Lemmings was created as a puzzle game and I am very certain nobody ever had speedrunning or speed economy in mind for it given the lax time limits in many places. The SMS version is probably the least speedrun-friendly too since you

-have no mouse control and therefore no instant ability to change settings because it's a cursor -have lag to contend with based on numbers on screen/in level/on the same horizontal -can't do what the 16-bit versions allow ie. you can't raise release rate and change lemming action at the same time

Combine that with the necessity of pausing in some places even when just playing casually, and it's pretty crazy. Fascinating to work on though I doubt I will ever be nuts enough to try Taxing or Mayhem full set runs.

Hi! I only just chanced upon you guys' posts. I set up Genesis Mercs a while back and we currently have active runners in both Arcade and Original. We accept both Megadrive/PAL and Genesis/NTSC runs, and we've chosen to have rapid fire OFF. @HitSponge, your 14:11 rapid fire on run was a big source of motivation for us! If I'd known you were here I would have grabbed you a while ago!

I've set up a Discord for tutorial/guide/general discussion about Mercs, and if the experts here in the SMS version would like a channel I can add one :) The link is https://discord.gg/756aUuT

I used to work at Dominos, so after shifts I would get a little 7" that I loaded with: liquid cheese, garlic butter, sauce, cheese, blue cheese, salami, bacon and chicken. Now that was a pi. When I get chilled pizza from the supermarket I go for stonebaked spinach and ricotta; though I have to add a half tub of ricotta these days because they shrinkflated the topping so much. From frozen, I go for a stuffed crust cheese, then add pepperoni, smoked ham, and pineapple.

I'll recommend SMS Castle of Illusion. The run is between 13-20 minutes, it has some tech and challenges to it but a very large proportion of the run is just handling the basic platforming and choosing to try those tech bits or not. It's certainly the easiest game I've ran so far both in terms of number of hours to get good and ease of completing runs until you get to the serious end.

I'll also challenge you to look at the first course in Genesis Super Hang-On - runs are barely 5 minutes so with just a few weeks work you can get quite good, but the ceiling on it is many steps up from that so it makes for a nice difficulty that way.

A few of my achievements are very close together right now, but currently I'm grinding to smash the record in Mercs Original Mode. I was close to a 13:33 last week and ultimately I'm targeting sub 13:30. Once I get that ultra run, it will be my supreme achievement. Super Hang-On 3'15"12 in Africa runs that very close though.

Sport has RNG too, but I bet you watch it agog and never give a moment's thought to removing it there.

My question was answered on r/speedrun by someone who told me that Bizhawk's frame counter is based on vsync, and that it is correct to divide frame time (I am talking about game frame-rate as opposed to video frames) by 59.92274 for NTSC Genesis runs.

I was advised to ask the SMB community for help or perhaps point me towards another community on an issue related to frame based timing, in this case with Genesis games running on Bizhawk. My original post can be read at https://www.speedrun.com/Speedrunning/thread/4t04l so any advice would be great.

Has anyone else reliably used frame count to time runs where that precision was needed?

Situation is that I mod/run Mercs Genesis. In the real world the Genny's max frame rate is tied to 59.92274 but emulation puts it at much closer to 60 with occasional drops to 59. On past occasions where I've had a very obvious time (in the middle of a second for example), I've found that doing (Frame count/60) + 1 second has always matched the real timing for full runs.

What I would love to know is whether anyone else has reliably used such a method or whether it is flawed. My stopwatch timing was synced from the first frame, but I ended manually with reaction time in play, which showed 13:39.03. If I do F/60+1 I get 13:38.73, and if I do F/59.92274 I get 13:38.75, but since this is supremely close I just want to be as sure as I can that I'm not making a mistake.

So I use a Genesis pad for running, and in the last couple of days I've had to stop because all of a sudden I'm having co-ordination issues with it. When I switch L/R direction, my thumb is often going into the void where the diagonals are.

-Has anyone ever had a similar experience with a Genesis pad?

-Has anyone ever had a similar experience with a NES/SNES pad? I figure that these incidences might be less since the pad is both smaller and actually indented into the controller with no voids around cardinals.

I'm not too worried that it's just me, but it would be nice to know I'm not the only one. Would love some feedback before I gamble on switching to a Nintendo controller.

Before I took up speedrunning I was a tournaments/leagues chessplayer, and I had done the same with Scrabble. I used to dabble in microstakes poker but I'm far more comfy with it in real life where I don't have to practically drown in caffeine and multitabling. Not sure I'd call it a talent but I also write some stuff; wordplay, jokes, copypasta/comedy style stuff. So if you think speedrunning is as geeky as it gets, think again 😂

I'm just curious about this one. Rules currently state time ends on loss of character control, and that only comes a couple of seconds after the last hit on Mizrabel. I had a run the other day where I got the final hit in, but died before she fell to the ground, so I had to redo the fight. That wouldn't count, right?

