If you are interested in participating in a tournament for this game starting next month, please check out the Challonge page: https://puzzlegeneral.challonge.com/PPC2019Groups

Prizes for top finishers!

^ Pray no one gets a disc read error in the middle of a race, has to reset their PS2, and still gets a time that would be PB for Single Segment, but can't actually qualify for Single Segment.

The games that I moderate have a large tendency to separate categories based on ingame content, thus I prefer to separate categories based on game content rather than techniques. If a separate category is made based on banning a technique and the any% route later changes to the point where that technique is no longer optimal, then do the later runs qualify for both categories? Do the earlier ones become completely obsolete? I don't think categories should be that subject to change so I try to avoid that as a principle.

I consider manipulation to be a technique, therefore my evaluation of whether the technique merits a separate category turns to the difference seen in the gaming content when the technique is or is not used.

I was also heavily influenced years ago by a chart that Omnigamer made as a guide for deciding when a new category should be made (). Based on this chart, new categories should be made when there is a >0 sum trade off between the time and the amount of challenge in the run, which includes execution, planning, and discovery (feeling rewarded from finding something new).

Having tried to play the game both with and without manipulation, for starters, I fail to see the difference in content between the two methods. You fight the same opponents in both instances, but one case has you fighting the same opponents multiple times. This is not a difference in content that I value. That same case also has you attain more cards to change your approach to each opponent, but this is not a difference in content that I value, either, because you don't get any significant reward in game for winning in different ways, just star chips and different cards. I see no difference in valuable content between both methods.

In addition, the challenge, as defined previously, doesn't feel different enough to me from both methods. Without manipulation, you certainly have to plan card acquisition differently, but the raw execution of it is all the same, except it's more of the same type of execution. It's all menuing as far as I'm concerned. If anything, RNG manipulation adds more unique execution to the run because you have to time things, as well. I'm also not aware of any differences in the discovery between both techniques. All in all, the trade off between challenge and time does not feel significant enough to me.

The other problem I can't overcome is that as much as my run deserves to be on the bottom of a leaderboard for it being my very first completion of the game ever, I can't define the two types of runs in ways that can be visible in gameplay, save from arbitrary restrictions like "no Free Dueling X or Y opponents." Most of the reason for the separate rule proposal thread, from my understanding, is to organize the discussion in order to ultimately come up with that definition. I am definitely interested in seeing where that discussion leads and am open to changing my mind if a proposal is made that sufficiently designates certain content between the two runs. However, I have yet to see such a proposal.

TL;DR I see no basis for any category separation based on RNG manipulation.

https://www.speedrun.com/post/e73pc

Please refer to the above post for background on why the rules are changing for this game. There are no active runners for this game that do not play Pokemon Puzzle Challenge, thus there was no need to also post the poll here.

As a result of these changes, the following times have been removed from this board:

Normal

Vyseoflegends9002 (“Vyse”) 4m13s 4/27/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Easy

Vyse 3m04s 6/8/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m21s 4/27/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m36s 3/21/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

To summarize the changes to the emulator usage rules, here were the OLD rules:

We use SpeedRunsLive's rules for emulator usage. This means that Visual Boy Advance (VBA) and VBA-M are currently banned. Please see this FAQ: http://www.speedrunslive.com/faq/#caniemulate

And here are the NEW rules, effective immediately:

Effective March 26, 2019: --New emulated runs must be done on one of the following approved emulators: -BGB ( http://bgb.bircd.org/ ) versions 1.5.7 and up -Gambatte ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/gambatte/files/gambatte/ ) r571 -Gambatte-speedrun ( https://github.com/Dabomstew/gambatte-speedrun/releases ) r649 and up -Bizhawk ( http://tasvideos.org/Bizhawk.html ) versions 2.3.1 and up with the Gambatte core selected --Emulated runs previously submitted must have been done on a version of either BGB, Gambatte, or Bizhawk. --If a verified run is discovered to have used an emulator that is not approved, the run will be removed. --To verify that an approved emulator is being used, runs must satisfy at least ONE of the following requirements: -The emulator window must be fully visible on your video. -The run’s comments must list the name and version of the emulator used. --To capture the window in OBS, use a Display Capture.

