[Speedrun] Black & White Any% in 49:01 [RTA/Single-Segment]

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Sub 50! Very happy I managed to break this milestone.

So, where did the nearly five minutes of time save come from compared to the last PB? After some further testing it became apparent how the timer in land three actually works, and so previously focusing on Lethys' villages wasn't the correct order as not only his outwards village doesn't factor in, freeing the creature as quickly as possible is also the trigger that starts the timer. Things get slightly harder now due to variance; in an ideal scenario the invincible man burning ignites all of Lethys' villagers from the village that matters; under worse circumstances, it starts raining above the temple (yes, this actually happens, though seemingly not that often) or Lethys starts rebuilding or the targeting itself doesn't prioritize the right villagers under his control, etc. The point is, the less hoops the game forces you to jump through, the fewer Lightning miracles you could transfer over as well as decrease game speed less and save time on not slowing down the fixed timer. Technically you could clear land three with two miracles - I brought over four for safety. So, that's an idea for you what optimization with splits could look like in this boring speedrun.

In addition to the land three route changing, I was also mistaken about the trigger for the cutscene following the opening one in land four thinking there was enough time to build some scaffolds, which turned out to be false. What I was basically doing was feeding trees to the workshop while the creature was just standing there. With all the newfound land three variance, the next best thing was to figure out how to carry over Khazar's scaffolds without causing the game to crash (the initial reason I gave up on them - and the harsh time window), which was fortunately doable. Overall land four mostly lets you execute at your own pace so long as you finish up before your creature reaches its destination.

Could the game be pushed into sub-48 territory? I lost like fifteen seconds just from searching where my scaffolds landed because the game is fun in that way. I suppose another fifteen could be shaved off with less indecision and tighter execution - not to mention annoying misclicks. I thought the creature fights were surprisingly generous, and land three seemed decent. I guess the only way to answer would be adding splits, but it's probably for the best to leave the game be than let its massive downtime chip away at own sanity.

[gregoryfarias]

You're a legend, this has fulfilled my 20 years of wondering how the game ends.
May the gods bless you.

[Mistpirit]

so glad theres a speedrun of this game, you're doing gods work

[charlieholloway]

BEST opening scene of any game, ever. A god being born!

[phatbui]

I hate how this game was so underrated, an awesome game such as this deserves more

[waguco]

Khazar: WAIT! This is MY territory.
You: OUR territory

[robertbick]

This pedestal is a miracle dispenser. It charges up and generates one-shot miracles.

[gabrielmichelson]

I used the trick of placing a town center to get the ability to act outside my zone, but I had no idea you could recycle it by breaking it and picking up the scaffold again. I also had no idea you could use the pause function to basically grab anything anywhere. You, Tionic#2, are a glitch pioneer. If a bit evil for slaughtering so many people. But hey: it's hard to argue with success.

[jamess]

what a game! can't believe it's 21 years old. Better times

[AlexGoldhill]

Leader, let's start impressing-

So then I started blasting.

[Ovrshot]

The game aged like fine wine. The AI of the creature is still lightyears ahead anything else ever done in gaming. Especially if you look into it and find out how in depth it actually is.

[Szarkoc]

Loved the game. Life was so much simpler back then.

[marleine]

such a funny game to speedrun. glad i've found my people

[Madhijz]

the only winning move is not to pray.
I was wondering how it was going to go when the first level took half of the video's time but then the sound of thunder announced that god does drive bys on rival villages.
always great to see videos of this unique game.

[Ribyum]

Nicely done. Didn't expect to see this one childhood game getting its own speedrun one day. :) Finished it this year for the first time. It's interesting to see it being done quick.

[Ellyphant]

Wow, suddenly remembered this game I played so many years ago! Funny timing you basically just uploaded it. Gonna enjoy this, thank you!

[axeldeeker]

Came for pokemon, found something suprisingly entertaining

[Arizona]

I’ve never progressed further than the 17 minute mark. After that I just play around.
Thanks for uploading this, I missed out on so much

[Plarx_]

I have wanted to speedrun this for a while, never found a game I've quite enjoyed as much as this one when I was a kid. Did a playthrough a year or so ago and still loved it

[waffel]

Wow boy, your creature battles are on point

[AG-ldrv]

I tried to get this game to work on newer versions of Windows with no luck. I suspect it's due to the Secure Rom mumbo jumbo they infected games with back then. Ended up being bypassed almost instantly with the net result being inconveniencing people who bought the game then and now. IIRC, some setups wouldn't work with the antipiracy measure, and they could only play the game by finding a crack.