Tricks common to all the three games

(move tricks here if you know they're present in all the 3 games OR remove them if you notice one of them isn't)

Alone in the Dark 1

Timer-Based Tricks

• two kinds of items: some items that you use get equipped, others are used straight away. When you've equipped an item it stays equipped until you equip another one. This means you can, e.g., select the lantern, quaff a flask (used straight away), and the lantern stays out. Keys are also equippable type even though you can't actually see it. Also the basic actions are "equippable" as in they don't get reset. This might affect your routing.
  • (NHG) The interesting thing is that those equiped items will stay in hand as soon as you use correctly items of first category. For exemple in my first speedrun, Carnby keeps the lantern in hand even if I put the fakebook in the library. But if I miss my move (by using the fake book in a wrong place), he'll release the lantern.

I simply realize that in the now-really-old route I planned to do, it was better to equip the key (for Jeremy's study) as soon I was in the ground floor because no one of the following actions ask to use an equiped item (take the pot of soup, take the ballroom key, put the soup, take lighter). Not only I saved time by reaching the key in the menu faster, but I also could conserve my run (because if you use an item with space bar, Carnby'll pursue his run if you hold the direction button).

• when you save and load the game the camera angle sometimes changes in-between when you're standing inside a different camera zone without having yet hit the line that actually causes the shift. Could be useful somewhere OOB to get into another view faster?

• Notes About the Boss Fight:
  • Some cutscenes can be cut short, at least if you get hit by a fireball or the deep one after using the talisman or throwing the lantern you get to access your menu early or movement early.
  • (NHG) after the "Pregzt in flame cut-scene", Carnby automatically will have a recoil animation like he was touched by something. I don't know really why but it happens all the time. Well if you are touched by the fishman just before the cut-scene, this animation will cancel the following-one so you'll save a little bit of time. It's an important detail for a segmented speedrun!
  • (NHG)I had a brillant idea ! But unfortunately it did not work at all. I tried to launch the lanter through Pregzt, then putting the talisman during the throwing. In a way it worked but the "cut-scene" cancels the throw so the lanterns falls in front of me. I insist on the fact that it literally cancels the launch, making the lantern fall as a rock, because if you try to launch it without the talisman putting in place, the lantern will kinda bounce against the tree and'll go in a more or less random direction.
    • (LotBlind) it doesn't cancel the throw, it just makes it hit the side of Pregzt's hitbox instead of penetrating towards the tree.
  • (LotBlind) I just noticed if the fireball (or deep one) hits you at the right time, it will not cause you to get knocked back, it's as if the throwing animation cancels the knockback animation in that case. Unfortunately the lantern still falls flat on the floor instead of reaching Pregzt.
  • Throwing the lantern at Pregzt off one of the platforms makes you miss. You need to be standing in the water.

• Clip steps: When you're clipping, you sometimes get varying results depending on how far your clip "steps" are taking you. Depending on the angle you'll move in smaller or larger steps. A really long step might lodge you into something you could not otherwise get inside; really small steps help you get into the very corner of the place you're clipping inside which in turn may let you do another clip that's otherwise impossible.

• Avoid camera transitions whenever possible to save the camera switch time. On the other hand there's sometimes lines that cause a bit of lag without the game loading a new view. This is probably the game loading new architecture into memory and can't be avoided.
  • The first skip takes place at the very first door of the game after leaving the attic. When exiting the 3rd floor storage room, open the door on the left side to avoid entering the view towards the stairs again.
  • When you come to the cellar from the first floor, the better way seems to be to turn after the first wine rack then go straight to the block. It avoids at least one camera transition comparing to any other path possible. Another alternative consists to turn BEFORE the first wine cabinet but the first proposition is preferable for an easier trajectory. Of course, it'll work the same at the end when you'll take the path in the other direction.
  • One of the skips is when you leave the cellar and go towards the outside door, if you travel by a path that touches the corner of the staircase you avoid getting the angle that shows you the kitchen door.
  • There's another one in the bridge maze area but after tests, it seems that going straight to the ridge is better than avoiding the camera transition because of the big detour it asks.
  • There might be an opportunity to save/load to make the camera view change into something else at the start of the next segment saving a tiny bit of time. See "Loading a saved game.

