Hyper Light Drifter

2016-03-31 08:48:35 am

Alright I know it's just release day but having started to get a feel for the movement something tells me this could make a great speedgame.

I need to complete a full casual playthough before I really decide but I'd be interested in working on some routing in the very near future; I just figured it would be good to go ahead and create a thread as a place to begin discussion and gauge interest, etc.

So what do you guys think? With the way combat feels and the fact that it heavily emphasizes finesse movements, I'm really excited!

Thread title:

Onin

2016-03-31 09:59:45 am

I can already tell you one thing.

Shotgun MVP. Dash attack secondary MVP.

Those two things together rip bosses apart like no tomorrow.

It's gonna be interesting to route out the experience pickups (or gold, or whatever they're called), which triangles are fastest to go for, etc. I wonder if you even need 4 triangles per area like the game suggests, or if just the pillars need to be raised to reach the last boss.

oxboxrox

2016-03-31 10:19:27 am

Yeah, I think figuring out where the barrier is for bare minimum in order to fulfill an Any% clear will be interesting. Also, am I right in remembering that HLD is made in GameMaker? If so the weaknesses of that engine will surely make for some useful exploits down the road unless the coding is super air-tight. For full disclosure I haven't gotten too far in, I just wanted to go ahead and create the thread for interested folks -- waiting for time to stream before I dig deeper

Onin

2016-03-31 10:47:36 am

GameMaker Studio, yes. GMS isn't really an engine, but it does have some common limitations, like doing two things at the same frame, confusing pointers, etc. There's a couple bugs in the game that are obvious scripting errors, but none of them are useful so far.

oxboxrox

2016-03-31 08:09:10 pm

So just preliminary sequence notes:

Just based off of "feel", I'm thinking that the order of areas should be East (to get shotgun) -> North (felt like a lot of easily-accessible upgrade tokens, key for upgrading dash and getting dash attack) -> West -> South

mobilisq

Edit history:

mobilisq: 2016-03-31 09:27:34 pm

mobilisq: 2016-03-31 09:26:39 pm

mobilisq: 2016-03-31 09:21:45 pm

2016-03-31 09:21:16 pm

WHAT

Chain dash, when you get a rhythm going, lets you dash 25 times in a row. Pretty sure that's gonna be hugely useful for a quick run

After all, the sliding animation does not activate when you enter a screen transition, so for any area where there are no mandatory fights a skilled player can just about fly through

oxboxrox

Edit history:

oxboxrox: 2016-04-01 01:26:58 am

2016-04-01 01:12:03 am

Here's my first draft of a route from start of the game through the end of the first zone (in the case of this route first zone is eastern, to take advantage of the shotgun):

http://pastebin.com/bRbx9mr9

Planning on doing a recording or stream of the run utilizing this route sometime tomorrow (April 1), which I will then upload and post here.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2016-04-01 07:23:58 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 07:06:10 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 06:55:08 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 06:54:51 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 06:43:26 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 06:40:43 am

2016-04-01 06:29:09 am

The bad news: You do need to collect 4 diamonds in each area. Just activating the pillars will not power the last elevator.

The good news:

Other notes:
1. You can teleport during the pillar animation.
2. You can skip the demon attack cutscenes by just quitting and reloading the game as soon as you unlock the 4th diamond. Be quick though, I've managed to crash the game by doing it slow.

I'm looking through the diamonds to see which 4 would be fastest everywhere.

East - (Plus the one just after the boss. However, one of these requires 1 key. I don't yet know where to get one easily.)
North - (Just get the one on the left side and backtrack again. Ignore the one on my cursor.)
West - (and one of these two, probably the one on the right?)
South - Either left or right side to get to the eyes for the first diamond is mandatory. Afterward, 2 diamonds heading to the pillar, and lastly the dash challenge one.

The bad news: You do need to collect 4 diamonds in each area. Just activating the pillars will not power the last elevator.

The good news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5KZWS0i8w0

Other notes:
1. You can teleport during the pillar animation.
2. You can skip the demon attack cutscenes by just quitting and reloading the game as soon as you unlock the 4th diamond. Be quick though, I've managed to crash the game by doing it slow.

I'm looking through the diamonds to see which 4 would be fastest everywhere.

[url=http://i.imgur.com/M5vur5u.png]East[/url] - (Plus the one just after the boss. However, one of these requires 1 key. I don't yet know where to get one easily.)
[url=http://i.imgur.com/1rggfSs.png]North[/url] - (Just get the one on the left side and backtrack again. Ignore the one on my cursor.)
[url=http://i.imgur.com/6jvFnXF.png]West[/url] - [url=http://i.imgur.com/1oM75ZL.png](and one of these two, probably the one on the right?)[/url]
[url=http://i.imgur.com/G6UgyFy.png]South[/url] - Either left or right side to get to the eyes for the first diamond is mandatory. Afterward, 2 diamonds heading to the pillar, and lastly [url=http://i.imgur.com/LRt7BsD.png]the dash challenge one[/url].

oxboxrox

Edit history:

oxboxrox: 2016-04-01 11:11:29 am

2016-04-01 11:00:47 am

As far as diamonds (I've been calling them modules, my routing notes reflect that) for East go, you can get 4 without really deviating from a pretty linear loop, and you collect just enough upgrade points along the way to get dash upgrade 1 immediately after finishing the area; I think that's a better situation for now than having to find a key.

Also as far as skipping the demon attack cutscenes, I feel like HLD load times are pretty inconsistent, but usually fairly long; is reloading really a time save for those? I'm all for it if so but it just seems not worth it to me (not having timed it that is)

oxboxrox

2016-04-01 11:05:06 am

Small cutscene skip found by Nosraef:

Potentially applicable for each dog cutscene (besides the first one you encounter since you don't have dash 1 at that point)

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2016-04-01 11:26:04 am

Onin: 2016-04-01 11:24:42 am

2016-04-01 11:24:02 am

That only works if you've already died in the area. If you haven't, the dog will lock you into the cutscene no matter how much you dash.

Personally my load times are very fast, SSD and all. If they are inconsistent, we'll have to start removing them manually.

The 'intended' route for East only has 2 diamonds before the 3 diamond door. We need a 3rd diamond somewhere; either the one behind the key door, or something further on.

oxboxrox

2016-04-01 12:30:30 pm

If you check the route I wrote up, I got 3 diamonds easily without having to go too far out of the way. I'm planning on doing a proof-of-concept recording sometime today

Onin

2016-04-01 12:35:00 pm

Yeah, that's still not linear, it'd still likely be faster to find a key somewhere. There's one in the second room down on the left room after the dog cutscene, if you take it and warp back you'll already be faster, most likely. Would be even better if there's one en route, or even en route to the North warp, that'd be an interesting route.

oxboxrox

2016-04-01 01:22:14 pm

I'm not sure I follow your meaning here - which room has the key?

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2016-04-01 01:39:33 pm

2016-04-01 01:39:15 pm

http://i.imgur.com/3loZnjk.png This room right here.

You can get a much faster key in the mountains, though.

oxboxrox

2016-04-01 01:44:09 pm

That room is one that I already go through in my route (for upgrade point budgeting reasons), so the key is certainly easy enough to grab there; however that room is also just before the 3rd module I get in the eastern zone. It's probably worth getting in that room so that it can potentially be used in north or west zones for a faster module. I'd be interested to see your idea of the route using a key for that module in east if you can piece it together

Onin

2016-04-01 02:07:20 pm

There's only one 1-key door and it's the one in west.

I could show you an idea I have, it'll take me a while to record.

st4rwave

Edit history:

st4rwave: 2016-04-01 02:44:23 pm

st4rwave: 2016-04-01 02:43:23 pm

st4rwave: 2016-04-01 02:20:43 pm

2016-04-01 02:19:20 pm

Hello everyone, my name is Anakin and I'm interested in running this game when I'm done with my playthrough, or at least helping with the routing. I'm making a discord as suggested by redditors that showed interest in running. I'll send them here too.

I've been a part of the speedrunning community for a while now but haven't actually wanted to run a game till now, and HLD shows tons of promise.

EDIT: Here's the link to the discord if you guys are interested.

Tterraj42

2016-04-01 03:23:58 pm

Games!

Found this on youtube

Hyper Light Drifter | North - 3 Gem Door Skip

"You still need to collect atleast 4 purple gems for the elevator to the final boss though"

Also, Shotgun MVP. Fun game and good luck with the routing. I got stuck in some blocks once. Not sure how useful, but it's the same principle as the OoB Onin posted:

https://www.twitch.tv/tterraj42/v/57943101

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2016-04-01 03:53:33 pm

2016-04-01 03:46:02 pm

This is what I was thinking. Upside is that East is significantly faster this way. Downside is that you can't chain dash, and the battle just before the warp point is pretty difficult without shotgun. But I'm pretty confident this is faster.

oxboxrox

Edit history:

oxboxrox: 2016-04-01 07:13:09 pm

2016-04-01 06:43:46 pm

Updated route with Onin's strats plus collecting extra gearbits to get the infinidash earlier. May be faster to skip the gearbits in North, although I suspect we will need them anyway to get reflecting sword

Edit: I love how both our videos have the same screen in the thumbnail lol

mobilisq

Edit history:

mobilisq: 2016-04-01 08:25:43 pm

2016-04-01 08:24:39 pm

WHAT

Additional chain dash chicanery: if you build up some speed in the hallway leading into a boss room and end up right in front of them, they will skip their introductory animation, immediately start the battle, and try to get away from you. I haven't finished the game but I know this at least works for the wizzrobe and toad bosses (north and east respectively)

oxboxrox

2016-04-02 12:58:04 am

Finished routing through the end of North, reflected in the pastebin (which I'm keeping updated as I go): http://pastebin.com/bRbx9mr9 recording coming probably tomorrow.

Also if you have discord, add me at oxboxrox#4970 and send me a message sometime and I can send you an invite to the HLD speedrun discord, we're talking shop in there!

Tterraj42

2016-04-02 02:03:49 am

Games!

Tried to do the 3 node door in north and couldn't. Think it was patched so soon?

https://www.twitch.tv/tterraj42/v/58136794

Onin

2016-04-02 02:49:58 am

Fastest module to get in North.