The Witness

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-01-31 02:41:27 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-01-31 02:40:38 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-01-31 02:40:16 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-01-31 02:35:39 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-01-31 02:35:13 pm

2016-01-31 02:34:11 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

The Witness is finally out! Post your strats and runs here!

Here is some of my findings about the game that might be useful.

Minimum number of maze puzzles that you have to finish for each laser (using the current fastest strats):

- Shady Trees (1)
- Castle (5)
- Monastery (7)
- Tropical Forest (13)
- Desert Ruins (14)
- Greenhouse (17)
- Village (21)
- Boathouse (35)
- Swamp (38)
- Quarry (41; 43 if you decide not to enter by boat)
- Tree House (47; 50 if you decide not to leave by boat)

You need to activate only 7 lasers and since the difference between the 7th and 8th highest number of puzzles is very large (21 for village vs. 35 for boathouse) I think that the 7 sections with the lowest number of puzzles should be the any% route. This is going by the wrong assumption that number of puzzles is proportional to completion time, but it's a good estimate. The only thing that I'm a little worried about is that the waiting time for Greenhouse's elevator is pretty long, but I still think that Greenhouse is faster than Boathouse, partly because Greenhouse's puzzles are pretty close together. The route is then:

1) Tutorial
2) Desert Ruins
3) Shady Trees
4) Castle
5) Village
6) Monastery
7) Tropical Forest 1 (up to but not including activating the switch that raises the barrier)
8) Greenhouse
9) Tropical Forest 2
10) Mountain

Some additional findings:
- Shady Trees has a skip whereby you can complete the end puzzle through the gates
- For some of the expandable puzzle pathways in Tree House you can skip the last puzzle and still have the game allow you to walk across them in both directions

Thread title:

The Witness is finally out! Post your strats and runs here!

Here is some of my findings about the game that might be useful.

Minimum number of maze puzzles that you have to finish for each laser (using the current fastest strats):

- Shady Trees (1)
- Castle (5)
- Monastery (7)
- Tropical Forest (13)
- Desert Ruins (14)
- Greenhouse (17)
- Village (21)
- Boathouse (35)
- Swamp (38)
- Quarry (41; 43 if you decide not to enter by boat)
- Tree House (47; 50 if you decide not to leave by boat)

You need to activate only 7 lasers and since the difference between the 7th and 8th highest number of puzzles is very large (21 for village vs. 35 for boathouse) I think that the 7 sections with the lowest number of puzzles should be the any% route. This is going by the wrong assumption that number of puzzles is proportional to completion time, but it's a good estimate. The only thing that I'm a little worried about is that the waiting time for Greenhouse's elevator is pretty long, but I still think that Greenhouse is faster than Boathouse, partly because Greenhouse's puzzles are pretty close together. The route is then:

1) Tutorial
2) Desert Ruins
3) Shady Trees
4) Castle
5) Village
6) Monastery
7) Tropical Forest 1 (up to but not including activating the switch that raises the barrier)
8) Greenhouse
9) Tropical Forest 2
10) Mountain

Some additional findings:
- Shady Trees has a skip whereby you can complete the end puzzle through the gates
- For some of the expandable puzzle pathways in Tree House you can skip the last puzzle and still have the game allow you to walk across them in both directions

molluskmoth

Edit history:

molluskmoth: 2016-02-05 02:52:11 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-02-01 02:40:54 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-02-01 02:40:29 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-01-31 05:05:18 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-01-31 05:03:38 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-01-31 05:02:14 pm

2016-01-31 05:00:28 pm

MoMo

We've been routing extensively within the last few days.

Low% isnt faster than Any% actually. For Low% you would go Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo (no shortcuts) -> Colors -> End and skip the symmetry part. For Any% we go Sym -> Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo -> End since Symmetry is faster than Colors/Greenhouse due to the elevator ride.

