Hollow Knight Any% NMG TAS in

fixed splits and input display breaking-ish
Wow realized I didn't save plugs and stuff on the reupload. Oops.
TAS (Tool Assisted Speedrun) is a run made using computer tools to slow down the game, control RNG, and go frame by frame to emulate a theoretical best run.
This was made with libTAS (by Kilaye), using LUA scripts (by DemoJameson) on Linux.
Join the TAS discord here: / discord
Watch me make TAS live here: / constructivecynicism
Watch commentary here: • Any% NMG TAS Commentary

[@piotrsawek3613]

Before claw: 'wow, that nail bouncing is cute, maybe i could even do that myself' After claw: 'oh'

[@paulamarina04]

TRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRT

[@giblo4796]

S14:56 Imagine Seer is waiting for the knight to wake up and it just starts sliding out of the room

[@deboraluz27]

The seer: •-• what the fuck •-•

[@dumbdannia6326]

LMFAO

[@eldritchcupcakes3195]

And then you look down and hear an abominable grating noise as they dash out of the room

[@octopoos8443]

This is great. The Uumuu segment is hilarious.

[@fonze5664]

Just as the devs intended! 😋

[@EnCroissant]

It was like a yo-yo!

[@zes3813]

wrr, laux any nmw

[@Horstnoon]

It semed Like Quirl killt uumuu

[@eggnogisdead]

Fight fire with fire, fight jelly with jelly

[@TheAdvertisement]

This run takes place in an alternate universe, where the Pale King is controlling the Knight from his gamer throne, and uses his higher being powers to break the game.

[@ultraforever]

I knew it Matt Pat was right the night was the king all along

[@ecviets]

@@ultraforever (spoiler) . . . . . . . . . . Well, as the Pale King's eldest progeny, the knight was the rightful heir once the king died.... so, yes.

[@limonlx7182]

@@ecviets what about the Hollow Knight tho?

[@ecviets]

@@limonlx7182 He was bound as the sacrifice and couldn’t therefore be the king in that bound position.

[@1ntegrator]

He has all these powers because the throne is just the best gaming chair.

[@CJTheExpert]

Team Cherry: You can only use the mothwing cloak while airborne once. TAS: hehehe wallcling go brrrrrr

[@comet242]

Basically the entire run: Golly, is this really (insert area here)? Based on the noises, I could've sworn it was the White Palace.

[@CraftingMenace]

I adore how the TAS even takes the time to look up and around as false knight jumps

[@iveharzing]

Holy shit this is amazing. From the start I already loved it, getting the little boosts from each backwards nailswing. And then the insane wallcling-storage abuse. And lining up the Watchers so they're on top of one another. But the best part, that blew me away, was you carefully maneuvering that jellyfish projectile, and insta-killing Uumuu with it. Bravo! What I am wondering though, since you can easily get to Monomon by using wallcling-storage, and QGA as well, is if not getting Crystal Dash would be faster. On the one hand, you don't need to pick up the 3 Artifacts, and you don't need to kill Gorgeous Husk. On the other hand, you move much more slowly in places where wallcling-storage is not possible, like inside the Black Egg. Edit: Oh wait just read the Any% NMG rules, you're not allowed to do that.

[@beepboprobotsnot3748]

It’s definitely a weird technicality that you need to have Crystal Dash for the skips to be legal.

[@allhailderpfestor4839]

You still have to follow same route as what normal speed runners do thats why I think you can skip crystal heart if that rule isn't there

[@permadash]

@@allhailderpfestor4839 they deffenetly can

[@superboss1493]

If it's not considered a major glitch, it should be allowed in all circumstances. Requiring the route to stay the same even when it picks up unneeded items is just silly. Either allow it or don't, make up your mind.

[@ordinaryshiba]

@@superboss1493 The thing is if we allow all the skips like you suggest, wr would be people grinding those skips until they get 1 try to do the rest of the run, the current rules makes it so people can try those skips but if they don't, they can still get a low time.

[@velvet7304]

I sincerely hope you're planning on TASing True Ending, because this was wild. Especially that Uumuu fight lol.

