Kururin Squash Speedrunning FAQ

Q: What is this glorious game?
A: This is Kururin Squash. The third game of the Kururin series, it was only released in Japan on the Gamecube. Much like it's predecessor - Kururin Paradise (for the GBA). The first game, Kuru Kuru Kururin (also on GBA) did make it out of Japan, and it also available on WiiU VC, along with the Switch online.

It is very possible that you have never seen any of the games before - but have seen the Helirin before, the stick shaped helicopter that is going through the stages. It appears in Smash games, if you played Brawl you almost certainly saw it as an assist trophy at some point.  

Q: So how did this game end up on this stream?
A: While Kururin Squash was released in 2004, it really gained notoriety when avid gamer of honest credentials, stylonide, booted it up in the practice room at ASM 2023. Here, the game attained it's status as one of legend, and of reverence.

You can find chronicles of the initial evolution here: x.com/stylonide/status/1678984170125791232

Since then it has remained in mind of all who attended the event, and the honest gamers honed their skills in order to present it on a grander stage. Nearly 2 years on, it is my time to present it to you all.

Q: Wow this seems amazing. Will we ever see this game at an event? Let's say, an AusSpeedruns Marathon?
A: That's an incredible question - yes! In the two years since, the original quartet has devoted themselves towards bringing you the most honest speedrun, and it was accepted into ASM 2025! That means this year! In July!

You can find the schedule for ASM 2025 here, to see exactly when this run will take place: ausspeedruns.com/ASM2025/schedule

Q: Holy shit I'm so fucking excited. But I see the category says "All Coins - Relay Race (Honest)". What precisely does this mean?
A: I'll break it down into the 3 parts.

1) "All Coins" this refers to getting all the coins in every stage. The stages are filled with coins that you can collect, as well as in some stages, enemies to defeat that drop coins. All Coins is, as you can probably guess, getting all of them in every stage.

2) "Relay Race" there is going to be 4 of us competing, two in each team. Myself and stylonide will be in one team, and Damosk and Joester98 in another team. We will each do part of the game. My part of the game will be the first 2 worlds, and the first part of world 3 (For reference, there are 5 worlds)

3) "Honest". As true honest gamers, we never wanted to exploit the system of this game. As we optimised the first stage over and over, many thoughts entered our heads of how we could game the system. For example for individual level runs, you could game the IGT system by doing dishonest things such as waiting in the starting box, or by pausing repeatedly. And for real time speedruns, you could take damage on purpose, which by game design would incur you a 3 second penalty, but would be irrelevant if timed by real time.

And we wished for none of this. We all wished for pure and honest rotation. And so, we abide by the honest ruleset. For Individual Level times, waiting in the start area is strictly forbidden! Pausing is forbidden! Go fast and rotate with precision!

For full game runs, you can't simply say don't get hit. However, for my attempts, I will count all penalties and add them to my time at the end! This is the "penalties" in the splits.

I will note however for a marathon run, at ASM, adding the time is strictly not possible, or interactive for the audience. And so instead, for the run at ASM, we will be doing a much more fun an interactive points format for the race!

The way it will work is like so - every single stage is a race for points. Runners will start each level at the exact same time. Assuming each runner finishes without dying - the IGT will be used to determine the winner of that race, and be awarded a point. Should either runner die, the winner will be determined by real time and be awarded a point.

However, there will also be an Honesty Bonus!! Any runner who wins the race AND does so with honest rules (mainly, this means does not take damage), will receive an honest bonus, equivalent to the world they are in. Meaning in World 1, the Honesty Bonus would be 1 point, and in World 5, the Honesty Bonus would be 5 points. This is because completing stages later on without taking any damage becomes more difficult.

Q: What is the speedrun you are doing?
A: I'm practicing my segment of the run. The splits are for those stages, doing attempts of all of them back to back. I will also at times be doing IL attempts of some of those stages, trying to optimise them some more.

Q: So, how does this game work?
A: The game itself is visually pretty self explanatory.
Controls - Holding B increases your movement speed (you are always holding this)
Holding R increases your rotation speed (you are alternating a lot between doing this and not)
Moving the control sticks moves you (duh)
Pressing/holding A does the action of the special Helirin, found in half the stages. 
In world 1, pressing it does the punch. In world 2, holding it keeps you underground. In world 3, holding it activates the flamethrower. In world 4, holding it builds it a tornado that you can fire. In world 5, holding it autofires the guns, and pressing it fires the guns (mashing can get faster inputs than the autofire)

Q: What are you playing on?
A: I'm playing off a Wii, capturing with a Retrotink 2x mini -> Elcheapo HDMI capture.
 
Q: What is your goal time?
A: I absolutely don't have one. I'm just trying to get better. This is the first game of a new franchise I've picked up in many, many years, and I feel so incompetent as a result. I've become so used to speedrunning games that I've been running for 15 years that playing a new one has made me feel very bad as I am still raw and improving!
But improve I shall! I really want to give this a great showing at ASM, the build up for it has been amazing and I really want to deliver. 

Q: Will you do full runs of the game at some point?
A: Probably not. I really wanna focus on just my stages before ASM.
However, I know Joester98 and stylonide have both expressed interest at full runs of All Coins (Joester has already done any% runs)

Btw you might think this game is so niche so no one has ever done good runs of it before. You'd be right for All Coins, the record there is super beatable, but the any% record is absolutely insane. I feel miserable when I watch it, because I know I'll never be that good, and I'm not used to feeling that when it comes to games! Please don't watch it until after ASM, as it will skew your expectations!

Q: What is your file name?
A: They didn't have enough characters for honest werster :(