AE1/tricks

Mechanics

Here is a list of good to know mechanics in the game.

• You can hit Start to immediately close a mailbox.
• Hitting R1 or L1 in the level select will move one era over.
• Both R3 and the button your gadget is on can active the alternate effect (like changing pellets or summoning the car).
• Select opens the pause menu straight into the gadget screen.
• You can use swingable gadgets (net/club) to quickly turn yourself around in place or midair! very useful for changing your angle midair to grab onto a ledge.
• The Net can interact with objects through walls. Example: The specter coin in the big open room in TV Tower can be gotten without breaking the box. same for the inside dexter coin beneath the slide.
• The Magic Punch and the net shot from the Water Net can collect energy chips (very important in time trial ILs).

Tricks

Gadget Cancel

You do this one a lot. Whenever you use a gadget you are stuck in its animation and cannot move until it completes.

You can cancel this animation by simply switching to another gadget.

This should be done after every monkey catch, if you miss a monkey catch, if you swing the club (either hit or miss your target) and basically whenever you use a gadget.

Neutral Double Jump

The most basic trick and one of the most used ones too.

If you hold a direction as you do a double jump, your speed is set to a certain value which is lower than your running speed.

In the neutral double jump you let go of the left stick before you do the double jump. When done like this, you only lose minimal speed.

The longer you have the left stick neutral, the more speed you lose. Optimally you would hold a direction right until the double jump and then start holding the direction again right after the double.

Inputs

Forward (Hold) --> Jump --> Forward (Release) --> Double Jump --> Forward

Boost Jump

Another way to preserve your speed.

If you are running with the hoop active and try to jump, you lose the hoop speed.

You can cirumvent this by simply cancelling the hoop by pressing the face button it's on right before you jump.

The timing is very lenient but note that the more it lags the longer you want to wait before pressing jump.

combine with the neutral double for maximum distance.

Inputs

(Assuming you have hoop on X and you are currently running with the hoop active.)

X --> Jump

Fall Damage Cancel

You can negate all fall damage you would receive by simply using a gadget.

Gadgets you can use are the net and the club

Inputs

Hold right stick to any direction before hitting the floor.

Slope Jumps

There are effectively two types of slope jumps but they are called the same.

You can slightly run up any slope and then jump off before you start sliding or you can run at a slope and then let the left stick go neutral before you hit the slope.

This makes spike go up the slope but in a "Standing" state so he can jump out whenever he wants. This can be done out of water (Primordial Ooze) or made easier with the hoop (Frosty Retreat No IJ) by cancelling it before hitting the slope.

Glitches

Infinite Jump

The main glitch of the game which allows you to go as high as you want.

When you jump and pull the slingshot back in the air with a flick of the right stick, the game allows spike to jump for a short period of time.

This can be then chained to go up infinitely.

Depending on how quickly or slowly you do the inputs you can either go more vertically or more horizontally.

The optimal timing for most distance is by timing the jump to each note in a 120BPM metronome.

Generally new runners do the inputs way too fast, essentially spamming the inputs which makes it easy to drop it.

The inputs can be done way slower than you first might think.

The timing is also affected by lag, as in: the more it lags the slower you need to do the inputs.

Note that if you try to push up towards a wall right in front of you as you ij, spike will start to "hug it" which stops the IJ.

You can use this as a back up for Dexter Skip because you can jump out of the push up animation, meaning that you can start ij'ing from it.

Inputs

Jump (big jump) --> Flick right stick (do not hold) --> repeat

If spike ends up shooting a pellet, you held the right stick for too long.

if spike just falls, then you were too late on the second jump.

Boost Jump to Infinite Jump

While not a separate glitch/trick from boost jumping or infinite jumping the two can be combined for even more horizontal distance and speed to your IJs.

This trick is why some runners have the hoop on the X button so that they can easily slide their thumb from X to square.

The timing is tough at first but thankfully this one isn't required in a run.

Inputs

(Assuming you have slingshot on square and hoop on X and that you are running with the hoop active.)

X --> Jump --> Square (really fast) --> Flick right stick --> Repeat IJ inputs

Super Fly

This is a big one for the no infinite jump categories.

With the first usage of the sky flyer in a stage you may perform this glitch.

It is quite simple, all you need to do is: jump and use a gadget (net,club or sling) at the sametime, then quickly (nearly immediately) hit select to open the gadget menu.

In the gadget menu you want to equip the sky flyer over the button the gadget is that you just used, start spinning the right stick and hit select to unpause the game.

Depending on your what part of the gadget use you switched to the flier you get more or less height.

Why it happens?

The sky flyer and the animation of spike entering a level use the same internal value.

When you enter a stage, this value goes from 30 down to 0 after the animation ends.

The sky flyer really doesn't like the value 0 and it causes you to fly super high.

‎

Ultra Fly

This glitch isn't useful in any situation sadly.

The Ultra Fly is just a 16 bit integer overflow of the value the sky flyer uses.

If you use the flyer so that you gain height, an internal value starts from 1 and increases by 1 every frame you keep hovering down.

If this value goes over 32768, it wraps around to -32767 and this completely destroys the sky flyer.

If you now spin the flyer you will keep going up with high speed as long as this value is below 1.

Miscellaneous, Useless, Detrimental

The tricks, glitches and mechanics here are worthy enough to write up but likely will never have any practical use or they are straight up something that you do not want to experience.

Slow Swing

If you slowly move your right stick with the club out, you will do a slow swing.

This means you can hit something multiple times in quick succession from just one swing.

I believe this makes the hitbox stay out for longer which causes the extra damage.

• Instantly breaks the breakable wall at the start of dexter.
• Two swings will max out a cog wheel (Some longer ones need three while some only need one to be useful, like most gates.

Fast First Person Turn

Using both the d-pad and the left stick to look around in first person makes doubles the turning speed.

Clown

Lingering Hitbox

After the first phase is done and he falls down, his hitbox is still invisible and active at the top of the cage for a moment.

Clown Out Of Bounds

In the second phase, if you guide the clown to hit the wall nearly parallel to it and then make him roll towards you parallel to the wall he might bonk into the inside of the wall.

Once he bonks the inside of the wall he is out of the cage. He gets up and tries to roll again only to bonk immediately. he'll eventually leave bonk far enough to leave the room.

You might be able to use an explosive on him when he's out but the only way to stop this is to Infinite Jump up out of the cage, leave and come back into the room. You'll have to redo the whole fight.

Clown Clip

Not only can the clown escape the cage, he can fling you out of it too.

Don't know what the requirements for this is but getting between the wall and him rolling will clip you through the gate and out of it.

(Audio warning)

Mech Crash

Sometimes for an unknown reason, the mech fight in the middle of specter's factory can crash the game upon dying.

First Person Ledge Grab

If you either use the slingshot to go first person or go first person before sliding off a ledge you can grab onto a ledge while in first person.

This allows you to turn left and right while still hanging off the ledge, turning too much so that spike's body enters the ledge will make spike climb up.

With a sharp enough corner you can use this to clip inside it and die instantly.

Fog Glitch

Sometimes the game might have a hard time loading an area so it might use a very small fog distance, making everything either black or invisible around you.

Crumbling Castle Hard Lock

If you die at the perfectly wrong moment after defeating the knight boss, the game marks the boss as defeated so it won't respawn again but since you died you weren't pulled out of the level which is required for you to unlock the next one.

The outcome is that you cannot fight the boss again to beat the level and the city park will never be unlocked. Only way out of this is to load your save file.

Ledge Zip

Hitting a ledge in a specific way will make spike teleport on top of it and to the end of the polygon on top.