• Loading a saved game: doesn't perfectly restore the game state. Instead some things like the state the bathtub monster is in is carried over from before saving. Loading a save also influences the movement of flying arrows and axes, making them take a sharper curve towards you (because it stops their motion). Another effect is if you load a save where a door opening or closing animation is playing, wait for the door to open or close some more and load the save you'll see that the door's state comes from the situation before you loaded. This enables you to skip part of the animation completely saving time in a segmented run. Further saving and loading may change the current camera view.
  • Also this can prolong the death animation of at least the nightgaunts which is obviously not good.
  • When birds are crashing through windows loading and saving causes them to drop down on the floor prematurely. Hasn't been observed with other things. Maybe it's just the animation getting cancelled. This may cause them to be trapped outside if you do it at the right moment.

• Pause glitches: going into the inventory (not options menu) causes some side-effects
  • The smoke spreading animation keeps playing even when paused.
  • This manipulates the axes and arrows in the same way as with save/loading (see "corridor with the paintings").

• gramophone skip: if you wanted to get the pirate's key from the ballroom you only need to anger some of the dancers to get around them, grab the key quickly and run away.

• corridor with the paintings: The portraits will spawn axes and arrows respectively when you get far enough into the corridor. There will usually be just one axe and one arrow at a time. They track you and the camera follows them instead of you when they're moving around. You can get through the corridor alive without using health items, just about. This is very very difficult or impossible without saving and loading, which can be used to manipulate the arrows and axes. You may have to take the first axe when you're near the library door to make sure the portrait never spawns a second one, but you can't be too far or you won't have time to dodge the first arrow. Then you have to go to the left side of the corridor and dodge the first arrow by running tangentially to it, then rush to the far door into the bedroom. After that the arrow and camera will behave quite erratically, moving in and out of rooms. You are still generally able to get to the door, open it, and enter the room. Get the false book (it's very likely to get hit here), and just hope you can dash back to the library door and get inside in time. Inside the library you'll have better chances of dodging the arrow. If you go up or down the stairs while they're flying around you can "disarm" the projectiles (they can no longer hit anything) so it's easier to go through the library. None of this is likely to save any time though. Another thing to mention is whenever you get hit by a projectile this gives you the camera back so taking a strategic hit somewhere might be needed as well. Sometimes when the first arrow is gone somewhere (but still exists) a second one will get fired.

• • [from LotBlind]I've succeeded in taking only 10 damage (one axe) from the corridor projectiles. The key is to run directly to the library door, open it (you'll get hit by an axe), and I think also you have to trigger an arrow to be shot after opening the door. That often happens anyway when the axe knockback pushes you away from the door. Then you have to enter the library quickly. This has strange effects that don't reset until you load a save game. You should experiment with it yourself. It's easier if you have a lit lantern in hand before you start your mad dash so you can see what's happening in the library.

• • (LotBlind) So after today's testings I think the corridor skip isn't doable without saving/loading at least once or twice. That seems to mess up the tracking. This let me get to the library without even the first axe hitting me (I saved after starting to open the door). Then I used the method of attracting an arrow, doing a bit of to and fro in and out of the library so it starts doing its circles, then just make sure that arrow never hits you (the axe probably will though), and you can get the book, do what you need to do and finally go downstairs and you'll get rid of the arrow for good. But yeah don't know how to do that without segmenting.

• Arrow grab: there is an obscure glitch that lets you sometimes collect items that you normally run into to collect when the game gets confused about what entity is touching them. The arrows and axes work for this. The false book and the talisman at least have been picked up this way. It isn't well-enough understood at current to make it a part of the run but it may always have happened right as the screen transitions into the room where the item was. Also it might be necessary for the projectile to be touching the item on the first frame, meaning it has to enter the room from that side. That's the prevailing theory. Otherwise it might be when you try to pick up another item (off the floor or so) while the projectile is touching the talisman when this triggers. Getting the arrow to fly through the item isn't enough by itself.

• • (NHG) I have no idea how the games considers that you touched the book. It happened to me too sometimes. I mean, some tries I can clearly see that the arrow fly over the book so in this case i suppose it's "normal" that it takes it. But sometimes, it's just not in the good spoot at all and i take it anyway... So i don't know. It's important to say that with this crazy camera thing, sometimes the arrow is kinda... Not where it looks. As if the texture was in the wrong places. Sometimes when I miss my move in the corridor, the arrow touches me though it's not near me at all. Maybe it explains why sometimes it touches the book even if graphically the arrow is not even close to it. In any case, I did not find a move allowing to make the arrow touch the book.

