Jet Set Radio Speedrun

[Karina Edling]

Ialways wanted to do a glitchless speedrun of Shenmue. But without proper capturing equipment, and the amount of money needed to get them just to speedrun the few games I'm interested in trying, it doesn't seem worth it...

Plus dropping 8 hours into a game only having to reset when I make a dumb mistake or RNG fucks me doesn't seem very appealing lmfao...

A couple years ago I wrote a Sega Genesis demo called Retail Clerk '89. I decided to try making a general-purpose adventure-adjacent game engine out of that code. Instead I created a demo specifically intended for speedrunning with it. Close enough I guess.

Speedrun Tower is set in a building with a confusing elevator system. The design is loosely described here. I'll summarize by saying the connections between floors are randomized at the start. So the elevators on the first floor might go to the fifth and ninth. The fifth and ninth floors will have elevators connecting back to the first. They will also have two other elevators with randomized connections to other floors. There is a guaranteed path that visits every floor.

Floors 2-15 have three elevators. One that connects to the previous step in the guaranteed path, one that connects to the next step in the guaranteed path, and one that connects to a random floor. Of course you don't know which door is which or what the guaranteed path even is. Assuming I can math, there are 1.5079473131018 potential variations. Once the game has started the connections won't change unless I made a mistake.

Your goal is to reach the top floor and talk to your co-workers in the fewest steps possible. Unless of course your goal is to visit every floor or view every event in the fewest steps possible. Did I mention there are optional events? There are four endings based on what things you did.

Speedrun Tower is loosely inspired by various dysfunctional office buildings I've worked in or visited. It has the types of businesses expected in a multi-use building. There are also a few floors with shared amenities.

None of these businesses are based on companies I've actually worked in. Violating NDAs is not high on my to-do list. I of course have been in buildings that had a shared gym, or an on-site nurse, or food court, or badging center. I think anyone who worked in a multi-use 10+ floor building has seen all the various things in this demo.

The playable characters are composites of my kids' friends. Their names are random just because I wanted to test that out. They have no personalities except for whatever the player assigns to them in their head. Their only backstory is they are Gen-Zers entering the workforce. We've gone out of our way to make their lives confusing up to this point. We're continuing that streak by making them work in a building that is illogical to navigate.

The non-playable characters are totally made-up. I just had fun trying out different hairstyles and outfits for most. When I started I only had a few characters in mind - guards, a maintenance guy, a nurse, some douchey tech-bros, and an angry gym guy. Those characters look like their description. The rest are totally arbitrary. I made a bunch of sprites and assigned them to random floors.

I originally planned to have 120 floors with at least as many characters. It took me almost a year to create 16 very basic floors and some light dialog. Although I'm excited about the idea of expanding this demo, it's unlikely to reach anything approaching that scale.

I can't believe this game wouldn't be rated E if it went through ESRB. I try to avoid controversial content. There are no political or religious references anywhere in this demo. I poke fun at some businesses that I think are scammy or ill-conceived. Perhaps that will offend someone. Perhaps something totally non-offensive will offend someone. I can't really control that. It seems like any thing that exists will offend at least one person.

Privacy policy: I don't care even a little about who visits this site. The content delivery network I use happens to collect semi-identifiable information like user agent and IP address but I don't share or sell this data. This site does not use cookies.

This page will outline some beginner friendly routes, as well as a focus on optimal inventories, since inventory management is an important part of speedrunning Resident Evil 2 (2019). This guide will also focus on optimal Difficulty Adjustment (DA) rates for bosses.

NOTE: This will not be a in-depth directional guide, but will eventually include videos that showcase a full run using the strats. Images of important menuing will be at the bottom of the relevant sub-section.

Shoot two bullets from the gun, either before the cutscene where Leon saves Claire, or in-between the bites from the armless zombie for the Caution setup. (Don't worry, we can pick up more ammo later)

First Inventory: After proceeding through the RPD, you'll be at the cutscene in the fire escape. You should have only about 1 extra bullet in the ammo pack. If you don't, that's alright. If you have 5 bullets in the gun, and 1 extra bullet, shoot off a round before the radio call with Marvin starts. Then, move your inventory to as follows: gun from top right to 2nd row, 3rd column, and delete the key.

Finishing up RPD 1: Using the detonator, go upstairs, get the battery, the unicorn medallion, pick up the knife in the library, go up the ladder, pick up the pouch, use the detonator, and get the maiden medallion. Your inventory should look as follows. You are now ready to head to the secret room, and enter the G1 fight.

On Claire, this fight is a bit simpler. Run up to G1, aim the camera slightly downward, and begin slashing from left to right upwards. You will know that you're getting good hits because you'll hear multiple knife hits. This fight averages 16 knife hits.

After the Chief Irons cutscene, head into the kennels. Make sure you don't quickturn through the door into the kennels, as this will give a bad reaction from the Lickers. Instead run through normally. Hugging the wall on the right as you turn the corner, the Licker should lunge and miss.

First Inventory After picking up the Heart Key, go upstairs, opening the locker on the way in. Shoot the zombie as you head for the heart door. Pick up the Electronic Puzzle first, and then the knife.

Leave the room, picking up the Big Gear and head out the roof. After turning the lever, dodge Mr. X at the helicopter. To do this, line up with the broken wall, and then aim at X. This will bait out a punch, allowing you to run through him. Head out the waiting room, and into the West Office.

To dodge the licker when leaving the West Office. Run out the door, then quickturn left. The licker will move to attack, and move to the right. This should stop the licker slashing you. Use the Heart Key on the door, and perform the following inventory movement.

Once a cube is placed right in front of the orange portal, you have two options. You can either shoot a portal through the small opening (above the emancipation grid; with the radio on your second playthrough) so that you can simply walk through the orange portal with the cube to the button, or you can walk without the cube through the grid, and then create another portal somewhere on the other side of the room which will then lead to the cube; collect it and put it on the button to open the door and allow you to reach the chamberlock. Remember that if you pass through the grid, the blue portal will disappear.

There is a good opportunity for a finesse in this chamber. Disregard the Walkthrough, above. Advance promptly from the entry chamberlock towards the emancipation grid, keeping your attention on the cube dispenser. As soon as the cube has fallen, place your blue portal under it so that it passes through the orange portal and comes to rest on the raised platform (if you place the portal too early, the momentum of the cube may carry it off of the platform). While this is happening, strafe to the right through the grid and, once you're completely through, move the blue portal to the wall ahead of you. Grab the cube through the portals, turn, walk to the button and put it on. Walk through the open door to the chamberlock. From the opening of the entry chamberlock to your arrival in the exit chamberlock should be about sixteen seconds.

This patch is only available on the Steam version of the game. Whilst no official patch notes were released at the time, the major feature included in this patch was an option to remove adult content, censoring swear words in dialogue, and removing some images such as Jessie hanging from the noose at the start of the game. Applying this option makes no difference to a speedrun. Unofficially, but confirmed by a developer, a fix was also made to the UnPerfect requirements in Chapter 3.

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