If you have any concerns over these new rules, please let one of the mods know.

Poll responses are now closed. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Your input was valuable in helping us mods determine the new rules for emulation we go by. To see the new rules for emulation, please scroll to the end of this post.

For those interested, the full results to the poll questions that had options can be found here:

https://imgur.com/a/5n2N91M

However, as much as we value the perspectives of everyone who has an interest in this community, the original intent of the poll was to gather the opinions of those who were actually on the leaderboard as they would be most affected by the results. With that said, I will now summarize the results of the 9 (not 10—one of the respondents has a run in Pokemon Puzzle League, but not Pokemon Puzzle Challenge) runners that answered the poll.

First, we’ll get some formalities out of the way. As shown above, literally everyone who responded wants emulator times to count for world record. This used to not be the case for the Generation 1 Pokemon community so I wanted to be sure of where we stood by asking this question. It will not be appearing on future polls for other games in the series. In addition, 7 of the 9 runners do not want a category separation of emulators from consoles, a la Super Mario 64. I concur that separating emulator runs from console runs would fragment the categories, for this game especially, a lot more than they already are. (We have 12 (!) categories in Challenge mode alone.) This seems clear enough that this question will also not appear on future polls.

Now for the items under greater contention. The list of emulator choices to allow was meant to be comprehensive of all forms of GBC emulation. Future polls will likely not include choices of questionable accuracy, such as smartphone emulators and emulators played in an Internet browser. One of the 9 runners abstained from voting on specific emulators, thus here are the results from the 8 who voted of what emulators to allow, in order from most to least:

BGB – 8 Gambatte – 6 Bizhawk with Gambatte core – 4 Bizhawk with GBHawk core – 2 Retroarch with Gambatte core – 2 PlayGuy – 1 Visual Boy Advance – 1 Visual Boy Advance-M – 1 Other – 1

It does not surprise me much. The three most voted-on emulators are among three of the most respected among Game Boy communities. I, personally, did not vote on this poll, but these are the three that I would have voted on. The mods were in agreement on these three.

That said, we will move forward with only accepting runs done on BGB, Gambatte, and Bizhawk with the Gambatte core selected. Specific rules on acceptable versions and enforcement of these rules will be listed at the end of this post.

There was one issue that truly divided the runners of this game, as you may have already been able to tell from the above charts. Removing old runs that do not conform to new rules is not a decision that a community has to come to lightly. I came to experience this firsthand with the game Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards (GBA). There was a time on that game’s leaderboard when Virtual Boy Advance was allowed for runs. After a while, several of us observed that the WR, done on VBA at the time, was loading character portraits much faster than the console runs of the time. One of the now former mods for the game estimated that VBA would have a 30-60 second advantage over console because of this. In light of this information, all of the Sacred Cards runners were polled (I believe over Skype) on what to do with VBA runs. They came to the decision to ban the emulator and remove the existing runs done on the emulator, resulting in about a dozen times being removed.

Because of my personal experience on this topic and community interest in reviewing existing runs on this board, I knew that I had to include the question on the poll. Of the 9 runners who responded, 5 voted to keep the runs on the board with a note on the run of the emulator being no longer allowed as opposed to the 4 who voted to remove the runs. My personal vote would have been to remove the runs, putting the community at a complete deadlock. As the mod team got through reviewing these results, we noted that there was one person opposed to removing the runs who would have the most to lose from having the runs removed. From reviewing the existing runs, we discovered another person who voted against removing the runs that also stood to lose multiple times from this change. The mods that voted on the poll voted to remove the runs, thus the team was all in agreement in favor of removing the runs. We concluded that it was a bad look for a leaderboard to have rules in place while top times violate said rules.

