want, I'll reply to all your questions.

The website seems to have some issues today, I get "502 bad gateway", I don't know if it comes from me or if it comes from your side. I just wanted to let you know. (Sorry about my English)

oooooh I just got it ! "NA" mean North America !!! Sure, as soon as someone submit a run from NA version there will be a category for it, don't worry about that ^-^ So far, only JAP and EU versions of the game have been runned, that's why.

Hi I'm french so you need to tell me what "NA" mean =) I have no problem about creating a new categories if needed, in fact I created some for username "AnkhM_" few months ago and I would be pleased to see another Blue Stinger fan making it to the leaderboard again ! Let me know what "NA" mean and I'll do my best, you can count on me !

That's neat, good job ! I would be pleased to see that as soon as you upload it, I begin to worry about my record now ^-^

Au fait, t'as capté mon feedback de ton run ? (c'est rhétorique, t'embête pas à répondre hein), jette un oeil dans les commentaires de ta vidéo youtube, y'a peut-être un ou deux de mes conseils qui te seront utiles.

C'est moi qui remercie ce jeu, me la fait pas à l'envers ^-^