Sorry to throw a wrench in the works, but I was playing around the other day and found an absolutely awesome glitch that not only allows you to zip through walls, but also completely changes the fastest way to beat the game.
Basically, here's the way it works:
1. Equip the Sneakers and walk up to a wall. Make sure you're pushed as far against it as you can go.
2. Pause the game and select the Spring Shoes.
3. Hit Start, but as soon as the screen goes black, hold the direction
opposite the wall you're facing. If the wall is on the right, hold left, and vice versa.
4. Now one of two things will happen:
a. You'll appear just inside the wall, but will immediately begin walking out of it if you keeping holding left or right.
b. You'll appear inside the wall and begin zipping as long as you hold the direction opposite that you wish to go.
This is handy enough by itself, but it has an even more useful function. If you zip through almost any dead end in the game, you will be teleported to a sort of error room labeled "Warp Zone." It contains seven exits total -- four stairs, two walkways and a door -- each of which takes you to a different part of the game, letting you move around incredibly quickly.
Some areas don't take you to Warp Zone when you zip through them; instead, they wrap you around to the other side of the room or take you to a nearby room. This behavior can be seen in the shortcut you took from the second gym area to the first.
An extension of this trick is the ability to teleport upward through walls. If you get encased in a wall, then equip the Sneakers, you'll be able to jump through the bricks to a higher level. This can be used to skip almost all of the Air Duct maze.
With this trick, I've worked out an entirely different route through the game:
From the entrance, go to the locker room and get the towel as usual. Go through the gym and get the Spring Shoes. Zip through the wall to the right of where you get the Spring Shoes, taking you to Warp Zone. There, take the lower-left staircase, then immediately go back up to be taken to the corridor leading to the Nurse's Office. Perform the invincibility glitch in the lockers there.
Walk down the hall and go through the Music Room to get to the Chemistry Lab. Pick up the Embalming Fluid, then zip through the wall to the left to get back to Warp Zone. (It might be faster to walk to the right side of the Chemistry Lab and do the glitch there; then you'll be taken directly to the left side of Warp Zone.) There, take the upper-left staircase, then immediately go back down and follow the staircases until you get to the corridor leading to the Auto Shop. Go into the Auto Shop and zip through the right wall. This will take you to the other side of the room and directly to the Suction Cups. Zip back to the right side of the room, exit, and zip to Warp Zone using the left wall.
Enter the door in the center of Warp Zone, bringing you directly underneath the door leading to the Crawl Space. Use the Suction Cups to get in. Follow the corridor to the Air Ducts, zipping through the classrooms on the top along the way.
In the Air Ducts, go through the door to the far right. In the next room, walk all the way to the left and zip into the wall next to the hole in the vent. Equip the Sneakers and jump to the top level, then enter the far left door to go to the Basement. From there on, the route is the same as if you were playing normally.
I threw together a
rough movie of this route, played mostly in real-time, to show you what I mean. I only tried to optimize the parts that involved zipping, and I still managed to beat the game in seven minutes. I think a good TAS of this could go as low as six or maybe even five minutes.
Sorry to mess up your plan, but I think this is a really cool trick and I hope it helps you make a good movie. I wish I could offer you some advice on how to optimize the run, but I'm even more inexperienced than you. All I can really do is repeat my earlier advice that jumping with the Spring Shoes moves you forward a little faster than just walking, though the sound effect does get annoying.
Good luck.