Also I'm unsure if you miscalculated yours but the minimum amount of puzzles that you have to do for each section are:

Tutorial: 8

Forest: 1
Castle: 5
Temple: 10 (2 to open, 3 outside, 4 inside, 1 for the laser)
Bamboo: 15 (no shortcuts)
Desert: <16
Colors: 16
Town: 23
Symmetry: 33
Swamp: 37 (?)
Quarry: 42 (Boat counts as a puzzle solved, too)
Trees: Way more, I assume you're correct here.

Low% should total out at ~~138~~ 135 solved puzzles ~~although I havent done a full run to~~ confirmed ~~this yet~~.

Current WR is 25:53 by Azorae btw. This video shows the most up to date route: http://www.twitch.tv/azorae/v/38487335

We are somewhat undecided if Greenhouse with perfect execution can be faster but you have to do a small detour to reach it from the Bamboo forest which should be added to the calculation.

Btw: the callouts that we kinda stuck with because they are short and easy:

We've been routing extensively within the last few days.

Low% isnt faster than Any% actually. For Low% you would go Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo (no shortcuts) -> Colors -> End and skip the symmetry part. For Any% we go Sym -> Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo -> End since Symmetry is faster than Colors/Greenhouse due to the elevator ride.

Also I'm unsure if you miscalculated yours but the minimum amount of puzzles that you have to do for each section are:

Tutorial:  8

Forest: 1
Castle: 5
Temple: 10 (2 to open, 3 outside, 4 inside, 1 for the laser)
Bamboo: 15 (no shortcuts)
Desert: <16 
Colors: 16
Town: 23
Symmetry: 33
Swamp: 37 (?)
Quarry: 42 (Boat counts as a puzzle solved, too)
Trees: Way more, I assume you're correct here.

Low% should total out at [s]138[/s] [b]135[/b] solved puzzles[s] although I havent done a full run to[/s] confirm[i]ed[/i] [s]this yet[/s].

Current WR is 25:53 by Azorae btw. This video shows the most up to date route: http://www.twitch.tv/azorae/v/38487335

We are somewhat undecided if Greenhouse with perfect execution can be faster but you have to do a small detour to reach it from the Bamboo forest which should be added to the calculation.

Btw: the callouts that we kinda stuck with because they are short and easy:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/OwWSxxP.png[/img]

inph

2016-02-01 02:25:21 am

I've never tried seriously speedrunning a game before, so this will be my first (but I've been an avid speedrun watcher).

I believe it runs on a completely custom game engine, and so I think there is a high likelihood of glitches to be discovered. I'm keen to start looking around for clipping problems to see if any major skips can be included in a run.

Has anyone discovered any clipping bugs yet? I've heard there are problems with the boat, which is causing some people to get stuck and lose their save.

LightningHalberd

2016-02-01 10:48:46 am

twitch.tv/immersed13

Quote from molluskmoth:

Low% isnt faster than Any% actually. For Low% you would go Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo (no shortcuts) -> Colors -> End and skip the symmetry part. For Any% we go Sym -> Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo -> End since Symmetry is faster than Colors/Greenhouse due to the elevator ride.

I don't know about that, yes the elevator ride is long, but Greenhouse/Colors has half the number of puzzles, the amount of additional time that it takes to travel to Greenhouse is almost the same as for Symmetry, and the puzzles in Greenhouse are very close together as opposed to Symmetry where they are pretty far apart. I guess to definitively determine which is faster we need to compare the completion times for both.

Also what do you mean by Bamboo no shortcuts?

Quote from molluskmoth:

Also I'm unsure if you miscalculated yours but the minimum amount of puzzles that you have to do for each section are:

Tutorial: 8

Forest: 1
Castle: 5
Temple: 10 (2 to open, 3 outside, 4 inside, 1 for the laser)
Bamboo: 15 (no shortcuts)
Desert: 16 (+1 if the laser in town counts as puzzle)
Colors: 18
Town: 23
Symmetry: 33
Swamp: 37 (?)
Quarry: 42 (Boat counts as a puzzle solved, too)
Trees: Way more, I assume you're correct here.

In my list I for some reason did not count switches (puzzles where there is only one line), but I did count revisits to puzzles.

