TAS vs THE FLOOR IS LAVA Challenge

Is it possible to complete the game without touching the ground? Well, no, the game forces you to touch the floor in too many places. But how much time do you actually need to be on the ground? In this tool-assisted speedrun, we explore this question. Expect lots of jumping around, some crazy routing and a ridiculous amount of wall cling storage.
If you'd like to watch a version of this video without commentary, that's available here: • TAS vs THE FLOOR IS LA...
Thanks to @enderonryo4912 @peekadutchu4928 @jalepinojoe6285 @74v13r for help in labbing and developing the route
Thanks to @quacksilver3393 for hosting the reveal stream
Thanks to folks in the HK speedrunning community for their support and encouragement
Thanks to you for watching!
Technical notes:
This TAS was developed using libTAS and was run on patch 1221. It's intended to follow the spirit of the nmg ruleset, though there is one part involving text storage that would be classified as a major glitch (it was worth it.) The game code has been modified slightly both to help with stabilizing TASing and to track grounded time, but these changes should not impact the game's mechanics in any way. This route does not get lantern, but, by popular request, the tooling gives the knight lantern to improve the viewing experience.

[@tricanico]

Can someone explain "topologically legal" and the no-shade shade-skip and why just having the shade there was important? Thanks!

[@jarlyk]

I get this question a lot, so I think it's worth a pinned answer at this point. Speedrunners very often create rules limiting what glitches they take advantage of in runs, either to keep runs interesting or to avoid having to do particularly annoying glitches that would otherwise make runs very un-fun to do. One specific glitch, wall cling storage, has both in-room optimization and overall routing implications. For this run in particular, the micro-optimization for in-room movement using wcs is a big part of the fun of TASing it, as there are a lot of subtle limitations to the tech that require making some interesting decisions. However, for routing, wcs basically allows skipping huge chunks of the game. That makes the run in whole less interesting, as it cuts out a lot of content in the name of speed. The topology ruleset used by speedrunners for wcs is intended to focus on disallowing the route-breaking uses of wcs while still allowing various cases where it's just fun/fast. The exact rules are a bit complicated and are defined in terms of mathematical topology, but the gist of the routing implications is that you can't use wcs to skip getting abilities or creating shades that would otherwise be required for a skip. This means that you still get to have all the interesting routing associated with shades and ability pickups, but, especially relevant for TAS, we can still abuse the hell out of wcs to do all sorts of crazy movement within rooms.

[@tricanico]

​@@jarlyk Very clear and actually what I expected after some thought. Thanks! For anyone else interested I'll over-explain just in case: I understand the idea is to think two rooms are "topologically near" if you can go from one to the other. This basic idea gives us different notions of proximity based on which glitches we allow to be able to go between rooms. In our case, blue lake and crossroads/salubra's shop are only "topologically near without major glitches" only in the state of the game that has shade in forgotten crossroads. (In a normal play-through you would think of these two rooms as near only once you get claw.) And we want only to go between rooms that are "topologically near without major glitches", not just "topologically near with or without major glitches". However, once we get to the state of the game where the two rooms are "topologically near without major glitches", it doesn't matter in what way we get from one room to the next. This has for example the advantage that a hypothetical run by a human would only care about optimizing in-room time but following this same rout. Relevant: www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Four-faculty-paper-with-an-article-on-hollow-knight-v0-857ry0boxiua1.jpg%3Fs%3Dea39c3568e04d839243a73cd9100c48dbe34d570

[@jarlyk]

@tricanico, Sorta. Here are the actual nmg rules as written for wallcling storage, which is the ruleset I'm following in spirit (TAS violates the full rules by definition just by being tool-assisted.) "Wallcling storage on patches before 1.3, so long as non-WCS NMG movement through the same space with current items and room state is available to the player. If the non-WCS access requires permanent changes: these must be made prior to using WCS. An example would be if the non-WCS access requires breaking a breakable floor. If the non-WCS access requires enemies or objects to be in a certain state: they must be in that state or be able to be put in that state without reentering the room. Same space is defined topologically, meaning that two paths are in the same space if one can be dragged to the other in space without passing through any platforms or barriers." The exact principle here is homotopy equivalence, which is to say that you can plot a curve between two locations and you can drag that curve around, as long as it doesn't pass through something solid. So, the wcs rules are technically about in-room movement, but their larger implications are about routing, since you use in-room movement to perform skips.

