Rules

Trying to establish rules for so many games can be tough. So to help everyone, this page lists the various rules for what to do and what not to do when planning a speedrun. Runs will be independently verified to ensure no foul play is involved. Also, if your run has significant room for improvement, it probably won't be accepted. Please do your best!

Common questions

Why are rules necessary?

With any speedrun there's going to be an element of competition. Rules are necessary to ensure fair and equal competition among players. Most of our rules are common sense, but we try to cover as much as we can for completeness.

What if I disagree with your rules?

Discuss it on the forum and explain why. We're always open to suggestions and welcome intelligent discussion. If enough people hate something, maybe we'll compromise. It's happened before.

Why are some things allowed in some games and not others?

Even though we have some basic rules that apply to almost every game, some rules don't make sense for certain games, and certain games need rules that aren't covered here. While we strive to have a basic set of rules that cover all games, sometimes a game's page will have an additional note to observe, such as not accepting a certain difficulty level, version, timer, or glitch.

Fundamental rules

• No cheating: Only fairly produced runs are accepted. Ask on the forum if you are unsure about something.
• Recording: In order for us to host or publicize your run, you need to record actual footage of the entire run from start to finish. We're a bit picky about audio/video quality (FAQ), so don't record with a webcam or a camcorder pointed at the screen. In extraordinary cases, we might ask you to record footage of yourself while running to prove your run is legitimate.
• Hosting runs: We reserve the right to take down any published speedrun whenever we see fit. For example, if inconsistencies in health are later discovered (although we will give you the opportunity to explain), or if a later run (perhaps even in a different category or on another system) is considered far superior in play quality.
• Emulators and Virtualization: We will not accept speedruns recorded on emulators (ZSNES, VBA, etc.). Emulators commonly allow for recording games frame-by-frame and then playing back the input at normal speed. Also, most emulators have minor inaccuracies in timing and slowdown that inhibit accurate comparisons between runs. Finally, it is generally illegal in most countries to obtain ROMs. Note that an exception is made for officially sanctioned emulators such as the Game Boy Player for GameCube, Virtual Console, or GameTap. Due to problems with many official emulators, however, we prefer that you play on the original hardware whenever possible. For the purpose of this rule, DOSBox is considered an officially sanctioned emulator. It has seen very widespread use for rereleases of DOS-era PC games in the past years and is frequently the only reasonable choice for playing those games on a modern system. Virtualization software (VMWare, VirtualPC, etc.) is permitted for games that wouldn't otherwise run natively on a modern operating system. Programs such as WINE that attempt to replicate the Windows system calls and structure on Unix systems are not allowed.
• System modification: You are not allowed to modify your system or use extra hardware such as GameSharks and Game Genies. These devices let you alter game parameters and can give you an unfair advantage. Modchips and boot disks used for playing imports and officially released add-ons are allowed. For example, the PS2 HDD is allowed, while the HD Loader is not. In addition, modifications that enhance the quality of the audio-visual output of a console are allowed.
• Game modification: Removing or altering a game disc/cartridge/files while the game is running is forbidden. Examples of this are the crooked cartridge trick in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the CD streaming trick in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. If you're not sure what this rule means, think about it this way: don't mess with your system while playing the game, and don't modify the game itself at any time.
• Third-party controllers: You must only use features that are available on any controllers that were officially bundled with the system. Thus, turbo-fire is not allowed except for systems such as the TurboGrafx-16 that come with official turbo-fire controllers. Of course, if a game itself provides a turbo-fire option, then it may be used. Players that display very rapid firing in runs may be expected to show video camera proof of their button mashing ability. If you use a particularly unusual input device (Steering wheel, flight joystick, Wii Balance Board, etc.) you should mention that in your run comments.
• Codes: Using a beneficial cheat code is not allowed: something that gives more lives, reduces damage, etc. If a code is only cosmetic, like suitless Samus in NES Metroid, that is acceptable. A code that increases the game's difficulty, such as Donkey Kong Country 3 105%, may qualify as a separate category.
• Impossible inputs: Some games, such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, show unusual behavior when one feeds them with usually impossible input, such as up+down pressed simultaneously. As such actions require worn out controllers, non-standard controllers or excessive force, they are treated as hardware modification and are thus banned as well.