[quote="molluskmoth"]Low% isnt faster than Any% actually. For Low% you would go Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo (no shortcuts) -> Colors -> End and skip the symmetry part. For Any% we go Sym -> Desert -> Forest -> Castle -> Town -> Temple -> Bamboo -> End [b]since Symmetry is faster than Colors/Greenhouse due to the elevator ride.[/b][/quote]
I don't know about that, yes the elevator ride is long, but Greenhouse/Colors has [u]half[/u] the number of puzzles, the amount of additional time that it takes to travel to Greenhouse is almost the same as for Symmetry, and the puzzles in Greenhouse are very close together as opposed to Symmetry where they are pretty far apart. I guess to definitively determine which is faster we need to compare the completion times for both.

Also what do you mean by Bamboo no shortcuts?

[quote="molluskmoth"]Also I'm unsure if you miscalculated yours but the minimum amount of puzzles that you have to do for each section are:

Tutorial:  8

Forest: 1
Castle: 5
Temple: 10 (2 to open, 3 outside, 4 inside, 1 for the laser)
Bamboo: 15 (no shortcuts)
Desert: 16 (+1 if the laser in town counts as puzzle)
Colors: 18
Town: 23
Symmetry: 33
Swamp: 37 (?)
Quarry: 42 (Boat counts as a puzzle solved, too)
Trees: Way more, I assume you're correct here.[/quote]
In my list I for some reason did not count switches (puzzles where there is only one line), but I did count revisits to puzzles.

molluskmoth

Edit history:

molluskmoth: 2016-02-01 02:40:11 pm

2016-02-01 12:46:42 pm

MoMo

I just checked again: You lose more time because you have to wait for the laser to actually hit the peak. That, combined with the elevator makes it slower than doing the symmetry puzzles fast.

No shortcut means not opening the gate near the laser or between bamboo and temple (you need to walk around but have 2 less puzzles to solve.

Also I just did a Low% run and the lowest amount of puzzles to beat the game is 135 Wink

z1mb0bw4y

Edit history:

z1mb0bw4y: 2016-02-01 04:30:08 pm

2016-02-01 04:19:09 pm

Gets the cake.

Correction to your list. Swamp takes 3 puzzles to beat. Posting video shortly...

molluskmoth

Edit history:

molluskmoth: 2016-02-05 02:42:58 pm

molluskmoth: 2016-02-02 09:22:19 am

2016-02-02 09:20:33 am

MoMo

So the new goal for Low% should be ~~115~~ 119 then as we skip the puzzles in town.

(Desert, Forest, Castle, Swamp, Temple, Bamboo, Colors)

Need to do some testing to see if this calls for a route change in any% too

z1m suggested skipping desert & symmetry and I agree but the bigger question is which order is the fastest. One of the bigger factors is the time save from doing temple before bamboo so going clockwise starting from Forest doesnt seem to be super efficient. Doing colors or swamp last means you arrive at the peak before the laser is fully activated and therefore waste a few seconds (more with colors but still). Going town first, then temple to forest to castle to swamp to colors to bamboo seems very unintuitive but I feel like this is still our best route so far (since the temple laser leads directly to a gate that is a short cut to forest)

z1mb0bw4y

2016-02-02 11:40:00 am

Gets the cake.

One thing that I wish I was able to use noclip for (the patched noclip into the game yesterday, then took it out like 4 hours later so I missed that window...) was to test what the proximity triggers are for the laser activation puzzles. For Desert, Colors, and Town you can see the laser switch from pretty far away. Colors can be seen from the approach to the mountain, town can be seen from temple (though you just barely can't see the bottom of the switch), and desert can be seen from the top of the elevator shaft outside. I haven't been able to activate any of them, and I'm not sure if it's because I need to do some of the puzzles leading up to it first, or if it's a trigger in front of the switch that I need to stand in. I'm gonna keep experimenting with those 3 areas tonight. I think quarry is pretty pointless to play with at this point, there's just no way around activating both of the panel-blocker things as far as I can tell.

