Comments
zawj4 years ago

It's probably this one. It's quite old, it's missing some new stuff, the version differences part may be wrong in some places (e.g. Kabuto's stomps are easy to avoid since 1.4, not 1.497).

Some more recent stuff is on my youtube channel, except the most recent find by Jaakko Alakopsa - it's possible to destroy glass walls without magnifying glass, just by standing a little bit to the left from it's centre and aiming at it's centre with right mouse button's yellow adrenaline attack.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto Last updated 2014-07-26 (r3)

==Game versions==

1.0 - first release. Has the most glitches, is the least stable (but is stable enough for a RTA), and has one annoying downside. 1.1 - Early patch. Most suitable for speedrunning. 1.4 - The last official patch. Almost all useful glitches have been fixed here. 1.497 - unofficial patch. It brings a lot of changes from the official releases.

PS2 releases are not covered here.

==Version differences==

One small change was made in 1.1 patch that can save more than a minute in a run. Prior to the patch, in Kabuto story the player was supposed to eat 5 smarties in order to grow up. The patch changed the amount to 3 in single player missions.

Unofficial updates brought a lot of changes that were supposed to make multiplayer games more balanced. That includes:

  • Changed amount of ammo player can carry at once
  • Changed damage dealt by weapons
  • Increased damage radius of Popup Bomb - e.g. it can be placed at almost any of the prison's walls and ceiling to destroy it
  • Placing many mines very fast no longer makes them explode
  • Pre-placed syringes are not collectible
  • Reaperskis are faster
  • Big Rippers fill half of the soul meter
  • Red adrenaline attack always hits the selected target (the distance no longer matters)
  • Kabuto's stomps are much easier to avoid ...and possibly more.

==Streaming (and fixing mouse on windowed mode)==

There are two preferred ways of streaming this game:

  • Using software capture and windowed mode. Due to a broken framerate cap in windowed mode an external frame limiter is necessary as well, in order to make the mouse work properly. Dxtory and RivaTuner Statistics Server are enough (note that the latter requires DX8 renderer to be used).

  • Dxtory with DirectShow capture option.Works in both fullscreen and windowed mode. This option isn't free, though, and can cause input lag on some machines.

==Tricks and glitches==

Major, useful glitches:

  • Invincibility (1.0 and 1.1 only) - by restarting the mission when the screen is fading to black one can make his character invincible for the rest of the game. It's best to trigger it in mission M3-6 "Dick Whittington Lift", as it's one of the shortest. Note that 1.1 partially fixed the glitch - restarting after death no longer works here. Also beware that the glitch somehow messes up Kabuto's movement while emerging from deep water - he can keep getting pushed back and different strategies may be needed.

  • Turbo cancelling (1.0 and 1.1 only) - opening the map will cancel the turbo and make it start recharging, but it will also keep character's speed. Another effect of this glitch is temporarily lowered gravity - one just needs to perform a non-cancelled turbo to revert it back.

  • Force Evil Smartie respawn - killing (but not eating) an evil smartie makes the game spawn another one to prevent player from getting stuck at some missions. The respawn action is triggered at the moment smartie's health drops to 0, a few seconds before his corpses disappear. However, a dead smartie can still be eaten. Doing so Kabuto will gain energy and another smartie will spawn close to him.

Smaller, but still useful glitches:

  • Mission restart/completion abuse - restarting/completing mission keeps some objects untouched, such as ammo powerups. In 1.0 only it also keeps placed mines and popup bombs.

  • Regaining control - using some jetpack addons such as shield can make the Mecc get up instantly when he trips after falling down.

  • Sword speed boost - hitting a steep slope with the sword sometimes gives a huge speed boost.

  • Raik movement glitch (Kabuto) - holding a raik messes up Kabuto's movement, either randomly giving a speed boost or pushing him backwards. Usually affects diagonal movement. It depends on Kabuto's size and whether the raik is spiked or not, it is also very unpredictable.

  • Full grown Kabuto - it's possible that Kabuto will spawn in his final form on the first level of his story, saving around half a minute. Nobody really knows anything about what causes this glitch, so please let me know if you manage to find something. The glitch was confirmed in version 1.1, it's unknown if it's present in any other version.

==Tricks==

  • Weapon speed boost - it's impossible to hurt oneself with most of the weapons (Mortar being the most notable exception). Therefore, shooting one's feet is a great way to boost one's speed. Mines can be stacked to make the effect more powerful

  • Ammo/mine stacking - entering a shop always refills ammo to a certain point. Only level 2 shop built at the base actually gives max ammo, however by entering a small shop, dropping the guns and entering it once again one can achieve similar effect. It can be also used for placing more than 5 mines in one place - this way it's possible to get an enormous speed boost and fly across a huge part of the map. Note that's impossible to do with grenades for obvious reasons.

  • Dick Whittington Prison weak spot - the prison has some weak spots behind it, letting the player destroying it while avoiding the shooting spree at the front gate. Note that the bomb needs to be placed very close to the wall, and there are reapermen hidden inside the prison - their shoots can still hurt the character quite badly, so carrying a syringe would be a good idea.

  • Flying onto arrows - by aiming not higher than 45 degrees up and shooting from RPG bow without moving the camera it's possible to aim turbo at the arrow. Flying onto enemies/vimps/smarties/whatever else - useful and annoying at the same time. When using turbo while an enemy (or whatever) is marked with the blue orb one will fly directly onto it with a bit higher speed than usual. The auto aiming also works on worker smarties too, so it's good to avoid "turbo-ing" at them.

