5/8/18 Edit: Hi! You may have noticed Wakaza's insane WR that got posted today. It's pretty amazing how optimized it is, and yeah it does kinda put a damper on this guide's credibility ^^'. I honestly wasn't planning on getting back into serious Canvas Curse speedrunning anyways, let alone updating this guide, so please keep in mind that this guide was written before we believed anyone could optimize their gameplay to such an extent and probably won't be updated to account for this development, at least in the near future.

Hopefully Wakaza shares some tips lol ;)

From this pastebin I wrote: http://pastebin.com/nXMqmAH8

Will be updated periodically

Credits to GloriousLiar for some of the more technical information provided in this guide (Kirby's looping hitbox, pretty much everything concerning Velocity Clipping).

If you have further questions, I suggest contacting me or GloriousLiar on the Kirby Speedrunning Discord Server~ https://discord.gg/0Skz5kxn82KVp7aS or posting here on the forums if you want idk.

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Introductory Guidelines

Welcome to the Canvas Curse Speedrunning Guide! Thanks for being interested in this cool game. HiKibbi This is going to focus on any% (ideally this'll become any% glitchless :p)

This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of how the game works, namely enough that, hopefully, you've beaten it casually.

This isn't going to be some super in-depth routing, just some basic notes to help get you started. A lot of this is based on personal experience so I ¤hope¤ I'm not wrong on this stuff :/

I understand that I probably haven't done an adequate job of dictating all the movement options, so I highly recommend watching some runs to get a better understanding of what I'm talking about. Though...I'm hoping you'll do that anyways to gain further strats, or maybe because someone's run is what led you to this guide!

As a general rule of thumb from what I've noticed on the leaderboard, what separates "casual" runs, those with times of 1:35:00+, from "competitive" runs, runs usually in the 1:15:00-1:25:00 range, (not that there's anything wrong with the former, I've been at the point where I was happy to get sub-1:45 lol) is that competitive runs use looping a lot, understanding how powerful of a tool it is, while casual runs stick to dashing. But (note that I don't mean to brag here :XXX) what separates the best runs from the rest is the understanding that looping is not the end-all be-all tool for movement: You need to understand when looping is useful and when something else is preferred, as well as things to do when you can't loop.

Regardless, I still recommend going through the progression of understanding the game layout and feel and trying to go fast with the basics, then try to master and get down the concept of looping, and then finally go for the overall optimizations once you've gotten strong enough at both.

As a final note, yes, you are not alone, I too think this game is pretty janky. You will eventually come to get a feel for it as you keep playing, but you need to accept that this game can cause plenty of stupid things to happen.

Anyways, let's get started~!

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Basics on Ink:

There are three ways to refill your ink:

1. Don't use your ink while in mid-air. Your ink will refill very slowly, but enough so that you can clutch your way up vertical sections if you're low on ink

2. Don't use your ink while on the ground. Your ink will refill very quickly.

3. Kill enemies to replenish a decent chunk of ink. This includes getting copy abilities.

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Movement Options:

Dashing:

While this is by far the easiest to perform, it is also generally the slowest: Just tap Kirby. It's very useful when you're low or want to save on ink, but there are several areas where it's better to use the other methods of movement. Kirby also seems to have a greater fall speed while dashing, so this is useful when you're in an area where you can't use ink, you want to save ink for later, or using ink is simply not feasible due to the space.

Line travel:

With proper control, Kirby can move pretty quickly along lines. He also seems to generally move faster while on a line than normal dashing, though still not quite looping speed. The best general use for this are for distances that are too short for loop to be effective, or for getting Kirby to descend back to the ground quickly, usually after some extensive looping so you can refill your ink faster

Short Line + Dash:

Mostly used to complement looping (namely after a loop) when you don't have a lot of ink to work it but you need to keep moving ahead regardless. This is especially helpful when you need to move upwards, but you don't have a lot of ink and there isn't a good location to refill your ink (good examples would be for parts of the first screen of Spectacle Space or the "staircase" at the end of the first screen in The World of Drawcia). Kirby speed will be transferred as he moves along the short lines, allowing for rather brisk movement.

