Earthworm Jim

Athens

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2014-03-25 09:13:08 pm

I've decided to update this first post to be more current and concise, old first post text can be seen below.

The main 2 categories for Earthworm Jim are Any%, which is self-explanatory, and All Lives, which is a run in which you collect every life in the game, and functions as a pseudo-100% category. Out of the two, Any% is ran far more commonly than All Lives.

The Earthworm Jim leaderboard is located here, on speedrun.com. It has leaderboards for Any%, All Lives, and and also an IL leaderboard.

If you want to learn how to speedrun Earthworm Jim, then watch my "How to run Earthworm Jim 1" tutorial video. It covers all movement strategies, all level strategies, and basically everything you'd need to run the game.

Although it isn't speedran very much, Earthworm Jim 1 is a good run, both to play and watch, and if you are looking at this thread thinking about picking it up I would recommend giving it a shot.

ORIGINAL FIRST POST BELOW
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

So after searching it seems there are no recent threads for people speedrunning Earthworm Jim, so here it is. If anybody else actively runs this game, I hope this helps you out. I'm currently going for the WR in this game. As far as I can see, the ~~current WR is 32:53 (SDA timing)~~ [OUTDATED] by Breakdown777. ~~My best time is 33:16 (SRL timing)~~ [OUTDATED]. Compared to Breakdown's run, there are a few things that have been improved, so I'll do a level-by-level analysis of the game, with strategies and tips.

Current WR for all categories can be found at

TIMING
I use SRL timing (Timing starts when you hit start on main menu, ends when you whip the queen), with every split being either when Jim says the "HAW" in "YEE-HAW" as he rides off on the pocket rocket, or when Psy-crow says "HEY" when he loses the race. Snot-a-problem is split after round 3 when the screen fades to black, and Level 5 is split when the screen fades to black after you kill the chicken.

This is a terrible way to do it, but I'm in too deep to change my split points now. If I could do it again, I would split on the fade to black instead.

As Breakdown's youtube videos have no splits or timers shown, to get the WR split times I downloaded every youtube part, stitched them together, and split while watching it. I repeated this 3 times, then averaged the times to get rid of error. My times are from my fastest RTA run, while my fastest run is self explanitory.

For routing, just watch my most current run, as it will have all the latest strategies and routing used.

How to run Earthworm Jim 1. This is a video tutorial on running Earthworm Jim. All the major strategies are covered, including a small section on the All Lives category, but if you have any other questions PM me on here or on my twitch.
~~EDIT: Peter Puppy despawn no longer TAS only! Tutorial on how it works and setup to do it here.~~[OUTDATED]

Thread title:

I've decided to update this first post to be more current and concise, old first post text can be seen below.

The main 2 categories for Earthworm Jim are Any%, which is self-explanatory, and All Lives, which is a run in which you collect every life in the game, and functions as a pseudo-100% category. Out of the two, Any% is ran far more commonly than All Lives.

The Earthworm Jim leaderboard is located [url=http://speedrun.com/ewj1]here[/url], on speedrun.com. It has leaderboards for Any%, All Lives, and and also an IL leaderboard.

If you want to learn how to speedrun Earthworm Jim, then watch my [url=https://www.twitch.tv/athens_/v/40098235]"How to run Earthworm Jim 1"[/url] tutorial video. It covers all movement strategies, all level strategies, and basically everything you'd need to run the game.

Although it isn't speedran very much, Earthworm Jim 1 is a good run, both to play and watch, and if you are looking at this thread thinking about picking it up I would recommend giving it a shot.

ORIGINAL FIRST POST BELOW
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

So after searching it seems there are no recent threads for people speedrunning Earthworm Jim, so here it is. If anybody else actively runs this game, I hope this helps you out. I'm currently going for the WR in this game. As far as I can see, the [s]current WR is [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcF2jgS9Gdw]32:53[/url] (SDA timing)[/s] [OUTDATED] by Breakdown777. [s]My best time is [url=http://www.twitch.tv/athens_/c/3480226]33:16[/url] (SRL timing)[/s] [OUTDATED]. Compared to Breakdown's run, there are a few things that have been improved, so I'll do a level-by-level analysis of the game, with strategies and tips.

Current WR for all categories can be found at

[u]TIMING[/u]
I use SRL timing (Timing starts when you hit start on main menu, ends when you whip the queen), with every split being either when Jim says the "HAW" in "YEE-HAW" as he rides off on the pocket rocket, or when Psy-crow says "HEY" when he loses the race. Snot-a-problem is split after round 3 when the screen fades to black, and Level 5 is split when the screen fades to black after you kill the chicken.

