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Ruling the cosmos!
I'm using this post to gain knowledge for myself, but feel free to discuss this topic as you would like.

So when I learn a new speed game, I do it in a very segmented "one part to the next" fashion, I creat a save state before one room, play it, load the state, and constantly reprat until I feel comfortable with the room in question. I like this is one sense because you know when you are ready for each little part, so every bit of the run feels so much more refined. On the other hand, I find that when I learn a game in this fashion, I get tired really quickly, so I'm only able to learn maybe one level at a time for a day throughout a practice session of a couple hours or so. Then when I eventually come back to the game through my limited schedule, I always feel obligated to do a run of what I know to start up, refresh my memory and all, but then it comes to a point eventually as I do this, it comes to a point where that run will be most of my practice session, and I tire out much more quickly and don't have time to learn very much more of the game, and this just continues to get worse and worse until it's taken me several months to learn a 40 minute speed game. And that's how I how I do it, it has it's good sides, but some severe backdraws.

So I ask y'all, how do you learn your speed games? Why does your method shine? What would you recommend to people?
Thread title:  
Gotta go fast!
It depends on how long the game is for me though. If its an hour, I'll go all the way through and practice the whole run that way. If its longer, then I will break it down in to segments and practice each segment all the way through. I do this because it gives you a feel for how the run is as a whole rather than just parts of it and you can always go and practice specific parts that you strugle with after. It also reduces the common problem of being better at the start of the game than the end because you've practiced the start more. Even if its going terribly, you still get the practice and its the way that works for me.
Lets say the game is broken down into parts A, B, C, D, E just for simplicity.

I do IL's and/or practice part A until I get it down followed by part B and then i'll do a run of A + B. Then i'll just
repeat and keep on adding on parts and eventually i'll end up doing a full game run. It's slow but it works out
well for me.
Ruling the cosmos!
That's basically what I do as well, but like I said, since it keeps on stacking up, you run parts A-D, then depending on the game length, you might not be up by that point for going and learning part E. But maybe in that scenario the best thing to do would be to just go and learn part E, have a "just go do it" kind of attitude, screw parts A-D, I need more.
A Serious Noob
Best way for me is to playthrough the game first before you begin to speedrun. The more you play the game the better chances at learning new ways to get through the game faster. People who speedruns will learn something new everytime and will experiment new methods until it's proven efficient in a run. Also doing some research on a game that's already been ran to learn to some tips and tricks from other speedrunners and figuring out ways to improve from it.

Hadoken
It's weather time!
I usually just run head-first into a game, single-segmenting it until I get some good muscle memory going and can get a good consistent run.

That said, I don't run any particularly long games so this might not be a great method if I was to learn any games longer than 25 minutes.
fast video games
Heres what i do:
-lok up a few runs
-do some research on some tricks or sequence breaks you dont readily understand
-ask around for osme info if you cant find it
-if its level based practice IL's
-if ts one straight game practice it in segments
-keep this up and practice runs wthout reseting if your  still new to the game

good luck in whatever games you decide to run!
Edit history:
Patashu: 2014-03-31 04:05:06 pm
Lots and lots of savestates and referring to the best recorded play of the game you can find for strats. You have every advantage in the world, use them Cheesy
So im assuming if a PC version of the game i want to run exists i should pick that? I imagine save states would make it alot easier to to practice especially in games like Dark Souls 2.
Waiting hurts my soul...
Whatever you're comfortable with is best. PC and console are usually automatically separate categories.
Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^
Quote from shamefulanomaly:
So im assuming if a PC version of the game i want to run exists i should pick that? I imagine save states would make it alot easier to to practice especially in games like Dark Souls 2.

Not necessarily. Some PC versions of some games (although I can't give you examples) fascinate by the absence (or presence) of specific game-breaking glitches.
On the other hand, console save states can be accessed easily (especially for older consoles) on emulators. I only took up playing on emulators, because practising JRPGs without savestates is … tiring o.o''
Ruling the cosmos!
How would one go about using save states in PC games?
Gotta go (Moderately) Fast
You can download save files and import them in your game files
Edit history:
presjpolk: 2014-04-04 10:01:13 am
HELLO!
Quote from Copilot:
How would one go about using save states in PC games?


https://code.google.com/p/hourglass-win32/

http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/JPC.html

Though how useful this is depends on the game...
Im currently learning Pandora's Tower for the Wii
There are 13 towers in the game that take about 10 minutes each
So what I do is to practice a single tower until I feel comfortable with it, which means not dying, remembering the route, etc
Then I move on to the next tower and do the same thing

So basically I split the run in smaller parts, pratice each of them and then do a full run
Quote from jetfirexx:
It depends on how long the game is for me though. If its an hour, I'll go all the way through and practice the whole run that way. If its longer, then I will break it down in to segments and practice each segment all the way through. I do this because it gives you a feel for how the run is as a whole rather than just parts of it and you can always go and practice specific parts that you strugle with after. It also reduces the common problem of being better at the start of the game than the end because you've practiced the start more. Even if its going terribly, you still get the practice and its the way that works for me.
This sums up my general feelings.

In shorter games I'll just run the whole thing start to finish. In longer games I'll practise a segment of the game until I feel I've memorised the route and then move on to the next segment, aiming to get a full-game run as quickly as possible. Once I've got splits down for the whole game, I can look back at my run and see where I lost lots of time (i.e. I see where in the game it'd be most worthwhile to put effort into practising). Get some practice in on problem areas then run through the game again, and continue the cycle of analysing where/how I lost time, working on areas that I lost time and doing another run.

There are some games where that sort of mentality just can't work - for instance, if a route requires that you keep a powerup/weapon for long periods of time and you lose it on getting hit, then you need to learn the route in baby steps to ensure you can reliably avoid getting hit. But generally I'd prefer to get a full-game run together sooner rather than later, then deal with optimisation and stuff afterwards.
Did i misplace my sexy? I think not
It depends on how a game is structured. A game like sonic with acts and zones there is a clear separation in levels. I usually practice an act at a time in this case. A game like OoT is all linear though. So it really makes a difference on how a game is made.
Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^
Quote from nik:
It depends on how a game is structured. A game like sonic with acts and zones there is a clear separation in levels. I usually practice an act at a time in this case. A game like OoT is all linear though. So it really makes a difference on how a game is made.

Well, even OoT can be structured in terms of levels; even if they aren't as obvious: Every dungeon in itself is more or less a closed system (exception usually being shadow, visited twice … at least in the routes I've seen before) which can be practised as if it were a seperate level.
Also, just because a game consists of levels, doesn't necessarily mean that it can always be practised level-wise: If health carries over from one level to another (like it does for Asterix and Obelix), you might want to adjust your tactics on the fly, depending on whether you have a lot of health at the beginning of the level, or are about to die.
Most games can be structured in terms of levels, though; even if the level boundaries are arbitrary for some games Wink