Looping:

• The crux of the movement options, used extensively in any competitive run of the game. Looping can be tricky to get down, though with practice you can perform it pretty consistently. In terms of how to learn it, start by doing fairly big loops that don't extend very far. Focus just on the loop itself. Once you've got that down, try shortening the looping and the extending the line after the loop. Do note that if you make the loop too small, Kirby will not receive the dash from going through the loop.

• Two particular places I recommend for practicing looping are Tiny Town's Time Trial to practice extending lines and Cold Course Screen 2 to practice making your loops small

• The reason why looping is a powerful tool is because Kirby will maintain the speed he had during the loop while traveling on the extended line, a speed that happens to be much faster than his dash speed

• Looping when Kirby is at a complete standstill can be pretty difficult, as Kirby's "hitbox" for looping is smaller, so he can often get stuck if you don't do it properly, so something I do (even though it technically wastes time ^^` ) is dash a bit first before going for a loop, as his hitbox is larger while moving.

• Generally, it's best to save your loops for vertical sections and use your dash for horizontal sections. A good example would be in the second screen of World of Drawcia: It's faster to dash rather than loop at the start, because you'll save ink that can be used to quickly loop upwards.

• When you are low on ink, try to consider how worthwhile it is to wait a bit for your ink to refill before doing another loop compared to just moving normally

• Looping technically has a bit of startup, as Kirby needs to actually go through the loop before he gets the speed boost. Thus, in shorter areas, it's faster to use another movement option rather than looping. This startup also means that looping uses up slightly more ink than a normal line will

• Looping also makes swimming wayyyyy easier.

Velocity Clipping / Other Zipping glitches :

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Usage of Copy Abilities:

There are 11 copy abilities in Kirby Canvas Curse. They can be used across multiple screens, but not across multiple stages. Note that because we use real time, we have to factor in the animation for getting the ability in terms of its usefulness.

Format: [Ability name] Where it's recommended: [stages where getting it is actually a good idea] Where it's usable: [stages where you can get it if the strats sound appealing or where you don't need to immediately get rid of it if gotten by accident] Where it's useless: [stages where you don't want it. Note we are ignoring locations that are really out of the way, like Wheel in Frozen Fantasy or Balloon in Plant Plain] Usefulness: [out of 5]

Balloon Where it's recommended: End of Canvas Canyon Screen 2 Where it's usable: Rest of Canvas Canyon Where it's useless: Spectacle Space Usefulness: 2/5

Mainly used for rising upwards without using ink. Note that it conserves Kirby's horizontal velocity, which can be very problematic especially given that it grows in size upon tapping. Handy for the second screen of Canvas Canyon to save ink a bit and then loop to the goal. Can be useful in other upwards sections but is very difficult to control and regular ink usage would be better anyways.

Beam Where it's recommended: Nowhere Where it's usable: Tiny Town Midboss, Machine Mansion Autoscroller, Paletto Polis Autoscroller Where it's useless: Everywhere else Usefulness: 1/5

Generally more of a hazard than anything lol, since Waddle Doos are everywhere and picking up the ability wastes time. Shoutouts to two particularly trolly ones in Screen 1 of Canvas Canyon. If you get it by accident, there are a couple places where it's worth keeping. Namely, if you get it in Tiny Town before the boss it can be useful to beat the boss a bit faster. Also useful if obtained during the autoscrollers in Machine Mansion and Paletto Polis. Important to note that it's technically faster to do the Growth Grasses mid-boss with Beam, but this can be very difficult to do RTA (due to the advent of Velocity clipping, this is no longer the TAS strat)

Burning Where it's recommended: Most of Ghost Grounds, All of Mag Mount Where it's usable: Contrast Cave Where it's useless (assuming you aren't a TAS lord): Canvas Canyon, Spectacle Space Usefulness: 4/5

Allows you to move extremely quickly horizontally. Important to note that you can transfer your momentum with lines, allowing you to move upwards or downwards if needed, such as before the cannon in Ghost Grounds. If you end your burning dash while traveling on a line, Kirby will continue moving while on the line, allowing Kirby to move while the startup for the next burning dash happens. Mainly useful in Ghost Grounds and Mag Mount, not so much in Canvas Canyon and Spectacle Space due to heavy amounts of vertical movement, which can be troublesome in high amounts. TAS can move vertically with burning with well-placed lines, so you could theoretically make use of it in those areas. Oh, and it's also in Contrast Cave if you're into that

Crash Where it's recommended: Nowhere Where it's usable: Nowhere Where it's useless: Rift Ruins, Silent Seabed Usefulness: 0/5

Avoid, completely useless for any%.