We have reviewed every existing run on the board. Every run known to have used an emulator outside of the previously mentioned approved emulators has been removed. This has resulted in the removal of the following times:

--Challenge Easy-Intense Scroll Off Vyseoflegends9002 (“Vyse”) 53m23s 12/3/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Intense Scroll Off shadoweh91 28m55s 12/22/16 (banned emulator – VBA-M) Vyse 24m38s 12/3/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

S-Hard Scroll Off shadoweh91 15m38s 7/6/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 18m31s 6/21/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 20m31s 5/2/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 24m48s 4/28/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) Vyse 10m39s 12/12/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 10m43s 6/27/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 11m54s 6/24/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Hard Scroll Off shadoweh91 9m52s 10/28/16 (banned emulator – VBA-M) shadoweh91 10m01s 7/7/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 11m45s 7/3/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 12m50s 6/18/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 13m53s 5/2/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) Vyse 7m08s 4/6/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 7m15s 12/18/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 7m32s 12/9/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 7m44s 5/17/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 7m50s 12/29/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 8m26s 7/9/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 8m29s 5/29/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 8m41s 2/7/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Normal Scroll Off shadoweh91 7m04s 10/28/16 (banned emulator – VBA-M) shadoweh91 7m13s 7/7/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 8m06s 7/6/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 8m38s 5/1/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) Vyse 5m27s 2/24/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 5m34s 11/11/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 5m40s 6/27/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 5m51s 2/29/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 5m54s 1/21/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 5m56s 9/28/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 6m10s 2/7/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Easy Scroll Off TuxedoMob 6m11s 3/26/15 (banned emulator – VBA) TuxedoMob 6m55s 3/1/15 (video no longer available, but later run used banned emulator VBA) MeowMixForMeAndYou 5m51s 9/1/15 (video required, only posted screenshot of game time with splits) MeowMixForMeAndYou 6m53s 8/22/15 (video required, only posted screenshot of the end of the run with splits) MeowMixForMeAndYou 7m32s 8/16/15 (video required, only posted screenshot of the end of the run with splits) shadoweh91 3m37s 10/28/16 (banned emulator – VBA-M) shadoweh91 3m48s 7/6/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) shadoweh91 4m14s 4/28/16 (video no longer available, but later runs used banned emulator VBA-M) TaymanND 3m12s 2/17/19 (banned emulator – Retroarch) Vyse 2m55s 3/9/19 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 2m56s 2/25/19 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 2m59s 7/12/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m00s 10/21/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m01s 8/24/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m02s 8/11/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m07s 4/20/15 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m10s 12/21/14 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 3m13s 11/29/14 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

--Line Clear Scroll Off shadoweh91 25m48s 12/12/16 (banned emulator – VBA-M) Vyse 22m39s 12/13/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 23m31s 4/27/16 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

--Marathon Easy, 99,999 Points, Scroll Off Vyse 6m08s 1/19/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 6m47s 1/18/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 7m24s 8/17/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 8m00s 7/12/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy) Vyse 8m56s 7/5/17 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Normal, 99,999 Points, Scroll Off Vyse 10m07s 1/19/18 (banned emulator – PlayGuy)

Going forward, any run, newly verified or previously existing, found to have used an unapproved emulator will also be removed.

That does it for the poll results themselves. Since specific emulators are being approved, some with specific settings, we need a means of identifying the emulator within the submission. Multiple requirements used by other communities were discussed, including forcing the run to start from a soft or hard reset, linking an input file (used in recording TASes) with the submission, listing the emulator name and version on the run comments, recording the entire emulator window, and showing all system messages. Concerns were voiced over stream appearance and feasibility. In the end, we settled on these two options for future submissions:

-capture the entire emulator window in your video; or -note the name and version of the emulator used in your comments

These options give the mods the ability to check the gameplay against the claims to confirm that the run is following the rules while allowing runners to give verifiable assurance that their runs are legitimate.