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 04:45:50 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 04:44:02 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 04:41:55 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 12:45:24 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 12:37:15 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 12:01:30 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-02 12:01:12 pm

2016-02-02 12:00:46 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

IMO Forest, Castle, Swamp and Temple have to be in the route, simply because they are very fast. Quarry and Trees are currently definitely not in the route. This leaves 3 out of the 5 remaining areas, so 10 possible combinations. I enumerated them, determined the best order for all of them, and now I'm torn between 4 routes:

1) Town, Temple, Bamboo (1), Colors, Bamboo (2), Forest, Castle, Swamp, Peak (avoid Symmetry and Desert in favor of Bamboo, Colors and Town; though Bamboo->Forest is quite slow)
2) Symmetry, Desert, Forest, Castle, Town, Temple, Swamp, Peak (avoid Bamboo and Colors in favor of Symmetry, Desert and Town)
3) Symmetry, Town, Temple, Bamboo, Forest, Castle, Swamp, Peak (avoid Desert and Colors in favor of Symmetry, Town and Bamboo; though Bamboo->Forest is quite slow)
4) Symmetry, Town, Temple, Forest, Castle, Swamp, Colors, Peak (avoid Desert and Bamboo in favor of Symmetry, Town and Colors; though it ends with Colors which is slow)

I think that currently avoiding Symmetry and Desert is best because of the walking time alone.

Also I think the best order for Low% is:

Desert, Forest, Castle, Temple, Bamboo (1), Colors, Bamboo(2), Swamp, Peak,

because doing Colors during Bamboo is fast, Castle->Temple is fast and Bamboo->Swamp is fast

EDIT: One nice advantage about doing Colors before Swamp is that the path from Swamp to Peak passes by the Colors exit. So we could do Colors and exit out of the elevator, then finish Colors at the end

EDIT2: Useful post for 100% routing:
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/253933/how-do-i-know-when-ive-100d-the-game

So 100% requires:
- All audio logs (I reckon not the ones in the easter egg ending)
- All video logs
- All obelisks
- All lasers
- All orange triangle puzzles (?)

This does not mention all puzzles though, so a lot of the tutorial puzzles can be avoided according to these requirements. Also according to the latest tweet by Blow the total puzzle count is 661:
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/670859108292104192

However it doesn't count single line switches:
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693563263003398144

IMO Forest, Castle, Swamp and Temple have to be in the route, simply because they are very fast. Quarry and Trees are currently definitely not in the route. This leaves 3 out of the 5 remaining areas, so 10 possible combinations. I enumerated them, determined the best order for all of them, and now I'm torn between 4 routes:

1) Town, Temple, Bamboo (1), Colors, Bamboo (2), Forest, Castle, Swamp, Peak (avoid Symmetry and Desert in favor of Bamboo, Colors and Town; though Bamboo->Forest is quite slow)
2) Symmetry, Desert, Forest, Castle, Town, Temple, Swamp, Peak (avoid Bamboo and Colors in favor of Symmetry, Desert and Town)
3) Symmetry, Town, Temple, Bamboo, Forest, Castle, Swamp, Peak (avoid Desert and Colors in favor of Symmetry, Town and Bamboo; though Bamboo->Forest is quite slow)
4) Symmetry, Town, Temple, Forest, Castle, Swamp, Colors, Peak (avoid Desert and Bamboo in favor of Symmetry, Town and Colors; though it ends with Colors which is slow)

I think that currently avoiding Symmetry and Desert is best because of the walking time alone.

Also I think the best order for Low% is:

Desert, Forest, Castle, Temple, Bamboo (1), Colors, Bamboo(2), Swamp, Peak,

because doing Colors during Bamboo is fast, Castle->Temple is fast and Bamboo->Swamp is fast

EDIT: One nice advantage about doing Colors before Swamp is that the path from Swamp to Peak passes by the Colors exit. So we could do Colors and exit out of the elevator, then finish Colors at the end

EDIT2: Useful post for 100% routing:
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/253933/how-do-i-know-when-ive-100d-the-game

So 100% requires:
- All audio logs (I reckon not the ones in the easter egg ending)
- All video logs
- All obelisks
- All lasers
- All orange triangle puzzles (?)

