30th November 2023, 8:03 PM
Just finished my full readthrough, and I can tell you put a ton of love, care, and time into this guide. Combining all the words with consistent visual examples made it very easy to read and understand. Topping it all off with a full-level breakdown was super fun too, since it tied everything together nicely. I consider this to be a necessary and very important piece of PR2 history (an artifact, perhaps 
) and think you've done something incredible here, making this game more accessible to anyone who is considering playing or may consider in the future. Due to the small playerbase, knowledge is accidentally gatekept, since there are very few lively places for discussion, and people rarely log the data in a digestible format like this.
I read through this and took notes about everything that I thought was confusing or could have been improved to increase the overall clarity and effectiveness. I wanted it to be a demonstration of how important I think this guide is for the game, and to show you that the hard work isn't going unnoticed and the guide is being read and appreciated. Also, maybe you are interested in polishing it up as much as possible for your own purposes. I'm just going to copy paste my log since I don't feel like formatting it all fancy like you did. I'll do that when I make my own artifacts for pr2 history ;p
Here's that feedback, organized by the names of the headers you used:
-[speed] In the example, phrasing it 'your actual speed will not be 95' sounds a bit confusing, and maybe should be wordedby saying 'max speed 95 could be expected to achieve', or something like that.
-[jump] Is there an equation to describe how many pixels we will rise at a particular jump stat, if up is held? Also, how long up must be held to reach that? Will every jump reach its peak at the same time regardless of the stat?
-[falling] I think it is very important to include the acceleration impact made by holding down (change in pixels/frame, accel) and the maximum vertical descent pixels per frame. ties into crumble damage
-[sj item] maybe include an example of the moment someones upward speed is 2 pixels/frame, since this can be hard to visualize (demonstrate going up 32 blocks?)
-[teleport] maybe discuss how holding space is allowed when the teleporter is already being held (after obtaining it) which will use it at the first possible moment afterwards
-[laser gun] The best way to shoot the laser backwards while mantaining forward momentum isnt discussed (and left v right discrepencies)
-[ice wave] how does the wave propogate? (angle, distance, speed)
-[mine] you say that glitches arent discussed, but it feels important to mention that in the example, the recovery time after hitting the mine is reduced from what it normally should be (because we jumped into the net? Im not sure)
-[crumble] in my opinion, describing the amount of speed needed to destroy a crumble block does not describe to the reader the amount of damage they are dealing very accurately, since our speed is in pixels/second, but the speed here is just a number. reading this I ask myself, is that number the speed stat needed? Is that only if I have reached top speed? How long does it take to reach that top speed at that speed stat since my acceleration can vary? 62 jump is required but, how many blocks/pixels is that? Must I hold down at the absolute frame perfect apex of my jump? Maybe more information on the 'stopping your falling speed' phenomena if jump is held while passing through (what jump stat requried to stop, if held for various amounts of time, etc). I think this section needs clarification (i.e upwards speed is capped at 28pixels/frame, how much damage is that?). We also saw we can destroy a crumble in two jumps on that starter steps maps, did you find out why? Could be described in fundamentals/movement -> pixels/frame speed -> damage
-[safety net] you say your speed is reset, but your acceleration to top speed is not. What does this mean? You described 'max speed' earlier and 'max allowed speed', how does this work with those in mind?
-[ice blocks] maybe include the overarching friction values that are relevant in the speed/accel calculation, and what ice does to those. I think ice is quite involved
-[water block] talk about jumping out of water into more water and how you can gain extra height (:
-[arrow block] will my acceleration to top speed be increased/decreased if I chose to move left/right on them, and is it a linear increase/decrease relative to my max speed / current max speed?
-[perfect storm ex in diagonal movement] In the crawling section above, players are doing short hops to clear more distance with more speed vs being forced to crawl early. In the perfect storm example, a reader might think it would make more sense to drop, then hop through the crawl. Is this not the case? I recall this map giving ample time to move right before the crawl, so we probably carry enough speed to not require a stop-and-jump situation. Maybe a combo of the two with a different fall angle? Maybe clarify.
-[running over gaps] another confusing area where speed is described by the stat and not by the pixels/frame, so it becomes confusing. for example, if my acceleration is very slow but I have 56 speed, I may never be able tog et over the gap. How does acceleration tie in here? Describing things in pixels/frame will help a lot, and elaborating heavily in the fundamentals of how we calculate or visually determine our pixel/frame
-[head bumping] When a player hits their head, there is a sound and a visual where the block visibly bumps upward. If the player chooses to manually press down as they hit the block, at what visual/audio queue should they hold down?
-[jumping in and oput of water example] in ex. 2, it should probably be noted that the player is performing a glitch, since these were said to not be included
-[positioning after rotating] small tidbit on confusing double negatives, 'dont want to avoid' -> 'want to be near'
-[crawling on up arrow blocks] maybe clarify why you dont get stuck in a crawl if you hold up?
-[defying down arrow blocks] you should probably mention that if you run off of down arrow blocks, you can hold up to get a jump out of them
-[superjumping in crawl spaces] maybe more information can be included like earlier for what speed (pixels/frame) is required to make this possible, and how much frame wiggle room there is at certain speeds
-[landing o safety nets] I think this one is complicated and maybe should have an example included
-[snapping onto blocks] This is what I believe to be one of the more difficult-to-master techniques of this game, but also one of the most significant. I think the technicals should be broken down in much more depth, in terms of the minimum current height, speed, and acceleration required to snap onto blocks of varying heights. Without knowing the details, players may try for this technique when it isnt possible. i.e Is horizontal speed more or less significant than vertical?
-[practicing with test levels] Maybe include the use of blockeditor to load maps, change spawns, add teleporters and happy blocks for stats, etc
overarching feedback:
-speed and acceleration sections are described with pixels/frame. This should be used throughout for consistency. This may be difficult considering the necessary technical understanding needed. Yes this is a speedrunning guide not a complete breakdown of the game, but some parts of the guide have depth and others dont have as much!
-I was shown a cool picture that visualized the players hitboxes for blocks vs nets/water. I think this would be great to include to help players visualize how they can maneuver around spaces.
nitpicking the lost dragon speedrun for fun and to test my newly gained knowledge
-after the waterfall, it seems possible to head clip through the ice crawl all the way to the other side so we dont land at all?
-At the white dragon art section, I have been able to conserve my speed from the cave above to the bottom of the dragon drop by jumping lightly onto the 2nd elevation on the hill, then jumping to barely snap onto the first crumble block, then immediately jumping to barely scrape over the top of the crumbles and falling quickly down. bit different than your described better method
-You can break the brick in the last happy/teleport section quicker if you jump and teleport with proper timing. .1 seconds, oo aah
This is very much just a dump of my thoughts for you to consider, so sorry if its difficult to read.
tldr: you're cool as heck and everyone should try to be as cool as you B-) + feedback
) and think you've done something incredible here, making this game more accessible to anyone who is considering playing or may consider in the future. Due to the small playerbase, knowledge is accidentally gatekept, since there are very few lively places for discussion, and people rarely log the data in a digestible format like this. I read through this and took notes about everything that I thought was confusing or could have been improved to increase the overall clarity and effectiveness. I wanted it to be a demonstration of how important I think this guide is for the game, and to show you that the hard work isn't going unnoticed and the guide is being read and appreciated. Also, maybe you are interested in polishing it up as much as possible for your own purposes. I'm just going to copy paste my log since I don't feel like formatting it all fancy like you did. I'll do that when I make my own artifacts for pr2 history ;p
Here's that feedback, organized by the names of the headers you used:
-[speed] In the example, phrasing it 'your actual speed will not be 95' sounds a bit confusing, and maybe should be wordedby saying 'max speed 95 could be expected to achieve', or something like that.
-[jump] Is there an equation to describe how many pixels we will rise at a particular jump stat, if up is held? Also, how long up must be held to reach that? Will every jump reach its peak at the same time regardless of the stat?
-[falling] I think it is very important to include the acceleration impact made by holding down (change in pixels/frame, accel) and the maximum vertical descent pixels per frame. ties into crumble damage
-[sj item] maybe include an example of the moment someones upward speed is 2 pixels/frame, since this can be hard to visualize (demonstrate going up 32 blocks?)
-[teleport] maybe discuss how holding space is allowed when the teleporter is already being held (after obtaining it) which will use it at the first possible moment afterwards
-[laser gun] The best way to shoot the laser backwards while mantaining forward momentum isnt discussed (and left v right discrepencies)
-[ice wave] how does the wave propogate? (angle, distance, speed)
-[mine] you say that glitches arent discussed, but it feels important to mention that in the example, the recovery time after hitting the mine is reduced from what it normally should be (because we jumped into the net? Im not sure)
-[crumble] in my opinion, describing the amount of speed needed to destroy a crumble block does not describe to the reader the amount of damage they are dealing very accurately, since our speed is in pixels/second, but the speed here is just a number. reading this I ask myself, is that number the speed stat needed? Is that only if I have reached top speed? How long does it take to reach that top speed at that speed stat since my acceleration can vary? 62 jump is required but, how many blocks/pixels is that? Must I hold down at the absolute frame perfect apex of my jump? Maybe more information on the 'stopping your falling speed' phenomena if jump is held while passing through (what jump stat requried to stop, if held for various amounts of time, etc). I think this section needs clarification (i.e upwards speed is capped at 28pixels/frame, how much damage is that?). We also saw we can destroy a crumble in two jumps on that starter steps maps, did you find out why? Could be described in fundamentals/movement -> pixels/frame speed -> damage
-[safety net] you say your speed is reset, but your acceleration to top speed is not. What does this mean? You described 'max speed' earlier and 'max allowed speed', how does this work with those in mind?
-[ice blocks] maybe include the overarching friction values that are relevant in the speed/accel calculation, and what ice does to those. I think ice is quite involved
-[water block] talk about jumping out of water into more water and how you can gain extra height (:
-[arrow block] will my acceleration to top speed be increased/decreased if I chose to move left/right on them, and is it a linear increase/decrease relative to my max speed / current max speed?
-[perfect storm ex in diagonal movement] In the crawling section above, players are doing short hops to clear more distance with more speed vs being forced to crawl early. In the perfect storm example, a reader might think it would make more sense to drop, then hop through the crawl. Is this not the case? I recall this map giving ample time to move right before the crawl, so we probably carry enough speed to not require a stop-and-jump situation. Maybe a combo of the two with a different fall angle? Maybe clarify.
-[running over gaps] another confusing area where speed is described by the stat and not by the pixels/frame, so it becomes confusing. for example, if my acceleration is very slow but I have 56 speed, I may never be able tog et over the gap. How does acceleration tie in here? Describing things in pixels/frame will help a lot, and elaborating heavily in the fundamentals of how we calculate or visually determine our pixel/frame
-[head bumping] When a player hits their head, there is a sound and a visual where the block visibly bumps upward. If the player chooses to manually press down as they hit the block, at what visual/audio queue should they hold down?
-[jumping in and oput of water example] in ex. 2, it should probably be noted that the player is performing a glitch, since these were said to not be included
-[positioning after rotating] small tidbit on confusing double negatives, 'dont want to avoid' -> 'want to be near'
-[crawling on up arrow blocks] maybe clarify why you dont get stuck in a crawl if you hold up?
-[defying down arrow blocks] you should probably mention that if you run off of down arrow blocks, you can hold up to get a jump out of them
-[superjumping in crawl spaces] maybe more information can be included like earlier for what speed (pixels/frame) is required to make this possible, and how much frame wiggle room there is at certain speeds
-[landing o safety nets] I think this one is complicated and maybe should have an example included
-[snapping onto blocks] This is what I believe to be one of the more difficult-to-master techniques of this game, but also one of the most significant. I think the technicals should be broken down in much more depth, in terms of the minimum current height, speed, and acceleration required to snap onto blocks of varying heights. Without knowing the details, players may try for this technique when it isnt possible. i.e Is horizontal speed more or less significant than vertical?
-[practicing with test levels] Maybe include the use of blockeditor to load maps, change spawns, add teleporters and happy blocks for stats, etc
overarching feedback:
-speed and acceleration sections are described with pixels/frame. This should be used throughout for consistency. This may be difficult considering the necessary technical understanding needed. Yes this is a speedrunning guide not a complete breakdown of the game, but some parts of the guide have depth and others dont have as much!
-I was shown a cool picture that visualized the players hitboxes for blocks vs nets/water. I think this would be great to include to help players visualize how they can maneuver around spaces.
nitpicking the lost dragon speedrun for fun and to test my newly gained knowledge
-after the waterfall, it seems possible to head clip through the ice crawl all the way to the other side so we dont land at all?
-At the white dragon art section, I have been able to conserve my speed from the cave above to the bottom of the dragon drop by jumping lightly onto the 2nd elevation on the hill, then jumping to barely snap onto the first crumble block, then immediately jumping to barely scrape over the top of the crumbles and falling quickly down. bit different than your described better method
-You can break the brick in the last happy/teleport section quicker if you jump and teleport with proper timing. .1 seconds, oo aah
This is very much just a dump of my thoughts for you to consider, so sorry if its difficult to read.
tldr: you're cool as heck and everyone should try to be as cool as you B-) + feedback