• • (Aqfaq) Let me get one thing straight. The arrow does not pick up any items. It is the player character who picks up WRONG items. It is a messed up situation, so it is quite hard to figure out what is going on, but you are almost there! It seems to work like this: Only visible items can be picked up. The camera needs to see the item, otherwise it can't be picked up. So, when the camera is in another room, you can't pickup the item your player character is touching, BUT INSTEAD you get the item that the camera is currently looking at. What I did with my test runs was this: When the camera was in the hidden room, then I picked up the false book (or ANY ITEM in front of the player character). Talisman is now erroneously picked up, because that is the item the camera is seeing.

• • (LotBlind) I thought I'd seen contradicting things happening, i.e. the arrow collecting something that's not visible to the camera but I'm not sure anymore. However, your explanation would give me the reason why I couldn't just lead the arrow to the secret room and make it pick things up.

• • (NHG to Aqfaq) if I understand what you are saying, it is Carnby who picks up an item at the place where he is BUT the arrow makes the screen change and the game considers that Carnby picked up the item in the other room ? I am really surprised by what you are saying because the only one time that I picked-up the talisman, Carnby was somewhere on the painting corridor, so as far as I know there wasnt any item to touch around here. I curse myself for having deleted the video when I did it, I erased it by mistake with my wrong attempts. But I can say the same thing about the false book, when the arrow/Carnby picked up I still was in the painting worridor with absolutly no item to touch, soooo I don't know about that.

• • (LotBlind) The more correct explanation is the thing has to be loaded in memory, which is often parallel to if it's in the view or not but not necessarily. The talisman (and the whole secret room) don't seem to have any assets loaded in until you cross the trigger underneath its door. The reason the arrows can change the view just by entering the right coordinates, I theorize, has to do with the way they clip through walls and the way the programmers ensured the camera would actually follow the arrows is to introduce a different bit of code that looks at the view zone the item is in instead of trigger lines that it crosses.

• old indian cover: This item can be placed all the way from the doorway and you don't even have to face the right direction.

• escape route: you don't actually need to open either of the exits beforehand to be able to get out of the tunnels (they're automatically opened when you go deep enough into the tunnels). You don't even need to unlock the cellar door or use the sabre in the study or anything. The study door WILL be locked though and you can't get out without the key.

• the boulder skip: (LotBlind) this is probably not really a trick but rather a result of the path I took through the game... causing the boulder to be gone after doing the Cthonian skip. Presumably this happens when you enter the cellars (trigger the Cthonian) and leave. When you're back, the boulder will be gone (and so will the bird).

• study stairs: when you return to the ground floor out of the tunnels Edward/Emily will sometimes turn around and go straight back down the stairs. It isn't understood why this happens but it wastes a lot of time (10s?). Maybe sub-pixels. Doesn't happen every time though. It doesn't seem to matter if the stairs were revealed by using the sabre or if you enter the study for the first time.

• efficient order of actions: if you need to switch actions after running a little ways, perform the action, and then keep running afterwards, it might be best to choose the action before you start running so you don't have to double tap again.

• fake boss fight: this is a strange glitch that happens if you follow these instructions with either character.
  • enter the square room in the caverns (beyond the boulder behind the chest)
  • pass through into the next little area
  • turn back and pass through the square room again
  • now return to the square room one more time and you'll hear a fireball being fired and exploding on a wall

Hypothetical explanation: what's probably going on is entering the next room makes the boss spawn (it's pretty close after all), returning to the square room from the cavern side makes the game confused about your location for one frame, which is enough for the boss to see you as somewhere close by and fire a single fireball.

• There's a very small area where you can stand inside the dark maze to make it turn into the lit-up maze, but it reverts back to darkness if you move in any direction. It's right on the left side of the entrance when looking from inside the maze back towards the tunnels. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6VbXOZpnj6MLUpIeEVuS0REVlk/view?usp=sharing
  • This might well be the same trigger the route is already using to get the bright maze.

• When you've fallen, you can start rotating before the end of the fall animation, meaning you're not losing any time no matter which way you're facing.

• Knockback cancellation: If you throw an object when getting hit by something, the throw animation cancels the knockback, but this requires good timing to work.

Monsters

What we call them unless we find more authoritative sources...

