Kirby Canvas Curse basic tips + tricks

Initial draft, updated version(s) can be found on the kcc speedrun.com page under "Guides"

This isn't going to super in-depth, just some basic notes to help get you started. A lot of this is based on personal experience so I *hope* I'm not wrong on this stuff :/

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Movement Options:

There are 5 general options for Kirby. These are:

Dashing:

While this is by far the easiest to perform, it is also generally the slowest: Just tap Kirby. It's handy when you're low on ink, but generally should be avoided

Line travel:

With proper control, Kirby can move pretty quickly along lines. The best general use for this are for distances that are too short for loop to be effective, or for getting Kirby to descend back to the ground quickly, usually after some extensive looping so you can refill your ink faster

Short Line + Dash:

This is pretty helpful when you need to move upwards, but you don't have a lot of ink and there isn't a good location to refill your ink (good examples would be for parts of the first screen of Spectacle Space or the "staircase" at the end of the first screen in The World of Drawcia). Kirby speed will be transferred as he moves along the short lines, allowing for rather brisk movement.

Looping:

- The crux of the movement options, used extensively in any competitive run of the game. Looping can be tricky to get down, though with practice you can perform it pretty consistently. In terms of how to learn it, start by doing fairly big loops that don't extend very far. Focus just on the loop itself. Once you've got that down, try shortening the looping and the extending the line after the loop. A good way to tell if you have looping down really well is by trying to use loops in the second screen of Cold Course. Do note that if you make the loop too small, Kirby will not receive the dash from going through the loop.

- The reason why looping is a powerful tool is because he will maintain the speed he had during the loop while traveling on the extended line.

- Looping when Kirby is at a complete standstill can be pretty difficult, as Kirby can often get stuck if you don't try it properly, so something I do (even though it technically wastes time ^^` ) is dash a bit first before going for a loop.

- Generally, it's best to save your loops for vertical sections and use your dash for horizontal sections. A good example would be in the second screen of World of Drawcia: It's faster to dash rather than loop at the start, because you'll save ink that can be used to quickly loop upwards.

- It also makes swimming wayyyyy easier.

Velocity Clipping:

Currently not RTA viable. Essentially allows Kirby to travel out of bounds and/or clip through walls, saving massive amounts of time in TAS. Perform by looping, then drawing a new line parallel to where the extended line ends on the same pixel. The shifting camera when you move combined with the precision/speed required makes this extremely difficult to perform in an RTA (as in, I haven't managed to get it to work :/). Due to resolution scaling, it's possible that this trick can be performed more easily on the Wii U VC release or on the DSi XL. More details will be given if discoveries are made.

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Usage of Copy Abilities:

There are 11 copy abilities in Kirby Canvas Curse. They can be used across multiple screens, but not across multiple stages. Note that because we use real time, we have to factor in the animation for getting the ability in terms of its usefulness.

Format:
[Ability name]
Notable Locations: [notable stages where it can be found]
Usefulness: [out of 5]


Balloon
Notable Locations: Canvas Canyon, Spectacle Space
Usefulness: 2/5

Mainly used for rising upwards without using ink. Note that it conserves Kirby's horizontal velocity, which can be very problematic especially given that it grows in size upon tapping. Handy for the second screen of Canvas Canyon to save ink a bit and then loop to the goal. Can be useful in other upwards sections but is difficult to control and is generally not worth.

Beam
Notable Locations: Too many
Usefulness: 1/5

Generally more of a hazard than anything lol, since Waddle Doos are everywhere and picking up the ability wastes time. Shoutouts to two particularly trolly ones in Screen 1 of Canvas Canyon. If you get it by accident, there are a couple places where it's worth keeping. Namely, if you get it in Tiny Town before the boss it can be useful to beat the boss a bit faster. Also useful if obtained during the autoscrollers in Machine Mansion and Paletto Polis. Important to note that the TAS strat for the Growth Grasses mid-boss involves using Beam to quickly wipe out all the bombs, but this can be difficult to do RTA

Burning
Notable Locations: Ghost Grounds, Mag Mount, Canvas Canyon, Spectacle Space
Usefulness: 4/5

Allows you to move extremely quickly horizontally. Important to note that you can transfer your momentum with lines, allowing you to move upwards or downwards if needed, such as before the cannon in Ghost Grounds. If you end your burning dash while traveling on a line, Kirby will continue moving while on the line, allowing Kirby to move while the startup for the next burning dash happens. Mainly useful in Ghost Grounds and Mag Mount, not so much in Canvas Canyon and Spectacle Space due to heavy amounts of vertical movement, which can be troublesome in high amounts. TAS can move vertically with burning with well-placed lines, so you could theoretically make use of it in many more places.

