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Sub-11! Run was nearly killed at 10:40; lost track of the pixel positioning and had to yolo (50% chance that the wisp skip fails). Also nearly messed up Emerald selection at 9:40.
A huge number of cool new new skips, glitches and optimizations were found in 2024 - summary compared to 2023 WR (11:17):
- Day 13 Wisp Skip (~11-12s): (10:36) It's possible to completely bypass having to wait for the Wisps to bring a boat on day 13! This is done by first deactivating region triggers on the second fens shore by holding Enter on the right-hand side of the screen (a script bug). We can then move out of bounds (OOB) to the top of the screen using Arrow keys. By choosing a correct pixel to begin the Arrows walk, we can move Robin to the very top pixel of the screen, where there is a room exit trigger to go directly to the middle of the fens! In order to reinstate the exit trigger, we can use an inventory item with a Wisp (why this should re-instates exit triggers, I have no idea). We then move directly into the middle of the fens, with a boat (Robin's boating animation sometimes gets all messed up here :D)
- Day 6 Gem Skip (~5s): (4:46) We can now skip having to do the gemstone riddles to get into the fens monastery! An amazing skip found by swimfan - Using Hand with the Gateman twice causes Robin to start to move towards him as part of a scripted death sequence. During this movement script, region triggers are deactivated. For a tiny fraction of a second before the monk hits Robin, there is a scripting oversight that gives us access to Hands-on mode; interacting with any mundane hotspot (say, using Hand on wall) will terminate the running scripted death sequence, and give control back to the player with triggers off. Now, we can breach the front of the gate. Remarkably, there is a small 1-2 pixel gap through which Robin can squeeze to get to the other side of the Gateman; for some reason there is an exit trigger to enter the monastery. Blowing the whistle (a joke interaction here) re-instates the exit trigger and we bypass straight into the monastery!
- Day 13 Knight Skip (2.5-3s): (11:00) An incredible glitch reported by Cowirie in OneShortEye's 1st Longbow vid - the glitch skips the final Tower scene. Having climbed the ivy to the top, talk to a monk at the top of the tower to initiate the joke death. In the scene showing the monk throwing a rock down at Robin, go into the Options and put the arcade setting on minimum. The game thinks we are putting the arcade on minimum during the final arcade sequence, and it plays out the escape instead!!
- Enter skip on rings/scroll (2.5-3s): (9:40) Some textboxes can be instantly clicked away using Enter, where they have a pause with clicking. This is used a few times already in the run (4-5 times). However, it turns out that the boxes for switching the rings and opening Fulk's scroll in the inventory are 5 further examples. Total saving is around 2.5-3s.
- Day 12/13: GORT Glitch/Sammy Shuffle (2.5s): (10:22-10:57) Sam Stokes found this bizarre glitch - If you enter GORT in the hand code on Day 12 in front of the False Knight, the game sets a flag that you have solved it for the Ivy on Day 13! The strengthened Ivy does not show on Day 13 (initially) even though it is there. You also have to be careful to click on the wall to dismount (note: clicking directly on the glitched Ivy while in the boat causes a softlock). The time saving comes from not having to open the hand code a second time, and (mainly) from not having to wait for the animation of the Ivy strengthening. By not having to use the Hand code at the base of the tower, the glitch also allows for the convenience of holding Enter immediately after dismounting the boat, making the execution of skipping the Wisps dialogue there easier.
- Day-start Fast walk (1-1.5s): Using the Enter-hold fast walk out of the cave on each day, and to pick up the Puck disguise on day 9 (with an Enter hold into middle mouse); Sam Stokes had been doing this. On most days, it is around a 0.1s saving each day (but these add up). For Puck's disguise, it is likely a little more (maybe 0.3s). So total saving is around 1-1.5s.
- Left-arrow to inventory OK: A small optimization - for the Hand scroll at the fair, and the Money in front of the castle on Day 9, we can tap Left Arrow to go straight from the selected item to OK in the inventory (saves maybe 0.2s each time). I'd been aware that Shift +Tab had this same effect, but that was cumbersome to implement - turns out Left Arrow does the same thing, and makes this very easy.
- Starting Game with Esc (~0.2s): It turns out that that pressing Esc leaves the menu (realised on trying to optimize the Knight skip) - this is a more efficient way to initialize the speedrun from the options screen after having set the Speed than clicking play, and allows you to line up the cursor to pick up the Horn immediately.