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.
LevelOld TASNew TASImprovementCumulativeComments
hub1025101966
2-124532299154160Specific corner boost before the second trellis. Loosing time because of the goomba cycle
2-2122612179169
2-31281124140209Booster on the ground
2-26156132211
2-32542459220
2-42876283541261Grab cancel at last ladder
hub2972970261
3-12912865266
3-2810698112378Grab cancel on trellis
3-3969858111489
3-41706164462551
3-52683263251602
3-63714369024626
3-7959822137763Grab cancel on trellis
3-826692569100863Grab cancel on trellis
hub3103100863
4-13783735868
4-214129324801348Springload to skip the key
4-313697386311979Springload to skip the key
4-417051656492028
4-5144711642832311Using a precise bounce on the rabbit to get just enough height
4-613691350192330
4-718981867312361
hub44844172368
5-124523962374
5-2147013111592533Grab cancel saves half a cycle on the second puzzle piece
5-312661227392572
5-416041542622634Alternate route that doesn't save much time
5-532853242432677
5-6182516162092886Use a chandelier to wake up the boss
5-7842831112897
hub207208-12896Timer freezes here for some reason, and one frame less here
6-126225842900
6-211768842923192Using grab cancel, can be done from the left
6-31052996563248
6-435103465453293
6-525872557303323
6-6376135512103533Pulling the lever earlier
6-7234217136294162With grab cancel, the ring is not needed
hub741698434205
1-426526504205
1-339139014206
1-290890174213
1-190098951584271
epilogue17571737204291

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.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6954: keylie's Linux Braid in 19:39.58
Challenger
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That was entertaining, and this game is great. Yes vote.
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
Editor, Skilled player (1443)
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Yeah I'mma need some volume warning for those world 4 bounces. Very entertaining TAS otherwise. Great improvement to the old run.
Former player
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
Quite a solid TAS. I was surprised that so much time was able to be extracted from the previous run. I also agree that those bounces were offensively loud. My only gripe would be that the puzzle solutions this time around weren't as entertaining as the previous run, more or less because of the ability to use a mouse rather than having to keyboard input it "i'm losing frames anyway so i may as well make it stylish". This is a personal preference/opinion/etc. anyway, as it's inevitable that some people will prefer the faster puzzle solving since it reduces the downtime between the action, so to speak.
Skilled player (1461)
Joined: 11/26/2011
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Amazing improvements!!! Grab cancel is true superpower. Springload is crazy. All other improvements are also very cool. Also very happy that sub19 mins in-game time is achived :) This best TAS in this year in my humble opinion.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
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Sat siht fo tnemevorpmi na ees ot taerg s'ti, krow emosewa!
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Awesome TAS, mind blowing! Also, I didn't mind the loud noises at all, they actually amused me :D Yes vote!
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
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Such a marvelous run! Great use of the glitches thru the entire game. SPOILER QUESTION: Is a "all stars" (well i guess a "6 stars", since 1 takes 2 hours to obtain and the last one requires all previous stars) run on the plans?
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
EZGames69
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I want to enjoy this but every time I get up to the area that has the loud sound in it, I get a big case of anxiety, as someone who is sensitive to loud noises (most cases it doesn’t bother me but this is one case that does). I hope if this gets published that the encode either lowers the volume of the game at that one area or just removes audio completely in that area. Even when I have my volume meter at the LOWEST it can get its still very loud. That being said, I’ll still give it a yes vote.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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brunovalads wrote:
Such a marvelous run! Great use of the glitches thru the entire game. SPOILER QUESTION: Is a "all stars" (well i guess a "6 stars", since 1 takes 2 hours to obtain and the last one requires all previous stars) run on the plans?
​Why such important question hidden in spoilers? It need to be asked openly! If stars topic be skipped again we risk wait another ten years until someone pick this wonderfull game in next time. To get stars as fast as possible require extreme crazy strategies far beyond humans abilities. Only TAS is able to uncover true beauty of these extra puzzles. I really hope that keylie the greatest hero of Braid has plans to make also TAS for "6 Stars" category. ​
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
keylie
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I'm not sure I'll work on it tbh
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4355] Linux Braid "Speedrun mode" by keylie in 19:39.58
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
I'm not sure how I missed this submission. Braid is one of my favourite games. Truly a work of art. Really impressive speed improvement. As already mentioned, I had hoped there would be a "6 Stars" run, but someone would have to find a way to speed up or skip the slow-moving cloud.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
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hopper wrote:
I had hoped there would be a "6 Stars" run, but someone would have to find a way to speed up or skip the slow-moving cloud.
The "6 Stars" category avoids this star completely due this huge time requirement, an "All Stars" by Smash Mouth is the one that takes it (and the last star, which requires all previous stars).
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Post subject: Featured in a French speedrunning show
fsvgm777
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The TAS was featured in a French speedrunning show called "Mach 1": Link to video
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.