Prince of Persia

It actually seems that this forum is pretty much behind all the recent findings that happen in the PoP speedrunning discord, including new strats but also tools to find them.

Mostly was was found is micro-optimizations of known strats, but for example this was also recently discovered:


(hopefully the direct link to video from Discord works)

Nice! But looks impossible...

Can you share the discord link?

crem wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 6:10 pm It actually seems that this forum is pretty much behind all the recent findings that happen in the PoP speedrunning discord, including new strats but also tools to find them.

Mostly was was found is micro-optimizations of known strats, but for example this was also recently discovered:


(hopefully the direct link to video from Discord works)

Hi Crem,if you want to break the world record, you can get a few seconds if you do other techniques for example level 02,09... meanwhile, try playing some mods

crem wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 6:10 pm It actually seems that this forum is pretty much behind all the recent findings that happen in the PoP speedrunning discord, including new strats but also tools to find them.

Mostly was was found is micro-optimizations of known strats, but for example this was also recently discovered:


(hopefully the direct link to video from Discord works)

This is so very cool! Although I don't understand what is happening here. An explanation or discord link would be appreciated :-)

SuavePrince wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 8:43 am Hi Crem,if you want to break the world record, you can get a few seconds if you do other techniques for example level 02,09... meanwhile, try playing some mods

Actually I don't play myself (and don't want to break the WR), I only run tools to find optimizations for other people to run.

Here's the generated run for the first 3 levels, I believe there's currently no known ways to do it faster.

prinsrob2 wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 9:53 am

crem wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 6:10 pm It actually seems that this forum is pretty much behind all the recent findings that happen in the PoP speedrunning discord, including new strats but also tools to find them.

Mostly was was found is micro-optimizations of known strats, but for example this was also recently discovered:


(hopefully the direct link to video from Discord works)

This is so very cool! Although I don't understand what is happening here. An explanation or discord link would be appreciated :-)

PoP speedrunning discord link is https://discord.gg/0Ss0agDWPoiSvr3E (#pop1 channel there).

What happens in the video is multiple glitches:
1. (at 0:13) Kid has to push guard to the right of chompers, there is a glitch that chompers don't chomp guard when at the same time kid hits it.
2. (at 0:23) The recently discovered trick to push guards easily. If you have your sword hidden and are very close the guard, that moves guard by quite a lot.
3. (at 0:24) Usually when guard falls from the height of 2 cells, it dies. However, PoP only remembers the velocity of objects that are in the current room, so quickly changing room in the middle of guard's fall and going back resets falling, and the guard falls safely.
4. (at 0:27) Pretty well-known glitch that when you fall on top of the guard, you don't get any falling damage/effect.
5. (at 0:28) If guard happens to be very close to the gate, and kid is between guard and kid, it can push you through the gate.

There are already several people who did that by hand (https://www.speedrun.com/pop1/Level_7), so it's human-doable, not some kind of wild TAS-only trick.

SuavePrince wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 8:43 am Hi Crem,if you want to break the world record, you can get a few seconds if you do other techniques for example level 02,09... meanwhile, try playing some mods

What are these new techniques?! I am all ears.

Karlgamer wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 12:26 pm

SuavePrince wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 8:43 am Hi Crem,if you want to break the world record, you can get a few seconds if you do other techniques for example level 02,09... meanwhile, try playing some mods

What are these new techniques?! I am all ears.

the same ways(rooms), but different ways to use the tricks..maybe can upload other speedrun pop1 video..i know how do it

crem wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 11:38 am Here's the generated run for the first 3 levels, I believe there's currently no known ways to do it faster.

I know of a trick which can possibly save a fraction of a second:
On level 3, after you climb up to the gate, when the next room appears, press Ctrl+A.
The prince will "teleport" to the hardcoded respawn point, which is a few tiles away from the gate.

Source: viewtopic.php?p=13756#p13756
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3mxAsAS4

I don't know how much time can this save, since the prince needs to turn around and get up to speed.

David wrote: ↑March 13th, 2021, 10:14 pm

crem wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 11:38 am Here's the generated run for the first 3 levels, I believe there's currently no known ways to do it faster.

I know of a trick which can possibly save a fraction of a second:
On level 3, after you climb up to the gate, when the next room appears, press Ctrl+A.
The prince will "teleport" to the hardcoded respawn point, which is a few tiles away from the gate.

Source: viewtopic.php?p=13756#p13756
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3mxAsAS4

I don't know how much time can this save, since the prince needs to turn around and get up to speed.

People in Discord chat testes that yesterday, it indeed saves 1 frame if Ctrl+A press is frame-perfect.
It's surely something to incorporate to tool-assisted speedruns, but for humans that's likely too risky. If pressed one frame too early, it resets the game to the very beginning of the level.

crem wrote: ↑March 15th, 2021, 10:39 am People in Discord chat testes that yesterday, it indeed saves 1 frame if Ctrl+A press is frame-perfect.
It's surely something to incorporate to tool-assisted speedruns, but for humans that's likely too risky. If pressed one frame too early, it resets the game to the very beginning of the level.

Ah, okay, I didn't know that.

I don't know if this is a trick already on PoPOT, but seems you can by losing a health point, jump in a specific way to reach the bottom floor and you don't get killed by spikes:


If it's on PoPOT, still it might be a new trick.

atrueprincefanfrom18 wrote: ↑March 21st, 2021, 1:49 pma_demo_trick.p1r

That .p1r file actually crashes SDLPoP for me (dumps a core).
I'll try to find out why.

[Edit:]
The problem seems to be in load_lev_spr().
After it did play_level(), restore_savestate_from_buffer(), restore_room_after_quick_load().
Maybe you created the .p1r with a version newer than the latest public release?
Yeah, it works when I download SDLPoP from GitHub.

[Edit 2:]
Pretty sure it's a new trick. Nice one too.
I'll also add it to PoPOT later today; will edit this post when done.

[Edit 3:]
Added as 163:

Norbert! A question for you or someone else can answer, why does trick 83 only work with a raincoat, and without a raincoat you can't repeat it?

YURA wrote: ↑April 1st, 2021, 7:27 am[...], why does trick 83 only work with a raincoat, and without a raincoat you can't repeat it?

I think it's because the caped prince (by Veke) is actually a wider image.
See the attached comparison.
David could likely tell you the technical details.