@@jarlyk That's a hilariously mathematical definition. Speedrunners are huge nerds. (I say that lovingly as a mathematician, though not a topologist.)

[@Naudran]

@@jarlykreally cool run! What does the inventory drop do/allow you to do?

[@Tuftorenix]

The RNG manip to spawn menderbug just to save a grounded frame absolutely killed me. Also menderbug.

[@delta3244]

Which is worth more, menderbug's life or saving a single grounded frame out of thousands? Clearly, saving the frame. There is nothing more valuable than an individual frame. If saving that frame killed a member of the audience through laughter, that's just another necessary sacrifice.

[@Hunterdog]

@@delta3244 "No cost too great" -The Pale King

[@lesseridiot2385]

also menderbug

[@enderdrane]

In the end, that one frame brought me agonizing pain as the total count was 1 off from being zeroed. That 9 felt like it was flaunting its existence lol.

[@someguywithatophat7599]

@@lesseridiot2385 that is literally the joke ben made

[@hakonhassel4928]

"We're not killing any of the children yet, because we're gonna need them" - Jarlyk 2023

[@THE_RADIANCE]

Lol. I just got there. Also, good job on becoming a member

[@Rain0T]

I heard that, looked down at the comments, and fully knew it was going to be here 😆

[@Dragon51220]

You beat me to it lol

[@space_viper]

"And we use the children, to pogo our way across" Spoken like a true Hollow Knight player

[@ondrejandydlohos]

Darth Vader is pleased.

[@tavinyo2]

"And we use the children to pogo our way across", such a powerful line "Now, the children are interesting, because we're gonna have to pogo the children"

[@EvilCherry3]

- 3% of grounded frames. (7589/25) - 91% of grounded time caused by cutscenes/collecting gear/collecting Dreamers. (6904/7589) - 20.7 average frames per room before getting Cloak. (311/15) - 4.9 average frames per room before getting Claws. (69/14) - 1.8 average frames per room after that, regardless of having Wings. (305/167)

[@EvilCherry3]

7589/250000*

[@xingxasa7194]

@@EvilCherry3 7589/250000 * 100%

[@davidsugijanto6935]

someone has a a lot of free time

[@hihowru_imalba_hehe9277]

Nice

[@gameingtothemax6266]

​@@EvilCherry3yaknow you can just edit the comment, right?

[@dantedevon3978]

The floor is lava, acid is water, and walls are in the air. What.

[@BlueSR]

What is so awesome about this is how incredibly creative you've been with the route of the tas to avoid as many grounded frames as possible. The result is mesmerising!

[@elliottmanning9376]

yooo blue ya like mlp

[@ZorryCafe]

blue :D

[@Pakkens_Backyard]

pog blue

[@sanga1380]

Sup, can’t wait for the reaction stream/vid.

[@HollowPass]

In his gathering swarm video TAS video he said that's his last reaction

[@Sapeidra]

Team Cherry clearly intended this challenge, since they gave us monarch wings and wall cling storage. Yet they fail us by making grounded cutscenes. Very mixed message.

[@voiddwelling7285]

I like how they talk about the Tas like an alien's proud adoptive human parent. "It's just going to do ______ for fun." "It's kind of a frame perfect glitch humans can do but Tas does it a lot since it can."

[@miclipscountry4272]

I love the mentality: “I have all of the materials to do this skip the legal way, but I’m gonna do the illegal way because it’s funnier”.

[@hellboy19991]

can you explain what "legal" means? within the nmg ruleset?

[@svool_gsviv9885]

as far as I'm aware, the rules are that WCS is legal as long as you don't do anything you couldn't do without it. so in this case it's both legal and saves grounded frames/time

[@asdasdasdasd7483]

@@svool_gsviv9885 honestly a bit annoying to me. "I have the tools to make this video, so I wont" kind of vibe.

