This game has been a significant part of my life for years, I played through it repeatedly many years ago and came back to it at annual intervals to enjoy it again and again. Of course I considered this for a speedrun immediately, but all I ended up with was a doomed single-segment attempt that I'd recorded with a video-camera on a dodgy laptop and clocking around 2.5 hours. I left it for a long while after that, but by coming back to it and discovering such neat routes and tricks my positive view on the game has increased tenfold.

Thanks to Radix an all the helpers of this great site, as well as the bizarre but friendly dwellers of magicball forums. Also to Allantois for starting a new LBA2 thread (which I then stole) and VippiN simply for having Twinsen in his avatar, which give me the kick I needed to try again after my original failure.

For this I used a WindowsXP patch (available on magicball.net) since the game is too old to run properly otherwise. This, combined with the recording and the game's overall graphic instability, has caused a few glitchy moments when quickly toggling Twinsen's behaviours. There is also slight jumpiness sometimes and even more after a long period of recording but hopefully it won't detract too much from your viewing pleasure.

I enjoy writing annoyingly long comments, but most of this game (ignoring storyline) is clear to see, so I'll focus on some of the tricks and sequence breaks which will make very little sense to most people.

Firstly the tricks that are used throughout the run:

• all text, cutscenes, and many non-player-controlled animations can be skipped. This is usually done with insane timing honed from hours of repetition, but occasionally I do it too soon or hit it once more than needed and accidentally pause it. Because of the compatibility issues it takes a few seconds to load up the game menu so you'll know what it is when you see it randomly stop.
• changing behaviour cancels whatever animation Twinsen is currently involved in, including ones that push him backwards. He also starts moving very soon after changing behaviour so it's used very frequently to eliminate the pause after falling from most heights (he still takes damage if it is excessively high).
• When fighting I toggle between 'Sporty' and 'Aggressive' because enemies will force you backwards with each attack until you're out of range so this way I can keep close and catch them if they move backwards too far. I also tend to repeatedly select 'Aggressive' between hits so he starts a new animation immediately after a blow has landed. In most cases this prevents damage I would have otherwise taken from occurring because hitting an enemy doesn't always re-set their attack animation, allowing them an opening in between my flurry of fists and feet. I avoid all fights unless they're absolutely necessary anyway, and I don't attack from range much because the ball uses magic I need to conserve and especially since it's often far slower.
• regarding magic, the lightning ability I get in segment 1 kills all things that can be damaged by my attacks on screen. It also requires all of my magic, so I only use my magic-ball when it is essential so I can use more lightning where it'll save time. My deaths (often inevitable but planned into the run) are structured so I use lightning where it helps and get a re-fill from where I knew I would die (lives are not unlimited, I start with one and have a maximum of two so it wasn't easy).
• not really a trick, but saving can be done at any time so I do it just before the parts too luck dependant or hard to put anywhere but the start of a segment. I don't think I over-did it by any means, every segment pushed me to my limit and there's a lot going on throughout all of them.

And now the run itself!

• Segment 1

  Money isn't needed much throughout, but when it is it's needed badly so I get just enough to pay for all my ferry tickets at the start of the game and that's the best place to get funds at this stage.

  You're not supposed to go to Desert Island yet, but the weak programming allows you to board the ferry without dispersing the storm simply by selecting the ticket from the inventory. The only benefit of doing this is to save some traveling around Citadel Island (the first island) and it looks cool with aliens where they're not supposed to be!

  As soon as I get there I get the pearl of incandescence without a proto-pack by exploiting a nifty trick I found. This isn't needed yet but it saves a trip to Desert Island and back later in the game.

  Once I have my car I head straight to the temple to get large amounts of cash and enter with another nice trick. The items dropped from any object that drops items varies depending on how much of that you have already. So rather than explaining all the mechanics to you I'll just say that once I have more than 150 'cashes' those mushrooms in the vertical room will stop dropping them (they are pre-loaded though so if I have fewer than 150 when I enter I can still get all 120 cashes). This explains why I didn't get any more at the start of the game because this way is much faster and I need every last bit of currency.

