Hey all! I've noticed that even though I've begun using Water Skip in All Medals Speedruns, I haven't actually explained it yet; so here we go!

• What is Water Skip? As its name suggests, Water Skip allows you to collect the cat medals that would normally otherwise require the use of the Water Sweeper; a sweeper that's not normally obtainable until Round 6.

• How do you perform Water Skip?

1. Enter 2-1, and play through the level normally until you take out every enemy in the stage (including the Yellow Chronoblob), as if you were wanting to collect all the medals. Note that the 2nd medal can be collected without the Water Sweeper, with good placement of a Red Barrel in conjunction with Full Diagonal Movement.
2. After all enemies are taken out, sweep the Open Fridge that's near where the button to open the final door is.
3. Move to where the water is at the end of the stage.
4. Shoot the Open Fridge left, but make sure it hits the wall that's closest to the the goal gate.
5. On the right wall, move to the middle where two parts of this wall meet. You can sometimes clip through immediately in this condition. If you don't get it immediately, go to step 6. If you do get it immediately, you can skip to step 7.
6. If you're not able to clip through, jump on top of the Open Fridge and use Diagonal Movement while on the open door of this fridge, going up + right until you fall off the fridge, then transitioning to up + left. It may take you several tries, but if the placement of the Open Fridge is good, you will eventually clip through the wall to the chest where the 3rd cat medal lies.
7. Shoot trash to open the chest and collect the cat medal like normal.
8. Head towards the goal gate and finish the stage. Don't worry, you're not softlocked down where that 3rd medal is. The hatch that normally opens when you finish sweeping the water there only has one-way collision. You can jump right through on the under-side of it.

Demonstration of Water Skip:

• What is the impact of Water Skip in All Medals runs? The impact of Water Skip is not immediately apparent to viewers of All Medals Speedruns. However, those that do run the category know the implications of pulling off Water Skip. By collecting every medal in a single visit of the stage, we skip the need to have to revisit the stage much later in the run. Though this means we have to collect the medals much earlier than normal, it saves time later since you don't have to revisit the stage.

• Can you do Water Skip in 2-3 as well? Observant readers would notice that I did not mention 2-3 until now, even though it also has a medal that normally requires the Water Sweeper. 2-3 Water Skip is possible to do; but there's a major caveat to it. The collision to clip through is much smoother in 2-3 than it is in 2-1. Smooth collision is far more difficult to clip through than the jagged collision of the side wall that 2-1 has. Because of this, 2-3 Water Skip doesn't have a reasonable setup for a human to pull off reliably as of the time of this post. As a result, until a discovery like that takes place, 2-3 Water Skip will not be attempted in full game runs because of the crap shoot nature of the glitch. The clip has been done, but its difficulty is much higher than that of the Water Skip in 2-1.

That said, if a consistent setup is found for 2-3 Water Skip that allows for reliable clipping, it would become possible to collect all 4 medals in the stage using the LV3 Sweeper. You would still have to revisit the stage once because of the need to sweep a 16T weight for one of the medals. However, you would not have to go back and revisit 2-3 a 2nd time in the run, after completing Round 7. This would result in another large time gain, just like that of 2-1's version of the skip.

Well, that's all! I hope this post explains Water Skip well. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Happy glitching!

-Lotus

Hey all! I've noticed that there hasn't yet been an explanation post made on the Alternate Timeline Glitch (hereafter known as ATG) yet, so here we go!

• What is the ATG? For a very simple explanation, the ATG lets you increase the amount of actions that a single Record (hereafter known as REC) does.

• How do you perform an ATG?

1. Activate a REC and do the actions that you were planning to get done in a normal state. As an example, if you were going to use to take out 4 enemies, use the REC to take out said enemies. As a reminder, you only have 10 seconds to get what you need done during that REC.
2. Wait for the REC to rewind back to the point that you activated the REC.
3. Head for a different area than you went to for the REC itself.
4. Take out another enemy (or enemies).
5. Use a Retry. ATGs are easiest to do with Super Bombs, but any means to use a Retry works as long as you are in a position that you would've used a Retry within the 10 second time frame of that REC that you used. This means that falling into the void works as well.

• What does the ATG do? By using the Retry, you ensure that the action(s) that you did during the playback of the REC will also persist, as if you had done them during the REC itself.

• What are the effects of the ATG? I noted in the steps above that the ATG is easiest to do with Super Bombs. Ammo that was bought before the stage, such as Super Bombs and Spikes, will return to you during the Retry as if you had never used it at all. This is important in a full game run because it means that you will be able to better absorb the blow that your gold would take for buying the Super Bombs in the first place. In addition, you also increase the amount of Time Crystals that monsters drop, making the potential of you getting Time Controls that you need for future stages more likely.

You can also do this with bosses to increase the amount of gold that they drop. In fact, you don't even need to use a Retry to increase the amount of gold you get from bosses. If you land the final hit on a boss during the REC and you don't disrupt that during the playback, you will get double gold from that boss. However, you can actually use a Retry as well to further increase the gold dropped from a boss to instead triple the original amount of gold that they would normally drop (known as an ATG money dupe).

You're also not limited to using the ATG a single time for a given REC either. As long as you have the Retries to justify it and the Retries don't bring you back to a point to before you initially activated the REC, you can perform even further actions to keep the ATG going.

• What is the impact of the ATG in full game runs and in ILs? In full game runs, the ATG is mostly used to ATG money dupe either 6-Boss or 7-Boss. Since gold use in a full game run can get very demanding in the late game, it's more worth it to sacrifice ~10-12 seconds to be able to get that extra 1000-1200 gold that you need in the late game. Unfortunately, the timing difference in full game runs being in real time means that the ATG doesn't have as many uses. It definitely helps with gold management, but the time loss for each use of an ATG is still notable. That said, don't sleep on the ATG just because it has that time loss. There are points in the regular stages where ATGs make for a great backup strat if you feel you're very strapped on gold in the run.

However, in IL runs on the other hand, the timing method being the in-game time (IGT) means that the ATG is far more viable, and far more worth going for. There are some stages that can get completely dismantled by ATGs in IL runs. As long as you have a use for the REC, it will generally always be worth it to go for ATGs. This is especially the case since you can more easily go for ATGs that use more than one Retry. In fact, a lot of the times listed on the IL leaderboard for the non-boss stages would not be possible if it weren't for ATGs being a thing. Take 8-3 for example; that stage will easily take over 20 seconds IGT without any ATGs. But thanks to ATGs, the IGT time for the stage was able to be knocked down to under 15 seconds.

Well, that's all! I hope this post explains the ATG well, and I hope to see you also apply the ATG in other creative ways as well in your runs.

Happy glitching!

-Lotus

Does New Game+ have to be ran specifically on a 2nd play-through? Or can the player's file be one that has already beaten the game multiple times? I didn't see anything about it in the rules, but I would like to make sure so a file that has already beaten the game 5 times can't be considered as a cheated run.

I'd like to note that if the answer is the latter, then I can also create a guide for New Game+ in this game.

It should be known that the Archives event is just around the corner. With that said, Uprising will be returning, alongside the new game-mode in Retribution. The question I have is regarding Uprising (Any Hero) though.

Although I can only speculate this at the moment, I think it's safe to say that Custom Games will likely be able to be done for Uprising. Jeff had stated last year that they wanted to add Uprising to Custom Games last year for the event, but unfortunately did not have the time to. With that said, should this be the case this year, will Custom Games be allowed for the Uprising (Any Hero) category? Or will runs in Custom games be its own category due to being able to adjust items like movement speed and ability cool downs?