I just got a speedrunning world record with my Meta Quest 3 virtual reality headset (#1 on the global in game leaderboards too, not just on speedrun.com):
https://www.speedrun.com/the_climb_2/runs/y9ww5w2z
This game is a fun workout if you speedrun it or otherwise try hard. Before getting the headset, I had no idea this would be my favorite game. I only tried it because it’s in the Meta Horizon+ games bundle.
You can play the game without the visual clutter by the way. It’s only there due to a special technique to save half a second. Kind of like how Exile and Avernum have to be speedrun with the sound disabled to save time.
Speedrunning is interesting in terms of automatization. I don’t really notice all the visual clutter in the video. In my experience, after you play the level 100+ times, you barely have to look where you’re going and only watch for a few specific visual cues.
I duplicated 10.111 3 times and got a ton of 10.1s and a 10.097 before I got first place (someone else has a ~10.09). It’s interesting seeing what you can do with decent consistency. High consistency indicates you’re near the best time you can get. Low consistency indicates you can still save significant time. It’s interesting how accurate your time sense can be (intuitively knowing you’re few tenths of a second behind your PB). It’s interesting trying strategy changes and trying to figure out if they’re improvements with messy data for your finish times. It’s interesting learning a new strategy and failing a lot and when you don’t fall you still don’t get good times, but once it starts clicking and you get more consistent at finishing runs with it, then you start going faster. Getting a lot of runs through a section in a short time period helps you get a good flow going for doing it slightly faster. To get the sub-10 I started doing a much harder strategy in the first second of the level that I’m pretty sure saves a tiny bit of time, but until I got my consistency up I couldn’t save time with it because I wasn’t playing the rest of the level frequently enough so I’d play too imperfectly and lose a few tenths of a second. I got my first WR without doing the hard level start strategy because I thought getting more runs completed would be a more effective way to get WR. When to incorporate harder strategies is important and interesting.
After getting a 10.033s world record, I wanted a sub-10, which is a bit silly (it’s an arbitrary breakpoint based on our unit of measurement and our counting system) but is very common among speedrunners. I thought I could get sub-10 in a reasonable amount of effort and I was right.
The game has a few interesting speedrun tricks. The main one is it uses motion controls, so the higher you reach, the further you can grab another hold. So if you jump in person, you can reach further, the same as if you had longer arms. You can also crouch in real life, jump in game (with the jump button), then uncrouch while midair to gain extra reach.
I never liked motion controls before (e.g. for Wii or Switch) but they actually work well for some (definitely not all) VR games. I think the Quest 3 hardware has much better motion tracking than the Switch. The headset has an outward-facing camera that does hand tracking (and passthrough so you can see your surroundings while wearing the headset when you want to) in addition to whatever motion sensors are built into the controllers you hold in your hands.
Someone said you can exploit by starting a level, then going upstairs to the room directly above you to start way higher up in the level. I haven’t tried that lol. But I do put my head on the floor and recenter my camera to gain height at the start of the level (which is the cause of the visual clutter). Lots of other people were doing that first, so it seems to be accepted as a valid strategy, whereas I don’t think going upstairs would be considered a valid, fair speedrun. (The timer is paused at the start of the level. Timing starts when you first grab a hold. So you could go upstairs without losing time before you grab anything.)
Progressing at games is interesting. I started out bad at the game and dying a lot just playing through each level once. But focused practice led to rapid improvement. I’m definitely not the best player overall now, but I was able to WR the level I played the most. I intentionally focused on a level where I could more realistically do well. This level doesn’t require superjumping (the technique with IRL crouching or jumping) and is very short, and I focused on casual mode (which means you have unlimited grip strength, whereas in professional mode your hands have grip strength meters and you can run out and fall, which takes extra skill to deal with). I didn’t have confidence I’d be able to get 1st place but it was fun getting closer and seeing what I could do.
Feel free to come race me! Having competition is nice.