This does not mention all puzzles though, so a lot of the tutorial puzzles can be avoided according to these requirements. Also according to the latest tweet by Blow the total puzzle count is 661:
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/670859108292104192

However it doesn't count single line switches:
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693563263003398144

molluskmoth

Edit history:

molluskmoth: 2016-02-05 02:42:46 pm

2016-02-03 12:32:22 pm

MoMo

Another correction to low% as a new skip at castle was found, esentially pushing the number down to ~~114~~ 118

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-03 01:26:33 pm

2016-02-03 01:25:29 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

Quote from molluskmoth:

Another correction to low% as a new skip at castle was found, esentially pushing the number down to 114

How does the skip work? Is there a video of it?

z1mb0bw4y

2016-02-03 01:33:01 pm

Gets the cake.

Quote from LightningHalberd:

Quote from molluskmoth:

Another correction to low% as a new skip at castle was found, esentially pushing the number down to 114

How does the skip work? Is there a video of it?

It's relatively simple, you do the first hedge maze puzzle, then before opening the gate to the second hedge maze puzzle you can snipe the gate for the 3rd one through the gaps in the gate of the 2nd. From there, a shortcut is opened straight to the fourth one. So you just have to do the first gate, 3rd gate, 4th gate, and laser puzzle (4 total).

molluskmoth

2016-02-03 03:07:42 pm

MoMo

This should help for further routing (you can tell that times are accurate to around +- 5 seconds total):

Further findings:

- Doing Swamp last will add 5 seconds on top of the peak for activation of the laser
- Doing Colors last will add 10 seconds on top of the peak for activation of the laser
- Doing Colors to Bamboo you can call up the elevator and run out the entrance and save a few seconds but you would lose those waiting for the laser on top of the peak
- When doing Tutorial to Town, it is recommended to do the palm tree puzzle first

molluskmoth

2016-02-05 02:44:10 pm

MoMo

I just did an actual low% run and ended up with 118. Retraced it, 118 again (Im doing the actual route).

I noticed that the cage in the end only counts as 1 not 3 but another puzzle counts double.

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 08:18:49 am

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 04:46:37 am

2016-02-07 04:44:33 am

twitch.tv/immersed13

Because of those route times I am now convinced that we should skip Desert. Furthermore:

- Like moth said: Swamp->Peak has about 5 seconds of laser waiting time, Colors->Peak about 10 and Bamboo->Peak about 15 seconds. Forest->Peak has no waiting time
- Like said before, an alternative way of doing Bamboo and Colors is: Bamboo (only the first 7 sound puzzles) -> Colors (up to activating the elevator) -> walk out of elevator and finish Bamboo -> finish Colors. I tested this route against doing Bamboo completely and then Colors completely (which includes the entire elevator ride), and doing the 'alternative' route is faster by 20-25 seconds. So it's definitely faster to skip the elevator ride
- For the 8 pillar puzzles in the end, the left 4 are faster than the right 4, because the right 4 puzzles have longer solutions with more corners that waste time
- I think that the route that starts with Tutorial->Forest and ends with Swamp->Peak is currently the best. It makes use of the low waiting time for the Swamp laser and the route through Town is also 5-10 seconds faster when starting from Castle instead of from Tutorial

Some small additional time savers for this route:

- When the elevator in Colors is on the bottom floor and you tell it to go up, you have to exit on the 1st floor. It's about 4 seconds faster if you exit the elevator on the bottom floor and walk to the 1st floor than if you exit the elevator on the 1st floor.
- Going from Tutorial->Forest, you can go either through the pink tree orchard and behind the windmill, or pass the windmill from the front. Passing the windmill from the front is consistently about 4-5 seconds faster according to my test runs

Because of those route times I am now convinced that we should skip Desert. Furthermore:

- Like moth said: Swamp->Peak has about 5 seconds of laser waiting time, Colors->Peak about 10 and Bamboo->Peak about 15 seconds. Forest->Peak has no waiting time
- Like said before, an alternative way of doing Bamboo and Colors is: Bamboo (only the first 7 sound puzzles) -> Colors (up to activating the elevator) -> walk out of elevator and finish Bamboo -> finish Colors. I tested this route against doing Bamboo completely and then Colors completely (which includes the entire elevator ride), and doing the 'alternative' route is faster by 20-25 seconds. So it's definitely faster to skip the elevator ride
- For the 8 pillar puzzles in the end, the left 4 are faster than the right 4, because the right 4 puzzles have longer solutions with more corners that waste time
- I think that the route that starts with Tutorial->Forest and ends with Swamp->Peak is currently the best. It makes use of the low waiting time for the Swamp laser and the route through Town is also 5-10 seconds faster when starting from Castle instead of from Tutorial

Some small additional time savers for this route:

- When the elevator in Colors is on the bottom floor and you tell it to go up, you have to exit on the 1st floor. It's about 4 seconds faster if you exit the elevator on the bottom floor and walk to the 1st floor than if you exit the elevator on the 1st floor.
- Going from Tutorial->Forest, you can go either through the pink tree orchard and behind the windmill, or pass the windmill from the front. Passing the windmill from the front is consistently about 4-5 seconds faster according to my test runs

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:37:31 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:36:13 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:35:23 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:35:16 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:34:33 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:34:06 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 03:07:41 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 02:57:30 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-07 02:53:36 pm

2016-02-07 02:44:52 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

Any% is routed, so on to Challenge%. My preliminary route is this:

Tutorial
Symmetry
Desert
Forest
Quarry
Trees
Castle
Town
Temple
Bamboo/Colors
Swamp
Peak
Challenge
End

The biggest problem is getting Trees into the route. Of all the docks in the game, Symmetry and Swamp are too far away, so this leaves Town, Quarry and Bamboo. Of all of those, Quarry is closest to Trees, so I think that's the best.

EDIT: There's the discussion about where to end Challenge%: at Challenge or at the End. I think there are upsides for both:

- Ending at the Challenge is the most dramatic, since you end the time as soon as the Challenge ends. You can also argue that adding the end to the route just adds unnecessary time since the Challenge is the goal of the run
- Ending at the End means this category is basically All Lasers but with the Challenge added. By this definition it's better than an All Lasers category since it's got the challenge in it which is more fun. There is also no reason why it should end with the challenge, because the extra time is not long and requires skill to complete fast, and if you really want to do the challenge then you can also just do Challenge Time Trial and save yourself all the preparation

So what do you guys think? I'm in favor of ending with the End and then having this category be a stand-in for an All Lasers category

Any% is routed, so on to Challenge%. My preliminary route is this:

Tutorial
Symmetry
Desert
Forest
Quarry
Trees
Castle
Town
Temple
Bamboo/Colors
Swamp
Peak
Challenge
End

The biggest problem is getting Trees into the route. Of all the docks in the game, Symmetry and Swamp are too far away, so this leaves Town, Quarry and Bamboo. Of all of those, Quarry is closest to Trees, so I think that's the best.

EDIT: There's the discussion about where to end Challenge%: at Challenge or at the End. I think there are upsides for both:

- Ending at the Challenge is the most dramatic, since you end the time as soon as the Challenge ends. You can also argue that adding the end to the route just adds unnecessary time since the Challenge is the goal of the run
- Ending at the End means this category is basically All Lasers but with the Challenge added. By this definition it's better than an All Lasers category since it's got the challenge in it which is more fun. There is also no reason why it should end with the challenge, because the extra time is not long and requires skill to complete fast, and if you really want to do the challenge then you can also just do Challenge Time Trial and save yourself all the preparation

So what do you guys think? I'm in favor of ending with the End and then having this category be a stand-in for an All Lasers category

molluskmoth

Edit history:

molluskmoth: 2016-02-11 06:13:06 pm

2016-02-11 06:12:51 pm

MoMo

djc6986 spend a lot of time routing that category so I implemented it as a default on srcom. By rules it is now an all laser category that ends with the challenge (due to the unnecessary backtracking not adding anything exciting to the route)