[@poopuswoopus35]

Those wall jumps up to luriens are so satisfying

[@flexytape]

17:34 OKAY BUT PLS WHY WERE THE NAIL AND SPELL HITS PERFECTLY SYNCED WITH THE MUSIC FOR A WHILE

[@oliviapg]

A few miscellaneous comments: - First of all, and most importantly, as someone who tases a game (Celeste) with much more user-friendly and accessible tas tools (perhaps the most accessible of any game), I am incredibly impressed at the amount of work put into this. I would never be able to do anything close to an optimized fullgame tas, and you've done it with a much harder game. Bravo. - That Uumuu trick was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a tas. At first I thought you were just going to use the explosion to boost somewhere, then I saw you bring it into the fight and realized what would happen. I think I audibly went "what the fuck" and then just started laughing before the fight had even begun. - In my humble opinion which nobody asked for, the rule about being able to do skips using glitches but only if you would also be able to do it without the glitch is ridiculously dumb, they should just either allow the glitch or don't. Once again, incredible tas, was a lot of fun to watch.

[@calvindang7291]

About the last comment, I believe the reason wcs is allowed is that it's possible for it to occur accidentally, and it would suck to invalidate a run just because they happened to get it in a spot where it saves time.

[@oliviapg]

@@calvindang7291 Then it should just be allowed period. No reason to force people to go get cdash just to not have to use it.

[@calvindang7291]

@@oliviapg Something being possible to do accidentally and so it shouldn't invalidate the run isn't the same as making people change the route because it's faster to take a drastically different route if the glitch it used. It's not a noticable restriction in RTA (which is what the ruleset was made for) and only appears in the TAS because the TAS can consistently pull off the precise inputs that are needed to do something more useful than being slightly faster for like 2 seconds (at best; it's usually less).

[@oliviapg]

@@calvindang7291 It absolutely affects RTA, if it was allowed you could skip cdash entirely even RTA by doing the wallcling storage thing for teacher's archives and just going deepnest route instead of qga

[@calvindang7291]

@@oliviapg Sure, if you can pull off the 50 consecutive frame perfect inputs you need for that skip. The ruleset is made to allow accidental uses of the glitch, but is explicitly made to try to prevent intentional uses of the glitch by making sure it doesn't affect the route. And that's fine, since the rule was made to allow accidental uses of the glitch. The reason it's not banned is because top tier runners *do* do it unintentionally in places where it's absurdly easy to do it, and that's the ONLY case it's supposed to be used in RTA, so they tale extra steps to make sure you don't try to use it elsewhere. Obviously, you could ban it. But that just means that suddenly you have to be extra careful to not randomly break the rules of the run when you're on an elevator, and the spirit of glitchless runs in most games are fine with things that are really easy to trigger on accident like that. IIRC there's other glitches that are also allowed but only if it doesn't save any time, since unlike wcs when you pull them off accidentally it's almost always something that loses time rather than saving it.

[@StrawberryWarlord]

That Uumuu kill was beautiful to watch. I really hope that someday I'll get to witness a player pull it off.

[@hatupat3186]

Sadly, not very likely. It requires near-frame perfect movement to keep the jelly from hitting the walls and floor

[@vlshk4566]

just crazy, i love the TAS in general but this one is amazing

[@RainMakerNGS]

I lost it at Uumuu, that was just incredible

[@impwolf]

the fact that i got the first ending of hollow knight in as many hours as this TAS did in minutes speaks volumes to either the technological advancements of the speedrunning community or just how shit i am at video games

[@victorangelo3477]

Awesome video. What about doing a Isma's Tear route TAS another time? I think it would be pretty fun to watch

[@constructivecynicismsr]

cuber knight and zippy are already working on it (its gonna be a lot more thorough and optimized, i'm excited for it)

[@God-ch8lq]

@@constructivecynicismsr why do i hear that buzzing noise wheb u move

[@StrawberryWarlord]

yesss I was just going to ask this. glad to hear someone's on it!

[@rarminqorset3628]

@@constructivecynicismsr subbed

[@hatupat3186]

@@StrawberryWarlord The reason is, is when wall clinging, he's actually grabbing and releasing the "wall" really fast, and the sound from that makes the buzzing.