This is a terrible way to do it, but I'm in too deep to change my split points now. If I could do it again, I would split on the fade to black instead.

As Breakdown's youtube videos have no splits or timers shown, to get the WR split times I downloaded every youtube part, stitched them together, and split while watching it. I repeated this 3 times, then averaged the times to get rid of error. My times are from my fastest RTA run, while my fastest run is self explanitory.

For routing, just watch my most current run, as it will have all the latest strategies and routing used.

[url=http://www.twitch.tv/athens_/c/6884625]How to run Earthworm Jim 1.[/url] This is a video tutorial on running Earthworm Jim. All the major strategies are covered, including a small section on the All Lives category, but if you have any other questions PM me on here or on [url=http://www.twitch.tv/athens_]my twitch[/url].
[s]EDIT: Peter Puppy despawn no longer TAS only! Tutorial on how it works and setup to do it [url=http://www.twitch.tv/athens_/c/4572695]here[/url].[/s][OUTDATED]

BK

2014-03-26 01:57:34 am

I do not know much about this game but given in mind that these are some highly detailed explanations of how to play it, wouldn't it be a good idea to compose a Kbase article for it?

Athens

Edit history:

Athens: 2014-03-26 03:29:50 am

2014-03-26 02:52:43 am

I think I'm going to make a pastebin or something after I finish writing all this up and just link to it. I didn't intend for it to be this in depth at first, but it got out of control.

EDIT: Yeah I made a pastebin. That was a mighty wall of text, and for people just coming to look at the thread it would just be in the way.

Athens

2014-03-27 06:48:52 am

So I just beat Breakdown777's time, with a time of 32:23.1 (SRL timing)! I found a few new strategies, and I will update the EWJ Speedrun FAQ to reflect them. As far as I know, this is now the current WR. Now I wish I looked into a separate video feed of just raw game footage so I could submit it to SDA. I guess I'll just have to find some way to get another capture card that can accept RGB video so I can both stream and capture raw video for the next time this happens.

gammadragon

2014-04-03 01:41:33 am

Might be magic...

Nice work, looking forward to the SDA submission when you get a good recording.

Athens

2014-04-07 03:28:16 am

Yeah I'm looking into ways of recording the raw incoming footage, and also being able to stream it with overlays, facecam, etc, at the same time. Once I get that covered, I'll start really going for a perfect run to submit to SDA.

Athens

2014-04-22 08:16:09 pm

Ok so it looks like the only way I can record raw footage and stream with my current setup is to use virtualdub to capture raw footage and use my camera to record the tv screen... Oh well, sacrifices must be made I suppose. Also, I'm going to try and make a video tutorial of the whole game, because that text tutorial just isn't cutting it.

Athens

2014-05-27 06:52:09 pm

So here is a video tutorial explaining everything about the game. All the tricks I use are in here. Hopefully this helps someone out. http://www.twitch.tv/athens_/c/4337713

Athens

2014-06-07 01:45:18 am

So I got a new PB/WR, 32:04.0, but I'm going to get wait until I get one more good run before submitting it, even though I have flawless raw footage from this run. The reason is the death in Down the Tubes during the 2nd pod section, where I die attempting to do the section airless, causing me to lose ~45 seconds. Getting close though, next great run will cut the 32 for sure.

Athens

Edit history:

Athens: 2014-06-10 10:39:25 pm

2014-06-10 10:39:14 pm

Ok, I have finally got the SDA run, 31:27.7. Going to submit it after re-timing it for SDA, and with that I'm going to take a break from Earthworm Jim 1 and start on Earthworm Jim 2! If anyone ever wants to know anything about running Earthworm Jim 1, or wants to race or anything just drop by my stream and say hi.

Athens

Edit history:

Athens: 2014-07-01 03:26:39 am

Athens: 2014-07-01 03:26:36 am

Athens: 2014-07-01 03:26:34 am

2014-07-01 03:10:25 am

OK, so I just found a semi-consistent setup for the previously TAS-only Peter Puppy despawn, which saves ~40-50 seconds over whipping peter through the level. I also made a quick tutorial video for it, which can be found here. It is still a frame perfect trick though, and as such getting it in a single-segment run will that is actually on WR pace will be completely ridiculous, but possible. My sum of best with the peter despawn factored in is now 29:13, 12 seconds off the original genesis TAS time. With all major difficult skips hit (airless, 3-round 1-drop, L5 chain jump, and now PP despawn), I think that sub 30 is now the new "perfect SS" run goal. I'll probably come back to drop my time to sub 31 after I finish my marathon practicing/runs, and eventually go for sub 30.