To summarize the changes to the emulator usage rules, here were the OLD rules:

We use SpeedRunsLive's rules for emulator usage. This means that Visual Boy Advance (VBA) and VBA-M are currently banned. Please see this FAQ: http://www.speedrunslive.com/faq/#caniemulate

And here are the NEW rules, effective immediately:

Effective March 26, 2019: --New emulated runs must be done on one of the following approved emulators: -BGB ( http://bgb.bircd.org/ ) versions 1.5.7 and up -Gambatte ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/gambatte/files/gambatte/ ) r571 -Gambatte-speedrun ( https://github.com/Dabomstew/gambatte-speedrun/releases ) r649 and up -Bizhawk ( http://tasvideos.org/Bizhawk.html ) versions 2.3.1 and up with the Gambatte core selected --Emulated runs previously submitted must have been done on a version of either BGB, Gambatte, or Bizhawk. --If a verified run is discovered to have used an emulator that is not approved, the run will be removed. --To verify that an approved emulator is being used, runs must satisfy at least ONE of the following requirements: -The emulator window must be fully visible on your video. -The run’s comments must list the name and version of the emulator used. --To capture the window in OBS, use a Display Capture.

If you have any concerns over these new rules, please let one of the mods know.

https://www.speedrun.com/post/93plh

https://www.speedrun.com/post/jhyft

https://www.speedrun.com/post/0zc1r

These posts were probably lost in the shuffle. The Puzzle League series mod team would like to remove @Darko 's mod status from the entire series. Darko was made super mod before I even knew of the existence of the board, but they have never been involved in OUR community.

Thank you for your enthusiasm, but we are not looking to add to the team at this time.

On behalf of the Puzzle League series ( https://www.speedrun.com/puzzle_league ) team, I would like @Darko 's mod status to be removed from the entire series. Darko has been a super mod since the very beginning, but he has not been involved with the community in the six years that I have been a part of it.

Thank you.

The Puzzle League speedrun community has grown tremendously since the original Pokemon Puzzle League Skype group started around six years ago.

With that growth, however, comes a greater responsibility to ensure that everyone participating in the leaderboards is on a fair playfield. To enforce this, the moderation team started to verify new run submissions last month. In the verification process, we also came to realize that our rules for emulator usage could use some updating, that we should develop our own rules instead of relying on those of another community.

In the coming months, we will revamp and/or clarify our emulator rules for every game in the Puzzle League series. Due to current community interest, we will start with this game and Game Boy Tetris Attack.

To that end, we have created a Google Form poll that ask about important factors to be considered in the formation of our rules. We invite all Pokemon Puzzle Challenge / Game Boy Tetris Attack speedrunners to complete this form in order to gauge what the community desires. Please read the entirety of the form and answer each question carefully. You will not be able to change your answers once you submit them.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeWwdo8qL5EZYE6PX3p00dlYbDm76-x669_sVzZMxNNpYdyqg/viewform

Please use this thread to discuss the issue. This thread will remain open for as long as necessary to gather the opinions of this community.

No one's done runs so there's no leaderboard. Simple as that.

I have some memory addresses in one of the Guides. Other than that, the leading VS TAS and the Endless TASes on TASVideos http://tasvideos.org/1875M.html http://tasvideos.org/1904M.html have the TAS market cornered.

Remind me again why the lack of "notability" of a game should have any reflection on the site staff or speedrunning as a whole. I thought this site was built to serve the needs of speedrun communities. However, the staff can tell any community, "no, this game is not good enough for us"? Why should that matter? Why should anyone care what games are on the site? If anything, people should be getting the opportunity to judge the quality of a game by the quality of its leaderboards, but several games don't even get that opportunity.

You are welcome to try.

