So Lucky, since it seems you aren't a part of the Quern discord with the rest of us, I have something to present to you here that we haven't made a solid decision on. In a video I'll link at the end of this post I show a method I discovered for skipping all of the end dialogue and cutscenes and such after finishing the library. The issue is that in this method I am accessing something that isn't one of the two canon endings of the game, but rather triggers a for some reason still existing endcard from the beta stages of the game. The discussion that we have yet to conclude is whether or not this is to be considered a valid condition for having beaten the game. zzymyn says he dislikes it since, from a story standpoint, one never really reaches the ending of the character leaving Quern. But as he does not run this category he is also leaving the decision up to the two of us and will accept whatever we decide. I am mostly indifferent as to whether or not we use this skip, as I think that it is entirely fair to discount this as a valid ending and therefore claim that one wouldn't really be finishing the game by using this end condition. But I also would like to hear from you on this, as I'm reluctant to drop a relatively easy skip of probably 3 or 4 minutes purely based on story reasons.

As I said I'm willing to go either way. Let me know what you think.

Found some useful skips towards the end of the game yesterday. 1) you can run along the invisible walls of the sound puzzle to skip it and go into the library. 2) there's a spot you to jump up to clip through the wall and get on the bridge in that last area, it skips the professors first dialogue and the key, as well as gamana's first dialogue that holds you up on the bridge. I'll upload a run with them soon and you can see what I'm describing.

Something I found today, just thought I'd add in case anyone is curious. managed to climb on top of the mechanics building. dropping inside just gets you trapped, but from the roof of the mechanics I can get on to the upper area without using the ladder. Could be theoretically useful, but only if it could be managed to get the jumps to get up there consistent enough for it to actually be faster than just taking the ladder, which honestly I'm doubting is very reasonable. Skipping the ladder could almost allow for skipping the alchemy lab entirely, except that the key trapped in the crystal will force you to go there, and also you need the spoon to fill the bucket. If those could be worked around, we could entirely cut out the need to go to the alchemy lab. That's all I've got today. I'll keep updating if I keep finding things.

If we're deciding to stick with the most recent version of the game it isn't actually possible to grab the items from the debug area. Despite being out of bounds, it is heavily sealed off and I don't see any possible way of getting through it (except the save and load glitch that lets your camera pass through the wall). Little follow up on when I said I'd record some of the intense parkour opportunities I've found. I'm curious if there's specific interest in certain areas, cause I don't think it would be terribly productive if I just made an hour and a half long video of me wandering around the map to all the spots I've found. I'll list some of the places I found ways to get to early and maybe people can isolate some things that I can dedicate their own showcase to. Places I can get through terrain abuse: -The room where you pick up the red crystal (useless both in the excess time required and inability to leave the room) -Swamp Isles (might be useful but I haven't fathomed any way that it would be faster than just going in with the white crystal in a logical manner) -The Mines (gets you in behind the drawbridge, so it could potentially be used to skip that short puzzle, except you're trapped in there so probably useless) -The Cave (once again, trapped because the batteries aren't in so the area is closed off) -The Summit (I can climb all the from the main square up to the summit without using the green crystal, but as with the swamp isles I can't imagine a way it could be used to actually save time against the original route) -Upper Alchemy lab (with this discovery I made like 10 minutes ago, the green crystal could be entirely cut out of the run. It shouldn't be, because by no means would it save time to go out of the way for all these places that the green crystal can take you in a matter of seconds, but it definitely could be) Other than that the only things that might be worth showing off are a number of places that might lead to routes I haven't figured out yet. Idk, lemme know if any of this seems worth sharing.

I believe skipping the gear box saves about 30 seconds just because it allows me to use the key somewhere where it's less out of the way, but i do still use the key later for the convenience with the quarter key. And yes the lens skip avoids gamanas diologue, it's very convenient and not very hard to pull off. I'll be sure to get to showing off some stuff I've found sometime soon

im in the process of uploading a run at the moment that i think will be bringing some very helpful finds. I found a number of places around the upper portion of the island where you can climb the terrain and jump around above various places. So far I have found ways to get to half of the locations in the aboveground portion of the game without having to do their respective puzzles, but since most of these locations are locked from the outside, most of the routes ive found are not helpful. I did however find 3 climbing routes that together I would estimate save around 6 minutes. In the order they appear in the run, one gets to the battery that you normally need to gear key to get to, before even going to the alchemy lab. The next one gets me out of bounds so I can run to the alchemy lab without having to do the skull puzzle or ride that slow ass boat (I thank zzymyn for originally finding the way back in bounds and into the alchemy lab). the last climbing skip is probably the most useful, and the most simple. By jumping onto the fence on the summit, you can get behind the box that contains the lense, and grab it straight through the back of the box. This skips not only the need to open the mirror on the summit and shine the right light at it, but it entirely cuts out the need for alchemy lab 2. If anyone is interested i could make a video showing some of the places I've figured out how to skip to with climbing, and maybe someone else can find use for them that I couldn't, cause there really are a lot of places that you can get to immediately after opening the first door at the start of the game, but they're mostly locked from the outside. Great to see some other people interested in the run!