Видео

0:00-0:06 - this part is just a mad dash of zipping and quick typing, as well as our first introduction to the running theme of using "yo" instead of "take" throughout the run to save keystrokes. Since we run the game in UrQuan's ScummVM, zips complete essentially instantly, so the focus is entirely on chaining them together as quickly as possible as opposed to any tricks relying on precise timing as happens in some other Sierra runs. This part of the run goes smoothly, potentially setting me up for the 13-second Ahhh! framerule, the fastest reasonably possible with these strategies and my typing speed. (12-second Ahhh! is not entirely unthinkable, but with these strategies it would require typing at 130+ words per minute while hitting various keys like numpad keys, F3 and F10 that are awkwardly situated for speedtyping. There is an alternative strategy that could also make a faster Ahhh! feasible, but it relies on a combination of extremely lucky RNG and incredibly tight execution; and this run has so much RNG in it elsewhere that this strategy is not worth going for, even though it's only 6 seconds into the run.) 0:06-0:10 - I use F10 to switch to a slower game speed, and prepare "use spray" while walking, to be used for the first glitch in the run. There's a quick succession of inputs on both hands where it's easy to fumble and accidentally use the spray too early, which would be an instant reset. I avoid this, but somehow accidentally nudge the * key, which causes me to lose one second on the Ahhh! framerule. 0:10-0:15 - The first glitches in the run; a piece of tech found by the runner swimfan, building on an earlier find by Robb. We use the breath spray in front of the bin, which starts an animation and disables the parser. We then bring up and dismiss the help page, which reactivates the parser, and use the parser to enter the bin and acquire the hammer. The breath spray sequence then completes, giving us full control inside the bin which is never supposed to happen. This effectively gives Larry noclip, which we use to fly to the hooker's window and open it from the outside. The positioning needed for opening the window is fairly precise in the Y direction, it's not difficult to hit with practice but I usually miss it on the first run or two before getting my eye in. The intended solutions for getting into the hooker's room are either paying the pimp $100, which we don't have, or buying whiskey, giving it to a drunk to acquire a remote control, and using the remote control on a TV repeatedly until we distract the pimp with a porn channel. This glitch skips these, saving a fair chunk of time (it's hard to estimate how much exactly because the old strategy was never done with spray tech, which could also have saved a bit of time there, and because skipping distracting the pimp has knock-on effects later; but it's definitely multiple seconds saved - I think around 10-12 seconds compared to old strats without spray tech). 0:15-0:23 - I grab a box of candy in the hooker's room, go back, and hail a taxi. The execution here goes very smoothly, easily matching the best framerule I've got for this segment, and I get optimal taxi wait RNG which is only a 20% chance. I am 1 second behind best pace ever due to the framerule missed by accidentally hitting *, but this is still a very strong first split. An unskippable taxi ride follows, unlike the VGA remake the length of the ride itself isn't random (only the wait before it) though how much I have to pay for it is. 0:36-0:44 - I zip into the hotel, acquire a disco pass, and play the slots machine to get rich. At the slots machine, you can either tap the key to improve your chances of noticing a big win immediately (before you lose the money again), or hold the key to roll faster even if you risk then blundering your winnings away. My personal preference for the first slots round is to always hold unless I have exactly $80, in which case I tap because losing everything would put me at exactly $0 and trigger a lengthy sequence of death textboxes. On this run I get incredibly lucky and hit the winnings cap almost immediately with no reloads at all, which is extremely rare. This is a huge reset point in the run, and even runs that survive it usually need to reload and retry multiple times before getting lucky. This is either best or second-best pace ever exiting the hotel.