Crash
Notable Locations: Rift Ruins, Silent Seabed
Usefulness: 0/5

Avoid, completely useless for any%.

Freeze
Notable Locations: Cold Course, Frozen Fantasy
Usefulness: 2/5

Every section where Freeze can be used is faster with looping and lines, but not by that much. If you're new to this game, it can be very useful for the last stretch of Cold Course, as Freeze increases Kirby's downwards acceleration, allowing him to move quickly through that last section. Not as useful for Frozen Fantasy, however, as the downwards acceleration can be a pretty big hinderance.

Missile
Notable Locations: Machine Mansion, Spectacle Space
Usefulness: 1/5

It can move fairly quickly once it gets going but it has slow startup. The distance it can be used for in Machine Mansion is too short to be of any usefulness. Can be nice for Spectacle Space if you're starting out, but it's much faster to use loops otherwise

Needle
Notable Locations: Dreamy Darkness, Frozen Fantasy, Mad Mechanism
Usefulness: 4/5

Can be difficult to handle at first, but moves very quickly while it's on a line. As a result, it uses less ink over looping. Needs some testing, as I suspect it's not optimal for the entirety of Dreamy Darkness. Useless in Mad Mechanism based on where it actually appears in the stage, unfortunately.

Spark
Notable Locations: Too many
Usefulness: 2/5

Easiest strat for the Growth Grasses mini-boss. Also useful in Dungeon Dome for the breakable blocks in Screen 3. Your movement is noticeably slower while tapping it. Can be useful in Machine Mansion's autoscroller if you get it by accident. Otherwise, avoid. Note that you move downwards when you use it underwater, as that counts as dashing, making it useless in Silent Seabed.

Stone
Notable Locations: Contrast Cave, Dungeon Dome, Silver Submarine, Silent Seabed
Usefulness: 4/5

Excellent for downwards movement. Crucial for Screen 3 of Contrast Cave and Screen 1 of Silent Seabed. Unoptimal otherwise, but still useful if you get by accident or you haven't gotten a complete feel for the line/swimming mechanics of the game, so long as you're moving downwards

Tornado
Notable Locations: Growth Grasses, Canvas Canyon
Usefulness: 0/5

Pissed me off as a kid tbh. Tornado was unbelievably OP in NiDL and Squeak Squad, and then you have this garbage. Oh, and it has a fairly long animation when you get it. Avoid.

Wheel
Notable Locations: Plant Plains, Ravine Road, Cold Course, Dungeon Dome
Usefulness: 5/5

You move really fast. Vertical movement can be tricky, as it has a tendency to bump into the lines, but it can ride on lines when drawn correctly, making it pretty useful in Cold Course and Dungeon Dome as well, at least for a little bit. Notes that there is a bit of startup, but like burning, if Kirby is moving on the line, he can move during startup. Shame it's not available in other places.

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Various little level tricks:

Not going go to into super full detail on the routing of this game, as to be quite honest I haven't properly routed this game myself because how annoying it is to do so and my general inexperience as a speedrunner, I mainly go off past experience/intuition :/. However, this means that a lot of the time saves come from pretty easy to spot utilizations of looping. These are a few of these notable or less obvious small tricks and skips to make note of in various levels:


Mag Mount:
-Platform skip [Screen 2]: Move Kirby down below the platform, curved downwards line will do, followed by a loop once Kirby is out of the platform's range. Can be tricky to do because of the small space the lava potentially recoiling you back onto the platform. Additionally, once you're on the platform, it's very difficult to get off until you're close to the bottom.