Freeze Where it's recommended: Cold Course Screen 3 Where it's usable: Volatile Volcano, Frozen Fantasy Screen 1 Where it's useless: Rest of Frozen Fantasy Usefulness: 3/5

Allows Kirby to move fairly fast horizontally (not as fast as looping), but gives him increased gravity. As a result, it's essential for quickly going through the last stretch of Cold Course, especially when combined with downwards loops. Not as useful for Frozen Fantasy, however, as the downwards acceleration can be a pretty big hindrance when you're trying to move upwards. Also not super useful for Volatile Volcano when looping exists and it's hard to obtain.

Missile Where it's recommended: Nowhere Where it's usable: Spectacle Space Screen 2 Where it's useless: Machine Mansion Usefulness: 1/5

It can move fairly quickly once it gets going but it has slow startup. The distance it can be used for in Machine Mansion is too short to be of any usefulness. Can be nice for Spectacle Space if you're starting out, but it's much faster to use loops otherwise

Needle Where it's recommended: Dreamy Darkness, Where it's usable: Frozen Fantasy Screen 1 Where it's useless: Frozen Fantasy Screen 2/3, Mad Mechanism Usefulness: 3/5

Can be difficult to handle at first, but moves very quickly while it's on a line. As a result, it uses less ink over looping. Unfortunately, it needs to be on a line to be of any use, and it can be annoying to try an refill ink while having it. Luckily, Dreamy Darkness's screens are really short. In Dreamy Darkness, it's best to keep it at least for screens 2-4, though it can be useful in 5 if the lines are drawn properly. It's available in Frozen Fantasy, but not recommended because the distances are too long for Needle to be worth it. Useless in Mad Mechanism based on it appearing in a terrible location, however

Spark Where it's recommended: Growth Grasses Mid-boss Where it's usable: Machine Mansion Autoscroller, parts of Dungeon Dome Screen 3, parts of Silent Seabed Screen 1 Where it's useless: Everywhere else Usefulness: 2/5

Easiest strat for the Growth Grasses mini-boss. Can be useful in Dungeon Dome for the breakable blocks in Screen 3, but looping and breaking them yourself is faster. Your movement is noticeably slower while dashing. Can be useful in Machine Mansion's autoscroller if you get it by accident. Otherwise, avoid. Note that you move downwards when you use it underwater, as that counts as dashing, making it useless in the first screen of Silent Seabed.

Stone Where it's recommended: Contrast Cave Screen 3, first half of Silent Seabed Screen 1 Where it's useful: Contrast Cave Screen 2, Dungeon Dome, Silver Submarine, Silent Seabed Screen 2 Where it's useless: Whenever you're going up Usefulness: 4/5

Excellent for downwards movement. Crucial for Screen 3 of Contrast Cave and Screen 1 of Silent Seabed. You could technically get it in Screen 2 of Contrast Cave and not lose much, if any, time, if you're up for it. Generally unoptimal otherwise, but still useful if you get by accident or you haven't gotten a complete feel for the line/swimming mechanics of the game, so long as you're moving downwards

Tornado Where it's recommended: no Where it's usable: no Where it's useless: Growth Grasses, Canvas Canyon Usefulness: -1/5

Pissed me off as a kid tbh. Tornado was unbelievably OP in NiDL and Squeak Squad, and then you have this garbage which sends you nowhere. Oh, and it even has a fairly long animation when you get it. Avoid.