• zombie
• chicken/bird
• nightgaunt (mirror puzzle)
• knight
• ghost -> vortex
• vagabond (library)
• dancer -> vortex
• jelly (outside front door) - game calls it "giant blob"
• pirate
• rat
• wasp (tunnels)
• Cthonian/worm
• bathtub monster
• settler (axe portrait)
• Indian (arrow portrait)
• ashtray
• deep one (frog monster)
• purple spider (arboretum)
• white spider (tunnels)
• big purple spider (tunnels)
• Pregzt (boss)

• fighting techniques: the left punches and swings are the fastest but have the least reach. The kick has the greatest reach but is slowest. The right hand punches are in-between. If you can get a monster to spawn inside you (e.g. chickens crashing through windows) or get them against a wall you can prevent the knockback from affecting them. The pirate is best fought by allowing him to start an attack on you and then hitting him after it's too late for him to block it. Alternatively you can fake one attack (e.g. left swing) and when he's blocking that quickly switch to another attack. Releasing the arrow key after you've hit the monster and pressing it again is faster than waiting for the animation to finish.

• Vortices: the swirling monsters that are created from the ghost or the dancers can't follow you into certain places at all. This includes the downstairs dining room. The vortices disappear during the endgame.

• Most basic monsters can be stunned/knocked back by throwing things at them as well as hitting them. If you do this it has the added benefit of getting rid of an item you don't need, although the menu time might be a little longer. The tunnel bird doesn't get stunned like the other two do.
  • Can be stunned: bathtub monster

• Bird in 3rd floor bedroom can be activated in multiple ways:
  • Picking up the vase.
  • Leaving the room and re-entering. (this enables the Nightgaunt skip, see above)
  • Waiting for one minute.

Time to go from A to B or to get item X

Table

Experimental Speculation / Might Help in AitD 2 or 3

• If the view and room are desynced (because camera is following arrow), if you warp around, it tends to cause coordinates desyncing as well. Thus if there was any natural way to induce coord desyncing, it might be during such times.
• Somehow had a save file that caused the bird to trigger instantly upon entering E1R4 even though normally this can't happen on your first visit after loading any save file. Possibly related to this there's a save file where ACTOR 21 (loft bird) has its ROOM_CHRONO wrapped around to a huge value with Emily in E1R0.
  • Sadly the (former) save file was deleted. The latter is savefile.
• When you're standing on a Deep One's back, you're actually a little ways above it: it's not exactly 2000 units tall (1142 instead) and its ZV is at -1400. If we move down 39 units to -2851 (which means our feet are at -1971), we can still walk around on its back, but at -2850 we can't. So the top half is 1970-1400=570 tall and the bottom part has to have height 572. However, more likely is -1400 is actually the last pixel of the bottom half and so both parts have height 571 instead. The point is both the actors seem to have their ZV coordinates at exactly their center points, and the assumption is all actors are the same in this respect.
• You can technically visit the inventory right as you're getting ready to clip through something to get the same effect as when just running. Can't see any specific reason to do it this way though. You lose your running state too.
• VARs 4 and 5 being set to values above 100 makes them act weird: they seem to wait for the game to play the first sound effect (that's not the one in the other VAR) and store it in the slot. From there on out, that particular value of that VAR will play that particular sound effect.
  • If you start messing with the values for VAR 4, 5 or presumably 15, it seems something can go wrong with the game writing sample data on top of the rendered image (with a softlock).
  • It looks like maybe the game resets the values for VAR 4 and 5 every frame so could be just VAR 15 is possible to use here. VAR 15 is only set when the player enters E3, E4, E5, or E6 or is on one of them.
  • To be exact, VAR 4 and 5 only reset if VAR 4 has been changed. Also some rooms may be exempt because the actor holding the right LIFE isn't in memory. In fact this is why your step sounds are not set when you come back from E5 to E3.
  • The way the game reacts to values above 100 for these VARs seems to depend more on what has happened prior, not which exact values they were given. If you just reload a save file and immediately fire the rifle, it tends to be an immediate "vanilla" softlock with music playing but nothing else happening. If you cause some other sounds to be played before you shoot, the game seems to become tolerant to glitchy values without actually playing any sample on firing. If the game has given it the "go-ahead" once, it doesn't seem to ever change its mind until the VARs are messed with again. If you switch between ordinary sample indices and glitched ones, it tends to result in a noise texture all across the screen and random large and fairly small values being written inside the VARs. Sometimes the CVARs can also be affected, giving a kind of checkered pattern with big and small values alternating (which could yield that all-important 1). Aside from all this, smaller graphical glitches may also occur.
  • On occasion, the game will die a slow death with individual actors disappearing from the "radar" one by one until none are left.
  • To get "the full monty" you can set it to 99 first, then 101 and finally 102 at which point you get the tutti frutti effect. Amazingly, setting it to 110 as the last value doesn't seem to work although it might still crash the game.
  • Sometimes some of the values can keep changing for a few frames before settling during the tutti frutti effect. Repeatedly seeing VARs 53 and 54 changing when VAR 15 was set to 103.
  • Seen the room value change during one of the crashes.
  • Seen the CVARs being written over with the VARs, so that CVAR 1 takes the value of VAR 1 etc. all the way to the last CVAR. This happened at a delay after a softlock when VAR 15 was 106.
  • Once seen CVAR 41 changing to -1 (from 198) during the softlock.
  • All in all, this is all very difficult to predict and it is currently completely unknown whether it can be used to get the desired effects.
• You can create softlocks that don't seem to overwrite VARs by throwing stuff OOB. Once it's wrapped around the plane a few times (doesn't always do that) is when it might happen. Same as with the skipped Cthonian actually.
• Can't find any way to walk backwards then getting a lamp snap to get the desync to happen in E3R11 without the rifle.
• You can keep an ANIM running just by holding down SPACE, presumably because it never goes back to the "main" part of LIFE 549. This can be used to sometimes keep the PC in the walk down/up stairs ANIMs after finishing a transition.
  • For example, while running, you can temporarily release +up, then later before you release SPACE, depress +up again to keep running in case this is ever required.
• Not sure what to do with it, but Edward has a frame in his jumping ANIM where the offset is 338 (which is massive for a single frame). Even Emily will move 120 units per frame during keyframe 1 of jumping.
• You can get a s/l snapback after doing a lamp snap (as you'd expect), but it's difficult to picture a use for this. In theory there could be a situation like this:
  • There's a trigger in front of you that you want to hit and then do a (90-degree) turn snapping into another trigger that's on the side, after which you s/l to get back to a trigger that you initially stood in.
• Why does the game interpret hitting left as if you were hitting right when you're jumping up the E5-E3 staircase? This is the only time I've noticed this behaviour. I managed to once get the game to react in the expected way but usually the rotation is in the wrong direction.
  • This can't have anything to do with hitting the stairs trigger in E3 after the TRACK has finished because that would cause you to be sent back to E5.

