Jarlyk | [TAS] Pauper Parkour in the White Palace @jarlyk | Uploaded December 2022 | Updated October 2024, 30 minutes ago.
The tool-assisted speedrun for 0 geo TE with Gathering Swarm is very close to complete now. This white palace segment is largely based off the routing/strats developed by CC, with some adaptations for having sharp shadow. I didn't have the patience to execute it quite as cleanly as CC did, but I'm still fairly happy with the final result. You can see CC's TAS here: youtube.com/watch?v=ZWurcxANqp8
The tool-assisted speedrun for 0 geo TE with Gathering Swarm is very close to complete now. This white palace segment is largely based off the routing/strats developed by CC, with some adaptations for having sharp shadow. I didn't have the patience to execute it quite as cleanly as CC did, but I'm still fairly happy with the final result. You can see CC's TAS here: youtube.com/watch?v=ZWurcxANqp8
![[TAS] Pauper Parkour in the White Palace](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IuHnDWrBjxY/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Pauper Parkour in the White Palace
The tool-assisted speedrun for 0 geo TE with Gathering Swarm is very close to complete now. This white palace segment is largely based off the routing/strats developed by CC, with some adaptations for having sharp shadow. I didnt have the patience to execute it quite as cleanly as CC did, but Im still fairly happy with the final result. You can see CCs TAS here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWurcxANqp8")
![[TAS] Hollow Knight: Spelless True Ending](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JlQm9ScOTe8/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Hollow Knight: Spelless True Ending
This is a tool-assisted speedrun of the game Hollow Knight in the category Spelless TE. The goal of this category is to complete the game (including defeating Radiance) as quickly as possible, but without ever using any spells. The TAS was created by entering every input to the game, frame by frame, then running the game with a special tool known as libTAS that allows for the same inputs to produce the same results (almost) every time. In terms of speed tech, this is intended to follow 1.4+ no major glitch rules and use tech limited to 1.4+, but had to be run on patch 1221 due to technical limitations.
Special shout out to GlowingIcefire, who developed the route used by this run. If youd like to try this route for yourself, you can find it here: https://pastebin.com/1LMzanxi
Other Acknowledgements:
Thanks to sawayoshi, who helped with planning out the route and provided an excellent critique of ways to improve the White Palace segment
Thanks to ConstructiveCynicism, the creator of the Any% NMG TAS, for general advice on strats and how to use libTAS
Thanks to DemoJameson, who developed some of the HK-specific tooling we use to make TASing possible
Thanks to Kilaye, the creator of libTAS, the black magic software that somehow wrangles a Unity game into a mostly deterministic state
Thanks also to all of the other members of the Hollow Knight TAS Discord who provided feedback, advice and encouragement
Links:
Hollow Knight 0 Geo TAS: https://youtu.be/U_12J2sUARk
Icefires channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QaTl2tdmUyymvxidHjpMA
sawayoshi: https://www.twitch.tv/sawayoshiyt
ConstructiveCynicism: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt68_jFxHpPJXDhw8U_LgWA
Hollow Knight TAS Discord: https://discord.gg/38Cw7EvB4u
Technical Notes:
The route were using is based on 1.4+, but libTAS is much less stable for later patches, so the TAS was built using patch 1221. There are some differences between versions, but only a few that are particularly relevant. The first is that Resting Grounds objects arent pogoable on 1221, which would prevent access to Xero after getting early dnail. We work around this by using airwalk to emulate pogoing. The second is that Traitor Lord has substantially less hp on patch 1221; I calculated that this made the TAS about 5 seconds faster than it wouldve been against 1.4+ TL.
For all other patch differences, we try to approximate by only using tech that works and is allowed on 1.4+. In particular, we limit inventory drops to frame perfect drops at edges, we dont use any wcs and we dont use any lever skips. There is one cdash that was done in error on the way to Failed Champ (the wall we used isnt usable on 1.4+), but the time save should be negligible.
If you want to try to sync this TAS for yourself, you can contact me on the Discord linked above and I can provide you the necessary files. This uses some additional tooling to help with keeping rng stable and to simplify rng rerolling on a per-room basis, but all manip in-room is done using in-game actions.")
![[TAS] Beast Den Rocks](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Jm95-BfSLZg/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Beast Den Rocks
A short preview from my upcoming Tool Assisted Speedrun of emgorac: exactly max geo, only rocks and chests. This run is being done with a large set of glitches, so I take some time in this video to explain a few of them, including a very fun use of delayed interaction.")
![[TAS] Senior Breakfast Special: Hold the Pancakes](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K--IzhfWrNc/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Senior Breakfast Special: Hold the Pancakes
Hu still brought one order of pancakes, but couldve been a lot worse. This fight is tricky to TAS, as hes annoying to reach with the nail and there arent many opportunities to manip rng. Tried a few pogos, but Hu also has the tendency to just spawn attacks directly on top of you if you get too high. Still, theres a reasonably quick timeline to finish off the Elder.")
![[TAS] Soul Master in 0Geo](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L7lMlZ4ixGs/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Soul Master in 0Geo
Not super happy with this segment yet, but at least this part is done for now. Some of the drawn-out animations in this fight take ages to wait through when TASing.")
![[TAS] The Watchful shall be rewarded?](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LNVmD-gighY/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] The Watchful shall be rewarded?
Another clip from my upcoming tool-assisted speedrun of 0 Geo TE with Gathering Swarm. Weve got all our movement and spells now, so now were just gathering all the remaining objectives around the map.")
![[TAS] Scarer of the Dark (0Geo)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ldv7jqYfmy0/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Scarer of the Dark (0Geo)
The first part of darknest, up through Herrah; two dreamers down and only one more to go. Still some more refinement possible here, but a fairly good first stab at things. Also, for those wondering, the nail turnaround that incidentally frees a certain grub in beast den saves 0.02 seconds.")
![[TAS] Wall cling silliness with lasers](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Os4amcR1108/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Wall cling silliness with lasers
Im currently working on the part of the run thats a lot of movement and not much fighting or geo, so there hasnt been as much to share. In the interim, please enjoy this laser cycle room with some ridiculous wcs.")
![[TAS] 0 GEO vs THE SWARM](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PEmaK5A7caU/hqdefault.jpg "[TAS] 0 GEO vs THE SWARM
Is it possible to complete Hollow Knight and defeat the Radiance without ever picking up a piece of geo...while having gathering swarm permanently equipped? In this tool-assisted speedrun, we do just that.
Thanks to @Icefire3339 for help in developing the route
Thanks to @dragon_nyx for the wonderful thumbnail art
Thanks to @constructivecynicismsr for the prior work on the White Palace and Abyss Climb TASes, as well as help in working out some of the more technical input sequences
Thanks to @mathulu for hosting the reveal stream
Thanks to folks in the HK speedrunning community for their support and encouragement
Thanks to you for watching!
If youd like to watch a version of this video without commentary, thats available here: https://youtu.be/tNOv6THa-yA
Technical notes:
This TAS was developed using libTAS and was run on patch 1221. Its intended to follow the spirit of the nmg ruleset, though there are a handful of wcs underplats that are either questionable or outright illegal per topology rules. They dont make a huge difference to the final time and this is a TAS anyway, so I didnt bother to go back and redo things. The TAS was encoded as three separate segments and then spliced together for technical reasons, but all splices were at save and quits and the timer was adjusted accordingly to line up. The game code has been modified slightly both to help with stabilizing TASing and to force equip the gathering swarm charm at the beginning of the game, but these changes should not impact the games mechanics in any way (other than the obvious difference of starting the game with gathering swarm.)")
