TAS Editor¶
The TAS (tool-assisted speedrun) editor lets you build a run one frame at a time. Instead of playing in real time, you stop on a single frame, decide exactly which buttons are held, and step forward. The game replays your recorded input deterministically, so the result is reproducible every time.
You do not need to understand anything else in this page to get started. Open the editor, press F1, and everything below is on screen.
The screen¶
| Area | What it is |
|---|---|
| Top left | The gameplay view. It is deliberately wider than the game camera so you can see enemies and items before they scroll on. |
| Right | The input timeline — the frame-by-frame grid, with the controls that move through it directly underneath. |
| Bottom | The overview bar, then one titled box per job. |
The timeline column is only as wide as the players in your run need, so a one-player TAS leaves most of the screen to the gameplay view.
Every control lives in the box for the job it does, so you never have to hunt along a row of unrelated buttons:
| Box | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Input Timeline (right column) | Choosing where in the run you are. Back / Play / Fwd and Prev Key / Next Key sit right under the grid they move. |
| Session | Read-only. Which frame you are on, which player and button you are editing, and whether anything still needs replaying. |
| Write Input | The buttons that change the movie: the eleven pad buttons, the tap-versus-hold hint, and Undo / Redo. |
| Record | The alternative to typing input by hand. Shows whether you are editing or recording, and holds Record and the playback speed. |
| Macros | Saving and re-applying short input sequences. |
| Inspector | Reading the game's live values. |
Trim Future and Help (F1) sit in the title bar, away from anything you use routinely.
Reading the input timeline¶
The timeline is a table. One row is one frame. One column is one button.
frame UDLRABCXYZS
001230 ...R.......
001231 ...RA......
>001232* ...RA......
001233 ...RA......
001234 ....A......
- A letter means that button is held on that frame. A dot means it is free.
- Because the columns are fixed, a button held over several frames draws a solid vertical bar. That is the fastest way to see the shape of a movement at a glance.
>marks the frame you are on. The row is highlighted.- The blue box marks the selected cell — the frame and button your next edit will apply to.
*after the frame number means the frame still has to be replayed before its result can be trusted. This appears after you edit something in the past.~means a scene transition is playing on that frame.#means the game's luck seed changed on that frame. Useful when hunting for a specific enemy behaviour or item drop.
The What the grid means key under the grid repeats all of this on screen.
When more than one player is active, each gets its own group of columns, labelled P1, P2 and so on above the grid. The lane you are editing is drawn brighter than the others.
To switch lanes, click the P1 / P2 / P3 / P4 buttons next to Editing: at the top of the timeline column, press Tab, or click any cell in the lane you want. That row is hidden entirely in a one-player run.
Moving through the run¶
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| Up / Down | Go back or forward one frame. Hold to run at 60 frames per second. |
| Page Up / Page Down | Jump 30 frames. |
| Home / End | Go to the first or last frame. |
| Space | Play or stop. |
| Mouse wheel over the grid | Scrub through frames. |
| Click a frame number | Jump straight to that frame. |
| Drag up or down in the grid | Scrub through frames. |
| Drag the overview bar | Scrub across the whole run. |
The mouse cursor turns into a vertical double arrow whenever it is over the grid or the overview bar, as a reminder that both are draggable.
The overview bar under the gameplay view shows the entire run at once: orange ticks are level starts, smaller ticks are waves and saved states, and the red wash marks the region that still needs replaying.
Editing input¶
The vertical axis is time and the horizontal axis is buttons, so the arrow keys do what the grid looks like they should.
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| Left / Right | Pick which button column you are editing. |
| Enter | Tap the picked button on the current frame. |
| Shift + Enter | Hold the picked button from this frame onwards. |
| Click a cell | Move there. Click the same cell again to toggle it. |
| 1 2 3 4 | Up, Down, Left, Right. |
| 5 6 7 8 9 0 | A, B, C, X, Y, Z. |
| - | Start. |
| Shift + Up / Down | Shift this frame and every later frame back or forward in time. |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo. |
Tap versus hold is the one thing worth learning. A plain toggle affects a single frame; the same toggle with Shift held changes the button from this frame to the end of the run. The hint line under the control panel tells you which one you are about to do, and changes as soon as you press Shift.
Clicking a cell never edits it on the first click. The first click moves the cursor there; a second click on the same cell toggles it. A misplaced click cannot change your run.
Recording instead of typing¶
Typing every frame is slow for long stretches of ordinary movement. Press Ctrl+R to switch to recording, press Space to play, and whatever you hold on your controller is written into the movie as it advances. Drop the speed to 1/4 or 1/8 with Ctrl+F to get precise input at a manageable pace, then switch back to editing to clean it up frame by frame.
The mode line in the control panel always says which of the two you are in.
Macros¶
Capture Macro saves the next ten frames of the current player's input under a name. Apply Macro writes it in at the current frame. Use Alt+Up / Alt+Down to pick which saved macro is applied. This is worth doing for any input sequence you repeat — a dash, a grab-and-throw, a specific combo.
Replaying and trust¶
When you change input in the past, everything after it is no longer valid — the game has not
been simulated with the new input yet. Those frames get a * and the status panel says
Needs replay from frame N.
Stepping or playing forward through the region replays it and clears the mark. Next Key jumps forward to the next saved state that is already up to date, which is a fast way to check whether your change broke something later on.
Trim Future deletes everything after the current frame. It asks first.
Inspector¶
Click any player, enemy, or item in the gameplay view, or use the target buttons, to see its live values. Values that changed on this frame are highlighted, which makes it practical to find the exact frame an attack connects or a state flips. The filter box takes a regular expression if the list is long.
Gamepad¶
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| D-pad Up / Down, or LB / RB | Step frames |
| D-pad Left / Right | Pick a button column |
| A, B, C, X, Y, Z | Toggle that button on the current frame |
| Back | Open the menu |
Full shortcut list¶
Press F1 at any time. Everything on this page is listed there, in the app.