I sent Tom an annoying XBL message before realizing this URL was a forum, not just a mirror of the video site. (Sorry Tom :doh )

I've seen the vid for 1m35cm online, but well after I'd already carved out my own route which is significantly different...it's always fun being surprised by other people's strategies.

The current video seems to leave out several items that seem significant to me in getting up to 1m40cm, as I'm sure Tom and Dr. Thinker are aware of considering their current (frustratingly enormous) scores. Yet I've gone through and tried to work it out in eternal, and I can't quite see where the problems are in my route quite yet.

I don't have vidcap potential, so unfortunately all I can do is describe my route. Perhaps someone can have a look through it and offer advice on where I might be eating up time needlessly?

Much thanks in advance for any help. 18th place is okay, but now that I've finally got my hands on the game I"m determined to hit the top ten on as many levels as I can :odeon









route (edited with updated findings for 2m40cm goodness):
-----------
I Head outside the larger door and grab the martini glass stack as in the video, then speedrun of the steps and hook a sharp right through the gate. If you're quick enough, you can speedrun straight across, leaning to the left a bit to avoid those rabbit/mice thingies. There's a spot right between the yellow keyboard and the vinyl records where you can speedrun through right up to the pond.

Cross the pond, picking up the beer mug at the end, which I think the game refers to as "ice cold drink". That usually gets it to 30cm. Turn right and grab the lily pads and xbox controllers in the pond, strafe left, grab the stack of xbox controllers (just the bottom three is fine), kettle, and workout weights.

speedrun towards the area with stacks of 3 xboxes. Grab the ice cream snack next to the bear, then the jewlery case and the martini glass next to it. I then grab the three xboxes in the corner, quick flip and grab the rest on route to the stack of three lying flat in the snow. Then pick up four champagne buckets near the pond, skipping the fifth, hook around sharply and head up the steps, grabbing the upright xbox just outside the door the katamari should now be around 48cm.

Back inside the house, speedrun and strafe a slight left to pick up the xbox lying flat on the ground, as well as those black picture frame things just before the bookshelf / secret room entrance. Should be at 49 or 50cm now. Grab all the xboxes in the secret room, rotating the camera counter clockwise slightly as you grab them. quick flip, speedrun and grab the big stack of books slightly to the left, which should be a pretty straight line. turn slightly clockwise as your speed is still high, then strafe slightly further right to grab the ship in the bottle and the doll in the center pile. grab all the dart boards with a sharp right strafe, then as you bump into the ivy on the stairwell next to the last one, you'll hit the goal of 1m.

You should have 2 or more minutes left.

Quick flip, stack of tvs and other junk in the center of the room, the fish bowl and the fish on the lower stair railing near the bookcase/xbox room. Flip, grab the tables in the corner, exit out the smaller doors near the tables. Once outside, I grab the potted plants on the stairs, which takes me a second but winds up being essential to the next bit, which is going straight ahead and picking up the tv, bears, raddish things, skis and penguins to the right. Grab the snowman while you're at it.

flip & head straight, snagging the ivy on the pond, head through the gate on the right (the one you can't pick up), grab the penguins and snowman and such to the right, then strafe left and snag the small planted things to your left by the gazebo. Head around the gazebo at this point, grabbing the pink ice cream. The penguins should now be just inside the hedge maze area. Grab 'em. I usually take this opportunity to grab the boy and dog that pop up in this area as well, maybe an ice cream if it's right in front of me. Then grab the potted plants outside this entrance to the house and go on in.

note you should be between 1m75cm and 1m77cm.

By now the katamari can barely make it in the door, and more often than not you'll have to speed run to shift things around and get in. Another way around the problem I've found is to jam the katamari halfway in and quick-flip. That usually glitches the fade out into action and gets you in, still pointing forward. Yet another trick I've found is to let the doors open, then back off and grab something else. As the doors begin to close, jam the katamari against them. For some reason this will also sometimes glitch the transition into working instantly.

After this I head upstairs, though I don't usually wall climb since the kid in here is coming downstairs around this time and I want to pick him up. Grab all the tables on the balcony, then tilt back to grab the guy swinging on the chandelier and the Shakespeare painting on the left. Enter the upstairs room, grab the woman, grab the guy, grab the two chandeliers, grab the roulette table, grab the crap on the table, grab the two chairs, grab the landscape painting, grab the swords, etc, grab the final, third chair and the coatrack.

You should be between 2m16cm and 2m17cm.

head out the door of this room, flip and grab the painting on the right, back up and grab the bust, quick flip as you fall and grab the chandelier in the secret room, which usually gets a bit sticky. strafing in and out can sometimes help.

If everything's going well, you should have between 38 and 44 seconds left to clean up outside.