LightningHalberd

2016-02-12 03:52:22 am

twitch.tv/immersed13

Quote from molluskmoth:

djc6986 spend a lot of time routing that category so I implemented it as a default on srcom. By rules it is now an all laser category that ends with the challenge (due to the unnecessary backtracking not adding anything exciting to the route)

In his PB (http://www.twitch.tv/djc6986/v/43429353) he stopped at the Challenge end though... We should decide on a clear rule quickly before there are more runs. I still prefer the elevator ending.

djc6986

2016-02-12 10:39:00 am

Hi LightningHalberd, saw your messages on reddit.

Good to see someone else is looking at challenge%, its a fun category. I'd be interested in seeing how your route compares to mine. The biggest thing I was unsure of when planning out my route was whether or not to get the quarry laser before or after leaving for tree's. Routing is really not my thing, so I didn't but a ton of time into testing a lot of options, kind of just went with what seemed best to me lol.

Thanks for the tip on the tree's walkways. I knew you could skip the last puzzle for the walkway that connects with the other path to reach the laser, didn't realize you could do it with all but one of them.

As for the end point of the run, I don't have a huge preference either way personally. The main con I can think of for ending on elevator is that, I'm pretty sure that it would be faster to do the elevator path before doing challenge, so that you don't have to wait for the rock path to rise at the end (haven't timed it, so maybe I'm wrong). So the ending would just be running to the elevator after the challenge. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I probably lean slightly towards ending on the challenge completion.

Hi LightningHalberd, saw your messages on reddit.

Good to see someone else is looking at challenge%, its a fun category. I'd be interested in seeing how your route compares to mine. The biggest thing I was unsure of when planning out my route was whether or not to get the quarry laser before or after leaving for tree's. Routing is really not my thing, so I didn't but a ton of time into testing a lot of options, kind of just went with what seemed best to me lol.

Thanks for the tip on the tree's walkways. I knew you could skip the last puzzle for the walkway that connects with the other path to reach the laser, didn't realize you could do it with all but one of them.

As for the end point of the run, I don't have a huge preference either way personally. The main con I can think of for ending on elevator is that, I'm pretty sure that it would be faster to do the elevator path before doing challenge, so that you don't have to wait for the rock path to rise at the end (haven't timed it, so maybe I'm wrong). So the ending would just be running to the elevator after the challenge. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I probably lean slightly towards ending on the challenge completion.

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-12 03:41:58 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-12 03:38:45 pm

2016-02-12 03:37:03 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

I timed my Challenge% route (... Desert -> Forest -> Quarry -> Trees -> Castle -> Town ...) vs djc's route (... Desert -> Quarry -> Trees -> Castle -> Forest -> Town ...) and the second route is about 30 seconds faster.

The reason why I think the run should end with Elevator is because IMO it doesn't really feel like a speedrun if it doesn't end the game in any way. The exception is Challenge Time Trial, but that starts and ends at the Challenge. Challenge% starts at the beginning of the game, so I feel it should also end the game.
Plus if the run ends in Elevator, then this run also completes both Steam achievements (ending the game and completing the Challenge)

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-13 03:22:42 pm

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-13 03:05:02 pm

2016-02-13 03:03:02 pm

twitch.tv/immersed13

Interesting glitch that I've found. The game allows you to control the character using WASD, arrow keys and numpad. Using numpad is only possible if you either have NumLock OFF or if you have NumLock ON but you hold Shift. You can walk in any direction indefinitely without having to hold down the corresponding WASD/arrow key(s) by either:

- Pressing the numpad keys with NumLock ON and Shift held down, then releasing the Shift key while still pressing the numpad keys, then releasing the numpad keys, or
- Pressing the numpad keys with NumLock OFF, then turning NumLock ON while still pressing the numpad keys, then releasing the numpad keys.

