all b-sides description

1B - 1:19.900 → 1:09.275 (-667f) Very, very precise level - tons of strats that require subpixel precision while also carefully managing our stamina.  The most significant changes are a skip in the room before Contraption that saves well over a second, a new cycle in the heart room, and being a lot more mindful of activating traffic blocks as early as possible.  Learning how to spikejump off moving blocks and how useful abusing crouch state is to cut corners led to lots of other improvements as well.

2B - 1:24.320 → 1:17.864 (-387f) Least improved level compared to old TAS - lots of dreamblock movement that limits our options, so most of the improvement came from better optimization.  Ceiling pops (the underside walljumps that shove you beneath a ceiling and reset your falling speed) actually break a couple of screens, in particular a screen midway through Dream Altar that skips having to move back and forth between a dreamblock to refresh dashes.  A new switch route was used in the first screen of Combination Lock that saves about half a second, thanks to a convenient diagonal dash that actually sends us through a wall without killing us. While present in the old run, it’s still worth noting the diagonal demos in the last screen before the heart that skips a rather lengthy switch puzzle, saving several seconds.

3B - 1:45.349 → 1:35.302 (-603f) Cycles.  Main improvements here are movement optimizations, and along the way some of those movement improvements led to new, faster cycles.  A very late crouched coyote jump in the early part of Staff Quarters saves a ton of time jumping between walls, and a demo in the first screen of Oshiro skips a cycle and saves a ton of time.  Not too much individually to comment on otherwise.

4B - 2:29.770 → 2:11.597 (-1091f) Oh boy, this level got broken.  Vertical autoscrollers are basically unskippable due to a lack of vertical movement options, but just about every other autoscroller had a massive skip found that led to tons of timesave.  The first autoscroller in particular has an insane skip that exploits demodashing, hypering underneath spinner spikes on walls, ceiling pops, and a wallbounce off spikes - good luck to any human attempting this.  We chain ultras before the heart screen to fling Madeline into the heart, skipping about 4 seconds of navigating an awkward room with heavy wind.  Really, too much crazy stuff goes on in this level to explain concisely, just enjoy.

5B - 1:59.646 → 1:48.273 (-681f)  Another level with generally only minor improvements - main timesaves came from a new strat to abuse moving block momentum in the Bubsdrop/dreadcorner room and a large cycle skip in the heart room.  Theo in particular was given a pretty large movement overhaul - a very difficult section to optimize, as you want to minimize Theo grabs but also want to utilize him to interrupt ultra dashes to get huge speed boosts.  Not much to speak of otherwise - strats mostly stayed the same, just improved optimization.

6B - 3:50.180 → 3:34.795 (-923f) While the old TAS utilized demodashes, they hadn’t been fully routed in yet - we make much better use of them now and they break many screens. In Reprieve, we get a double cornerboost off of a Kevin block to skip waiting for a gem to have to respawn, saving several second - a very precise ultra is set up in the room before the heart to skip a cassette block cycle as well.  Otherwise, once again, movement optimizations stack up.

7B - 5:35.070 → 5:08.550 (-1591f)  Basically every screen was improved in some way - explaining it all concisely is impossible.  Better usage of demos (especially in 3000M), lots of new and improved cycles, better abuse of momentum from moving blocks (2500M especially), etc etc.  The heart room in particular was given polish that led to a skip of an entire cassette block cycle, thanks to a double vertical boost from a cloud that is just barely possible.  Other noteworthy strats include climbing up the right wall at the start of 500M, better cycles at the start of 1500M (thanks to several new demodashes) and much, much better movement literally everywhere.

8B - 2:51.122 → 2:23.548 (-1654f) The most improved B-side by far - this level is very janky and frustrating, and frankly lots of the improvements we made were just cutting down on some of the jank from the old TAS.  At the start of the level, we chain delayed ultras to fly through several of the early screens - saving 6 seconds in 3 screens alone.  We make heavy use of demos in Burning or Freezing to skip a very long cycle with a spinning fireball, skip a switch puzzle, and make much tighter movements throughout.  New tech allows us to hyper off of the side of fire blocks, gaining much larger speed boosts than normal and allowing for new cycles and switch skips.  We’re still not completely happy with this level, but it is definitely a huge improvement from the last run.