Exit the house, get the trees and the guy in the far right corner. Flip, swing right and speedrun to snag the brick gate entrance. Grab the guy who looks like Yukon Jack and the remaning snowmen. Grab the infuriating woman in the chest. You might have to wait a minute for her to sprout up.

strafe left, picking up the records and junk you left over there, head over the hedge and grab the fountain and the guy in the yellow shirt. Grab all the remaining people on the far wall. Usually the witch will swing around while I'm grabbing the olympic people, and I can grab her then, Swing left (counter-clockwise) and make a beeline for the snowboarder.

I expect to see you in the top 10 of many levels :)

I'll take another look at coolhouse in the next couple days, in case I can help somehow. But unlike some of them, my 2m35cm Coolhouse video is one I haven't updated because it is extremely hard for me to beat that diameter. Some of the other ones I haven't improved on just because I'm lazy :S


Oh, one thing I do remember now, there is a skier or something sitting up high on a plant display outside. A lot of my attempts go wrong at the end, because I don't know any sure way to roll him up. I think in that stage part of my strategy was to not roll up the people until I'm big enough to roll them outright rather than knock them over. That's all I can remember :heh

Aye, there's that one guy in the yellow shirt who always wants to fly off you. I have to be careful and avoid him at one point when making my second pass around the outside.

The snowboarder on the top of the lattice seems to only budge after you've grabbed the witch and the Olympiad stand. I usually save him for last. The guy with the skis above the hedged entryway is usually ready for grabbing right after I exit the house for the final time though.

I can usually get 2m37 pretty consistently with this route, so I'm kind of curious to see what the veteran pros can do with it. :china

Oh ... yup, it's the snowboarder I have trouble with.

The one time I got 2m42cm, I think the difference was that I had an extra 10 seconds at the end so I could grab extra stuff I hadn't grabbed outside.

But I know there were things I didn't get in that video that I discovered could help me get bigger. I'm too lazy to check the stage now, but I will within a few days.

Sure, no biggie, I've still got dozens of levels I need to break the top 25 in...it's kind of fun having picked it up months out, when the bar is already set pretty high :jawdrop

Even if I had five more seconds or so, I bet two more speedruns across the outside would plump me up close to 40.

The other pain is that guy swinging with the fish on the chandelier indoors...even when I'm barely able to squeeze out the door, he's still a bit tricky to grab. I'm starting to think I should abandon him, but where's the fun in that....

Okay, I'm pretty sure I can nail at least 2m40cm using this route. I just nailed 2m39cm4mm for 14th, and wasted a good 3 seconds that could have snagged the remaining 6mm getting stuck on something trivial I shouldn't have.

One of the things that seemed to be the problem was that the batteries for my wireless controller ran out, so I'd been using one of the cheapo gamestop wired ones. Switching back to the official controller after picking up some batteries this afternoon, things feel a lot more responsive.

Still, those last 4cm...ouch. Still stumped.

Your route is very different from mine. I've never tried much of anything outside (besides the stack of drinks) at the start of this stage. Just looking at your route and not trying it yet, I really don't know what to say, since I've never played the stage anything like that. One possible piece of advice, though you probably know this: Be aware of those potted ivy plants; those things up your size like crazy. If you're 72cm and you get two of those, you'll be about 85cm.

I haven't tried your route yet, but before I logged on I made a 2m44cm0mm video using approximately my old route (I'll get it online by tomorrow). Possibly you might be able to pick up on something from that. I think that a good way to improve my new video would be to grab one or two of the framed pictures when you're in or near the upstairs room (maybe turn 2m44cm into 2m45cm5mm or something).

Now I'm regularly getting 2m40cm+. I've got a more reliable route for the outdoors parts near the end. The biggest change from my old video to the new one is that now I know about the gates I can pick up outside for a lot of diameter late in the video. My route relies on heavy luck at the end though to get through the doors somewhat cleanly. I've never tried the 180 trick to get through doors. That might help me greatly at the end of Lady Luck Casino.

edit: my 2m44cm0mm video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ckWuT3uMA

You still have to be wedged at least halfway for the trick to work, but that vs. speedrunning or brute-forcing does seem to save some time, particularly since the camera automagically reverts to being behind you once your in...I smell a bunch of potential for exploiting that in several levels.

Cheers for the vid, and wow! I would have never thought to do the level that way. One of the most amazing aspects to the game really. I think the strength on your technique is in the beginning, where you're clearly making goal a good 5 seconds before my average at least. I probably lose a bit of time going out for the xbox controllers, even speedrunning the whole way. My midgame feels a bit more decisive, but that's probably just because I don't know what I'm looking at yet in the video.

endgame, yeah...mine's also total luck and how I did up to that point.

I'm curious though: why not get the TVs and the rest of the downstairs stuff before exiting? It seems like your eating up some time outside fishing after that single Olympian, etc, that might be easier or supplemented by grabbing the tv stack earlier.

Sure, you already have to go back in anyway, and I'm the douchebag with the lower score...ah well, I'll have to give it a try today and put my rolling where my mouth is. Uhuru!