[@svool_gsviv9885]

@@asdasdasdasd7483 i don’t see what you mean, could you elaborate?

[@asdasdasdasd7483]

@@svool_gsviv9885 there is no fun in someone saying "I could do it, but I wont". Uf you're doing a no hit run, your dog starts barking, you turn around and an enemy creeps towards you and hits you, you don't get to say "it doesn't count because I could have dodged it easily" What's the fun in him doing something "illegally" just to say "I could do it legally but I wont". Zero sense in that.

[@kormagogthedestroyer]

This TAS guy is pretty good, he should get into speedrunning

[@calebcasey599]

I know your joking and it still hurt me

[@SakhotGamer]

@@calebcasey599 This joke is as old and legendary as TASing itself, it will never die out.

[@psychospy9214]

to be fair, he's so good he got his own category

[@CJTheExpert]

Haven't even watched this yet, but I know it's gonna be damn good. Your work inspires, entertains, and probably also is responsible for fixing my kitchen sink while I wasn't looking.

[@mid-boss6461]

How is the sink?

[@CJTheExpert]

@@mid-boss6461 It cleans my dishes for me now. Truely a modern wonder.

[@jujudasouk8528]

@@CJTheExpertlol

[@nothankyou6840]

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to do the super thanks. Never done this before, but this TAS was beyond deserving ❤️

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

Your name is ironic in this case, but you are ea very nice person for saying that and doing the super thanks

[@Pyron39]

A total of two tikitiks were killed during this TAS ( 1:47 and 5:52 ). TWO! You can’t even say that is an accident anymore. Everyone is talking about how menderbug was killed, but no one cares about the twice the amount of tiktiks being killed. This cannot be allowed to go on.

[@M.Datura]

More like "The Knight plays convoluted pingpong with the walls, as the ball." Cannot possible imagine how long it takes to make these. The're really impressive.

[@lewski6560]

What a phenomenal TAS. I love categories with unconventional routes like this one.

[@delta3244]

23:05 For anyone who wonders why we cannot fall on Broken Vessel to regain control early during its scream, iirc BV does not have a hitbox until immediately after said scream ends. (edit: _someone_ tricked me into writing Lost Kin instead of Broken Vessel)

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

How did they trick u

[@delta8518]

OMG another delta

[@deepakrajendra8019]

The juxtaposition of sticking to the rule of NMG but also doing things no human can. The brilliant commentary that keeps up with the incredible pace and explains the subtleties of the run. The routing itself is so good! This is a fantastic video! :D

[@WanTheLucid]

I know this has little to do with the tas itself (amazing work by the way), but the effect of having a cosmetic trail follow behind you is understated! The section with the bubbles made me realize how cool it would be if we could customize our player character - different masks, cloaks, trails, nail designs, nail hit effects, and much more would really spice up the game!!

[@jarlyk]

Yeah, some of the skins available via CustomKnight mod are pretty fun. I'm not sure if any of them have trails, but pretty much everything else is customizable.

[@deepakrajendra8019]

I'm not sure of trails but there are LOTs of skins that are available as mods that can change so much. The knight itself, the nail, the spells and even some charms. Would urge you to check them out!

[@colinjones5379]

Incredible. Juggling the Uumuu cores at the same time as the wombling, TWICE is just bananas

[@enderdrane]

And the second time seemed to have been much harder too. The dedication of this man, its unbelievable

[@arachnidz7750]

“The wombling” Glorious phrase Edit, I had read this comment before the uumuu fight and now I realized I used the wrong pronunciation of wombling when reading it

[@hakonhassel4928]

Absolutely incredible work!

[@jarlyk]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[@PhoenixianThe]

Something about the fact that there are entire sections of the run that exist not as the most efficient way accomplish the goal but for the sake of a _legal technicality_ just... sends me. I love it. And I especially love it when one consequence of that legal technicality means you have to solve what's basically a three body problem between the core orbiting you and the womblings trying to catch it. Twice.