  The flower on the rock is needed for later (but most things can be collected before you're told you need them).

  In the magic school the chest is guarded with fireballs. These are avoided by being in 'Discreet' behaviour, but I can still use the dodge button to jump forwards which explains how that part is done so quickly (sneaking is veeery slow).

  I return to Citadel Island with the means to cure my dino-fly, but if you do so now he'll just fall over again when you try to talk to him. This forces me to stop the storm despite my sequence breaks.

  When I get the tunic, the ONLY reason to do so is to get a magic meter since magic is required to make the magic-ball bounce which in turn is necessary to hit the switches in the caves later on. I tried every way I could to avoid that to no avail, but it would have been a bit irritating playing through the entire game without his kick-ass tunic anyway.

  I buy a nitro-penguin for the future, then use it to scare away the shopkeeper. I'm in front of something so I don't actually set it off however. Then I raid the till for the last bit of cash I need (saves backtracking to Twinsen's house), but I only did it once since you can only access it once in the game.

  Up in the weather-wizard's tent just past the cow, I detour to get the 'Ring of Lightning' (far earlier than you're supposed to). There isn't enough time saved to satisfy this decision, but I found (through extensive testing) that if you have the pearl in your inventory at a certain point later on, an item you need to pick-up doesn't even exist. So since the pearl is used to get the lightning ring, this miraculously fixes the bug that impeded the process of my first successful segment attempt.

  This detour led to me finding a nice shortcut to the caves, but that jump onto the rock-face is extremely picky and it's a nightmare at the end of a segment when sliding into the water is a run-ender.

  Well if you have lightning, might as well use it! I pop off Tralu (I think the little dots are right...) very quickly, but since I was forced to use my magic-ball earlier I have to refill my magic first.

  Finally for moving Twinsen and Zoe; for some bizarre and mildly amusing reason they move like...er... crazy people (so many alternatives sounded offensive) if you move whilst holding the dodge button, which causes you to make little forward bunny-hops when Twinsen's on his own. Primarily it's more interesting, but I timed it and it's also faster!

• Segment 2

  Exiting and re-entering the old man's house skips his slow walking animation.

  The wizard who gives me my tunic is quite random, but he always appears at the start of the current loaded area so I hang around there (not to sure where the boundary is though exactly, they overlap).

  The shuttle takes a random amount of time to land, but it won't land until you've watched all of the info on the monitor. I get the translator because it saves time much later on, but it's not necessary.

  Never miss an opportunity to beat the crap out of Joe the Elf.

  Incidentally, that little spinning disk in the tower that I collect is the item that disappears if you have the pearl at that time.

  A pause just before I put it in the shuttle though.

• Segment 3

  That's an excellent shortcut right at the start that formed the basis of most of my routes for the first part of the game. It's been found elsewhere but I found it all by meself! Other factors preventing me from abusing it earlier since I wouldn't be able to complete the game, which is unfortunate but nevermind!

  In the package delivery building I need to get the box to open the door, but then I can use the majority of my remaining money to get it delivered for me without the lengthy and difficult (to do fast) process of getting the box up myself. I receive the proto-pack, so if I hadn't gotten the pearl near the start of the game I would have had to travel over to it then gotten back to the weather-wizard's tent, which clearly would have taken ages (I've been asked why my decision was faster before so I'm clarifying it now!).

  Jumping quite further ahead, in the alien base past the electric floor the enemy with the key is the only reason I couldn't skip out getting Sendell's Ball from the sewers. I need the 'red magic level' to kill him so I got stuck there when I tried to skip it. You can actually manoeuvre him with great difficulty onto the electric floor, but like all great ideas I've had it fell through since it doesn't kill him!!

  On the moon, I give the correct password which stops me from being attacked by the space-suited aliens and saves some time from avoiding them and taking damage. I need the translator to give the password so that's that explained.