  • Smartie drop - it's not necessary to stand on the ground in order to drop smartie at the base - flying above the spot at any height also works.

  • Feeding smartie with bubble spell - catching a smartie with the bubble spell and dropping him at the base once again will refill his energy. Note it also resets his currently performed task.

==Glitches that will make you hate (speedrunning) this game==

-Gate pass detectors (reaperski races) - sometimes the game will fail to check if the player has driven through the gate and will mark it as missed. For RTAs it makes taking a shortcut not worth the risk, as from my observation the glitch happens quite often (i.e. at least once in a run). Also, if it happens at the last gate, the victory is not triggered. That means one has just lost the whole race and about 5 minutes. I'm still not sure what causes it, but it seemed to have something in common with boat's speed, for example, it happened more frequently when I used turbo just before the gate.

  • Selective hitboxes - only two enemies have them - the Charger and Kabuto. Very glitchy and hard to aim at the same time.

  • Lazy smartie workers - reducing amount of smartie workers can cause some of them to stop working altogether. Happens very often. To make such one work once again, catch him with a bubble spell, and drop again.

  • Popup bomb at Dick Whittington Prison - it will be given to the player at the mission's start only when one of the weapon slots is empty.

  • Kabuto's attacks - sometimes controls are simply unresponsive.

zawj4 years ago

Sure, I'm gonna add new categories.

The unofficial patch adds many changes with balancing multiplayer in mind, I'm afraid it might be incomparable to the official release. If you have any runs done on 1.497 feel free to submit them, if it's too different I'll make it a new category.

As for running 1.4 try copying gg_dx8r.dll from 1.497 (or Geforce 3 release) to 1.4's directory and renaming it to gg_dx7r.dll - move the original one somewhere else. If it still doesn't work let me know what error messages do you get etc., maybe something can be done with that.

zawj4 years ago

There's no such thing as a "standard" controller (and therefore button layout) for PCs so I'd say it's fine to remap it.

OWazabi likes this
zawj5 years ago

Alright, looking at the discussion here and at https://twitter.com/swarthyDokalfar/status/1033355434508337152 most runners think that the trick should be allowed.

I'm going to update the rules so everything will be clear from now on.

zawj5 years ago

I don't recall if anyone ever mentioned this trick before... It's really as simple as plugging in another input device (using two keyboards also works), holy crap.

Man, you've opened a can of worms here. It kinda feels like using turbo buttons on non-standard controller and that's usually disallowed. It's also likely not possible on consoles (could someone verify?). I'm skeptical about allowing that but the worst thing is that it's basically impossible to tell whether someone is using that trick or not, unless they include keyboard cam footage, so I may be left with no choice but to allow that after all.

I'd like to hear what others' opinion about this, maybe someone else still checks this place every now and then.

zawj6 years ago

No, better keep it at default. If I remember correctly changing framerate affects physics a little, and that could make a run incomparable to others.

Scherzo likes this
zawj6 years ago

By the other story, do you mean the original American McGee's Alice? This one is a separate game, its leaderboards are here: https://www.speedrun.com/alice

This category is just NG+ with the extra dresses and weapons.

thread: MDK
zawj6 years ago

It is allowed, we use it as well.

There aren't any extra rules as far as I know.

zawj6 years ago

It's still sold on Origin.

Ecdycis likes this
zawj6 years ago

The difference isn't really that big. NG+ has more skips (Vale of Tears, teapot skip are the bigger, more difficult ones), dress effects (ch4 dress with its 4HP limit allows easy hysteria and doesn't make the game much harder if you memorize the damage chart, most enemies are predictable) and you don't have to remember about having to upgrade weapons.

I'd say go for NG+, that's what most runners did.

It's been years since I last played the game, most skips are easy to understand once you've seen a video, here's a quick list of what I still remember:

  • you get the glitched extra jump when you release the jump button during the last regular float and press it again immediately within 1 or 2 frames;
  • shrinking cancels dashes and some animations;
  • dashing has a set speed, you usually don't want to dash after leaving a slide;
  • sometimes leaving a slide while aiming at different direction (e.g. pressing W+A or W+D) affects your speed;
  • dashing backwards has no time cap but is a pain in the ass to do properly;
  • in out of bounds skips looking at certain directions makes the terrain despawn sooner or later...

There's still much more, Dokalfar made a mostly complete list of skips, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk8REskhcgGl3r0mjIOPvWyOZGVp7o9l9

How to enable wireframes and stuff: https://pastebin.com/HkHtXrQ7

Let me know if you have trouble with any particular skip or glitch, I'll be happy to help.

WitchRain and NiceGuyDomm like this
zawj6 years ago

That's a good question :-) I'm fine with adding ILs but we should discuss additional rules or exceptions due to Mecc and Delphi missions not being "proper" IL run compatible:

  • Good RNG in previous mission, for example getting mines early in M1-5 can affect time of the next mission;
  • There are 3 missions that carry over stuff from previous ones: --- M2-5 will start exactly where M2-4 ended, if loaded from menu the player starts back at Timmy's dad's house; --- Portals built in D2-1 used to quickly finish D2-3; --- more smarties will spawn closer to the base in D5-2 when it's done in a single sitting with D5-1. --- ...and there's the unpatched retail version (1.0) which doesn't remove already placed mines after finishing a mission
  • There's a short time between a finished mission/loading screen and a cutscene when input buffering is possible;
  • If I recall correctly PS2 version doesn't replenish ammo every mission like PC version.

I was thinking about timing M2-4 and M2-5 etc. as a single mission and disallowing input buffering, since that one can be unpredictable. What do you think?

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