I have removed the autosplitter from the resources for the moment because I have been working on completely revamping it with help from the autosplitter tool development community.

I have been able to get access to the game memory itself so we no longer need to do slow inefficient save file reads or environment variable nonsense.

As of my current tests I have all the following working:

• Any% : All Keys, Ludo kill, Skelord kill, Fatty kill, Reaching Crackers, Last split (post fade out)
• 100%: All Any% splits, all stars, talking to heart
• Surprise Party: Completing each screen, interacting with present

All these categories also support autostart so you should be able to not need to press a single hotkey for livesplit in order for it to work.

The surprise party one I am particularly excited about as it should give frame-perfect readings without the need to retime videos.

Once I am happy with the results I will get it directly integrated into LiveSplit since it no longer requires any external setup to use now :)

Hello all,

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of significant changes come to the game which has prompted some adjustments to the boards. having had some time to sit down and assess all the changes and how they affect the game moving forwards as well as discussed with some folks issues they have running the game or barricades stopping them from starting running the game I have come to some conclusions on changes I feel we need to implement to these boards for the long term health of Squirm as a speed game.

Below you will find a link to my doc outlining all the major changes I believe we need to make to the board. Look forward to having a discussion following on from this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BedL5KPFOv3PF1lpwWsl4P8_qqkOfGQpHYGXNFZsTsg/edit?usp=sharing

Hey all,

Thought I'd give you an update on where we're at with the autosplitter.

So Alex has made the save file a plain-text readable one so I can hook into it to update splits.

• I have all the keys and stars hooked up for splits although have not tested them yet.
• I have got it tracking which level you are on which we will be able to use to detect when you reach Crackers
• I can use this to allow an auto-start feature so you don't need to start your timer
• I can also use this to remove the initial 6-8 second load time upon hitting new game if we want (but that would invalidate a lot of runs)
• I might be able to use this to detect starting the DLC and Surprise Party Category

Here are some limitations that I don't think I can work around

• Cannot detect the end of the fade for Any%, only when you actually load the next level
• Cannot detect speaking to the Heart at the end of 100% (as this is not saved out)
• Cannot detect defeating Float for the 100% split (as this is not saved out)
• Cannot detect finishing surprise party (as this is not saved out)
• Cannot detect finishing the DLC (as this is not saved out)

The biggest limitation however is that Alex chose to use the save file that lives in the game folder on your PC rather than somewhere like appdata which is where the Unity output log (which I originally asked alex to update) exists. What this means is that the autosplitter has no way to automatically know where the save file is located. The only thing I can do here is require you to set up an environment variable on your PC to point at the squirm directory. It's easy enough to do but does require that extra manual step which is annoying.

Overall though I think we'll have a pretty decent tool that will help with every Any% and 100% split except the ones listed above. At the very least it will take the effort out of hitting the split during active gameplay moments as all the remaining ones are either waiting for a timeout or pressing Y to interact with something.

Once I can confirm that it works for 100% and Any% completely I will upload it here for initial testing by the community before getting it integrated into Livesplit itself.

Hi all,

As you probably know a new update has gone live and I've had a chance to play the new content as well as check some of the older content to see what might have changed. I will compile my thoughts below. I didn't test Surprise Party but did do a 100% playthrough and do the new DLC.

General Thoughts:

• The new DLC content is phenomenal as a casual playthrough. As speedrun content it is far too punishing for me at least but I welcome the creation of a category for crazy people :P
• The Jump now does feel a bit more consistent. I used to sometimes land just on the tip of a platform and not have the time to get another jump off causing me to fall. This doesn't really happen anymore
• The Jetpack controls are a lot nicer and in particular make the final section a lot easier
• It seems much less likely that when sliding against walls you'll lose your momentum suddenly. I had it happen once in a 2 hour play session
• If you die whilst holding jump then you will respawn and immediately jump

Changes that affect the speedrun:

• Reset Abuse no longer works
• Certain tricks that relied on the Movement Precision bug such as Ice Skip in the Shadow Realm now no longer work
• This link shows some of the areas where Movement Precision changes have had an effect: https://imgur.com/a/moQUjFf
• The Jetpack's improved controls have slowed it down meaning that both sections that make use of it will see time losses
• Game time pauses when in the post-crackers cutscene before finding out your score

My thoughts on categories:

• We need a new variable for this patch as some of the changes will affect the times
• Reset Abuse should still be a separate variable and the rules description should make it clear that it is not possible on latest patch. Alternatively it could be its own category as well to stop submissions into the current patch table.
• Surprise Party will need its variables renamed from Legacy and Current to something like Update 1 (version 1.4), Update 2 (version 2.0), and Update 3 (version 3.0) I reckon.
• We should probably add the DLC as a category even though it's insanely difficult. Again this would need versioned to match releases. I believe it was added in version 2.0

Another small thing is that the save files have been converted to plain text so I should be able to use them to develop an autosplitter for the game. I have been experimenting with an early copy of a save file Alex gave me and got the majority of what I wanted working. I will keep the community posted on how I get on.

So let the discussion begin :)

I have added an autosplitter to the Resources tab.

It supports final hit on Maximillion and "Operation Complete" splits on both Steam and Windows Store versions of the game.

Work is being carried out on supporting a load remover but in the meantime any feedback on the tool would be awesome as it has only had my own local tests so far.

I noticed that some of the older runs used an autosplitter. I know since IGT is used it's less necessary but was wondering if it still existed anywhere? If I was to run this game I think it would be fun to have a per-level time so.i can track improvements.

If it doesn't exist anywhere I could look into making one if anyone knows roughly what variables were being tracked by it.

So I was doing a couple of derusting sessions in the hopes of beating my PB at some point (still nowhere near as my space and shadow realm are so rusty) and I came across an interesting new trick.

Normally I play on controller and was getting thumb ache spamming shoot on Dr. Ludo and Skelord so tried it out on keyboard and I've realised you can actually spam both of them to shoot twice as fast. It seems the input checker will just check both each frame.

This basically means you can kill both those bosses without really having to move that much and save a ton of time.

Thought I'd share in case anyone fancied doing runs again.

So I cam across this page quite randomly and remember this game from my childhood. The run looks pretty interesting and I wouldn't mind at least trying it out.

My question is, which emulator do you recommend for running? I imagine I would probably run NTSC version to match the other runs but have never really done my emulator speedrunning before.

Any advice would be awesome :)