0:44-0:51 - I walk out of the hotel in Fast (zipping here would result in an instant death) and create a save with the bizarre-looking name %v201. This is not intended as a safety save; creating a save with this string within the name allows me to peek into apple guy RNG, a piece of tech discovered by the runner GamerThom. I get very lucky again, as the apple guy not only shows up at the first possible opportunity but does so relatively quickly; on top of which the taxi shows up reasonably fast as well. This is the best pace I've ever had into disco with the apple already bought. 1:04-1:14 - I switch to Fast again and use the pass from earlier to enter the disco, then zip to Fawn and charm her with a few choice gifts. The second mistake in the run happens here, as I typo "dad" instead of "add" due to nerves; in spite of this, this still remains easily best pace ever with apple already in hand. A lengthy dance sequence follows. There isn't much speedrun tech during this part, though I use Robb's help page tech again to let me prepare the "sit" command while waiting. 1:40-1:51 - Things start going a bit off here, as I take a moment to react to the dance ending, and another moment to figure out where to zip (Larry's position at the end of the dance is effectively random, so the zips need to be adjusted accordingly). Talking to Fawn goes smoothly, but the fumbling earlier means I just barely miss a framerule on hailing the taxi; and then get bad wait RNG to compound the time loss. Adding insult to injury, I have problems with hitting Enter to dismiss the textboxes at the end of the taxi ride. 2:06 - Another use of Robb's help page tech that lets me prepare "use slot" during the wedding ceremony. This is semi-optional, as "use slot" could plausibly be prepared during the walk later anyway. 2:16-2:21 - I zip and walk back into the hotel, entering it diagonally, a minor strat improvement that I first used in this session. (This saves less than 1 second, and that only because I don't need to deal with apple guy on this occasion; but every little bit counts.) 2:23-2:25 - Second slots round. Again I get incredibly lucky and win big on only the third attempt, there is no strategy here except to throw run after run at the slots until one of them strikes gold. At this point, I'm on best pace ever by multiple seconds and the worst of the RNG is over, so the nerves start skyrocketing. I get the 2nd-fastest taxi wait to make things even better. 2:42-2:57 - Wine shopping. This is a nerve-racking part of the run at the best of times, as there are two F10 presses that are always failure points (fumbling F10 means instant reset), and on top of that I use Robb's help page tech once again to activate the regular parser, hail a cab and give wine to the drunk while simultaneously also handling the separate parser for Ajax Liquor (any typo in the Ajax Liquor parser means instant reset).I get through it smoothly, and both the taxi and the drunk show up on schedule (bad drunk RNG in particular can cost multiple seconds). 3:07-3:21 - Nervous fumbling on "four", but otherwise decent execution. The biggest skip in the run happens during this part - I use Robb's help page tech to regain parser control while getting tied up with Fawn, use the knife I got from the drunk to free ourselves, get the rope, and head out. This not only skips a lengthy sequence in the bed, we also avoid getting robbed by Fawn, which would necessitate an extra round at the slots. It would be possible to use spray tech to regain the ability to move while still tied up, but exiting the room is strictly linked to the door, and I cannot open the door while tied up even if I walk there, so I cannot skip getting the knife in this way (besides, I need the rope anyway). I get the second-slowest taxi wait, but it's still best pace ever by 2 seconds. 3:35-3:55 - Since I didn't distract the pimp earlier, I can't get upstairs the normal way and therefore need to perform the spray glitch at the bin a second time. Having flown up to a precise position on the railing, I tie myself to it with the rope (unfortunately necessary), use the spray a second time, use help page tech to regain parser control, get the bottle of Spanish fly, and skip climbing back over the railing and untying myself thanks to spray tech (this is only a marginal timesave, as using the spray itself costs almost as much time, and we have noclip anyway which lets us zip back to the bar screen very quickly regardless). I fumble considerably getting the Spanish fly, followed by another slow taxi wait; a combination that for the first time in a long time makes this not the best pace ever. (It quickly regains that status, as the only faster run died to unlucky taxi fares on the ride back to the hotel.) 4:10 - A cool bit of command optimization - "put[F3] fly" letting us reuse the space and "her" from earlier. 4:18-4:25 - The last bit of speedrun tech in the run: Eve tech, a recent discovery by swimfan. Eve tech goes as follows. You jump into the pool, tone game speed down to Normal for the first time in the run (to set up some precise timing), use Robb's help page tech to prepare the "go" command, use Robb's help page tech *again* while in the middle of climbing out of the pool, and then fire "see her" and "put apple" as quickly as you can. If you hit the timing on this just right, the animation of Larry climbing out of the pool will continue to play in the background, and finally wraps up at just the right time to advance a part of the script it was never meant to interact with; which skips a wait on Eve eating the apple, saving 3 seconds compared to old strategies. Unfortunately, missing Eve tech (which does happen a fair bit) is slower than not trying Eve tech at all. To my infinite relief I do hit Eve tech on this run, set the speed back to Fastest, and hold Enter through the end textboxes to wrap up the run.