[@andro_king]

This was fun as hell to watch! Good job on all of this, excellent work.

[@user-zz7le5qc6x]

That speed, that back back pogos, that time... it's just cursed. I freakin love it, great job, man!

[@asianguyasian5770]

Doctor : You have 38 minutes to live Constructive Cynicism : Perfect

[@theroboman727]

2:06 artificial steady body, i like that. 2:31 NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 11:10 ah I see, knight is beginning to go brrrrr 12:25 really brought this trick to the next level 25:11 LMAO Great TAS! deserves more views than this so ill share it. Just probably put something more in the description like extra information and how to get to the discord (assuming you have one) because this is a major TAS

[@nainfarouche6514]

getting crystal dash to not even QGA is the biggest meme ever

[@suimin1213]

This is amazing. Uumuu skill was incredible.

[@ShadowDancer1000]

My favorite part of tas speedruns is when the coders make the tas do something completely pointless just because they can and because there’s nothing to do in that time besides wait for something possibly

[@Thirty_Five]

The most impressive part of this entire run is the SHAA-less Hornet 1 fight.

[@corvax8644]

I asked if a tas was possible for this game over two years ago cause it definitely has potential, but the technology wasn’t there yet. So glad it is now

[@bluerednotpurple]

Ok that was awesome. Those skips you did to save time were amazing. Speaking of which, I have a few ideas on how you could save time over this. From what I saw, Cdash wasn't required for what you did, so skipping that (plus skipping lantern, sly, and some geo) could save time maybe. Fury of the Fallen also could save time, but at this point I don't even know if it would. You can also do the beasts' den skip with that wallcling storage thing (you know the one you normally need monarch wings for?). But great video! Edit: Some people are saying you can't skip cdash because of the rules, so ignore that idea. Fury could still be interesting tho

[@constructivecynicismsr]

ye i timed combinations of fury shamans, and soul catcher, fury was fastest in theory by itself, but sadly watcher knights don't cooperate fast enough for it to be worth, beasts den skip falls under the same thing as cdash

[@bluerednotpurple]

@@constructivecynicismsr Are you not allowed to do something that you don't have the required abilities for? Like are you not able to do beasts den skip without wings since normally you need wings?

[@iurigrang]

@@bluerednotpurple As far as I understand, you’re only allowed to do a skip that requires minor glitches if it’s possible to do without any glitches. So yeah, you’re not allowed to do the beasts den skip because you need either wings or a minor glitch (wallcling storage), so it’s not possible without glitches at that point. Likewise, you can do the monomon with wallcling, since it’s fast, because you have cdash at that point, so you could do it glitchless.

[@bluerednotpurple]

@@iurigrang That makes a lot more sense, thank you!

[@14caratgolddong58]

Queen's gardens acid skip goes HARD

[@dumbdannia6326]

fr fr

[@Zyper_Sebxr]

25:11 is awsome!

[@hydrasent563]

That uumuu fight was insane

[@narianthebear8854]

This is SO GOOOD! I'm your 600th sub, cuz this is so amazing I just had to

[@Xecoda]

Amazing! i hope you get all the credit for your hard work. I want to see a 100% Grub run!!!

[@abyssdaddy5208]

OMG OMG OMG I waited for this so long and it's so goddamn worth it

[@seancampbell5751]

hornet 1 just looks like bullying.

[@asriel434]

So what have we learned? If you have a problem, just use wallcling storage

[@1ntegrator]

This is so great, thank you for doing all of that! As a suggestion: How about doing this without the frame perfect inputs (swing backs, WCS, Uumuu etc.) to get an idea what times a human could reach?

[@jasminelee3935]

I don't know if someone has made a theoretical best time/COMSOB video yet for HK like they did a while back for breath of the wild? That could be a cool video to see

[@1ntegrator]

@@jasminelee3935 yeah that would be amazing!