Rift Ruin:
-Fast spinning spikes [Screen 4]: After Kirby hits the ceiling from the cannon, loop a bit to the left then as far upwards as you can. If done properly, you should be able to avoid all of the spinning spikes.

Paletto Polis:
-Platform room skip [Screen 1]: After exiting the pipe, get Kirby on the platform. Immediately dash off and loop above the Shotzo and onto the farthest right platform. Use the platform to get to the right a bit and refill your ink, then dash off and loop upwards until you reach the area where the door is. You should be able to avoid getting hit by Shotzos. Small lines + dashing can be done if you're low on ink.

Volatile Volcano:
-Lots of things [Screen 1]: This screen can be pretty fast but can be pretty difficult. Luckily, there are a decent amount of health items, so don't worry too much about dying on this screen...do be careful the second screen though. Anyways, a lot of the grabber sections can be skipped and done quickly with loops. The other lava sections can also be done pretty quickly with loops. One particular section I'd like to note is the pit right before the first checkpoint. It's can be tricky to position the loop properly, and you can end up getting Kirby to fall right into the pit if you're not careful, so be mindful of keeping your loop level and steady (I mention this because I've died to that pit more times than I'd like to admit >_>).

Mad Mechanism:
-Fast Midboss [Screen 2]: If you position the bombs towards the center of a wall, rather than towards the upper part or lower part of a wall, you can destroy both the upper and lower parts with 1 bomb rather than the usual 2. Note that the explosion might not hit the switches as easily as it can when you're only trying to destroy one part of the wall, but it shouldn't cost too much time compared to needing 4 bombs. This boss fight in general is really annoying until you have Kirby's movement down really well (ngl I had loads of trouble getting all the time trial medals for this stage at first >_<) so don't get frustrated too much if you can't do it.

Spectacle Space:
-Color door [Screen 2]: If you pay attention at the start of the stage, you'll notice that the color door switches are directly at the bottom of the stage. The switches need to be red, so try pressing them before getting Kirby to hit the switch at the top. When travelling back down to hit the second switch, pass by underneath the main area to hit the last color door switch (this general area also as a health item, so it's still useful to keep note).

World of Drawcia:
-Faster Drawcia: A very curious property concerning looping is that, when hitting Drawcia while Kirby has his speed from a loop, Drawcia takes more damage. It's actually pretty easy to 4 cycle Drawcia if you utilize looping, rather than the usual 5 cycle. A good pattern would be to get the first hit on Drawcia with the start of the extended line, the second hit as you're exiting the extended line but still have the speed, and the third hit as normal, potentially with another loop if you have the time and you feel you didn't get every hit from a loop. This should deal about 25% HP to her. You can potentially save time on Drawcia Soul as well, but that fight is far more RNG based so it's difficult to tell how useful it is...I go for the loops anyways though. :/

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The bosses:

There is no optimal order to fighting the bosses. The only thing can really affect the amount of time it takes beat a boss depending on when you choose to fight is for Kracko Jr. and Kracko, where hitting healing items while not at full health causes freeze frames. The ideal order, imo, is Kracko -> Paint Roller -> Dedede, as Kracko is has heavy amounts of RNG / is pretty janky and execution heavy, Paint Roller is very execution heavy, and Dedede, while having RNG, is pretty easy and the RNG doesn't cause too big of a variance in times.

Here's a couple neat tricks to keep in mind:

Dedede:
-Start boost: Much like Mario Kart, you can start off with a speed boost with some good timing. Specifically, hit the bumper...thing that you use to control Kirby no later than 12 frames after signal to start appears. This is a pretty easy window to hit, but it can be awkward since it's after the start rather than before.

Kracko:
-Kracko Jr. Quick Kill: With some quick reflexes and good angling of your paddle, or some help from a wall, you can get multiple hits off on Kracko Jr. from one opening. Ideally, you can get all 4 hits off of one opening, but this is very hard to do due to how quickly and accurately your reactions must be (I've managed to do it maybe once). Generally it's okay to settle for any instance where you get multiple hits.

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Hopefully this gives enough material to help you get started~