When doing/submitting a run, do I need to start with a new game or can I use a recursion?

Currently there is no category for new game plus which is what recursions would be, so yes, it will have to be a fresh file. That being said, I think a NG+ category would be interesting as it would open up lots of new strats and wouldn't be opposed to making a leaderboard for it if we got some runs of it.