[@jarlyk]

Exactly; constraints breed creativity. The wcs restrictions are a bit of arcane minutia that mostly don't matter that much for human runners (it prevents them from having to do certain obnoxious skips in popular runs that otherwise could skip large chunks of the game), but they create an interesting playscape for TAS, which can get wcs for free by wiggling against any wall. And, in the context of the unique goal of staying off the floor, it becomes even more relevant. A lot of people have asked why not just ignore those rules if it's more efficient, but I think people grossly underestimate just how broken Hollow Knight is and the kinds of chaos that result if you remove all the shackles. If anyone is curious, I recommend watching an all glitches speedrun; current WR for that is 4 minutes, 36 seconds.

[@PhoenixianThe]

In this case, it also made for surprisingly good narrative pacing, as the run starts fairly tame but just gets wilder and wilder as it goes along. There's even a bit of an act structure going on from the tame beginning pre-dash, to a rising act as more powers are unlocked, to a climax as all the setups and threads setup by the constraints are brought together with the Uumuu and Monomon core sequences and a falling action as things wind down with last stretch and The Hollow Knight. Which is not something one generally comes to nor expects from a TAS, but here we are. The run and its commentary together made for some pretty good showmanship.

[@thiscat4426]

This is an absolutely fascinating watch. The movement is, of course, incredible, but the routing is like nothing I’ve ever seen. And I might have seen the quick kill on Uumuu before, but it never stops flooring me (but not the knight!) and having to do the trick twice just to get early control on some dialogue is wild. I am bamboozled and poor THK is very confused. Incredible work here!

[@SalmiakSter]

With so many unavoidable frames it could have been easy to say “how much does one extra frame here or there really matter”, but you minimised every single section and I think that’s what makes this TAS extra special. Very well done.

[@Ruminations09]

Literally used RNG manipulation to spawn in Menderbug, just so the TAS could immediately kill him and save *ONE* (1) frame. Absolutely mental.

[@ryroller9394]

I wonder how different this would be if the challenge was inverted, where you had to minimize air time and maximize ground time. Amazing TAS as always, love the commentary!

[@jarlyk]

I think the trickiest part of minimal air time would be getting past enemies. You'd probably have to kill a lot more things and would need to kill them without jumping, so a lot of step in, hit the enemy, back off, repeat. Would probably be optimal to get VS as the itemless Baldur kill involves a lot of time in the air. It wouldn't have most of the nail turnaround boosts that normally show up in TAS, since most of those require jumping to reach a useful wall. Dashmaster might still be worth for the downdashes to get to the ground sooner when falling. If we want to get a bit cheeky, TAS could try to mostly jump using airwalk, which is technically grounded while in the air. Definitely could be interesting.

[@tourmalevolent]

most insane uumuu fight, great video

[@nothankyou6840]

This is beautiful. Thank you for all the effort you put into making these! I also really enjoy your commentary/explaining what's happening, your voice is very soothing.

[@metroidnerd9001]

You've outdone yourself again with this TAS! I totally get what you mean with this TAS having the gimmick be important the entire time, whereas the 0 geo TASes only mattered in specific rooms. It made the entire thing a joy to watch. I really like what you did with the frame counters, especially splitting it up by frames within the room vs. frames in the entire run. It made it really easy to follow. Well done!

[@DerfyRed]

This is super cool, but as a terraria player I got this odd sense of tension every time the knight didn’t touch the ground for a while thinking he was out of wing time. Kinda an odd reaction but hey, still a very cool run

[@tundraanderson9068]

The hollow knight is missing out by using the angel wings, they should get fishron wings for the flight time

[@swuep]

Hehe

[@GarryDumblowski]

I think that's a common reaction. One time when I was playing Mother 2 soon after playing Mother 3, I tried to use M3's rhythm game mechanics to combo in a game that didn't have them.

[@Hessonite_Dragon_Helen]

@@tundraanderson9068*fledgling wings

[@Kennedy00Louis]

Holy shit 40:05 I'm speechless, this whole part is just phenomenal.

[@jalepinojoe6285]

That was incredible. I had to rewatch several sections wondering "how was that not on the ground?" or "where did that wcs come from?" Was not expecting a reverse walljump off the tiny ledge in mawlurk room that exists purely so lifeseeds can walk under it to get some extra height before wcs. Also i think that elevator mightve set a record for longest consecutive time that TAS has spent sitting on one single physical wall.