[@roberthandle]

@@jasminelee3935 late reply but ax2u made perfect community speedrun compilation of hollow knight, here's the link kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXvXpH2lrLh8b9E

[@mattviz439]

Incredible tas. I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I think a lot of people have. One question, why is crystal heart necessary in this run? It wasn’t even used to skip acid. Wouldn’t running without it just save more time or am I missing something?

[@rattyxoxo7397]

The rules state that Wall-Cling storage and similar minor glitches are able to be used, as long as the movement could be done without the glitch in that room. For example, even though Queens Gardens Acid Skip is done without Crystal Heart, you would need Crystal Heart to do the movement without glitches, thus Crystal Heart must be gotten to do any variety of QGAS. It’s also why Beast Den has to entered via the trap bench, as they don’t have Monarch Wings and thus could not use the other faster entrance, even though it’d be possible without wings due to wallcling storage.

[@stephaniereder]

For anyone wondering what the buzzing is, it is a glitch called wall cling storage. (I believe) idk how it works tho

[@the_vine_queen]

Hornet: I wonder if Ghost will be strong enough to journey through Hallownest and usurp the Hollow Knight Knight: *vibrates across the room Hornet: Nevermind they're worthy

[@deboraluz27]

Knight go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[@d4r1us58]

Its funny how bro takes his time to save Zote

[@Bathios13579]

I saw this because of fireborns commentary, and holy shit that HK fight was nuts. Is there any chance of you working on a TAS for 112% APB?

[@valvince3263]

Speedrun goes Brrrrrr

[@Tallinsafur]

this makes me salivate uncontrollably and i mean that in the best way possible. this is a work of art dude. spectacular job

[@hatupat3186]

r/brandnewsentence

[@memoowo]

This is incredible

[@poggorseel]

YO THE WHOLE THING lets goo

[@rohaanpatel]

Damn this is incredible. Do u ever plan on making a video specifically on how to TAS Hollow Knight?

[@tritonwe8937]

I can't belive opening the inventory neglects the giant landing that stuns you

[@abdesselemiha2752]

Man you're insane 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@Barry-nk5wx]

Hey, Constructive Cynicism! Great video! I admire the hard work you put into this. I have a question: since you performed all the acid skips without crystal dash, why would you still collect money for Lantern and go to crystal peak to get C dash? Would it be way faster if you go straight to Ummu after you get back to Dirtmouth from Watcher Knights? This can save you a lot of time!

[@constructivecynicismsr]

the nmg ruleset says we can't sequence break with wcs, if we don't have cdash, we're not allowed to do the acid skips, same applies to human runs as well

[@Barry-nk5wx]

@@constructivecynicismsr thanks!

[@i.p.7687]

I always think this is what Zote thinks of himself.

[@WoahE]

the forbidden one cycle uumuu

[@allhailderpfestor4839]

Amazing work! Do you or any of TAS run makers plan to work on or is working on other category? (Such as true ending, 106%,112%, low %, etc)

[@PEDRONOSRINS182]

Awesome! How long did this take?

[@aqua2k210]

Are those backwards nail swings actually helping? I noticed they helped sometimes but a majority of the time it looked like the knight was moving slower also, can humans actually do that uumuu trick?

[@Ninthalias1]

Anything a TAS can do is technically possible, so technically...yes, Uumuu quick kill is possible. But humans are flawed, and it would be near impossible for us to pull it off.

[@jeshguin_the_final_one]

wow this is amazing

[@kaibelzer2312]

i’m so glad tas is finally growing in the hk community. i’m not sure if you have before or not, but could you explain how you manipulate the rng? it’d be really helpful if you could either make a video explaining how to keep a constant environment for each tas run (or link me one if you’ve done so already). thanks, and amazing work

[@constructivecynicismsr]

libTAS environment feeds fake system clock times to hk, tas explanation video coming out soon

[@hatupat3186]

The random jumps and nail swings he does changes RNG as well, according to Fireb0rn

[@poopuswoopus35]

Beautiful

[@odepciol2310]

This TAS is just insane !