Edit: ugh. this is getting crazy. I added an extra speedrun to my route (when I enter the house to pick up the xboxen) and still had a full two minutes left. My fastest completion is now around 0:50. Another time-saver I noticed this morning, is that it's best to snag the chandelier guy before going in the top room because the camera angle is easier to sort out.

Anyway I got really lucky with the rest of the level, and somehow managed a full 13 extra seconds at the end! My ending is feeling far less seat-of-the-pants now, but it's around this point that I can't find a damn thing left to pick up. I Speedrun around and still wind up in the 2m39cm range.

I'm convinced I must be leaving a major item around somewhere, but for the life of me I've no clue what it could be. I've noticed you fuss a bit in the corner of that top room for something. I only get the people, roulette wheel and chandeliers...is there something other than the two chairs I should look for?

Score! It's the chairs in that upstairs room that I wasn't grabbing. I did my run really sloppy and still managed 2m40cm2mm for a #12 slot using my route.

I'm now completely uncertain what the better route is. I'm going to edit the route description to reflect what I learned today in case you're still curious to give it a shot.



edit: ah, the top ten...it feels good up here.

edit#2: tweaked the route again, now tied with Dr. Thinker!

The coat rack in the upper room is a very important item. It can be picked up at somewhere around 2m10cm. Also there's a potted plant in between a table and a wall.

Heh, if it looks like I'm spending extra time searching around for little unimportant things, I probably am :heh I really don't know a strong route from 1m40cm to 1m75cm.

It won't surprise me if you beat my diameter very very soon. :)


edit: Lol, right after I made the video I find probably a big improvement to the start of my route. Actually I kind of combined both our routes. I go outside and grab the shuttlecock and drinks, then I roll right over the big plant in front of me in order to quickly reach the other steps to the house. I grab the drinks on the lower steps over there, then go forward and get a stack of shakers and plush toys, then at 35cm I turn around and head into the house, grab the stuff off to the left on the way to the secret room, raid the secret room, and go on like I did in the video.

If you are ending up with extra time, try grabbing one or more of the big pictures in and just outside the upstairs room. Those add over half a cm each I think. But the coat rack adds a lot more than that.

Yup, just found the two photos. I pick 'em up right after swinging man before going in, and now I can grab the chandeliers without mucking about with the roulette table...good grief do I love this game. :]

Interesting combination. I managed to shave off a few seconds on my route by subbing the stack of xbox controllers for the lily pads with the controllers on it. Shaves off three to five seconds, I wind up getting bigger, etc. I should check out grabbing the drinks on the steps instead. At 40 or so the ice buckets are snagable, so if I can find something that's 5cm nearby, I could probably shave a good 3 more seconds off the run. I've also been deeply considering trying to go for the ivy by the pond early, and entering the house at 60cm or so, that way I can just roll into the house and grab damn near everything in one big roll.

I wound up getting 2m42cm, but it was on my girlfriend's account and so far I haven't been able to repeat it. That coat rack is good to know though, that might be the extra cm I'm missing. I usually leave the plant in the interest of time, but I should probably grab it if I wanna play with the big kids. :cool


edit: Man, that coat rack is the bane of my existence now that you told me about it. Even picking up the swinging guy and the Shakespeare painting before going into the top room, I still have to fudge about wayyyyy too long before I'm big enough to get that coat rack. You must be bigger than I am going in, but I can b-a-r-e-l-y fit in as it is. Hats off to being able to do it that damned fast.

It really probably is worth grabbing the coat rack if at all possible. It is worth more diameter than you think! It may well catapult you above my 2m45cm if you can grab it and do everything else right. If you can get the coat rack without getting the plant I talked about, the plant probably isn't important.

After I managed 7th place I figured I needed a break from it for a few days since I was starting to dive into poorer scores. I know my learning curve well enough with games in that if I take a break, I often come back to a thing better than when I left it.

Largely: I'm having difficulty deciding the best way to go about the swinging chandelier guy. He's mutilated a lot of otherwise great runs where I was making goal in 45sec and such.

I'm with you on the coat rack...a whole 5cm is nothing to sneeze at. Plumping up appropriately for it has proved tricky for me though. I'm convinced I need to be big enough for the Shakespeare painting first to do it quickly and comfortably, (and not have to turn around for that later) but getting through the door at a size that can grab that thing outright is problematic.

It seems like a lot of the getting-in-the-door issue isn't how much I roll, but how I roll it. Continually grabbing the potted plants sideways is probably a move that's hurting me even if it saves time, and too many ice creams up front can be catastrophic. I'm trying to focus on that broom and the snowboard in the corner as size boosters that hopefully don't get quite as much in the way if grabbed from the side, and avoiding the pop-up ice creams in the hedge maze until I come back out.

2m45cm!!! I updated my route description above. How amazingly cool that the same result can be achieved with significantly different playing styles and strategies. That's really what makes it such an amazing game in my opinion.