If you're including platform shooters or run and gun games I can recommend Mercs (Genesis) and Flimbo's Quest (C64), both of which are fully optimised and under 20 minutes!

I would currently be restricted to online calls as a form of interview input, unsure whether that meets your needs but if you are interested I'm sure you can check out my profile and the games I have WR in.

Following issues in the past with self-verified times and an inconsistent approach to timing, You do not need to show any timer on screen as I will always double-check runs.

For Mayhem Mode, run time starts when you press X to select your first character.

Time ends when "Player Victory" has appeared on the screen. Note that you can hold X at the end of a run to speed this up a little:

For Strategy Mode, run time starts when you press X on the final pre-amble screen before loading Crater Lake:

Time ends when "Teknos/Arcane Victory!" has appeared on the screen. Note that you can hold X at the end of a run to speed this up a little:

For extra clarity, runs using an emulator are fine so long as it is a PS1 ONE emulator. Do not submit runs if they were performed using a PS2/3 emulator since it is known that PSX games loading times are often much quicker on later PS systems.

Be aware that RNG for map movements in Strategy Mode will sometimes change depending on how a previous map or fight played out. That is, if you practice a Map in isolation, you may get a different enemy movement in an actual run. RNG for enemy movements seems to be related to your health following battles, and will also change depending on your precise hex movements. I have not yet encountered any possible manipulation of this RNG relating to starting a new run in Crater Lake after doing another map and quitting, and if you find a way to alter enemy movements in Crater Lake by this method, please let me know. It would be best if all runs started from the same RNG for now.

@kirlimfaul, happy to take over as super mod and I agree about first 5 maps being an anomaly.

@Ichimarnold I cannot currently view any of your runs either here on on your Twitch/Youtube, they appear to have been taken down - do you have the source clips somewhere you could reupload? Happy to keep your times as they stand but it would be great to see your work. Do you have a view on the 5 maps category?

Hey Kirlimfaul, thanks for verifying those runs! I need to do more work on Mayhem to earn that WR :D A couple of things: -I noticed AlrightSally's run https://www.speedrun.com/The_Unholy_War/run/yl41k0xm is missing the fifth map from the video and the time, so I think that run needs retimed. (EDIT: I have retimed this run and edited the video to reflect this) -I think we should have Arcane v Teknos as a separate category in Strategy runs as we do in Mayhem - any thoughts? The runs are entirely different since fights occur on different terrain. Your discord link does not work by the way.

I am curious whether other runners have ever had a game which sort of haunted them for a while. I'm running Castle of Illusion SMS, and I have the skill and practice to finish runs without deaths since I've practiced each stage and its tripping points very much. Despite this, somehow in pretty much every run, something ridiculous creeps in out of absolutely nowhere. Ridiculous as in something I haven't consciously changed, but which goes slightly wrong and is utterly basic - accidentally jumping too soft and landing in a pit, mis timing something inexplicably. Often, one death seems to chain other deaths in with it too, and to my knowledge I'm not flooding emotionally, I'm not overwhelmed with what needs to be done on a game level, and I'm not second guessing the techniques I have worked on. I am not sure where the problem begins so I don't yet know how to work on it, it doesn't seem to be purely technical and reminds me of when I used to play horribly at blitz chess. Any advice or perspectives would be welcome.

Need to raise a couple of mod issues re The Unholy War: https://www.speedrun.com/The_Unholy_War

-Asked Kirmilfaul to verify a few runs from his Twitter link last week, and pointed out that a time submitted by the other mod on one of their own runs is incorrect. That mod has now been off site for 6 months with no way to contact. The run has not had its time corrected.

-Mentioned to K that his Discord name shown on his profile here does not work. Have not received any communication from him in any channel, he has now removed the Twitter contact.

NB: runs I submitted do not have a timer in-vision.

Today some runs were verified, but others were rejected, reason "timer was not used, incorrect timing". All videos of runs in this category show one time on their header, and another time where they have been verified, including K's own run. Given these inconsistencies I do not feel it is appropriate to reject runs on that basis.

Other runs have been rejected with the reason "obsolete". Some of these are slower times I had submitted earlier, not the end of the world (although Good Mod Guide thread advised me no run should be rejected for anything other than gameplay). However, one of them in a category nobody had yet run, and I cannot see any reason for rejecting it - there are runs in Mayhem mode which feature it as a separate category (playing as the opposite army) where times do not obsolete each other.