[@the_gaming_wisp1778]

these wall bounces are insane

[@knucklesmcchuckles]

someone gets this dude like a million view

[@tannerdonkey9939]

This TAS is awful it didn’t even talk to elder bug at the start

[@Certified_doofus]

Nobody: The tas: hippity hoppity wall cling storage is now my property

[@vorchitect]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

[@oddjuice404]

There is a secret hole in the ceiling of the den that lets you skip the bench, it’s also close to herrah.

[@Ascended55]

You cant reach it without monarch wings. You can only do so with wallcling storage tho, but its against the rules to use WCS skips without required items

[@massimomoro5895]

amazing run, but what if you pick up fury of the fallen? ik it would lose some time but you can gain it back with the damage buff, and since it's a tas there is no risk of dying when you're at 1 mask

[@user-zz7le5qc6x]

Don't save time that much - most of the dmg is from spells, and Fury works only with nail.

[@the_gaming_wisp1778]

@@user-zz7le5qc6x also shaman stone takes up all your starting charm slots so you'd have to get more money from somewhere to buy 2 charm notches

[@mort3562]

@@the_gaming_wisp1778 overcharm

[@donkkut5003]

@@user-zz7le5qc6x most of the stuff specific to a TAS doesnt save that much time anyways, like the nail knockback on walls/enemies, if fury saves any time its worth it

[@Kalobi]

They said under another comment that they tested it and fury was theoretically the fastest for boss fights, but watcher knights didn't line up well enough for it to save time. I assume it's much easier to line both knights up for shaman stone shade soul doubles than for tiny nail hits.

[@bolichamo]

Absolutely insane, you wouldn't happen to have a TASbot you could lend me for the Pantheons asking for a friend haha

[@permadash]

When is the all achievements TAS coming? But seriusly, amazing to watch!

[@74v13r]

what tools do you use for TASing? loved it btw

[@Quatimundi]

certainly this thing is a pure vessel. the machine assisted knight will save hallownest!

[@DanielChico09]

Beautiful!

[@joethegreat7242]

Do you know if using the isma's route is potentially faster for this category? Or, really, any of the isma's routes? Then you could skip soul sanctum.

[@Brainnndead]

jesus christ, this is amazing, how much was put into this?

[@symb3l959]

do you think you could do a tas of that other any% route that was theoriesed where you would take ismas instead of cdash to see which one is actually faster? Btw hella good job with this tas

[@raisschultz420]

that's how I ended up here lol. was looking to see if anyone had done a TAS run of that route since it's so hard to pull off legitimately

[@marcoalves9029]

Loved that Uumuu fight lol

[@thesecretyoutubechannelhas2254]

Get used to watching it twice as fast playback speed and then it seems really slow compared At twice speed the buzzing at wall cling storage sounds like music as well. Its epic

[@geniuspig]

nice. Would love to see an all glitches tas.

[@DireBowser]

That uumuu kill reminds me of a super meat boy Tas I saw once

[@MessekBroccoli]

I really want to see a run where wall cling storage can be used alone, like a minor glitches are ok run

[@ShadowGlizzardMoneyGang]

I think there's a category called Restricted Major Glitches which allow skips w/ wallcling

[@mateusandrade9821]

Incrível, faz mais!

[@agamingcat5403]

Wait I am wondering did you need crystal dash in the run because you skiped the crystal dash part with wallcling storage and if you didn't need dash you can skip selling relics to lend for extra money sorry if I am being dumb and this doesn't work though

[@slugintub634]

17:36 the way it syncs with the music

[@creeperYT9824]

I skipped to the uumuu fight and was really confused why the bomb wasn't exploding on the uummu, then i realized this is not godhome

[@kooskoos1234]

Im very confused… if you can use wallcling storage to skip cdash at uumuu, why do you even get it? I thought that’s the only section that requires it

[@Queen_Of_Discord]

So, just curious, how fast do you think the tas would be if you didn't follow the nmg rules? Like you don't use any major, game-breaking glitches, but you skip crystal peaks and beast den with wall cling storage??

[@radiantduality8366]

Now I want to see a TAS speedrun of Hollow Knight but with a Gun (the Hollow Point mod.) It’d be so funny.