[@lumineani]

Your videos are so much better with commentary and it gives people a better reason to watch the original rather than some random guy's reaction to it. Keep up the awesome work, 50 seconds in and I'm already freaking out because of the spike trick, it's fricking mind-blowing You're an artist!!

[@i_Soar]

Bro got told to touch grass and went out of his way to do the opposite, respect

[@nothankyou6840]

Yes! I have been waiting for this, I'm so happy it's finally done. I know it's going to be amazing, great work!

[@duckdogfill]

I'm not good enough to do this but it would be really sick to have a clip which was just the frames where the knight was on the ground and have it play to show how little in total dude was grounded

[@Smoldragoncat]

Such epilepsy

[@fabians7751]

that would be just over 4 minutes, mostly with the Knight in a cutscene, dream nail, or focus

[@Qaetan]

This is the most absurd TAS run I've seen yet for HK, and it was poetry in motion.

[@bladestaff46]

This is one of the best TAS's I've ever seen. RIP Menderbug o7

[@harriet7683]

It’s so cool that after tas gets wings the only grounded frame is at the start of the room

[@johnpetrila4823]

Amazing work as always, and I really appreciated your commentary; it helped me understand the nuances for certain choices beyond just knowing that WCS looks really cool. Some of those roundabout traversal choices in particular were really cool to see unfold. Congrats on finally getting this completed, and great job! Cheers!

[@phee4174]

eee it's here , pog also damn that Archives was insane

[@lisspeedrun]

This is so insane, I admire your incredible dedication to this work

[@BlueSR]

WOO NEW JARLYK TAS YEAHH

[@zyansheep]

Awesome TAS! I just can't get over the end where you say "if you liked the video, like and subscribe" while the epic and heartrending animated ending of hollow knight plays in the background 🤣

[@jarlyk]

And here I make my sad plea from within the chains of the Algorithm. (:

[@boathesnake478]

seeing this on my feed was like christmas morning, only i didn't know it was christmas. absolutely incredible, super fascinating to watch all the movement and how significantly it differs once you remove the floor! i'm so glad i get to look forward to your TAS content ❤

[@DesTr069]

The early control in Teacher’s Archive actually made my jaw drop, that was absolutely nuts! I hope you still enjoy doing these, because I sure as hell love watching them!

[@sleepysentinel7703]

This is SO impressive. Your patience and dedication are astonishing :D

[@octopoos8443]

Watching these TASes is always so cool, keep up the good work man!

[@real23lions]

“Pogo off the children” words I never thought I would ever hear. 😂

[@khadrathunderborn5180]

I’ve been so excited for this video, and boy did it not disappoint

[@the33rdguy]

You really inspire me to start making my own TAS for hk! :D

[@Kaalv2]

I really like the commentary as well as the information you get on screen it makes it way cooler to watch really enjoyed it and hope you keep up the good work

[@hollowknightplayer2051]

I love how I’ve been thinking of this for ages and tried doing it myself for fun, and am soo happy to see there’s a tas for it. Love the video!!

[@NEOrdinary]

Oh my god the fighting after equpiing dashmaster with lots of wallclingstorage and dashes looks absolutely awesome. I'm really excited to see what TAS Silksong runs will look like because I bet the movement there will look even more insane.

[@fainfawn7641]

7.5/250 and I’m sure there’s probably even more ways to save just slight amounts of frames by slightly rerouting. Frickin insane dude! Love these TAS videos :)

[@jarlyk]

I actually realized after the fact that I calculated this incorrectly. The frames displayed in the counters are physics frames, but 250k is the number of input (render) frames. So it's really more 125k total physics frames. But still pretty good. :) I plan to do a breakdown chart showing how much of the time was due to movement and how much was just unavoidable grounded time from cutscenes.

