Submission #3905: Dooty's PSX Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee in 27:01.62

This run is an improvement of 57254 frames over my published any% run. The improvement comes from new tricks, different strategies, fewer mistakes and the skipping of some stages.

Skipping Paramonia and Scrabania is a dream we have been pursuing for quite some time. Lots of new tricks have been found since then and the most promising was the DDG. But looks like the programmers of this game already knew about those glitches and made sure to eliminate its possible uses. Well, it’s still not possible to skip them both with the current known tricks, but Paramonia was finally skipped.

When coming out from rolling stance, Abe will walk one or two steps before a complete stop. But if you turn around at the right moment he will stand, stop and turn at once. Useful to climb ledges on the opposite direction, but combine it with the next tricks and you’ll have a huge time savers.

Some actions like climb ledges or mounting Elum will automatically turn Abe around if he is facing the wrong direction. If you run as soon as he turns, that action will be delayed until he turns around again. Be careful not to jump though as it cancels the glitch.

This is a combination of the Auto Turn Delay and the Stop & Turn tricks; do the Auto Turn Delay from bellow a ledge, roll toward a wall and perform the Stop & Turn. Abe will pass through any wall of the game with this trick. But some walls are too large for him to pass with this trick and he will get stuck inside. If that happens, go back to the previous screen and he will be able to walk through the wall. In Scrabanian Temple you’ll see me setting this trick up from above a ledge, but there are few of those “special” ledges in the game.

Like the Backward Jump, you must combine the Auto Turn Delay with the Stop & Turn trick; set up the Auto Turn Delay from bellow a ledge, roll and do the Stop & Turn. Abe will fall diagonally, eventually advancing to the next screen as he falls. But he won’t pass through walls with this trick.

Also known as DDG, this trick can be set up in many ways, but the only new one is with bats. The set up with bats is trickier than the others, but with practice you’ll see that it’s not so hard to perform; on the upper right door of Scrabanian Temple do all that is required to complete the stage, but don’t get out yet . Go back where the bats are, jump from the tip of the platform, run and then roll under the bats. Stop & Turn one step away from the screen boundary then run towards te bats, release R1 after two steps and you are good to go.

After setting up the DDG, entering any well will resurrect Abe again. But if he’s still invisible by an explosion he will have the better of these two worlds; he is immune to all sorts of things that otherwise would kill an alive Abe, like Slig shots, explosions, traps and animals. He can also stand things a dead Abe is unable to, like surviving high falls or bumping into walls. Advancing to the next stage cancels the trick though.

You must do the Auto Turn Delay trick on Elum near a flying mine, order bomb or grenade for this to work, but do this on the wrong frame and you'll have just an invisible Elum which won't move.

While riding Elum, hold the R1 button and run towards a wall, when you are about to bump release the R1 button to walk through the wall.

Samlaptop sent me a PM some time ago to tell me about a new trick Sligfantry have found; the DDG. After some time I did a run to include the new trick, but then when I was working on a new 100% run he suggested me to use it also in Scrabania. It saved a lot of time there forcing me to cancel my any% run. Looks like I did well in cancelling it as you’ll see in the stage by stage comments. By the way, Samlaptop’s real time runs gave me lots of ideas and some of his sections were even faster than my published run. I promised to him to put as much information about what I’m doing while Abe is invisible in my last submission text as my limited English skills allows me to. I’ll try to finally fulfill this promise.

Did you see that jump before the first door? That’s one of the many faster things I got from Samlaptop’s real time runs. The Auto Turn Delay set up is also different this time, just one frame faster though. In the previous run I used to roll, stop and get up to use levers, elevators and touch stones, but it is not always faster and I rarely use it now. This trick is from my new 100% run; on the grinding area, wait for the first piece of meat to fall then jump on the platforms, it’s a lot faster. In my previous run I talked to lure the Slig. Samlaptop chanted on his run and it is faster, but don’t forget to set up the Auto Turn Delay first on this very platform, it will be used after the elevator.

In this game you don’t have to press buttons on the first possible frame for them to work, but at the start of Stokyard Escape holding the directional pad to the left proved to be prejudicial. Another thing that I missed on my previous runs is jumping from platforms to the ground below; falling from them is slower in many cases. In the middle of this stage you’ll see me rolling stopping, getting up and climbing down a ledge, in this case it was faster. At the end, the faster way to set up the Auto Turn Delay still is like in the previous run, but sliding down the ledge at full speed is faster than slow down first, seems obvious, but there's so many things in this game that even being faster look slower when you're working on it.

The Auto Turn Delay from the previous stage will be used here, but it will be combined with the Stop & Turn to fall diagonally. It is faster to walk or turn as soon as you land from a higher platform, that’s why I fell further from the ledge’s tip. Samlaptop’s real time run was faster on those slingshot yielding Mudokons; piss them off is a lot faster. The Auto Turn Delay at the end is also from his real time run.

The DDG at the start of this stage is the reason for this updated any% run, but I’ll play it completely invisible so here’s what I did more or less; after entering the well you land behind a Slig, keep pressing left. When you hear Abe’s moan it means he already landed and walked one step, you can now press up to call Elum. On the first gong press and hold right. A little after the second gong, press and hold down. As soon as the next screen appears press right and R1 and when you hear Abe’s moan press left and R1. A little after Abe moans for the second time, release R1 but keep pressing left and as soon as Elum stops press up. Now you are controlling Elum and after this point I just hex edited my published run, so watch that run and you’ll know exactly what I did. I’ve hexed the previous run up to those two Sligs that keep shooting at me, I then dismount from Elum and run to the right. A little after the next screen appears, press up to enter the well. When Abe is blasted from the well, press and hold left. After he moans press and hold down until the elevator stops then call Elum, as soon as you hear that it will agree to follow you, press up. When the elevator stops, press square to mount Elum again. At this point my previous run was hex edited in again, so watch it to know where you’ll need to slow down; I mean stop jumping around and just run. At the end of the stage I still pass through the platform’s base, but you’ll can simply dismount from Elum and climb the platform, Abe won’t die falling from it, so don’t worry. Needless to say, chant at the end, enter the Bird Portal and you’ll be back to normal on the next stage.

The left section of Scrabanian Temple is still the same, with a few improvements here and there, like the Stop & Turn trick, but nothing major. The biggest change here is the order I do the stages on the right section; I now start from the lower right door and then went up to the top of the temple. The reason for that is the new way to set up the DDG which will be used to skip Paramonia. This door is the only one in Scrabanian Temple that can be completed while “dead”.

On my cancelled any% run I posted on the discussion thread that the only thing necessary to skip Paramonia would be a way to set up the DDG in one of the doors of Scrabanian Temple and then enter this stage as a dead Abe. It is a lot easier to set up the DDG at Paramonian Temple and go to Paramonian Nests, but it is not possible to complete it as a dead Abe; lots of gaps and wells on that stage. The only thing that would prevent a dead Abe from completing Scrabanian Nests is a high ledge, but fortunately, you can set up an Auto Turn Delay right before it, so it’s no problem at all.

I still believe that one day we, or maybe the next generation of TASers, will skip both Paramonia and Scrabania, but for now let’s go to Stockyard Return, shall we?

I do this stage with the DDG still active, but it’s not possible to complete it like this; I can reach the Bird Portal, but Abe scares the birds as he falls with a Backward Jump, so I’ll sacrifice Abe after a checkpoint. To Samlaptop; I’m invisible again at some point in this stage, but since you’ll be playing in real time, I recommend you to avoid those mines as the time saved blowing it up is minuscule in comparison.

This still is the only Mudokon that must be saved, even after so many new glitches and tricks. I tried, but even with the new way, I couldn’t set up the DDG with Slogs, Sligs or grinders, so we still need to come here to get grenades. After setting it up and pulling the lever, I set up an Auto Turn Delay while invisible; turn left as soon as you hear that Abe landed, then press up and quickly right+R1.

In my cancelled any% run I skipped Zulag 2 and in my 100% run I found out that it is possible to skip Zulag 3 too, but not both in the same run. So, since I need the DDG to speed up Zulag 4 and it is possible complete Zulag 2 without sacrificing the dead Abe, I decided to skip Zulag 3 this time. I’m invisible again in one of those doors, but I still recommend playing it avoiding those mines in real time.

Nothing new here if you have watched my cancelled run or Samlaptop's real time runs, but compared to my published run it’s completely different as I’m abusing the DDG to speed things up here.

Well, that’s it; just one more lever to pull and Abe will be rewarded as a true schmuck he is. Again, I hope you enjoy the run and thanks for watching. See you in my next run.

The new way to setup the DDG with bats eliminated the need of jumping, so here’s a possible way to improve this run; if you find a way to set the DDG on Monsaic Awakened on those bees after the Auto Turn Delay, you’ll be able to skip Paramonia and Scrabania altogether. Don’t take anything I say for granted, but I tried it there already without success.

antd,dada, Samlaptop and Sligfantry; those guys, in away or another, are helping me through my Abe projects, thank you very much guys.

[dead link removed]

feos: Terrific improvement! Accepting.