Wheel Where it's recommended: Plant Plains, Ravine Road, Cold Course Screen 2/parts of 3, Dungeon Dome Screen 2 Where it's usable: Dungeon Dome Screen 3 Where it's useless: Cold Course Screen 3 (Unless TAS Wizard) Usefulness: 5/5

You move really fast. Vertical movement can be tricky, as it has a tendency to bump into the lines, but it can ride on lines when drawn correctly, making it pretty useful in Cold Course and Dungeon Dome. Notes that there is a bit of startup, but like burning, if Kirby is moving on the line, he can move during startup. Shame it's not available in other places. You can keep it through the rest of Dungeon Dome, but you need to keep it through the mid-boss, and it's also very difficult to travel through the section with the breakable blocks. Yes, it's the optimal strat, but it's very difficult, and by the time you'll be ready to implement that into your runs, you'll probably already have outgrown this guide lol.

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Various little level tricks/info to make you go faster:

Not going go to into super full detail on the routing of this game, as to be quite honest I haven't properly routed this game myself because how annoying it is to do so and my general inexperience as a speedrunner, I mainly go off past experience/intuition :/. However, this means that a lot of the time saves come from pretty easy to spot utilizations of looping. These are a few of the notable or less obvious small tricks and skips to make note of in various levels:

Mag Mount: -Platform skip [Screen 2]: Move Kirby down below the platform, curved downwards line will do, followed by a loop once Kirby is out of the platform's range. Can be tricky to do because of the small space and the lava potentially recoiling you back onto the platform. Additionally, once you're on the platform, it's very difficult to get off until you're close to the bottom.

Rift Ruin: -Fast spinning spikes [Screen 4]: After Kirby hits the ceiling from the cannon, loop slightly to the left, so that Kirby is right at the edge of the area he can go up through, then as far upwards as you can. If done properly, you should be able to avoid all of the spinning spikes. You can dash to the left instead to save ink, but you might offset your position too much.

Paletto Polis: -Platform room skip [Screen 1]: After exiting the pipe, get Kirby on the platform. Immediately dash off and loop or make a curved line above the Shotzo and onto the farthest right platform. Use the platform to get to the right a bit and refill your ink, then dash off and loop left then upwards until you reach the area where the door is. You should be able to avoid getting hit by Shotzos. Small lines + dashing can be done if you're not used to looping.

Volatile Volcano: -Lots of things [Screen 1]: This screen can be pretty fast but can be pretty difficult. Luckily, there are a decent amount of health items, so don't worry too much about dying on this screen...do be careful the second screen though. Anyways, a lot of the grabber sections can be skipped and done quickly with loops. The other lava sections can also be done pretty quickly with loops. One particular section I'd like to note is the pit right before the first checkpoint. It's can be tricky to position the loop properly, and you can end up getting Kirby to fall right into the pit if you're not careful, so be mindful of keeping your loop level and steady (I mention this because I've died to that pit more times than I'd like to admit >_>).

Frozen Fantasy:

• Platform Skip [Screen 2]: See this video: An alternative visual cue would be the exact moment Kirby grabs the stars while on the edge of the platform. Also note that we typically damage boost through the shotzos at the end of the first half of the screen in order to get to the first platform of this section in time.

Mad Mechanism: -Fast Midboss [Screen 2]: If you position the bombs towards the center of a wall, rather than towards the upper part or lower part of a wall, you can destroy both the upper and lower parts with 1 bomb rather than the usual 2. Note that the explosion might not hit the switches as easily as it can when you're only trying to destroy one part of the wall, but it shouldn't cost as much time compared to needing 4 bombs. This boss fight in general is really annoying until you have Kirby's movement down really well (ngl I had loads of trouble getting all the time trial medals for this stage at first >_<) so don't get frustrated too much if you can't do it.

Spectacle Space: -The left path [Screen 1]: Take the left path through Screen 1, as it's noticably faster. It's a bit more hazardous, and the checkpoint won't be as immediately accessible, so keep that in mind in case this section is too daunting.

-Color door [Screen 2]: If you pay attention at the start of the stage, you'll notice that the color door switches are directly at the bottom of the stage. The switches need to be red, so try pressing them before getting Kirby to hit the switch at the top. When travelling back down to hit the second switch, pass by underneath the main area to hit the last color door switch (this general area also as a health item, so it's still useful to keep note).

