Everything you should know before doing a speedrun

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Jakim
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Everything you should know before doing a speedrun

Post by Jakim »

LEVEL 1:
Your goal here is to jump over the guard without a sword. You should do a perfect timing here, for beginners this trick is hard to repeat. Watch 22 to get know how it's done.

LEVEL 2:
Nothing special here, just go left and avoid the guards (jump over them). Before jumping+climbing combinations try to bounce off the walls to save some miliseconds. There is a shortcut you should be aware of at the end:


LEVEL 3:
The beginning is simple. After some climbing and running (despite the fact there is a long way at the top, we aren't able to do many jumps) we can teleport by pressing CTRL-A:


If you open the main gate, don't fight with the skeleton: before fight jump as far right as you can and tap right key to fall down (don't forget to press shift). There is only one well timed jump left before the end.

LEVEL 4:
At the start, we have to force the guard in the right room to open a gate. If you have troubles with recreating this trick, see video how to do that.


The rest is based on avoiding guards. At the last screen (this one with chomper) go down by turning left in right moment (+ gripping from immediately shift key pressing).

LEVEL 5:
We have to force another trick. Lure the guard from right screen and at the bottom of level. Our goal is to move in the left direction during "fight" with the guard and pass through closed gate. See 35. You shouldn't have problems with the further rooms.

LEVEL 6:
Nothing unusual here since it's a short level. Don't jump over the fat guard, switching places is a better option. Don't forget to jump as often as it's possible, even over a hole in the next to last screen (see general tips for a video).

LEVEL 7:
Except one tricky moment, we won't find here anything special. We are able to jump through the gate in a certain moment:


The rest is pretty straightforward. My intuition says me there is a faster way. If I found it, I will let you know.

LEVEL 8:
At the start we have to meet one of the best guards in the game. I prefer to jump over him and escape that way (I don't know wheter standard switch is faster here, I would have to count the frames):


After we can make our run shorter jumping over top green guard at this moment:


Starting position matters, so this moment is pretty tough. The rest of this level should be easy; we will be able to go down without the mouse's help.

LEVEL 9:
The start is usual. After some time there occurs possibility to save about second in this moment (compared with usual playing):


We don't have to make below (see the image) gate opened.
Image

We will be able to use trick [39] to pass through closed gate as it is shown below:


It is probably most demanding part of your speedrun, needs perfect timing, don't give up easily.

LEVEL 10:
There occurs strange but useful (for speedrunners) integer overflow bug which teleports us higher. The difference between is about 8 seconds, so it's worth to abuse this bug. See known integer overflow bugs section to see how to do it.

Other screens are rather obvious. Do your best with yellow guard, you will probably need a bit of luck to kill/avoid him - you must be able to get rid of one tile and push the button. If you have no idea how to do it a fast as possible, push the guard to the gate and attack him, he will be helpless. At the end don't forget to bounce the wall after falling down (with losing 1HP), you will skip recovering animation which is very long.

LEVEL 11:
Straightforward. Jump and tap in the right moments to beat this level.

LEVEL 12a:
It's tempting to get rid of loose tile in the certain moment
Image
but normal way is slightly faster, see the comparisons section.

To save a large amount of time we have to abuse integer overflow bug again.

LEVEL 12b:
Go left as fast as possible and remember to bounce off the wall. You can easily win with Jaffar by throwing him down:


GENERAL TIPS:
In general, the fastest way is to jump over the guards like in the first level. If it's impossible, we have to face the guard and switch places (59). Remember, sometimes jumping over the guards will be costing you more than "normal" switching, so don't try to be mechanical. But, what is important, we don't want to fight with guards. As pacifists we kill only if it's really required (happens once/twice in the game). Additionaly, getting hit pushes us one small step, we are able exchange one hitpoint for miliseconds.

If you hurry (of course you do!) and there is one tile hole, you can easily (by pressing up arrow a bit later), see trick 42. Running is slower than jumping, so on the flat floor you should press up arrow pretty often. Even if our path ends with a wall, it's still better to jump. See comparisons section for the results.

It's worth to hold left (right) key and bounce off the wall like after jump before climbing up (third screen of second level). It saves marginal amount of time but since you will have to do such jumps many times it can make you able to save some seconds. The video in the comparisons sections shows this small difference.

Sometimes before standard/two-tiles jumps we need to stand at the exact end of the tile. Run+tap (to tap press down arrow) is a good idea. Also, don't be afraid of jumping through many chompers, there is no better way!

Before any records you should come to know standard techniques like tapping/moving in the game's rhythm. See a video below:


There's much more to show. For the rest, explore popot's tricks section .

KNOWN INTEGER OVERFLOWS:
Level 10:


Level 12:


Probably there are more opportunities to abuse this bug. If you know one (even it does not improve the run), don't hesitate to tell!

COMPARISONS:
Bouncing off the wall before climbing/normal climbing:


Going down styles:


Level 12a ways:


This list isn't finished and will be expanded (probably). Every film appearing here can be watched on YouTube:
Level 2 - End of the level
Level 3 - CTRL-A teleport
Level 4 - Gate opener
Level 7 - Jumping through the wall
Level 8 - Dealing with the guard
Level 8 - Avoiding the guard
Level 9 - Saving some miliseconds
Level 9 - Passing through a closed gate
Level 12b - Killing Jaffar
Useful tricks for speedrunners
Level 10 - Integer overflow teleport
Level 12a - Integer overflow teleport
Jumping styles comparison
Going down comparison
Level 12a - Ways comparison

PS Norbert, are you able to create tricks link alias in case of changing popot's structure? For example: http://www.popot.org/trick/42 (or bbcode [trick=x]). It would prevent global site modification.
Last edited by Jakim on August 5th, 2013, 2:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Norbert
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Re: Everything you should know before doing a speedrun

Post by Norbert »

Jakim wrote:PS Norbert, are you able to create tricks link alias in case of changing popot's structure? For example: http://www.popot.org/trick/42 (or bbcode [trick=x]). It would prevent global site modification.
Yes, I moved tricks 41 and up to a second page (to prevent the pages from loading too slowly), and the URLs changed slightly.
What I've done after that is manually update all links to any of the tricks throughout this entire forum (not including the chat or private messages).
So, only very few links out there still need to be updated. Also, I don't plan on making any other structural changes.
I hope this was somewhat reassuring. :)

Having said that, thanks for your suggestion and I'll implement what you're suggesting.
I'll add both the possibility to use an alias URL and to use one of two different BBCodes (one to create a link, one to embed a video).
When it's implemented I'll post about it in the related threads in the General Stuff section.
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doppelganger
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Re: Everything you should know before doing a speedrun

Post by doppelganger »

Jakim wrote:12a
It's tempting to get rid of loose tile in the certain moment
-Image-
but normal way is slightly faster, see the comparisons section.
I didn't know of that!
Doppelgänger
Hmm.. These mortals know about me.. :evil:

Download 'Hell of A Palace' now from Popot!
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