For example, to walk forward without having to hold W, simply have NumLock be set to ON, then press Shift+NumPad8, then release Shift, then release NumPad8. Now you will always be walking forward because the game never registered that you released NumPad8. It's even unaffected by going in and out of 2D mode, so you will always walk forward the first possible frame after you exit 2D mode. Ways to stop this infinite walk:

- Press and release the corresponding numpad keys while holding Shift
- Set NumLock back to OFF, then press and release the numpad keys
- Alt-Tabbing out of the game

The infinite walk is unaffected by:

- Going in and out of 2D mode
- Going in and out of Pause menu

Not only is this very useful for all speedrun categories, but it looks like it could be useful for other glitches too.

Interesting glitch that I've found. The game allows you to control the character using WASD, arrow keys and numpad. Using numpad is only possible if you either have NumLock OFF or if you have NumLock ON but you hold Shift. You can walk in any direction indefinitely without having to hold down the corresponding WASD/arrow key(s) by either:

- Pressing the numpad keys with NumLock ON and Shift held down, then releasing the Shift key while still pressing the numpad keys, then releasing the numpad keys, or
- Pressing the numpad keys with NumLock OFF, then turning NumLock ON while still pressing the numpad keys, then releasing the numpad keys.

For example, to walk forward without having to hold W, simply have NumLock be set to ON, then press Shift+NumPad8, then release Shift, then release NumPad8. Now you will always be walking forward because the game never registered that you released NumPad8. It's even unaffected by going in and out of 2D mode, so you will always walk forward the first possible frame after you exit 2D mode. Ways to stop this infinite walk:

- Press and release the corresponding numpad keys while holding Shift
- Set NumLock back to OFF, then press and release the numpad keys
- Alt-Tabbing out of the game

The infinite walk is unaffected by:

- Going in and out of 2D mode
- Going in and out of Pause menu

Not only is this very useful for all speedrun categories, but it looks like it could be useful for other glitches too.

djc6986

2016-02-13 07:53:21 pm

Quote from LightningHalberd:

I timed my Challenge% route (... Desert -> Forest -> Quarry -> Trees -> Castle -> Town ...) vs djc's route (... Desert -> Quarry -> Trees -> Castle -> Forest -> Town ...) and the second route is about 30 seconds faster.

The reason why I think the run should end with Elevator is because IMO it doesn't really feel like a speedrun if it doesn't end the game in any way. The exception is Challenge Time Trial, but that starts and ends at the Challenge. Challenge% starts at the beginning of the game, so I feel it should also end the game.
Plus if the run ends in Elevator, then this run also completes both Steam achievements (ending the game and completing the Challenge)

Ok cool, thanks for timing the two routes. And like I said earlier I could go either way on the ending for challenge%. Not sure how strongly everyone else thinks about it though.

Also nice find on the infinite walk glitch

LightningHalberd

Edit history:

LightningHalberd: 2016-02-14 03:24:59 am

2016-02-14 03:24:42 am

twitch.tv/immersed13

Quote from djc6986:

Ok cool, thanks for timing the two routes. And like I said earlier I could go either way on the ending for challenge%. Not sure how strongly everyone else thinks about it though.

Also nice find on the infinite walk glitch

Because there doesn't seem to be that much interest in the category anyway, I'd say we should just keep your run on the leaderboards valid and end at Challenge. MoMo or one of the other speedrun.com mods should then still change the category name and the rules.

Oymon

2016-02-14 10:41:45 am

Dunno if you guys are still keeping this going, but I did a speedrun earlier. It's a (Very) Low %, 2nd Ending speedrun.

Saw an oppertunity to do it super-fast so I went with it.

What d'you guys think?

djc6986

2016-02-14 04:27:41 pm

Quote from Oymon:

Dunno if you guys are still keeping this going, but I did a speedrun earlier. It's a (Very) Low %, 2nd Ending speedrun.

Saw an oppertunity to do it super-fast so I went with it.

What d'you guys think?

This is the leaderboard you are looking for http://www.speedrun.com/thewitness#Easter_Egg_Ending1