[@fainfawn7641]

@@jarlyk nice! But seriously these videos are awesome either way :)

[@matildakristensen541]

16:20 ''We do a little hop here'' That was so cute

[@kinggamereon653]

this is probably the most fun TAS this far always a pleasure watching these

[@syfp4769]

That whole section in the archives was insane

[@Soulsbest]

Wow, this is some super sick work! I didn't know tasing in hollow knight was so well developed

[@ronmosenzon4933]

This was great watch! Thanks for the amazing TAS and the amazing video!

[@hoangtrungquan6951]

You have always impressed me with your works and be one of the biggest inspirations for me when i think I'll give up on this game, and I'm just wanna said great job! I always enjoy your contents no matter what it is

[@SanyaJuutilainen]

Absolutely great TAS with a great commentary, thanks a lot!

[@gumiho.c]

I love how you refer to "humans" like you're not one of them

[@Valk957]

huge fan of the inputs scrolling down on the side, fantastic vid!

[@leinad1110]

These TASes are always so amazing to watch, youre insane.

[@Drawoon]

THK: *looks around* "where am I getting hit from?" the knight: *keeps hitting* THK: *confused screaming*

[@hakonhassel4928]

Yooo!!! It's finally done!!! Sadly I don't have the time to watch it right now, but at least I have something to look forward to after work! :D

[@jarlyk]

I had a lot of fun making this one; the underlying concept is pretty simple, but it had all sorts of crazy routing implications and meant that there's not a single room here with 'normal' movement. I'd gotten a bit tired of TASing early game, since it's almost always the same, but here even KP is a completely new challenge. Thanks for your continued support and I hope you have as much fun watching it as I did making it.

[@hakonhassel4928]

​@@jarlyk Back from work now! Did you do some RNG manip to get menderbug, or were you just lucky?

[@jarlyk]

@@hakonhassel4928 That was manipulated (:

[@hakonhassel4928]

@@jarlyk Where/when did you do the manip? Was it wiggles in dirtmouth or something like that?

[@jarlyk]

@@hakonhassel4928 It was inventory manipulation while loading in on the bench. Moving the cursor around triggers particle effects that change rng.

[@jaky1560]

Amazing game, amazing TAS, amazing comentary. Kep up the great content

[@rosemarrryy454]

really cool tas and video! I really enjoy commentated tas videos so this is right up my alley!

[@tavinyo2]

Just finished watching it and I am now crying from absolute enjoyment

[@Slimurgical]

I can't even imagine how much time it took to set this up. Edit: After the claws, some rooms make the Knight look like a fucked up game of Snake.

[@bootycrums8092]

Phenomenal stuff as always Jarlyk, you're just so freaking amazing. 🤯

[@dazcarrr]

the weird nmg rules led to some absolutely unhinged routing here

[@memoowo]

DAMNNNN the uumuu fight is the most epic thing ever

[@jaronmoody6988]

When the TAS fought the baldur in greenpath, there were some extra grounded frames, were those unavoidable and if so, why?

[@jarlyk]

Ah, good catch. That looks like a small mistake, probably introduced when I was tweaking the jump heights so that the final alignment with the spit would be correct. This sequence took a really long time with a ton of tweaking to get it to work properly, as can't just wait on the floor for the perfect time like the normal itemless Baldur.

[@jaronmoody6988]

@@jarlyk Thanks for the explanation! Love the video!

[@nutmeggaming11261]

The teachers archives section is absolutely absurd. Cheers to being one of, if not the best TASers of all time

[@_Solaal_]

I love when a TAS speedrunner uses the word "straightforward"

[@wave3305]

you're basically flying at this point this is so impressive the amount of control and muscle memory needed is insane

[@jarlyk]

This is a tool-assisted speedrun, so there's no muscle memory required. Inputs are specified one frame at a time and executed by software. There are a ton of tricks this TAS uses that wouldn't be human viable, as they're either too precise to execute reliably or there are limitations to hardware imprecision that make some of the tricks fundamentally random as to whether they can be executed on any given run.

[@dragonearth5456]

I wonder what a run with the least amount of air time possible would look like. Basically just the reverse of this run.

[@vanderkarl3927]

"Now, technically this is actually considered a major glitch, because we got 'Text Storage'. But, it's fun, so we're gonna leave it in." - GIGACHAD Jarlyk

[@25penguin25]

Great run! Was a blast to watch!