World of Drawcia:

-Faster Drawcia Sorceress: A very curious property concerning looping is that, when hitting Drawcia while Kirby has his speed from a loop, Drawcia takes more damage. It's actually pretty easy to 4 cycle Drawcia if you utilize looping, rather than the usual 5 cycle. Ideally, you'd want to draw a loop that is large enough to get Kirby to hit Drawcia all three times while looping. Alternatively, another pattern would be to get the first hit on Drawcia with the start of the extended line, the second hit as you're exiting the extended line but still have the speed, and the third hit as normal, potentially with another loop if you have the time and you feel you didn't get every hit from a loop. This should deal about 25% HP to her.

• Drawcia Soul: Drawcia Soul is one of the main forms of RNG in this run that can actually cause a good amount of time loss: A bad Soul pattern will cost upwards of 20 seconds (Probably up to 45 seconds if memory serves). Similar to Sorceress, it's possible to beat Soul in 4 cycles, but you need to loop every time you hit Soul and, additionally, you need good RNG so that Soul will be put into the right HP range (the way to tell is to check, right before you loop into her at the end of her third cycle, if she has slightly less than half of her health. If she does, you're probably on track).

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The Sub-Game Bosses:

There is no truly optimal order to fighting the bosses. The only thing can really affect the amount of time it takes beat a boss depending on when you choose to fight is for Kracko Jr. and Kracko, where hitting healing items while not at full health causes freeze frames. My preferred order is Kracko -> Paint Roller -> Dedede:

• Kracko, especially Kracko Jr. (which is probably the most reset-heavy point of the run), has heavy amounts of RNG, is pretty janky, and is execution heavy.

• Paint Roller also requires some clean execution, and I don't like to save it for the end where my nerves can cause me to choke

• Dedede is, imo, easier than the other two. The food placement isn't completely RNG, but the actual variation of your time generally won't be very large.

In the end though, because the order doesn't really matter, you should just go in the order that makes you most comfortable (though you'll probably quickly realize you should at least do Kracko Jr. first)

Here's a couple neat tricks to keep in mind:

Dedede: -Start boost: Much like Mario Kart, you can start off with a speed boost with some good timing. Specifically, hit the bumper...thing that you use to control Kirby any time between the signal to start appearing and no later than 12 frames, or 0.2 seconds, afterwards. This is a pretty easy window to hit, but it can be awkward if you play games like Mario Kart since it's after the start rather than before or right on it.

Kracko: -Kracko Jr. Quick Kill: With some quick reflexes and good angling of your paddle, or some help from a wall, you can get multiple hits off on Kracko Jr. from one opening. Ideally, you can get all 4 hits off of one opening, but this is very hard to do due to how quick and accurate your reactions must be. Generally it's okay to be satisfied with any instance where you get multiple hits.

-Kracko Electric Attack: You can actually phase right through Kracko's lightning so long as you don't hit one of its clouds: If you've removed clouds from Kracko and his eye is exposed while doing the attack, you can travel through this path unharmed and get a clean hit on it.

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Wii U VC Differences:

• The load times on the Wii U VC version are faster than on cart (DS vs 3DS doesn't seem to matter too much, not sure about N3DS). According to GloriousLiar, each load is about 1/4 second faster on VC. The full time difference has not been measured, but judging by Real-time -> In-game time conversions, the VC release is probably about a minute faster than cart.
• After a hard reset, there is a bit of a lag spike for a few seconds at the start of the first level you enter. This does not occur with a soft reset (same button combo as always, just remapped for the Wii U), so try to warm up a bit so you don't encounter the lag spike at the start of a run.
• Your inputs might get cut off occasionally if you're making big loops that reach into new parts of the screen. Just be wary of this.
• The noise that plays when you tap a no-ink zone is different and horrible WutFace

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Additional Miscellaneous Information Just for random information that may be helpful to know that doesn't fit anywhere else

• Jump Game: As of now, we skip the Jump Game by soft resetting to title, which is always faster than actually playing the jump game frame-perfectly

• Mad Mechanism Door: As far as we know, the door at the end of Mad Mechanism appears in and disappears from set locations in a pattern, but the starting position and pattern is random and cannot be easily determined NotLikeThis

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Hopefully this gives enough material to help you get started~