  Back on the alien planet Zeelich, I need money so I get some from a consistent source by selling a few things at the shop. I want to go to a different island but I don't get the option to go until I've talked to the guy at the garage, so I do that.

• Segments 4-6

  Shameless luck manipulation; I need every zlito and that's the fastest way to get 'em!

• Segment 7

  I didn't want to over-do it on the segments, so I started this with the slot machine again and gave myself two tries because the rest of it is very hard.

  I use lightning at the end of the factory because getting that key takes ages otherwise. There's a clover in the same room so it was a good trade-off.

  After mining the crystal I accidentally enter the templey thing and lose a few seconds.

  I go back to casino to speak to the manager (who only appears after I talk to the guy on the volcano island). By far the fastest way to do it is to get a key off one of the bouncers, and it's randomly placed on one of the three. My lightning kills two of them so I have a two in three chance of getting a key there. There's nothing more frustrating than failing an excellent segment purely due to luck!

  Right the way over in the small building with the switches before the harbour on the Island of the Francos... that laser gun (which doesn't use magic, woo!) sometimes hits multiple switches due to its scatter-on-impact shots. I was very lucky with my aiming though, that can easily take several times longer.

  Then I have my only suicide of the run to refill magic; the assassin on the platform isn't hard but this is faster and it also skips his text. I need the magic after the lift to bounce my ball though but luckily there's some right there.

  In the mines, I need to collect gems for transport around here, and I get a key fragment too. Just after that I do the incredibly risky tactic of hovering over the lava, which has an unamusingly frequent chance of killing you.

  When getting the pie it's only possible after a certain period so I waste no time in messing around (glove is needed though).

  Fireball area always gives clovers from a firefly so I can stock up there. *fireflies > me*

  I save where I do because the challenge is random each time you enter it.

• Segment 8

  I could play ahead to find out the location of the key and which door to choose.

  The amount of friendly-fire I incurred in the next areas during a hundred or so attempts is not funny! That jump to a higher platform is so easy to screw up too...

  The flying monster on the plateau hates me and it can only be killed with the glove! This is certainly one of my better attempts, some of the others were deeply embarrassing...

  When 'rescuing' the queen, that trick with the nitro-penguin is absolute genius, again self-discovered, but about five years ago.

  Doing Island CX in its entirety in the same segment is madness! It's pretty clear what I do though. Sometimes there's no choice but to sit there and wait for them to stop shooting.

  I never new about leaving the island with a shuttle though, I only found out when it was pointed out that I didn't do it when I first made this segment. Biiiiiig time saver.

  In the palace, there's a particular route to avoid all the various enemies. It's not as fun, but it's my duty to do it quickly!

  Again at the end of the palace that exit was completely unknown to me after all my years of experience until I made and uploaded a recording. As you can imagine, it's greatly preferable to backtracking through the palace again.

  Back on Celebration Island with my finished key! There's an excellent piece of dialogue I didn't include obviously, so to make up for it I'll say it here: 'FunFrock, you suck big time, and I'm going to take you out, and I don't mean for a pizza!'

  The finale is very difficult, but I save just outside the statue because the compatibility somehow causes great problems in simply entering it so I put it at the start of the next.

• Segment 9

  When I solve the puzzle all the enemies are destroyed except for one. Very very occasionally it's killed by rockets, but that wasn't the case this time (if I leave it alive it will kill me while I have no control (and push me away so the female wizard gets stuck trying to give Twinsen a kiss). Funny as hell but not so good for the whole game completing objective thing).

  I don't know how the hell you're supposed to be able to kill the rocket-launching elephants without lightning. Maybe you aren't? It was immensely hard to juggle my lives here. I abused the magic refills so much and killed the final boss (and his clones) with little trouble with those extremely nice clovers dropped right at the end.

Thanks very much for watching, I really enjoyed making this run and am very happy with how the things within my control turned out! I truly believe I've done this brilliant game justice so I hope anyone who sees it does too. I'm happy enough in that thought never to play it again, but I'm sure that year after year it'll bring me back anyway...