After watching MegaGWolf playing this game I decided to pick it up.
After trying my hand at it for a bit, I found the RT speedruns and eventually found this thread; and I had settled into the same base route (either debug merchant or 777 gold + the occasional gold bar). I had failed to find some of the movement techniques, with the result that I was losing frames at every turn, so I won't post these WIPs.
So I decided to step back and analyze the game to the death first.
Here is a first version of a Lua HUD for Gens, based on a partial in-progress disassembly.
I am still trying to figure out how screen transitions work, so I can automate skipping them; I will also add an auto-climber (I already know the conditions to maximize speed) at some point.
There is also a RNG predictor display, which I made for luck-manipulation purposes back when I was trying the 777 gold route. The predictor shows the next few RNG values (NOT the RNG seeds), and it is clickable. Clicking it will change the RNG seed to match the seed corresponding to the value clicked; this was meant to test the ranges of dropped gold. Unfortunately, there is a LOT of stuff that affects RNG seed, including those spores that the Myconids throw, but it also auto-advances every few frames. So the 777 gold route is going to be HARD.
Oh, and gold is randomly selected when you collect it, which may include god knows how many other calls to the random number function.
A curiosity: this game uses the exact same Rng function as Genesis Sonic games.
Edit: oh, almost forgot: there is a sequence break possible with debug armor and infinite jump: you can skip the fourth zone (the castle with all the conveyor belts) by going behind the city and infinity jumping your way inside the castle. The
unassisted speedrun has this skip.
Edit 2: screenshot: