The MASTER Guide to Speedrunning Neon White

what's up it's Bladen and welcome to my neon white speedrunning guide this video will cover a lot of the tricks and techniques that go into speedrunning this game however it will not cover any of the specific routes if you want to learn them I'll leave a link in the description to both the individual level World Record spreadsheet and a whites Heaven Rush guide that I've made this guide will be tailored toward playing on PC with keyboard and mouse since that's what I and most others use if you're using a different setup this video should still be an effective resource since most of the information is easily transferable and one last thing if you find the video a little fast paced or confusing at times that's okay you can always rewind you don't need to absorb everything in one go but anyway let's get into it before practicing any actual Movement we need to First sort out controls and settings the default binds already work very well for this game the only recommendation I would make is changing swap card off of Q since you already use your ring finger to move left personally I've changed it to shift so I can use my pinky but you can do whatever feels best for you for your sensitivity I recommend something on the lower end since there's a lot of aiming in this game however there are a handful of large flicks and turn around so you might want to take that into consideration moving on to settings let's take a look at field of view I recommend setting your fov as low as possible to the point where it's still comfortable though the sun on this game can be quite blinding but lowering your fov will mostly get rid of that effect it'll also help you snipe demons that are very far away alternatively you can use the puppy power tools mod to get rid of the sun which is legal for Speed runs at the end of the day though this is all just preference if it works for you it works these are merely suggestions what isn't up to preference though is frame rate in vsync changing these settings will actually affect how the game behaves vsync only has a couple specific use cases on some level strategy so I won't cover them here but I'll mention frame rate when relevant since it affects a few pieces of tech now let's actually get into movement going forward you'll notice that there's an input display in the bottom right corner of gameplay Clips if you're ever unsure of how to execute a certain piece of tech refer to the input display to try to clear things up your base movement kit without any card abilities is actually pretty Bare Bones you can jump and run around at a fixed speed that's it this makes the movement very simple but there are still some minor things to touch on in terms of how you interact with the level environment running on waterways will give you a lot more speed so it's best to use them to your advantage if they're not too far out of the way you can actually get the Waterway boost even if you're slightly above it in this case you get the speed boost but no friction from the ground which is slightly faster this means it's better to approach water from above or even better time it with the peak of your jump so you can hover above the water for a brief moment this can often be achieved by using various discard abilities you can also achieve the same effect by running near the edge of the Waterway since the speed boost still stays active shortly after leaving the Waterway this is called um uh uh depending on the geometry near the edge you'll either have to run parallel along the edge or run slightly off the edge than back on furthermore on the topic of ground friction it's generally optimal to jump at the end of waterways to avoid being slowed down by the ground this philosophy can also be applied to pretty much any grounded speed boost you can also hold your jump button to automatically jump immediately after landing running upstairs is actually slower than normal running so it's faster to jump past any Stairs And to clarify this is only for stairs not slopes however the steep slope is covered in water it is actually faster to jump up it repeatedly typically when coming across breakable surfaces you'll use the discard ability to break past it however they can also be broken by just plain shooting it but they do have a lot of help this is a niche Strat you can Implement on some levels where you can see them well in advance like many other Platformers we have access to a coyote jump this is a grace period that allows you to still jump after leaving a ledge unfortunately coyote jumps are tied to frame rate if you have a lower frame rate around 60fps or so it will feel pretty intuitive however if you have a higher frame rate such as 120 or 144 it will typically require two inputs for a coyote jump and you only have a 0.3 second time window to input this [Music] luckily this becomes a lot easier if you use scroll wheel as a secondary jump bind for some reason if you try to jump off the ground with the scroll wheel it won't work it only works when you're not on the ground and it can quickly send multiple inputs making it perfect for coyote jumps while movement is the most integral part to speedrunning this game Gunplay is its most important counterpart the first thing to note is that the spray pattern for automatic guns is actually a hundred percent consistent this allows you to aim most bullets if not every bullet at the same spot by just constantly resetting your spring essentially you just Spam click your fire button the first two bullets will always go to the lower left corner of your Crosshair so you'll have to aim up and to the right to account for it however the spray will still Bloom so you have to progressively aim to Crosshair farther and farther away to compensate you might have discovered on your casual playthrough that you can Parry bullets and reflect them back at demons what you might not have known is that it actually gives a small brief speed boost this can also be done by shooting their bullets Instead This is called bullet boosting it may seem like a negligible benefit but it can make the difference between a good time and a great time in any run since they're so competent the speed boost you get will actually change depending on whether you're on the ground or in the air you get a bigger boost when on the ground because the game tries to compensate for friction being incurred meaning aerial bullet boosts are technically faster due to momentum preservation but you can abuse this by taking up grounded bullet boost and then making yourself Airborne immediately after either by jumping or falling off a ledge you can also bullet boost off of your own projectiles such as purified bombs and Rockets the Rockets are a bit buggy and will sometimes explode prematurely when any bullet is destroyed either by being shot or collided with a wall it enters a hit Decay State becoming invisible for 0.25 seconds in some cases it will stay in that state even longer a prime example of this is when mimic bullets collide with the wall during this time the bullet can still be paired this is called a phantom Perry essentially this allows you to get a second bullet boost out of a projectile by shooting them carrying the same spot for a simple way of inputting this you can just hold your fire button after shooting then switch to Katana to slash as soon as possible automatically this doesn't work with a godspeed card though this also works with your own bullets but it's extremely hard to execute while moving so it sees limited use now on to explosion mechanics there are three different items in the game that can cause an explosion purified bombs barrels and Dominion Rockets when boosting off of explosives it's possible to be boosted away or toward the explosion making it feel pretty unintuitive and that's because it is the first thing to understand about explosion boosting is that your vertical and horizontal velocities are handled differently as long as you're anywhere within the explosion's radius you'll always receive the same Vertical Velocity this is why it's possible to be sucked upward toward an explosion horizontal velocity is a little bit more complex though you'll always be boosted in the opposite direction of the explosion horizontally speaking how strong this boost is depends on how much the explosion is vertically aligned with your camera the closer it is the eye level the stronger the Boost the actual distance from the explosion is irrelevant as long as you're within the radius generally speaking if you want to boost upward position the explosion directly above or below you if you want to boost forward position it behind you at eye level explosions will also stack on top of each other additively due to how this functions you'll always have more value out of it the closer they are to exploding at the same time one last thing about explosion boost there's an extremely small area at the edge of the radius that have stood in will give you a much smaller boost for some reason there's no practical use for this since it's so rare and gives you less speed it's just something you'll want to avoid now let's get into the main gameplay feature Soul cards cards can be obtained from raw pickups enemies and also vending machines when picking up a card you can hold the swap card button to prevent the card from being equipped however this only works if you have no cards in your inventory which limits its use quite a bit normally your pickup radius for cards is fairly small but it can be extended through various actions such as being hit by an explosion stomping the ground exiting a zip line and dashing through breakable objects on any level you'll always start with the katana it's the default card if you deplete the 30 ammo it comes with it gets replaced by your fist if you deplete your fist you die instantly this actually pauses the in-game timer which makes it occasionally useful it's most effective on the neon green boss fight since green undergoes a death animation at the end of the level the first card pickup in the game is purified it mimics an lmg and has sticky bombs as its discard ability the bomb is launched in front of you and will explode shortly after sticking to any surface if Airborne long enough the bomb will actually explode before sticking to anything the explosion will kill and break anything at its radius ignoring any physical geometry this effect applies to all area of effect attacks in the game the sticky bump can actually be bullet boosted off of two either by pairing it as soon as it's launched or by shooting it in fact Perry in it will tremendously increase the speed that it's launched at this can be used to make long-range snipe without having to Arc your aim at all this also triples the bomb's damage from 8 to 24. this isn't significant for common enemies but it can be really useful for neon green boss fights next up is Elevate this is essentially a pistol and its discard ability is an extra jump which can be consumed at any time the interesting part about this card is that the extra jump can be added on top of other upward forces but not all the exceptions are other Elevate cards balloon jumps and regular jumps every other type of upward Force works this includes explosions telefragging exiting the zipline and shock abuse for the next Herod we have godspeed this is a single shot rifle that has 100 accuracy the discard ability is a horizontal Dash that kills or breaks anything in your path after dashing the players still experiences some residual momentum from the dash this means it's better to use the dash in the air or jump off the ground immediately after these dashes do not stack in any way so it's optimal to delay any additional dashes until after the momentum has run out if you have multiple godspeed cards dashing will also cancel out any Vertical Velocity that you have making it useful for both the lane or fall and mid or Waterway boost the player has a fairly low terminal velocity in this game luckily we have the stomp card to speed things up this is an SMG with a lot of recoil the discard ability shoots the player downwards slamming into the ground this produces an area of effect hitbox that kills or breaks anything within its radius if you stop on top of a breakable entity such as an enemy or a breakable floor he'll actually retain terminal velocity and won't have to accelerate downward again using an Elevate card while stomping will result in an unusual interaction it will allow you to move horizontally during the stomp but the elevate's velocity will not overwrite the stomp's velocity instead it's just added on top of it meaning you'll slow down as the elevate's velocity is applied but will start to speed up after next up is the fireball card this is a shotgun that shoots out a cone of bullets where each bullet is shot at the same angle each time unfortunately there's no Center bullet so line up long range shots can be difficult luckily we can use a Crosser to determine where some of the bullets will go even if they're not Center personally I use these two vertices immediately outside of the Inner Circle to aim the innermost bullets on the left and right side of the spray however this is dependent on your Apple V this lineup only worked with adfme which I use here are some other spots you can look to on 90 and 110. similarly to godspeed the discard ability is a dash except you can aim it in any direction Additionally the hitbox surrounding you actually remains active for about a full second after discarding the card not just during the dash on top of that you're also given a speed boost when grounded during this time so in contrast to godspeed it's better to aim to stash at the ground so you can also get that speed boost there are also a few quirks with this discard