There have been some precedents, but I'm too tired right now for looking for them.
- Always record new movies from power-on. Starting from an emulator savestate is not allowed.
- Movies that start with in-game saves (aka SRAM-anchored) are allowed, but they require a verification movie that creates the necessary SRAM. This verification movie does not need to be optimized.
Your TAS must be reasonably optimized. It should beat or match all known TASes and human speedruns of that game and category. It does not have to be perfect, but it should not be easily improvable.
Your goal choice should be clearly defined and sensible, especially to those who do not know your chosen game.
Prototypes are only allowed if gameplay is significantly different to the release version, or there's no release version at all.
ROM hacks must meet an entertainment standard as well, and are only allowed in Moons.
This includes Game Genie and Action Replay cheats as well as direct modification of game files, such as on a PCor Linuxgame.
You are not allowed to run a console or PC game in an unintended environment, including modifyinganemulator settings (?) for unintended speed advantages.
You are not allowed to arbitrarily swap discs at any other time for an unintended speed advantage.
USA ((U)) versions are preferred, as a majority of our audience is English speaking, though any NTSC release can be used interchangeably.
Games that run in PAL60 mode (like on GameCube)
The(?) original hardware allows it (see above)
Passwords are allowed for bonus content, such as extra levels not normally playable in-game, or harder difficulties.
Judges and Publishers will attempt to verify that your input file syncs on an officially released build of an accepted emulator. Use development/interim builds at your own risk, as input files created on them may not sync even on the next official release.
Check places such as YouTube or NicoVideo for speedruns, as well as the Games section of the forums and our site Userfiles.
If you find improvements during the later stages of making a run that can save time in earlier parts of the run, you are not required to redo the entire run to implement them, though they should be mentioned in your run's submission text. If it's feasible to implement those improvements without having to redo the whole movie, please try.
Esoteric goals can be obsoleted by better completion of the goal, i.e "low%" can be obsoleted by a movie that obtains a lower%completion percentage.
The way the game that I am TASing(Cameltry for SNES) works is that you have to beat a set of courses, then it gives you a password(which is the same every time) to go to the next set, and only the final set of courses is necessary for the credits to be shown. I am running all levels, but it is possible to exit a course early and there is still internal data indicating all the levels of the course as being completed, but it doesn't save the progress toward getting the next password. Is it necessary to get the game to a state in which it will give me the password, and if so, is it necessary to have the password be shown on screen?
It's almost like we're rejecting for game choice again, and that's absolutely something we want to get away from.
USUSA ((U)) versions are preferred
Games that run in PAL60 mode (like onWiiGameCube)
This is pretty much direct from the current rules, and I have no idea how to fix it here. It might have to wait until we start doing explicit changes.
(An example would be movies that start from SRAM, use passwords, etc.)
Gonna call this a technical thing as well, and definitely not just because my eyes are glazing over trying to make heads or tails of it right now.
NTSC is almost always preferred over PAL, unless there are version exclusive changes to a PAL release that warrant its usage, or if the PAL release runs at 60hz instead of 50hz. US versions ((U)) are preferred, as a majority of our audience is English speaking, though any NTSC release can be used interchangeably. Using a PAL version of the game is allowed in some situations:
- Games for handheld consoles (like GameBoy)
- Games run in PAL60 mode (like on
WiiGameCube)- Commodore 64 games that don't work correctly in NTSC mode (PAL mode should be used)
- Games released in PAL Asia for Famiclones (NTSC or Dendy/Hybrid mode should be used)
- Sega Master System games released in Brazil (NTSC mode can be used)
c64 preservation (https://rittwage.com/c64pp/dp.php?pg=database) is an authority on if an original is PAL or NTSC for games released on disk. Look up the game there if it's a disk image.