Categories

For each game there can be multiple categories of runs that are posted on SDA. These generally exist independently of each other and are also improved and obsoleted independently, except for when a new run in a more restrictive category beats the time of a currently posted run or when a new run in a comparable category improves on an existing run beyond the scope of the category difference (For instance, if a run on an easier difficulty significantly improves on an existing run beyond the time saved from playing on an easier difficulty level.) The second type of cross-category obsoletion are usually done in agreement with the original runner.

Not all categories apply to all games and some games can even have game specific categories. In general, all runs must complete the game to an ending and all Individual Level tables must have entries for all levels of a game. Runs should not have arbitrary goals (such as not using the hookshot in a Zelda game) just for the sake of classifying as a new category.

• Games that allow you to save your progress and continue later can be done using segments. You can retry segments as much as you want, in order to optimize them. Keep in mind that the purpose of segmentation is not to make life easier for you or to reduce the amount of time it takes you to produce a run. A segmented run implies a higher level of risk-taking and a lower tolerance for mistakes. Use as many segments as is optimal to achieve the fastest final time. We will not be more impressed if you use a small number of segments. In particular, do not feel like you must use roughly the same number of segments as a run you are attempting to obsolete.
• Runs done in a single sitting are referred to as single-segment (SS) runs. A segmented run that is faster than a single-segment run does not obsolete the SS run, as they are separate categories and the SS run is more restrictive. Of course, a SS run that manages to be faster than a segmented run obsoletes the segmented run.
• For some games, it makes sense to track times for individual levels (IL). Usually, this is the case if the game is separated into sections that can be individually selected and are independent of each other (For instance, no status affects or equipment carry over between levels.). If there is a minor connection between levels but an obvious base state exists, ILs may be done starting from this base state (For example, the Yoshi's Island ILs all start with 0 eggs and don't permit using any of the bonus game items from the pause screen.). If the game does not currently have any IL runs then all of the levels must be completed as part of the initial submission. Note that you do not have to finish all of the IL runs by yourself. In fact, it is common for a group of people to work together to complete a full set of IL runs. For future improvements, each IL may be obsoleted individually.
• Some games have timed minigames that can be competed in isolated from the rest of the game. These may qualify as an additional categories for games that already have a 'proper' run.

Beyond this basic consideration of the type of segmentation used in a run it usually also falls in one of the following categories:

• any%: This is the most basic goal of a speedrun: Beating the game as quickly as possible. The aim is to reach an ending (or for an IL, the end of the level) as fast as you can manage to within the boundaries of the game. This may include skipping entire sections of the game, skipping key items, leaving the boundaries of the game world and abusing programming oversights left in the game. Most runs fall into this category.
• 100%: A lot of games, especially ones following an open-world design, have collectibles and core items that a player may or may not pick up over the course of his playthrough. The goal of a 100% run is not only to beat the game quickly, but also to bring it to a 'full' completion in doing so. This usually involves collecting all of the collectibles and items that grant permanent status changes as well as finishing all of the quests and/or levels in the game. For games that track a completion rate themselves this category is usually easy to define but other games may also have 100% runs. This forum topic aims to define 100% categories for as many games as possible. Not every game can have a meaningful 100% category.
• low%: Whereas the 100% category aims to complete a game as fully as possible, the goal of a low% run is the opposite of that: Beat the game using as few resources as possible. This is probably the least well defined of these categories and strongly depends on the specifics of each game. For games that track a completion percentage, the goal is to minimize that completion rate while still beating the game. For other games, the goal is usually to replicate that behavior, which means foregoing as many collectibles and permanent power ups as possible. For a lot of games, this isn't meaningfully different from a mere any% run, if a good distinction can even be made. Again, this forum topic tries to find meaningful low% definitions for a lot of games. For this category, runs that manage to beat the game on a lower completion rate than a currently published run will obsolete that run even if the completion time is slower. While the focus lies on skipping as many core items as possible you still need to produce a speedrun with this goal, which means optimizing the route and gameplay to save time, taking acceptable risks and playing briskly and purposefully like with any other category.