[@THE_RADIANCE]

You should clip the first part of hk and title it "bullying hk until he screams"

[@shirohoshi6680]

This is surely the best TAS in existence

[@moffiez]

that uumuu fight was flabbergasting. honestly the whole TAS was, amazing job as always!

[@Bigpoolofthor]

I like how at some parts the camera needs to catch up

[@monkeyman55667]

Two questions: how long has it taken to make this TAS? Amazing work. And, what would godhome ending look like under these restrictions? There might be a lot of scream skips that are impossible due to limited health, but I’d still find it really interesting to see where they are used and how fighting bosses like sly would work with minimum ground frames.

[@jarlyk]

This TAS took on the order of around 200 hours, which is fairly typical for a TAS of this length. GE would be incredibly long under these constraints, as you'd need to do all the fights with nail 0 and dive without shamans. The biggest impact on grounded time would be the lack of wcs, which would add a lot of grounded frames throughout the movement. It would change calculations for bench usage (the extra costs per room may justify using more nearby benches in a lot of cases.) It would be interesting, but quite a lot of work, especially since 1432 isn't as stable for libTAS, so it would require a lot of segmentation and splicing.

[@iexist1300]

30:14 why did you dash on the ground here? Was it a mistake or something? Or am I just misinterpreting it and those 6 frames are from when you were in this room before? 39:50 do doors always give 2 frames or did you jump too late.

[@jarlyk]

Good eye; that's a mistake. Possibly even a desync, as I thought I checked the entry to every room, but it's quite possible I just missed it. It wasn't grounded for the start of the dash, so I might've missed that it just barely dipped down and brushed the floor for a few frames at the edge.

[@iexist1300]

​@@jarlyk also great tas.

[@zephielexe4527]

The movement in the later parts of this run is very fun to watch.

[@zaxias1758]

44:48 POV: chasing the annoying fly buzzing around your head

[@billiboi122]

Assuming a constant 60 fps, you had a total of 2 minutes and 6 seconds of ground time

[@BeegFatYeti]

22:04 there is a weird black particle following the knight, as if it were geo with gathering swarm. It seems to somehow have been caused by glowing womb, but how is unclear.

[@jarlyk]

If you get far enough away from a wombling, it will turn into a void particle and chase you faster, then turns back into a wombling as soon as it's in a space where it can form. The TAS often moves quite quickly and therefore outpaces the womblings pretty frequently. We actually had to deliberately keep a wombling in this void form for an extended period by maneuvering it into the wall to delay its spawning when doing the Hwurmp early control at Ismas, as otherwise it would blow up the Hwurmp before it could get there.

[@spookysilverfox]

As soon as he passed Elderbug I knew he was a villain

[@geeshta]

Man what a treat. This was awesome!

[@drboom9926]

5:50 the TAS casually murdering mender bug who is just trying to do his job and Jarlyk calling it, "convenient" to save just 1 or 2 ground touches. Note: this is a joke I understand the need for minimum ground interactions

[@duck-cc4qu]

"he needed to use menderbug to reduce the amount of ground touches" -🤓

[@jonasvogt3278]

What happened at 27:51 with that watcher knight hitting something?

[@jarlyk]

I'm actually not sure; HK has a lot of weird interaction jank like this, but probably had something to do with the knight setting the attack pattern based on the knight being on the right side (pushing it toward the wall), but setting the facing direction to the left (the knight's new position.)

[@bluemew2114]

“Little cheeky pogo off the nail” Parry: do I mean nothing to you?

[@memoowo]

7:16 WOW the epogo room is so cool

[@andersonchang0604]

Incredible job. Btw, I still don't understand why you set up those shade, since they didn't seems like doing anything?

[@jarlyk]

The shades are created to comply with no-major-glitches rules regarding wall cling storage.

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

I wonder how you would do a full Godmaster floorless TAS. There's a whole lot of stuff to pogo and all, I think it'd be very interesting.

[@souprar]

Insane work as always

[@kilwom]

44:53 HELP THE WAY HE SAYS 'HE'S GETTING CONFUSED' is so golden why is it so funny