moooh

2014-07-01 03:34:13 am

Exoray

Nice seeing a different setup for that! Looks like it'll be way easier to get in a run compared to trying to shoot the tentacle at the right frame (which I've never had good success with on console really).
Getting that optimal run is probably not going to happen for awhile, but keep at it and you'll get more and more of the difficult skips in the same run. Would love to see a chain jump included in a run since I've never had much more than 1/10 consistency with that one (assuming I'm thinking of the same spot) Smiley

Athens

2014-07-01 04:15:50 am

Spot I'm talking about is at the very end of naked worm (no suit section in Level 5), where you go on the belts all the way to the right, then up, to the left, and the onto the chain. It's at the end of that chain, and you jump onto the big middle platform above, skipping the hook to the left and a platform. Saves ~5-10 seconds. Don't think I've ever gotten airless, 3-r 1-d, and L5 chain jump all in one run ever, The most I've ever gotten in a run is airless and 3-r 1-d, which I've gotten quite a few times, or airless, 2-r 1-d, and L5 chain jump, which has only happened once or twice.

ascension486

2014-07-08 04:43:31 pm

Hi Everyone,

Firstly big thanks to Athens and Zyre. I really enjoyed the runs you guys have done and Athens tutorial is really really helpful. I've been attempting some speed runs myself for this game and have gravitated towards the Sega CD version. I've not seen a run of this apart from a TAS on youtube. Is the Mega CD version not great to speed run?

I've managed 39:47.22 so far (from the very first loading screen to when the queen goes pop). I play using the Gens+ emulator. I hope this isn't a big no no. My Sega CD is PAL and full of cobwebs and I'm probably really terrible with a controller now. Also on the PC I can play the Sunset Riders music to Andy's Asteroids; it's way past groovy!

Worn_Traveler

2014-07-08 04:55:46 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

Emulator is only a problem if you plan on submitting a run to SDA. I'm only familiar with the Genesis version. Sega CD has an extra level. That's all I know about it. Good luck.

Athens

2014-07-09 02:58:10 am

Ok, so for the version thing. I always considered Jim 1 Genesis and SNES seperate because SNES has crazy glitches and no intestinal distress. Jim 1 SE for Sega CD would also be a different category, because it has a couple extra sections, an extra level, and a couple extra skips. If you really wanna compete in Jim 1, I would recommend the Genesis one, because not only is it the most ran version of Jim 1, it also is the most polished version of the 3. If you wanna run SE, go for it. I have a copy of SE for my sega cd, so I might do a run to set a benchmark time in the future. Also, worn traveler has it, emu is fine as long as you aren't going for sda.

Ascension486

2014-07-09 03:36:26 pm

Thanks for the heads up. If I do get to SDA standard I'll be sure to dust off the Megadrive. A special edition run would be cool to see. There seem to be a lot of subtle differences and the extra content is awesome. Would love to see a port like Sonic CD. It will have the sounds from Genesis, content and music from Sega CD and the super sexy background effects from SNES.

Is there anything I need to do from my side to prove this bit is legit? I was just going to fraps the emulator and have my laptop record me furiously hammering the keyboard when I get a half decent run.

Athens

2014-07-10 04:24:40 am

Honestly, if they did an actually good "ultimate edition" style port for the game I'd flip the fuck out.

One more thing to consider also is that PAL runs slower than NTSC, so you would be at a disadvantage from the start. If you really wanted to do SDA submittable runs you'd probably want to find some way to play NTSC.

What I would do to prove it's legit is use OBS instead and just livestream, or at least do local recordings, of you playing. Fraps uses a lot of resources for what it does, and it wont let you stream. Also, if you ever want to race on speed runs live, they require a stream in order to race, so there's that too. There's a lot of tutorials and stuff for OBS too if you don't know how to use it.

Zyre

2014-07-10 11:07:27 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quote from Athens:

One more thing to consider also is that PAL runs slower than NTSC, so you would be at a disadvantage from the start. If you really wanted to do SDA submittable runs you'd probably want to find some way to play NTSC.

SDA does keep PAL records separate from NTSC ones, so you really shouldn't worry about regional differences unless you really want to have the same exact version to compare times on.

Ascension486

2014-07-10 05:11:35 pm

Ah that's cool. Maybe I could just buy a Genesis from US and get my 10 frames back that way! That OBS is really good, got it streaming to twitch. I had a look on SRL as well and I think I managed to cobble everything together. Just need some pro runs now!

