Braid was my first TAS made, I'm very happy to work on it again, with an improvement of 4291 frames (71.52 s) of in-game time.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: libtas v1.4.0
- Running the speedrun mode
- Aims at fastest in-game time
To unlock the speedrun mode, you have to beat the game once to unlock it. Here is the movie file which beats the game.
Tricks
Boosters
The ground in Braid consists of the succession of a number of collision surfaces. At the intersection or overlap of two surfaces, it is possible to get a booster: landing at that particular point can send Tim to the left or the right. These spots are invisible, so the speedrunning community took a lot of time to locate all these boosters. These spots also occur on ceiling, so head boosts can be obtained from them.
Grab cancel
When grabbing a ladder or trellis, on the first frame, Tim moves according to its velocity, then grab the ladder/trellis, moves again toward inputted direction, and Tim's velocity is set to 0. However, if we cancel the grab on the same frame (using jump input), then Tim moves according to its velocity and grab direction, but is not stuck to the ladder/trellis. This can be repeated every frame, thanks to having two separate buttons for the jump input (z and space).
When doing this trick, your velocity does not change, so you can't accelerate.
This trick is very effective on trellis, because you can boost horizontally. It is also used on ladders to climb up faster, which allows some skips and beats cycles.
Springload
This trick was found by TheChickenleg, and is exclusive to world 4. The conditions to trigger this glitch are not completely understood. It is triggered when Tim is bouncing from within a goomba and is moving left so the goomba is still alive on the next frame. In these conditions, when rewinding and pausing at the bounce frame, Tim will accumulate negative horizontal velocity (toward left). Releasing the pause will send Tim leftward with a very loud bounce sound. A very high velocity can get Tim to clip inside walls, but gaining that much velocity is not always worth. For exemple, it is possible to clip inside the 4-4 puzzle piece, but it takes several minutes of gaining velocity.
Improvements
About every stage was improved with more precise boost speed. Jumping in this game is prevented with horizontal velocity is higher than 240 (200 is default full speed). So, optimally, we want boost velocity to be lower and as close to 240 as possible. Comments below only mentions specific improvements.
| Level | Old TAS | New TAS | Improvement | Cumulative | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hub | 1025 | 1019 | 6 | 6 | |
| 2-1 | 2453 | 2299 | 154 | 160 | Specific corner boost before the second trellis. Loosing time because of the goomba cycle |
| 2-2 | 1226 | 1217 | 9 | 169 | |
| 2-3 | 1281 | 1241 | 40 | 209 | Booster on the ground |
| 2-2 | 615 | 613 | 2 | 211 | |
| 2-3 | 254 | 245 | 9 | 220 | |
| 2-4 | 2876 | 2835 | 41 | 261 | Grab cancel at last ladder |
| hub | 297 | 297 | 0 | 261 | |
| 3-1 | 291 | 286 | 5 | 266 | |
| 3-2 | 810 | 698 | 112 | 378 | Grab cancel on trellis |
| 3-3 | 969 | 858 | 111 | 489 | |
| 3-4 | 1706 | 1644 | 62 | 551 | |
| 3-5 | 2683 | 2632 | 51 | 602 | |
| 3-6 | 3714 | 3690 | 24 | 626 | |
| 3-7 | 959 | 822 | 137 | 763 | Grab cancel on trellis |
| 3-8 | 2669 | 2569 | 100 | 863 | Grab cancel on trellis |
| hub | 310 | 310 | 0 | 863 | |
| 4-1 | 378 | 373 | 5 | 868 | |
| 4-2 | 1412 | 932 | 480 | 1348 | Springload to skip the key |
| 4-3 | 1369 | 738 | 631 | 1979 | Springload to skip the key |
| 4-4 | 1705 | 1656 | 49 | 2028 | |
| 4-5 | 1447 | 1164 | 283 | 2311 | Using a precise bounce on the rabbit to get just enough height |
| 4-6 | 1369 | 1350 | 19 | 2330 | |
| 4-7 | 1898 | 1867 | 31 | 2361 | |
| hub | 448 | 441 | 7 | 2368 | |
| 5-1 | 245 | 239 | 6 | 2374 | |
| 5-2 | 1470 | 1311 | 159 | 2533 | Grab cancel saves half a cycle on the second puzzle piece |
| 5-3 | 1266 | 1227 | 39 | 2572 | |
| 5-4 | 1604 | 1542 | 62 | 2634 | Alternate route that doesn't save much time |
| 5-5 | 3285 | 3242 | 43 | 2677 | |
| 5-6 | 1825 | 1616 | 209 | 2886 | Use a chandelier to wake up the boss |
| 5-7 | 842 | 831 | 11 | 2897 | |
| hub | 207 | 208 | -1 | 2896 | Timer freezes here for some reason, and one frame less here |
| 6-1 | 262 | 258 | 4 | 2900 | |
| 6-2 | 1176 | 884 | 292 | 3192 | Using grab cancel, can be done from the left |
| 6-3 | 1052 | 996 | 56 | 3248 | |
| 6-4 | 3510 | 3465 | 45 | 3293 | |
| 6-5 | 2587 | 2557 | 30 | 3323 | |
| 6-6 | 3761 | 3551 | 210 | 3533 | Pulling the lever earlier |
| 6-7 | 2342 | 1713 | 629 | 4162 | With grab cancel, the ring is not needed |
| hub | 741 | 698 | 43 | 4205 | |
| 1-4 | 265 | 265 | 0 | 4205 | |
| 1-3 | 391 | 390 | 1 | 4206 | |
| 1-2 | 908 | 901 | 7 | 4213 | |
| 1-1 | 9009 | 8951 | 58 | 4271 | |
| epilogue | 1757 | 1737 | 20 | 4291 |
Thanks
A huge thanks the Braid speedrunning community: Del, Ghermann, Kanban, Chicken.
Suggested screenshot
- Frame 25177
Samsara: HA! OHHHHHH MAN... Hey, it's ya girl Samsara Tell 'Em, and they got this TAS, right, for people who smoke, or people who drink, like if you drink beer and you get drunk or if you smoke weed and you get high, and you just... Anything, like, you, if you... you get fricked up, they got this TAS, right? Ohhhhh no. This TAS called Braid. Hol' up, AY, JUDGE THIS TAS.
Samsara: Sync verified on Ubuntu 20.04, using WSL2. Thanks to fsvgm777 and keylie for helping me set everything up!
References to decade-old videos aside (even if they're national treasures), this is a fantastic run through and through. I watched it once at full speed, then twice more at 25% speed while verifying sync, and I actually was able to appreciate it more when watching in slow-mo. The timings required, the setups for the crazier strats, having more time to see all of that effort made the run that much more enjoyable to watch. Highlights for me were the springloads, of course, but also skipping some of the world gimmicks through grab cancelling and boosting, particularly World 6 and the ring.
According to the thread, entertainment has objectively improved from the published run, so I'm accepting this to inherit the Stars tier (and if it didn't have Stars for some reason, I'd have suggested it immediately after pushing this judgement). Excellent work!
fsvgm777: Processing.