Description On version 1.02 of the game, it's possible on many levels to start them at a late checkpoint. I'm not sure what causes this exactly, but the criteria to trigger it is the following.

Steps

1. Playing on an any% save (i.e. you haven't completed the game)
2. After completing a level, right after the black screen, while the loading animation is still playing (I believe) and before the map fades back in, pause the game. This seems to be the biggest variable in getting it right.
3. Exit to the main menu. In my experience, so long as you pause at the right time, you can exit any time thereafter.
4. Resume your save game.
5. At the map screen, start the next level.
6. Depending on your timing, and which level it is (not all levels do this -- at least that we've found), you'll be dropped in at a late checkpoint.
7. Depending on the level, this may make completion difficult or even impossible because a side-quest has been skipped, so you're not automatically granted the ability. For instance, you can't complete the puzzle in Gemstone Caverns because you lack Pontius' clone, so you'll need to play from the start of the level up to right when he gets the ability, then resume the late checkpoint.
8. ...
9. Profit!

Affected Levels

So far, these are the levels with skips we've discovered, and the checkpoint you're given.

Level - Name: Checkpoint

1 - Town Library: N/A

2 - Garden of Eternal Shade: Unknown

3 - Well of Tranquility: Unknown

4 - Astral Academy Gardens: 6

5 - Long Way to Town: 11

6 - Sinister Back Alleys: Unknown

7 - Royal Castle: 11

8 - Tallest Tower: 13

9 - Dungeons and Sewer Rats: 14

10 - Smuggler's Way: Unknown

11 - Gemstone Caverns: 13

12 - Brackenridge Path: 14

13 - Astral Observatory: 14

14 - Autumn Woods: 15

15 - Petrified Marshes: 15

16 - Bastion of Hope: Unknown

17 - Magnificent Airship: Skill Quest 9

18 - Floating Archipelago: Unknown

19 - Clockwork Palace: 13

20 - Dethroning: N/A

Video

I streamed finding each of these, so you can see how I managed to trigger them if a visual is needed.

I've re-formatted this slightly and added a guide on skipping the fight in Astral Academy Gardens.

nice! thanks very much for doing that

Overview

For the... 3(?) people still playing Trine 5, I figured I'd create a thread for documenting strats and general knowledge, for whomever might find it useful besides myself.

Wind Burst Leap Exploit

The most-used abilities by a large margin are Amadeus' Wind Burst Leap (WBL) which (for version 1.02 and older) allows something like 3 to 7 additional boosts by spamming jump, Pontius' charge, and box/plank jumping to a lesser extent. Those three things combined can skip a majority of height and distance-based parts that would otherwise require a slower method, whether solving a puzzle or levitating objects.

In order to make sure you get this by the first grand checkpoint in The Astral Academy Gardens, you'll need 6 upgrade points (150 XP). There's roughly 188 XP by that checkpoint, so not all of it needs to be collected -- ideally, only that which doesn't require going too far out of your way.

General Strats

There's also a way to skip the segment in The Astral Academy Gardens when you're trapped in the cage, which you can find here.

Unfortunately, some of the best strats that worked for 4, most notably object charge, do not work in 5, as when you launch an object with charge or wind burst and then immediately grapple it with Zoya, the object is just stopped by her rope rather than getting pulled along with it. However, box/plank jumping is still doable, and when combined with the WBL exploit, is extremely powerful.

Invincibility Frames

After you die and resurrect, you're invincible for something like 3 seconds. It's possible to use this to run through spikes, electrified water, and the like.

Zoya's roll also makes her invincible during the animation, so triggering that right before getting hit will cancel any damage you would have received.

Movement

In terms of general movement, Pontius' charge is (as usual) generally the fastest, at least in bursts. There's also shield sliding when you have a lot of relatively flat ground to cover, and Zoya's roll, which can be used to save time while Pontius' charge is in cooldown. Switching between charge and roll is a good deal faster than either on its own, which are both faster than just running. However, if there are rings around, a well-timed swing can be one of the fastest movement methods, as can Amadeus's ball spin, but only if it's worth the ~3s it takes to charge. In my experience, there aren't many decent places to use it that charging wouldn't cover.

While not as universally effective as WBL, and likely of extremely limited use in speedrunning, if you have enough points for both Kiteshield (5) and Kick & Wall Jump (2), you can often get to ledges just out of reach by wall jumping, then immediately switching to Pontius and gliding to reach the ledge. I'm not sure where this would ever come in handy, but I've used it a number of times as a casual player, for whatever it's worth.

Topics to cover:

Fight/Enemy/Boss Strategies

Major Skips

• Astral Academy Gardens Fight Skip
• Tallest Tower Gate Guardian Skip
• Dungeons and Sewer Rats fight skip 1
• Dungeons and Sewer Rats fight skip 2
• Astral Observatory Fight Skip

A more in-depth explanation of object jumping and other movement tactics

Puzzle fast solves/cheesing

• Autumn Woods box puzzle

Specific skips and exploits

• Checkpoint Skipping
• Dungeons and Sewer Rats - Zoya Skill Quest wall clip
• The Bastion of Hope Flying Exploit
• The Bastion of Hope Guard Station Puzzle Skip

Autosplitter progress

If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with me, and hopefully a little life can be breathed back into this game.

I'm terribly new to speedrunning, but I love Trine, and I'd love to attempt some single-segments. However, they don't appear to be set up — clearly it isn't the most popular game here.

Also, would it be possible to add a NG+ category?

Thanks!

This is awesome! I'm a big fan of the Trine games, but I can't speedrun to save my life, so seeing you exploit Amadeus' wind jump to skip entire fights and get around puzzles faster is interesting. I'll sometimes think "how would a speedrunner do this part" and come up with something slightly faster than my usual glacial pace, but didn't guess a lot of these. Very creative!

It'd be nice to see a NG+ category which I imagine would involve a lot of Pontius' shield sliding and Zoya's fox rope (the insanity you could achieve with that probably knows no bounds...).