Ascension486

2014-07-10 05:57:10 pm

Just did a stream and I think it's recorded it. My computer is pretty stressed out though. Not sure if streaming and having the emulator on is such a wise idea.

Ascension486

2014-07-10 06:00:43 pm

Also, loved your run Zyre. One day, that whole couch will say HEY at the end of Andy's Asteroids...and they'll get it on time too!

Ascension486

2014-07-21 03:46:21 pm

I think I found a few tiny time savers so thought I would share them and see if they help.

New Junk City - I just use 2 plasmas on the dust bin boss. That's enough to get him straight to phase 2. The standard gun still means he only gets one anvil fired during phase 2 and you get some convenient damage in phase 3. So when he comes back round he doesn't have much hp at all.

Level 5 - In the last area where you have those eyeball spawners. There a mega atom off screen above the top eyeball spawner. A quick jump and you got plenty of hp for chicken boss and makes it's easier to start consistently with more hp for "For Pete's Sake". Apologies if you know this already. I remember Zyre saying about having 40% for chicken boss so wasn't sure if this was being missed or not.

For Pete's Sake - If you have lives to burn you can suicide to skip the asteroids rather than waiting for Pete. Also I've not managed that frame perfect trick that you demonstrated Athens although it is awesome. The only time I despawned Pete was when I was rushing through some asteroids and rather than despawning the platform it despawned him. Don't know if there is a way you can turn that into a contingency strat?

Buttville - There's a way to free fall most of the intro consistently with minimal movement. You go a little left to avoid the bump on the right then hang right. Chopper a little bit just before the floating spike balls. Then freefall to the left edge of the spikeball and you'll get past all of them easy. The only bit you have to chopper is the bit just before the spike balls like in the TAS and the bit at the end. If you get it perfect it looks cool and I'm sure saves time. I got it once on my stream but my run was pretty bad haha.

Buttville Pt2 - On the basketball bit you can jump through without having to wait for the worms to snip snip. Land on the first two directly and then land on the third so you ledgegrab. For some reason jumping like that makes none of the worms come out until after you've cleared the basketballs. The last set has the same principle but a different pattern. If you jump towards the 2nd basketball you can get on it without ledge grabbing. To that don't go as far forward with your jump. After that jump to the last basketball and hop off quickly and you'll clear it.

I can't find anything else yet but I hope this helps. Dunno how people find zips, despawns and stuff but hopefully I can learn this stuff and get some crazy strats on go. Would love to find a way a to clip through the wall in Snot A Problem. Doing that would make Major Mucus grind against the wall and destroy himself. He wouldn't be such a wildcard in runs then haha. I got Major Mucas to kill himself once but that was only after severely injuring him and me dying in a weird way so he kept pursuing me. It usually happens in Round 3 but ye.

PS: If there is a way to condense my posts so I don't look like a spammer that would be great.

I think I found a few tiny time savers so thought I would share them and see if they help.

New Junk City - I just use 2 plasmas on the dust bin boss. That's enough to get him straight to phase 2. The standard gun still means he only gets one anvil fired during phase 2 and you get some convenient damage in phase 3. So when he comes back round he doesn't have much hp at all.

Level 5 - In the last area where you have those eyeball spawners. There a mega atom off screen above the top eyeball spawner. A quick jump and you got plenty of hp for chicken boss and makes it's easier to start consistently with more hp for "For Pete's Sake". Apologies if you know this already. I remember Zyre saying about having 40% for chicken boss so wasn't sure if this was being missed or not.

For Pete's Sake -  If you have lives to burn you can suicide to skip the asteroids rather than waiting for Pete. Also I've not managed that frame perfect trick that you demonstrated Athens although it is awesome. The only time I despawned Pete was when I was rushing through some asteroids and rather than despawning the platform it despawned him. Don't know if there is a way you can turn that into a contingency strat?

Buttville - There's a way to free fall most of the intro consistently with minimal movement. You go a little left to avoid the bump on the right then hang right. Chopper a little bit just before the floating spike balls. Then freefall to the left edge of the spikeball and you'll get past all of them easy. The only bit you have to chopper is the bit just before the spike balls like in the TAS and the bit at the end. If you get it perfect it looks cool and I'm sure saves time. I got it once on my stream but my run was pretty bad haha.

Buttville Pt2 - On the basketball bit you can jump through without having to wait for the worms to snip snip. Land on the first two directly and then land on the third so you ledgegrab. For some reason jumping like that makes none of the worms come out until after you've cleared the basketballs. The last set has the same principle but a different pattern. If you jump towards the 2nd basketball you can get on it without ledge grabbing. To that don't go as far forward with your jump. After that jump to the last basketball and hop off quickly and you'll clear it.