@@polygon586 thanks for explaining all this stuff, now I can really understand what's going on during the speedrun. Great record

Correct, the description actually mentions this and why I did not do it. The run was played in the DOSBox DOS emulator, specifically emulating a Tandy machine (because DOSBox runs slightly faster when emulating a Tandy); and for some reason Tandy emulation prevents numbers from being accepted as parser input.

It's mostly about rhythm. What you generally want to do is hit Enter at a very particular rhythm on even ground, and mostly on the uphills too; in a way that's just slow enough not to consume the energy bar much but also just fast enough to keep you moving fast. But on double-poling segments (mostly downhills, but also a couple spots where the ground looks fairly even) you basically want to mash really fast but also make sure you replenish your energy bar to full. There's some extra tricks you can do on the big uphill in the middle that involve pressing 7 and 9 at very specific times, but I honestly forget how to do that, I only know it's a thing. It only matters at the margins anyway, you can get 3:10 without that.

@@polygon586 I will try the downhill mashing. Going uphill my rhythm is a fast double enter and a like 0.5 sec delay before repeating. With that I always found myself maintaining some good stamina, having a slower rhythm uphill I found that strokes can be skipped.

Numpad. Hold 8 nearly all the time, but I think there was a point or two when I let go. Turning mostly with 7/9, but there might be a quick press of 1/3 somewhere. Not unlike another Accolade game (Grand Prix Circuit) where you mostly turn with 7/9, sometimes with 1/3, and never with 4/6 (although 4/6 is actually reasonable on a couple of turns here, whereas there it's just always wrong). PB is 1:27.50 now 😉

Might do! Problem is speed skating, which is basically mashing. 20y ago I could mash like nobody's business and get competitive times even in the cracked version that stops you dead on the curves as sneaky copy protection. But my hands today are 20 years older, and no longer take as much punishment. (I don't doubt that I could still win, but getting the sort of time I would be truly happy with is another matter. Also, there would be the pain afterwards...) Also it's not trivially easy to win every event in one run, one slip anywhere and the run is dead.

@@polygon586 the cracked version was lots of pain. Got myself an disc image from first release with digital code wheel. I also started a run yesterday. Already got Gold in Skating, but cheated with joystick's autofire, also can't mash anymore. PB in DH only 1.36 so far. Also struggling with Ski Jump. PB is 106.1 and got a save game with 105.1 to beat. But pure luck in Ski Jump as ramp is always totally random.

@@Aquilius_Caesar Feel like doing ski jump first is probably the play. Not only is it probably the most challenging, it's also the easiest to reset on :) Forget what my PB in ski jump is, probably 107.x. I know I had several 108.x jumps in the cracked version, but anything beyond ~98.5 was basically impossible to land there.

GetArthurCucked Any%

Same here.

I recommend taking a look at the One Short Eye video on the game if you're interested, but long story short Stair Quest is a troll game about how deceitfully easy it was to fall off stairs in old adventure games. The speedrunner only makes it look easy because they're used to dashing through these types of games.