Almost all runs on SDA fall into a combination of the above categories. In addition, there frequently are more categories and tags that are added to a run beyond those, such as:

• Character used: For games with multiple playable characters that don't just constitute a cosmetic difference, each playable character may constitute a separate category. However, for games with a large roster of characters (such as racing games), you are usually expected to just pick the fastest character instead of having individual categories for all character choices.
• Difficulty used: Many games have difficulty settings you can adjust. There are generally two difficulty levels that are different categories on SDA: Whatever is fastest and the hardest difficulty level. On rare occasions more difficulty levels may be tracked, such as with Goldeneye 007 where all 3 difficulty modes have different objectives on each level of the game. For games that allow you to change the difficulty settings during the game (such as the Left 4 Dead games), you are allowed to mix and match the difficulty in order to achieve the fastest time possible. In that case the run receives a mixed difficulty tag. For IL tables, you are either expected to complete the full table on all difficulty settings or pick the best difficulty mode for each individual level.
• with deaths: In some games you might be able to commit suicide in order to save time (by teleporting back to a location you've been already and must return to) or to refill your character's resources, such as weapons or health. This is referred to as death abuse. Death abuse is usually encouraged to avoid backtracking. There's also dying that costs time, which is typically unintentional. While a death in a long single-segment run might be acceptable, deaths in a segmented run look very bad and are inexcusable. An unintentional death in a segmented run means it will most likely be rejected as not good enough. Because it can be hard to measure intent, any run with deaths will be placed in the with deaths category. For games where death abuse leads to a significant change in route and strategy this category may be separate from a deathless run, otherwise this is just a classification tag.
• with resets: You are allowed to save and resume in a single segment run as long as it is part of the same game session, this will add the with resets tag to your run. Generally, this is done to save warp to a different location that would be slower to reach by other means of travel or to retry a difficult trick. While reloading and retrying tricks is allowed for single segment runs, note that doing so may look sloppy and lead to verifiers rejecting the run if they deem it not on par with SDA standards. In cases where resetting during a single segment run saves significant amounts of times and alters the route of the run, single-segment with resets may denote a separate category from single-segment, otherwise this is just a classification tag.
• with large-skip glitches: Some games have tricks or glitches that allow you to skip a major part of the game. In this case we may instate a large-skip category for the game by specifying some tasks that will label a run as with large-skip glitches (For instance, in Super Mario 64, this would be 'Entering Bowser in the Dark Sky with 69 or less stars'.). This tag exclusively applies to any% runs in select games where we and the community feel that there is sufficient merit in runs that forego these major skips.

Beyond these generic classifications there may be more game specific categories. If you feel that a certain category would make for an interesting run, feel free to ask about it on the forum or contact an SDA admin about it. Please just keep in mind that we are not interested in particularly arbitrary categories and that the above classifications are usually sufficient for most games. If there is a large community interest in particular categories (such as 16-star in Super Mario 64 which no longer fits the low% denomination) there is a chance for exceptions to these classifications.

Saving and timing

• Always remember that speed is the first and foremost priority; side issues such as entertainment are secondary. You can include a neat trick that costs a second or two, but be warned that verifiers will see this as a negative, not a positive. Someone can beat your run later simply by omitting your time waster. If you waste enough time, the verifiers will reject your run outright. Similarly, if a game lets you skip cutscenes or advance through text quickly, then you must do so.
• The game's internal timer will be used unless it is inconsistent, or fails to display the time after completion. For games without timers, check the timing section for an explanation on how timing is done.

Special considerations

• Many PC games allow you to use the ingame console to write scripts or macros to automate certain actions. There are also external input scripting programs such as AutoHotkey. These are not permitted to be used for any form of automation in PC games.
• Some games that allow you to save at any time (usually in a menu) will not place you at the same spot when you resume the game. This is referred to as save warping. Players are expected to consider save warping as part of the routing for segmented runs. For single segment runs save warps are allowed but will place the run in the single segment with resets category.
• Many speedruns utilize glitches (unintended behavior due to the game's programming), to the runner's advantage. Glitches are allowed and runners are encouraged to abuse beneficial glitches and bugs in their runs to save time within the confines of the game's behavior, even if the outcome was most likely not intended by the developers.
• Console games must be played at the refresh rate they were made for, i.e. games from PAL/SECAM regions at 50 Hz and games from NTSC regions at 60 Hz.