Speed runner come up with different "categories" for runs.

The most common is "Any %," also the most basic, it means finish the game, usually anything goes, glitch away.

You can also have no glitches category, 100% complete, no warps, no powerups, all <game item>s, etc. Sky's the limit. The community creates the categories.

My favorite are randomized speed runs, where everyone gets the same randomized version and have to speed run it against each other. Normally these are done as real time races and the results of the randomization aren't known to the player until they start. Not all games support it (think games like Zelda and Metroid where you have to collect powerups to push get past obstacles to collect more powerups to get past more obstacles). The randomizer has to make sure the game is still beatable (so no locking a required item behind an obstacle that requires the item). It is also an area that TAS can't help and it has more to do with strategy than physical perfect button presses. Also, since every time you uncover a new randomized item it changes what is the most potential optimized path, it require a deeper knowledge of the game compared to speed running where there is normally a given optimized path that people compete against.

> Not all games support it (think games like Zelda and Metroid where you have to collect powerups to push get past obstacles to collect more powerups to get past more obstacles).

There is, however, OoT Randomizer[1] which is really fun to play and watch. You can get end stage items at the beginning depending on your seed.

[1] https://github.com/AmazingAmpharos/OoT-Randomizer

I just realized I worded that poorly. I meant that games like Zelda and Metroid do support it, other games don't because there isn't much to randomize (such as platformers, given these tools generally can't create random levels, just swap item locations).

Any% refers to completion percentage, not the number of glitches allowed. But yes, some categories allow for glitches and some don't.

Over the years the Super Mario Bros community in particular has become more accepting of glitches, as otherwise both TAS and human runs would have hit the limit of how fast is possible. By allowing glitches there is now always a possibility that the runs can be further improved.

>Any% refers to completion percentage, not the number of glitches allowed.

Indeed, which is why I said "usually."

I usually see "Any %" and "Any % no glitches," but I just dabble in watching speedruns. If I see "Any %" with no other qualifiers, I'm going to assume glitching is allowed.

I think it can be a bit arbitrary at times when a technique is considered "glitching" or not. The community decides. Which is fine.

I saw a speedrun of Super Ghouls and Ghosts that had a clever limitation - "pick up all weapons that show up." If you're familiar with the game, if you pick up a weapon you lose your previous weapon and some weapons are way worse than others.

If a glitch is severe enough it will result in a new category of competition being created. A glitch that saves a second here or there would likely be accepted in the main category. Frequently speedrun games also have categories for how much has been completed in the run, like Any% meaning you just got the end credits up, or 100% meaning you collected all the items on the way or whatever

A notable example of this is Mario 64, where the lowest stars possible category has been renamed multiple times as ways of defeating bowser with fewer and fewer stars are discovered. I believe we are at 0.

And now that the star count is at zero (which humans have pulled off in runs), there is a distinction between "two-key zero-star" and "one-key zero-star", of which the latter is likely only possible in TAS. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5j6l9ULxmI

"likely only possible in TAS" has this habit of becoming possible.

SethBling turning Super Mario World into Super Flappy Birds on a console comes to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0

Exactly why I made the conscious choice to use the word "likely". :)

Conscious choice consensus

It depends on the game and category. Category rules are established by the community and the top priority is runs being fun to watch and play. Usually, any glitches are fair game. However, if any game-breaking glitches are found, the category will usually be split into one that allows and one that disallows the glitch. For example, Portal speedruns were split into "out of bounds" and "inbounds" categories once glitches were discovered that allowed you to beat the game mostly without interacting with the actual game at all.

Same situation for Super Metroid, which seems to be one of the most popular games for speedrunning. The "anything goes" category seems to be "Any% Glitched" [0], which allows for techniques that modify in-game memory values -- the current record is 12m19s. The most popular category, and fun to watch (IMO) is "Any%" [1], which does not allow for such memory tricks and has a current record of 41m18s.

But the latter is still not quite a "glitchless" run, based on the average person's definition of "glitch". For example, I doubt it was intended behavior for Kraid to die after 4 missiles [2] based on the player shooting him during a specific animation. I never played SM much beyond beating it as a kid, but I enjoy its speedruns because besides the variety of techniques and clutch moments required, there's at least one boss who behaves randomly, and requires the player to improvise. Also, in the course of new records being set, there have been a variety of strategies (e.g. different decisions on which path to take) employed, and there still seems to be room to discover more optimal strategies.

[0] https://wiki.supermetroid.run/Any%25_Glitched

[1] https://wiki.supermetroid.run/Any%25

[2] https://youtu.be/ezFcybTLOOE?t=27m29s

> there's at least one boss who behaves randomly

Phantoon, bane of speedrunners.

Not at all. Speed runs rely heavily on glitches in the game to take advantage of.

For many games the community create additional glitchless categories. Other common ones are warpless (don't use intended level skips) and 100% (collect/do everything).

Watch the video — all sorts of glitches