Submission #7886: keylie's Linux Cyber Shadow in 42:24.12

Cyber Shadow is a retro 2D platformer game released in 2021. This TAS finished the game as fast as possible. The encode comes with commentaries as subtitles.

Ledge boosting: Jumping just before a ledge can give a small horizontal boost, saving 0-3 frames (seen with white sparks)

Ledge clipping: Falling slightly below the ledge of a platform can snap the character onto the platform. This is used to land early, and also to reach platforms that shouldn't be reachable.

There are all sorts of cancels that can be performed with the dash button. The basic cancel is repeating ({attack}, {sprint}, {}). This will trigger an attack every three frames. Up-attack can be canceled the same way. Dashes can also be canceled if the character is on the ground, so dashes can be chained very quickly.

The character can be controlled with both the keyboard and the controller by default. This allows to repeat actions like dashes on every frame, instead of every other frame. There are also small differences bewteen how keyboard and controller inputs are processed: keyboard inputs are processed first. This can lead to small optimizations. For example, if pressing keyboard jump+sprint+attack inputs, the dash will trigger before the jump. However, if pressing keyboard jump and controller sprint+attack, the character will move up from the jump and dash on the same frame.

Thanks to cancels, it would seem that we can make huge damage with our attacks. However, enemies have an invulnerability period to most attacks of 11 frames. This concerns all katana attacks (standard attack, up-attack, pogo, pogo explosion, dash slash). We cannot mix different attacks because the invulnerability period is shared to all those attacks.

The only attacks that don't trigger an invulnerability period are the shuriken, 0-SP shuriken and the up-attack fireballs, as well as the charged versions of those attacks. 0-SP shuriken is a weak version of the shuriken: it is slower, fades after a short distance, and has a longer recovery period. However, it is the only attack that don't consume SP, so this is the most interesting one. Using double bind, we can launch a 0-SP shuriken every other frame using the following input: ({K right, K up, K attack, C sprint}, {}). This will fire a shuriken and sprint on one frame, and stop the sprint on the other one.

There is an even better version but it triggers a dash, so it can only be applied to landed close enemies: ({K right, K up, K attack, K sprint}, {C right, C up, C attack, C sprint}). This will dash and fire a shuriken on every frame.

Found near the end of the TAS. If you release a charged dash at the exact frame of landing from a jump (and with specific height), the character will perform two dashes on the same frame. This is used to skip a miniboss at the end of the game.

Thanks to the entire Cyber Shadow discord for centralizing all speedrunning ressources, with room-by-room tricks and tech explanations, as well as for their feedback during the making of this TAS.

slamo: Claiming for judging.

slamo: Awesome work as usual. This run was mind-blowing, especially once dashing got involved. Accepting!

Spikestuff: Processing. Info Teddy's still handling the encodes for this one.