Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Game versions

There are multiple versions of this game:

• 1.0: The release version. Contains most glitches and crashes often. First choice for speedrunning.
• 1.1: Early patch with few changes, most notably the debug menu was disabled to prevent players from cheating in multiplayer mode
• 1.396: Beta patch, mostly like 1.4
• 1.4: Final patch. Crashes seldomly, but least glitches
• 1.497: Unofficial patch, focused on improving multiplayer (e.g. removing abusable glitches, more game modes, map sharing), unsuitable for speedrunning

Degug mode

For testing things the debug mode is quite handy (1.0 only). Of course this is considered cheating and must not be used during a speed run. During a game press T, type in MasterDebug, press enter, press Num -. Now debug mode is activated. You can do the following things now:

• Press ~ to open the debug menu. Beware that these options were made for the game's development so many things there can crash the game.
• Hold tab to move really fast through the level
• Press G to toggle gravity. Without gravity use the numpad to move up or down
• Press B to open a weapon selection screen
• Many other keys have more or less useful stuff assigned

Movement

Giants uses a simple friction formula: The player velocity vector is multiplied with a friction factor every frame. In effect this does not change your movement direction and the absolute slowdown is proportional to your velocity. There's an absolute speed cap of 1000 but this can hardly be reached by normal means.

When accelerating (pressing movement keys or gravity) acceleration is simply added to velocity; it's the responsibility of friction to keep velocity to a reasonable value.

Due to these very simple formulas it's unlikely that there are any tricks for faster movement besides rocket jumping.

Straferunning (pressing forward/backward + left/right at once, i.e. moving in 2 orthogonal directions at once, thus effectively moving diagonally) gives you 41% more velocity.

As mecc you have air control only while using the jetpack; with or without jetpack air friction slows you down. As reaper there's no air friction but also no air control.

So for travelling as quickly as possible as a mecc:

• When rocketjumping try to shoot the rockets right behind you (by turning around or flying backward) instead of just down to your feet
• Try to stay in air all the time by combining jetpacking with rocketjumping
• If you're out of rockets jetpacking is still alot faster than running. Probably best method for long distances is to let jetpack recharge, then jetpack until it's empty, then let it recharge again and so on
• Run (or fly) diagonally

Also kabuto can walk up walls that look way to steep, especially when combining running and straferunning.

Glitches

All glitches marked with * work in version 1.0 but not 1.4. Inbetween versions (1.1 and 1.396) may or may not work. Unmarked glitches work in all versions except unofficial patch 1.5 where nearly all glitches were fixed.

Invincibility (all)*

On a map with fade out (e.g. Level 1 Story 5) finish the level but while the screen is fading to black press escape and either restart the mission or go to the main menu to load a level. You'll now be invincible for the whole game. The game marks you temporarily invincible during fadeout but if you abort fadeout the game will not make you vulnerable again. You even retain invincibilty when not aborting a level's fadeout once invincibility was triggered.

More than 20 grenades (mecc,delphi)

Normally shops don't offer grenades once there are 20 in the game (lying around or in possession of the player). However, if you still have grenades left your grenade stock is always filled up to 5 grenades even if no grenades are offered. This can be repeated again and again to drop infinitely many grenades on a heap in front of the shop. Just beware that too many grenades exploding at once (I guess the limit is around 60) can crash the game.

Turbo cancel (delphi)*

As a reaper with turbo power (e.g. all reaper missions except the first few ones) you can fly over the entire map with this. Just use turbo, and while active quickly open and close the map screen. Your turbo flight will continue but your turbo meter will start recharging so you can start your next turbo while the current turbo is still in effect. Also, when landing during aborted turbo you'll moonjump until you do a non-aborted turbo.

Sword boost (delphi)

Hitting your sword against a steep slope will push you away at high velocity. However, I don't know whether there are any uses for this in speedrunning.

Denial of popup bomb (mecc, level 3 mission 7)

This glitch is not useful but rather annoying because it doesn't give you the popup bomb you're meant to get at the start of a level 3 mission 7 if all weapon slots are full although it occupies a different slot independent from weapon slots. To avoid simply discard a weapon during the mission before (e.g. during its fadeout time). Discarding a weapon here won't hurt because you'll need to discard one anyway at the start of the next mission to free a slot for the mortar you're getting there.

Force smartie respawn (kabuto)

Kabuto needs to eat smarties for growing up. There's only a limited number per level; to aid players who killed them they respawn if they're killed instead of eaten. Here's the trick: if you kill a smartie the next one will start spawning instantly but the dead smartie takes a few seconds to disappear; if you manage to eat it before it disappears you'll have eaten a smartie from the game's perspective AND another one spawns next to you.

Restart item glitch (all)

Restarting the mission does not reset everything. This can be abused:

• Collecting more items from nearby enemies: kill a nearby enemy, when you see the item drop you want restart the mission (which makes the dropped item stay), then kill that enemy again, get another dropped item = 2 total.
• Restart the level after placing a popup bomb. The popup bomb will continue its countdown and finally explode. This gives you all items you had at level startup (so you can take them with you into the next level) and also reduces the odds of the popup bomb getting destroyed by enemy shots because enemies are reset, too.