Uploaded July 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
You can briefly move toward the foreground after getting hit by certain attacks, letting you bypass ceilings and some obstructions that you normally would not be able to. For this trick to have much effect, Infinite Jumping is required since pressing a direction after Z-shifting will move Zack back to his normal position.
Infinite Jump: [ youtube.com/watch?v=no94fys5y5I ]
First, you need to be in Fire form, and you need to find an enemy with an attack that knocks Zack over. These attacks temporarily paralyze Zack as he falls to the ground and runs through an animation to get back up. I'm not certain of the exact method, but falling onto the enemy's attack, pressing jump twice, and holding to trigger Surf will sometimes let Zack float out toward the camera.
This may also involve movements such as holding the opposite direction of the attack, or taking damage from both the fall onto the enemy and the attack. I believe this is related to the glitch where you regain your double jumps after taking damage.
Bump Jump: [ youtube.com/watch?v=8SZUkdkD3JM ]
During the Surf, you should be unable to control Zack since he's still supposed to be cycling through the damage animation, but toward the end of the Surf, you should be able to switch forms and do an Infinite Jump to leap past ceilings and such.
This is likely a case of Zack getting stuck in between the left and right directions due to the attack, and he's designed to move in the direction he's facing. The Surf being a constant form of velocity that simply moves Zack forward without further player input, it lets you move in a way you weren't intended.
The only major area of note I've found with this trick is in the final level, "On Time?", where the ceilings prevent Zack from just Infinite Jumping out of the level. When encountering a Captain, you can take damage from him to skip the fight, one floor, and another fight with a General.
Overall, it's a decently useful trick that probably saves about 20 seconds in the final stage, but it's sadly rather specific as well as difficult to perform. Most areas of the game will feature ceilings that you can just Infinite Jump through, so the use of Z-shifting is somewhat limited. That said, in such an easy game to speedrun, this is a nice little trick to cap off the last level.
You can briefly move toward the foreground after getting hit by certain attacks, letting you bypass ceilings and some obstructions that you normally would not be able to. For this trick to have much effect, Infinite Jumping is required since pressing a direction after Z-shifting will move Zack back to his normal position.
Infinite Jump: [ youtube.com/watch?v=no94fys5y5I ]
First, you need to be in Fire form, and you need to find an enemy with an attack that knocks Zack over. These attacks temporarily paralyze Zack as he falls to the ground and runs through an animation to get back up. I'm not certain of the exact method, but falling onto the enemy's attack, pressing jump twice, and holding to trigger Surf will sometimes let Zack float out toward the camera.
This may also involve movements such as holding the opposite direction of the attack, or taking damage from both the fall onto the enemy and the attack. I believe this is related to the glitch where you regain your double jumps after taking damage.
Bump Jump: [ youtube.com/watch?v=8SZUkdkD3JM ]
During the Surf, you should be unable to control Zack since he's still supposed to be cycling through the damage animation, but toward the end of the Surf, you should be able to switch forms and do an Infinite Jump to leap past ceilings and such.
This is likely a case of Zack getting stuck in between the left and right directions due to the attack, and he's designed to move in the direction he's facing. The Surf being a constant form of velocity that simply moves Zack forward without further player input, it lets you move in a way you weren't intended.
The only major area of note I've found with this trick is in the final level, "On Time?", where the ceilings prevent Zack from just Infinite Jumping out of the level. When encountering a Captain, you can take damage from him to skip the fight, one floor, and another fight with a General.
Overall, it's a decently useful trick that probably saves about 20 seconds in the final stage, but it's sadly rather specific as well as difficult to perform. Most areas of the game will feature ceilings that you can just Infinite Jump through, so the use of Z-shifting is somewhat limited. That said, in such an easy game to speedrun, this is a nice little trick to cap off the last level.
![Ostrich Dive [glitch] - Dark Storm VR Missions](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bpAYt5qs8rA/mqdefault.jpg "Ostrich Dive [glitch] - Dark Storm VR Missions
Heres an weird little oversight that lets you peer and shoot through the floor.
Once you have an Assault Rifle or SMG, you can press the middle mouse button to fire a rocket. Run forward, aim upward, and perform a Dolphine Dive. Before the animation finishes, press the middle mouse button to shoot off the rocket, temporarily locking Ambers upper torso in a different state than the dive. After you regain control, fire your gun once to keep Amber in this state, or she will snap back to the proper upper body position. Now until you change stances, you can shoot into objects below the floor.
I believe this is a miscommunication between the upper torso and lower torso, which are made independent for the purposes of animation. When Amber fires the rocket, the game tells her upper body to set to a specific state for a period of a few seconds, just like her upper body position changes when firing a gun. Without further input, Amber will move back into an idle state again, just like when you fire and then stand still momentarily. But by firing again, Amber is set into an active state, which Im guessing tells the game that her upper torso is positioned correctly.
Of course, with levels being very flat at the moment, this glitch doesnt provide much opportunity. While shooting beneath you could be absolutely incredible in a multi-tiered level and a sniper rifle, its just not applicable yet. You also have to be fairly careful when firing the rocket, because if the ceiling is too low, youll end up killing yourself.
I still havent managed to find the exact combination of movements to trigger the running glitch shown in the video (where Amber looks like shes running forward when shes moving in any other direction), but it has something to do with using your gun or fine aim mode.
Despite the video, I actually enjoy this game a lot even in this pretty glitchy state, and Id love to see it finished. If it looks interesting to you, be sure to check out the Kickstarter or download the demo on Steam and try it yourself.
Kickstarter: [ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1201252455/dark-storm-ascension ]
Steam: [ http://store.steampowered.com/app/395150/ ]")
![Bridge Barrier Bypass [glitch] - RAGE](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/brp64ItZGGI/mqdefault.jpg "Bridge Barrier Bypass [glitch] - RAGE
You can skip over the laser barrier that leads to the final section of the game with a careful ramp jump.
Once you reach the Eastern Wasteland, drive over to the Authority Bridge, which is guarded by a laser beam barrier and two guards. Using a well-known aspect of the engine where ramps and stairs add greater height to your jumps, you can leap off of a small mound of dirt to the left side of the barrier and maneuver your way over. Additionally, you can also park your car next to the beams and use it as a stepladder.
This is the unfortunate result of not making the beams high enough. If they were spaced out just a bit more or there was another beam, this wouldnt be possible. I imagine its much easier to tie deactivation to an object and just build the collision into the object than it is to implement an invisible barrier on top of it.
The frustrating part is that this is only useful in the quest to deactivate the bridge lasers you cant use it to then access Capital Prime early, because you need the quest for that to trigger the console in its tunnel. Nonetheless, this seems faster and easier than going through the elevator path, or by launching over the barrier by car. From my lack of experience at the moment, though, I cant say whether this holds any use in a speedrun.
Check out the game on Steam: [ http://store.steampowered.com/app/9200/ ]")