ability the first being that you can coyote jump out of the dash the second is that dashing into shock your enemies can cause it to launch you multiple times however this needs to be done in a specific way or it will not work first of all you need to have a certain frame rate for this to be consistent theoretically it's most consistent at 60 FPS or lower but I found it to still be very consistent at 75 and even low to mid 80s after that the consistency starts to drop off hard it's possible to get launched up to five times but for most applications you only need to be launched two or three times which is pretty consistent the second perk to executing this trick is aiming the dash you want to aim it almost at the center of the shocker but not quite you're aiming for the empty space between the black creature and the pedal these shocker launches can be quite finicky but luckily they aren't too common throughout the game for our next card we have the minion this would be the strongest card in the game if it weren't for a certain gimmick card coming up shortly this is a rocket launcher with a zip line has the discard ability the Rockets will travel in a straight line exploding upon impact this explosion will kill or break anything in its radius as well as boost a player if they're within that same radius the zipline will let you attach to any surface and move straight toward it you can cancel the zipline early by jumping ending the zipline will actually give you a very brief speed boost since the zipline speed combines with your normal movement normally ending the zipline will give you a small upward velocity but if you zipline at a steep decline you'll just fall instead and for the last and most overpowered card we have the book of life it's also commonly referred to as boof due to the fonts on the card this card allows the player to telefrag the objects and enemies as in teleporting and killing it it has infinite ammo and extremely long range but not infinite as you can see here the exception to this is the book at the end of chapter 11 levels it's only accessible within a much smaller range the card only requires that you barely have line of sight of a hurt box in order to tell a break due to misaligned Geometry on some levels it's possible to teleport through walls sometimes skipping large sections of levels some of these seam shots are easier than others due to a feature with a card that makes the Crosshair remain targeted for a brief moment after losing your aim on something however red walls will overwrite this effect and cause the Crosser to go into an untargeted State again in some parts of the game it's optimal to fire a weapon as fast as possible the fire rate can be changed by switching between tapping the fire button and holding it the which is faster isn't the same for every weapon all you need to know is that for the katana and Fireball card it's faster to hold for every other card it's faster to tap and of course this doesn't apply to purify and stomp since they're automatic guns the last main feature to talk about in this video is demons there's not many things to cover aside from Shoot demon equals win but they are significant the first thing is that demons can be stood on top of even jumped off of this can be used to get a little extra height and make jumps that are otherwise not possible demons can actually engage in Friendly Fire to some degree most players are made aware of this once being introduced to trip wires their lasers will damage anything that it touches when the tripwire is killed this can even be used to set off Chain Reaction kills with multiple trip wires saving you the effort of having to kill everything Guardians and mimics are also guilty of this their attacks can be used to kill other demons though we've yet to see an effective use of Guardians anywhere likely due to the charge up time demons can also be killed by taking away their platform you may have noticed while playing the game that jumper enemies actually jump before and after attacking this actually moves their hurt box upward with their model making it easy to miss sometimes if you shoot at the wrong time this is more so a problem when attempting Chain Reaction kills since it's harder to gauge the timing before we move on to the next topic Shockers get the rear of their ugly head again as we're now going to talk about kill duping you'll notice that shocker enemies are comprised of two separate entities the pedals and the black creature in the middle when shooting the creature or landing on a pedal it kills that part of the Shocker and the other but doesn't decrement the Demon's remaining count for the latter however if we kill both at the same time by hitting the creature while landing on a pedal it decrements twice effectively removing the need to kill one more demon in the level this is a frame perfect trick but we can bury our frame rate in this game so obviously the lower the frame rate the easier it becomes but at a certain point the game becomes pretty much unplayable I've gone as low as 30 FPS but I've heard from several members of the community that 60 FPS isn't bad either since the in-game frame rate setting only uses values from your monitor's refresh rate you may need to use third-party software for a specific value but that's going to wrap up the guide thank you to everyone who managed to watch this far I really do appreciate it I put a lot of effort into trying to level up my production quality for this one so I hope it didn't go unnoticed also thank you to everyone in the Discord that provided feedback and suggestions during the production of this video I also want to give a shout out to shovel clause and Pandora for making the tech document since it was a big help to me in structuring this video honestly double shout out to Pandora because there are so many confusing little mechanics in this game that we would not understand at all if it weren't for them looking through the code of the scheme it relaying just massive amounts of information I tried to admit most of the details to keep the guide digestible for newcomers but it's all in the community Discord in the code dissection Channel if you're interested in reading up on it speaking of the community Discord it is booming most of the time I look in there there's always people grinding down their level times there's some seriously dedicated Runners testing the limits of the game and their own capabilities every day which reminds me don't hesitate to take breaks if you feel discomfort or pain in your hands and wrists it's not worth it some levels are an especially big cup of causing this but yeah that's it come running away with us peace also subscribe and follow me on Twitch

Channel: Blaidan

Views: 39,320

Keywords: tutorial, guide, speedrun, neon white, tips, tricks, best guide

Id: cK0EMcgZ5jE

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023