What is the state of time saving glitch potential?

[Brandon]

Lately I've been watching a lot of any % speedruns and it got me thinking about this game. The world record seems to be some pretty straight-forward optimized gameplay. No crazy glitches involving level skips and clipping. Is anyone aware of any potential skips that could theoretically save time?

And the reason I'm asking this here and not in a speedrunning forum is because I want to ask the developers a question. Would you patch out any such glitches?

If this game has already been figured out then that's cool too, but imo also kind of disappointing.

[Taron]

Well it depends on the glitch, I did fix one recently that could RUIN a speed run by making you suddenly warp into the spikes in a boss room when the boss door closed at just the wrong moment. I try very hard to avoid any changes that affect speed runs though. There are several things done in current record runs that were not intended but I left them alone once players started using them (the one I regret most is the roll-spear-roll-spear being faster than walking, since I think it looks dumb, but at least there aren't many areas where it is actually that useful so its not like Link side-hopping across Hyrule Field or anything like that). There are certainly things I would have changed if the game were still in beta or something but I wanted to avoid any kind of "pre-patch or post-patch?" labels being needed for speed runs.

I have to say though, even if it disappoints you a bit, as the programmer I'm rather pleased with myself that, although the game is written entirely in C++ using my own custom engine and no libraries (besides required ones like DirectX and such), no one has found any crazy clipping or level skipping glitches. I'm not claiming it was bug-free or anything, just look at the patch notes, but overall for having only a single programmer and no libraries or commercial engine I'd say it is pretty solid.

[Brandon]

Originally posted by Taron:

the one I regret most is the roll-spear-roll-spear being faster than walking, since I think it looks dumb

I love spear canceling rolls. I think it falls in the "good" unintended movement option category, though it would be cool if it were harder to do effectively, like Quake's strafe jumping or Mario 64's dustless jump dive.

Originally posted by Taron:

I have to say though, even if it disappoints you a bit, as the programmer I'm rather pleased with myself that, although the game is written entirely in C++ using my own custom engine and no libraries

Well this is what worries me about spending a bunch of time dissecting/breaking this game for speedruns. Assuming it's possible to you break your engine, could you sit back and watch people do so after pouring so much time into making it? I'm pretty sure that would bother the crap out of me if I were in your shoes.

[Taron]

Originally posted by Punymeyer:

Well this is what worries me about spending a bunch of time dissecting/breaking this game for speedruns. Assuming it's possible to you break your engine, could you sit back and watch people do so after pouring so much time into making it? I'm pretty sure that would bother the crap out of me if I were in your shoes.

Good point, but fortunately I'm also a big fan of speed runs, which I think should be obvious by some of the decisions I made when designing the mechanics and levels. In fact, I even released a special version of the game especially for speed runners that unlocks "dev mode" to make it easier to find exploits and such, but only for Windows, and even made a little tutorial video for how to get it and how it works here:

https://youtu.be/vKaLFs0U_p4

So if the bug or glitch isn't negatively affecting non-speed-run players I can't see why I'd bother fixing it in Volgarr (though if it is an engine-level issue I'd probably fix it in the engine for any potential future games using said engine of course). And, considering how long the game has been out now I doubt anything discovered would be something that a normal player would accidentally run into and ruin their experience. Plus, being on multiple platforms now (Windows, Linux, Mac, XB1, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Switch, and even Dreamcast) releasing a patch for a bug affecting all platforms is a big pain in the butt...

Therefore, I will say now - if the bug is in any way useful to a speed runner, I will either A) not fix it (for THIS game) or, worst case, B) fix it but make an option to play with the glitch still in (like maybe turning on Speed Run HUD will automatically re-enable the glitch). You can call me out on it using this thread if I go back on that in the future. How's that?

[Brandon]

I didn't know about developer mode. That's pretty sweet.

Originally posted by Taron:

You can call me out on it using this thread if I go back on that in the future. How's that?

Deal!

[Lunatix]

As far as i know there is no glitch like clipping into walls and it's for the best, i find this kind of things boring in any game.

Without the roll spear the speedrun will lacks interest in my opinion, it makes it fast paced and technical without being something you can overuse. I always thought it was intended to be honest.

[Taron]

Originally posted by Lunatix:

As far as i know there is no glitch like clipping into walls and it's for the best, i find this kind of things boring in any game.

Without the roll spear the speedrun will lacks interest in my opinion, it makes it fast paced and technical without being something you can overuse. I always thought it was intended to be honest.

I don't mind obscure techniques to speed you up, especially tricky technical ones, but I would prefer if said technique doesn't make the game look silly to any random player that watches a speed run.

Things like rocket jumps and such make the character and player look awesome and make the speed run fun to watch for everyone, but things like side-hopping across a field or rolling everywhere or constantly back-dashing through the hallways looks silly, IMHO.

While the roll-spear isn't as ridiculous as dashing through levels backwards and other such things it still looks a little weird for this bulky barbarian guy to be doing somersaults to move quickly over flat terrain instead of just, you know, running or something. So I just wish I'd discovered it before release and maybe come up with something else that had the same effect but looked a bit less silly. All the other little tricks used in Volgarr speed runs just make the player and Volgarr himself look even more awesome than normal though (IMHO) so its no big deal, I just nitpick every little thing about my own work is all ;).

[Brandon]

Originally posted by Lunatix:

As far as i know there is no glitch like clipping into walls and it's for the best, i find this kind of things boring in any game.

That's why different speedrun categories exist. Any% and glitchless both tend to be the most popular categories for most games. I understand that some people don't like wall clipping, but it wouldn't be forced on anyone.

Originally posted by Taron:

So I just wish I'd discovered it before release and maybe come up with something else that had the same effect but looked a bit less silly.

A run button would have been cool too. Maybe like in Super Mario where you just hold the attack button down to run.