I can't find anything else yet but I hope this helps. Dunno how people find zips, despawns and stuff but hopefully I can learn this stuff and get some crazy strats on go. Would love to find a way a to clip through the wall in Snot A Problem.  Doing that would make Major Mucus grind against the wall and destroy himself. He wouldn't be such a wildcard in runs then haha. I got Major Mucas to kill himself once but that was only after severely injuring him and me dying in a weird way so he kept pursuing me. It usually happens in Round 3 but ye.

PS: If there is a way to condense my posts so I don't look like a spammer that would be great.

L3land

2014-07-22 12:31:05 am

That free fall trick would look so awesome in a run...sounds very risky though!

Athens

2014-07-26 04:54:37 am

Ascension about those, basically:

Junk Thing plasmas: I'll do some more testing with it, but the reason I grab all the plasmas is mainly to get the quick kill on phase 3. As far as I remember, when I tried not grabbing the other plasmas it took longer to kill him than it would to grab them and get quick kill.

Level 5: Yeah that is definitely an important thing to grab, I hope I mentioned it in my walkthrough because it really makes it much more easy/consistent to do the skips in that section. Funny enough, even when I grab that mega atom I still take so much damage from boosting and getting hit that I usually start For Pete's Sake in the 15-20% range.

For Pete's Sake: I remember testing the death skips, and the amount of time it saves over just letting him fall in the pit is around 3.5 seconds at most (with the notable exception of the 2nd meteor shower, where it is quite a bit faster to suicide instead of whipping Peter backwards into the pit, and significantly faster than whipping him forwards into the next pit). If I were to do it more, I would skip shower 1 and 4 also, but with shower 3 the time save still wouldn't really be worth it considering how close the ledge is to the trigger.

The Descent (Buttville pt1): The main reason why I don't freefall more is because each hit on the spikes does 40% health and I need at least 80% to do the first skip in Buttville (damage boosting off the spikes to the right of the whip tree), because getting hit twice while doing that skip is a very real possibility. Usually, 1 hit in the descent means I won't have enough health to try the skip safely, and that skip saves a lot of time, so I always keep my freefalling to a safe level. Otherwise I'd just go balls to the wall with the freefalling lol.

Buttville: As far as I've seen, the worms are semi-random. Sometimes, I can just jump through, sometimes not. I'll try your strategy and see how it works.

If you wanna find any glitches or clips, find a way to clip through the far right wall in the beginning area of Level 5, so you can skip the mesh ball section. The TAS tried and failed to find the fabled mesh-ball skip, but that doesn't mean it's impossible... or maybe it is.

Ascension about those, basically:

Junk Thing plasmas: I'll do some more testing with it, but the reason I grab all the plasmas is mainly to get the quick kill on phase 3. As far as I remember, when I tried not grabbing the other plasmas it took longer to kill him than it would to grab them and get quick kill.

Level 5: Yeah that is definitely an important thing to grab, I hope I mentioned it in my walkthrough because it really makes it much more easy/consistent to do the skips in that section. Funny enough, even when I grab that mega atom I still take so much damage from boosting and getting hit that I usually start For Pete's Sake in the 15-20% range.

For Pete's Sake: I remember testing the death skips, and the amount of time it saves over just letting him fall in the pit is around 3.5 seconds at most (with the notable exception of the 2nd meteor shower, where it is quite a bit faster to suicide instead of whipping Peter backwards into the pit, and significantly faster than whipping him forwards into the next pit). If I were to do it more, I would skip shower 1 and 4 also, but with shower 3 the time save still wouldn't really be worth it considering how close the ledge is to the trigger.

The Descent (Buttville pt1): The main reason why I don't freefall more is because each hit on the spikes does 40% health and I need at least 80% to do the first skip in Buttville (damage boosting off the spikes to the right of the whip tree), because getting hit twice while doing that skip is a very real possibility. Usually, 1 hit in the descent means I won't have enough health to try the skip safely, and that skip saves a lot of time, so I always keep my freefalling to a safe level. Otherwise I'd just go balls to the wall with the freefalling lol.

Buttville: As far as I've seen, the worms are semi-random. Sometimes, I can just jump through, sometimes not. I'll try your strategy and see how it works.

If you wanna find any glitches or clips, find a way to clip through the far right wall in the beginning area of Level 5, so you can skip the mesh ball section. The TAS tried and failed to find the fabled mesh-ball skip, but that doesn't mean it's impossible... or maybe it is.