(Probably) Pointless Trivia

• If you wanted to do a walkathon for the game, the best would be to reset walking every 60 frames but you'd have to be careful not to trigger running. It's the same as the real-life sport.
• It seems you cannot move due West. At 270 degrees, you will also creep towards the S very slowly. Moving back and forth at that angle means you're just moving South.
• For some reason, when the game loads in E1R7, the S nightgaunt is moved around after first getting loaded in.
• You can start a climb while "closing" or "open/searching".
• The jug can be collected from OOB.
• Pregzt will deflect anything thrown at him before he's been weakened. If you were right next to him, it may get placed on the other side of the tree, simply because of how the algorithm for placing thrown objects works, you being in the way yourself.
• When you s/l while a door is opening, sometimes the door has opened completely when you return without you doing anything special. Obviously doesn't help real-time runs unless it means you've regained control before having been hit (avoiding the knockback) or something equally unlikely.
• If you get desynced and then die outside of E6R6 with the stone door having been opened, it doesn't necessarily put you in the right place? It's difficult to tell whether this is a real thing or whether I just messed up the warping affecting the end result.
• If you wait for the bird in E1R4 for 60 seconds, when it shows up, the active monster count goes up by 1. However, if you activate him by collecting the vase, this doesn't happen. This is reset anyway during all transitions and thus doesn't change the rest of the game, but it does mean you can (erroneously) get random noises playing with the bird still alive in E1.
• When you load any save, VAR 25 (being in the intro) always flashes 1 before going back to 0 before gameplay continues.
• Unlike when you back up, if you fire the rifle or get knocked back your speed stays at 0, not -1. This has no known uses.
• There can be an in-between turn within the lamp snap during a room transition (going into a room and snapping back to another one), presumably caused by SPACE not having been held long enough for the lag during the transitions not to increase the amount you turn by.

Misc info

Object properties incl. associated life, body, and weight.

Alone in the Dark 2

Alone in the Dark 3

Jack in the Dark