[@idklolhaha9717]

Please have this it do all pantheons speedrun, that would be so so so AWESOME

[@ethanlee8307]

I hate this. It causes me pain. My eyes are now screaming in agony. I can't believe I made myself watch this monstrosity of a speedrun. My brain is leaking out my ears as a type this.

[@kimventer3299]

Why?

[@Xaero13]

Why?

[@eriklarsen6790]

This is incredible! Just one question. What’s making that buzzing noise all the time? It seems to happen whenever you use wallcling storage, but I’ve never seen it do that before. Edit: couldn’t you do the cdash a bit earlier when you got into the black egg?

[@MessekBroccoli]

that buzzing noise is mashing wall cling storage, he's repeatedly going on and off the "wall" like 100 times a second

[@firecatinblack]

He said somewhere that the cdash was the only mistake he made and when he noticed it it was already too late because every action influences the rng and the hk sequence took 8 hours to make, remaking it because of one second would have been quite ridiculous

[@eriklarsen6790]

@@firecatinblack oh ok

[@ray-zide6787]

Why does the tas get crystal heart if you don't need to QGAS?

[@culfy]

NoMajorGlitches ruleset

[@ray-zide6787]

@@culfy where does it say in the rule set that you actually need it. If it was fasted to get ismas they would

[@lernaea5742]

to perform certain skips you need to have the skills/items to do the skip in nmg rulesets, aka no wallcling storage. otherwise you could do the blue lake shade skip without a shade skip. and because the cling cling storage (or wallcling storage on any wall) isn't humanly consistent you need to have CDash or Isma's Tear. (or sharp shadow, shade cloak and wings but we dont talk about that)

[@culfy]

Yep, that one 👆🏼

[@iurigrang]

@@lernaea5742 It’s not about being humanly consistent, it’s about causing sequence breaks, in the words of the rules: Allowed glitches: […] - Wallcling storage, so long as glitchless movement through the same space with current items and room state is available to the player. So it’s not about having to get crystal heart, its that if you wanna use wallcling storage, the room has to be traversable without it to be allowed. You can only get to monomon glitchless with either ismas or crystal heart, so, even if you don’t use it, you need to have one them.

[@nate09392]

This was an amazing tas! I have two questions though. 1: How were you able to instantly defeat Uumuu when Quarrel slashed him? 2: After finally entering the black egg, why did you wait a second before performing your crystal dash?

[@constructivecynicismsr]

1. the ooma core that exploded dealt exactly 300 damage and killed uumuu, 2. i didn't realize until it was too late and didn't want to redo thk, all the rng would change and theres a LOT of rng in that fight (future tools should make it easy to change soon hopefully)

[@nate09392]

@@constructivecynicismsr Ok. Thank you for replying!

[@Strike2-9245]

question: since this is a tas not limited to human constraints, would it be faster to go the isma's tear route with rng manipulation or is it not allowed

[@Ascended55]

You mean skip to the bottom with wallcling right? Pretty sure its not allowed

[@Cudz21]

Step 1: perfect movement Step 2: dash Step 3: more perfect movement Step 4: get claw Step 5: become a fucking buzzsaw

[@xPwzXgogo93]

Why the lantern is necessary in a TAS? Is there hard coding that require the lantern?

[@finesse6147]

you cant interact with the toll in the dark room without lantern

[@justingolden21]

Team Cherry casually adding 3:22 to your time in the end

[@Saxophonin]

Could you potentially optimise it more by doing most of the speedrun with 1 mask and having fury of the fallen.

[@MrrHyyde]

This was incredible to watch but why does TAS buy the lumafly lantern? It’s not like it’s required for the dark areas and a human could probably memorise them. Is it required by speedrun rules?

[@finesse6147]

you cant interact with the toll in the dark room without lantern

[@Kinomi144]

I saw how it manipulates rng and then i remembered the time i got rid of 3 masks in a pool of acid near that bench below the entrance to mantis village, and in the secon fase the mantis lords kept repeating slow sword shot fast sword shot and 2 groundpounds, i noticed the bug and killed the second fase easily

[@Valibombali]

How do you make a TAS for Hollow Knight? I'm interested in trying it.

[@noodlesbaldwin8075]

This isn’t tas he just has a good gaming chair