I'm mostly curious how that request will be received in the sense that every series I can find on the site has one central intellectual property that ties the games together, whereas Touch Generations encompasses many intellectual properties--and it's not something I recognize as an intellectual property. Personally, I see no relation between Planet Puzzle League and, say, Brain Age within the games themselves to include them in the same series. As far as I can tell, it's only marketing that gives them any sort of connection.

The Discord invite link you can set up for a game/series does not accept the discord.gg format that Discord, itself, generates and puts a speedrun.com in front of the link address to make a 404-type error.

For instance:

discord.gg/uZxaZv7

turns into

https://www.speedrun.com/discord.gg/uZxaZv7

Not sure if it was set up as an acceptable format, but it should be.

EDIT: Why should you need the http at the front? That's stupid.

Everything looks delightful. Thank you for your assistance.

Someone blew through most of my stop signs and got told 90% of what I had already said this morning. There are also several assumptions in the listed "problems" that run counter to how this site operates.

In any case, there is an understandable misunderstanding here. I think I can speak for the Puzzle League community and say that, despite not being a standalone game, Animal Crossing Puzzle League (AC:PL) is recognized as a part of the Puzzle League series, yet its leaderboard cannot be seen from the Puzzle League series page.

My original intent was to avoid a situation where the same "game" is listed in two places: one in the Puzzle League series as its own game, and the other in New Leaf as a category. I was not and am still not about to do anything behind this community's back that would result in confusion and duplication.

I do feel, however, that AC:PL should see some representation in the Puzzle League series to avoid this kind of confusion in the future. It just so happens that one of the game types that can be attached to a game page is "Minigame/Gamemode," which is precisely what AC:PL is within New Leaf. There is also an "Expansion" type that could also apply as we're dealing with a part of Welcome amiibo.

Thus, I think the cleanest solution is to make an AC:PL page under the Animal Crossing series (I am a fan of this theme and wouldn't mind using it for the board) and then submit requests to add it to the Puzzle League series and mark it as a minigame and/or expansion... and maybe as a category extension, as well, to give a link back to New Leaf.

At that point, I can then take a second look at the other modes and see if there are category merits to them beyond max score RTAs.

That would be weird to have people look in multiple places to find all of your PBs. It doesn't make sense for me to maintain my list of PBs in multiple places, either. Using Google Sheets for leaderboards feels so 2014 and archaic at this point--so does PBTracker (I'm surprised that thing's still around). I thought the idea of this website was to get rid of all of the separate leaderboards? If not, then why have a centralized place to track speedrun times if it's not available for every game to use?

Also I really like that short flash games are not accepted when short games of intentional flash-game quality like Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning are allowed. I guess I don't understand why the quality of the games on this site should have any reflection on the site staff and speedrunning as a whole when it's the individual communities that initiate and maintain that content. It's nonsensical to me.

If I went hunting for short flash games to run, I would have to maintain a list of those games and those times in a separate place as well as maintain my times on these boards. I would then have to tell my viewers to either go to two places to see all of my times or duplicate a list of all of my leaderboard times to put them all in one place--and I have A LOT of times to track. Do you see how much sense that makes?

Full disclosure, I have seriously considered attempting a speedrun of a visual novel (Little Busters!) that beats the ultimate boss of the fighting game mode (Mask the Saito) as soon as possible, but based on current site policy, I would have to track that separately from these boards. Again, how much sense does that make?

It just occurred to me that I probably should have originally added https://www.speedrun.com/Nanopa and https://www.speedrun.com/Touhou_Puzzle_League to the Puzzle League series and had them tagged as fangames. Can that be arranged?

I am getting the wrong file type error trying to upload a splits file to a game's Resources. My file is definitely .lss and the message tells me that it must be a .zip, .7z, .rar, or .lss file. (The game was Beyblade G-Revolution and I was forced to archive the file.) Is it really supposed to take .lss?

But it does mean it isn't useful to ME. I can't imagine trying to find something I've posted here before. If it's not in a specific game's forum, I have no chance of finding it.