Serious Sam: The First Encounter (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Segmented] [Normal] [0:30:20]
Run Information
Completion Date June 9, 2020
State Published
Runner 'Blacksecret'
Segments 94
Links
Verification Thread
Run Comments

Difficulty: Normal
Runner: Blacksecret
Time: 0:30:20
94 Segments

Hatshepsut (0:00:38) 2 segments

A simple level where you just have to run to the exit.
0:11 - Jumping up the slope for a tiny speed boost.
0:23 - The first thing you want to get is the secret rocket launcher which is why this level is slower on normal than on tourist but unlike tourist difficulty you can damage yourself with explosive weapons allowing for some game breaking rocketjumps saving heaps of time in the later levels.
0:33 - Killing the Gnaar to make the door open and a rocketjump out of water which increases the boost you get from the rocket.
0:44 - Grabbing the shotgun triggers the final door to open and you have to get through the door before it closes or it will get locked until all the enemies in this room are dead.

Sand Canyon (0:00:33) 1 segment

Normally you would have to go through an underground section and fight a bunch of enemies but we can just skip all of that.
Every time you finish a level with under 100 health on normal difficulty you gain 50 health at the start of the next one.
0:58 - Since I use an extra rocket jump in the first level I have to climb the mountain with the help of a single rocket which requires precise timing of your rocket shot during the jump. After that I dodge some teleport triggers and enter out of bounds while the character is technically in the air which allows me to control my height and fly lower to avoid a teleport trigger near the end.

Tomb of Ramses III (0:01:27) 5 segments

This level is all about avoiding damage to save enough health for a trick in the next level.
1:56 - Jumping over a small trigger that traps you inthe room until you kill some enemies.
2:02 - Staggering the scorpions so they dont attack with their hitscan and doing some rocketjumps to skip parts of the level while staying as healthy as possible.
2:40 - Firing the rocket under my self late into the jump to maximise forward momentum.

Valley of the Kings (0:01:05) 7 segments

Another level that gets mostly skipped by going out of bounds.
2:56 - This is the first instance of a high rocket jump which requires a very precise jump timing just after firing the rocket under you. Right after the jump I rise into a teleporter which sends me further into the level, trigger the bull early and proceed to do bull boosts to reach the next out of bounds spot.
3:07 - Grabbing this health is essential for a rocketboost coming up, I also dont take any damage from the bull because he hits me with the edge of his hitbox and for some reason it does close to no damage.
3:24 - Combining a bullboost with a rocketboost results in even more speed allowing me to get on top of this hill and with a jump over a taleport trigger you can just go out of bounds and fly to the end of the level, this saves around 15 seconds compared to not using the teleporter and flying to the end right from the start.

Oasis (0:00:47) 2 segments

One of the easiest levels.
4:05 - I jump into a teleport trigger which sticks through the back side of the secret area behind the waterfall to get further into the level.
4:17 - Climbing this hill using a rocket jump and dodging invisible teleport triggers to get out of bounds to skip most of the level.
4:40 - Grabbing armor and health for the next few levels.

Dunes (0:00:43) 7 segments

One of the hardest levels to optimise because of how random the enemies can be.
5:07 - Doing bullboosts all the way to the final arena and taking as little damage as I can.
5:25 - Manipulating the bull's position a bit into a bull + rocket boost over the wall. Since the strenght of the rocket jump depends on how much health damage you take armor reduces the boost you get losing around a second compared to not having armor here, but I get to keep a lot of health which will save me more time in the next 2 levels than I lose here.
5:33 - Touching the end level trigger through the door with another rocket boost.

Suburbs (0:00:57) 4 segments

Another straight forward level.
5:42 - Rocketjumping over a trigger that spawns scorpions and other enemies that would certainly do damage to me and slow me down, but since I have armor I cant do a boost that would give me forward momentum here. Instead with the leftover health I do such a boost over the following building skipping another enemy spawn trigger and allowing me to take a straighter path.
5:56 - Using the grenade launcher to kill some of the enemies that would damage me around corners to slow down less.
6:14 - Maximizing the health I have for the next level by staying at atleast 50 hp to be able to skip an armor pickup in the next level.

Sewers (0:00:59) 5 segments

6:53 - After pressing the switch I do a rocket boost out of the water saving a few seconds.
7:11 - A rocket boost to pass under a barrier before it closes.
In the underwater section I get some really good boosts from the fish and a boost out of the water straight through all the pickups that I need to finish the level on almost full health and ammo.

Metropolis (0:07:39) 15 segments

The longest level in the game still without a way to get out of bounds to save minutes of time. However to save a few seconds compared to the older routes I take a quicker path to the main arena of the level which involves some high rotketjumps and grab the minigun on the way while skipping the secret cannon for now.
9:25 - The first wave of the arena which consists of kamikazes spawning for around 2 minutes is triggered when you get to the middle of the arena and the only way to speed this up is to kill the last kamikaze as soon as he spawns. These 2 minutes are exactly enough to backtrack all the way back to the secret cannon which is used for some of the next waves in the arena.
9:50 - Another note about this level and the game in general is that I intentionally dont grab armor because the height of your rocket jump depends on how much hp damage you take so having armor severely reduces your boosts.
11:30 - I actually left myself with almost not enough time to kill all the kamikazes on time but in the end I managed to do it pretty well.
11:50 - Jumping to grab the ammo pack to trigger the next wave sooner. This part consists of harpy spawns that are all on timers so my poor aim here doesnt lose any time and my only real goal here is to not drop under 50 health.
12:52 - Killing these harpies quickly does matter though so I prefire one with a rocket and kill the rest quickly with the minigun.
13:14 - Next up is two sets of bulls that are taken out quickly with the cannon.
13:42 - I prefire the bulls but leave one alive so I can do a boost towards the middle of the arena before killing it so I could get as close to the next ammo pickup as possible before it spawns.
13:56 - The next part consists of 2 sets of red biomechs and 4 sets of kleer skeletons, but it's only important to kill the last set of kleers quickly here.
15:05 - I found that its around 4 seconds faster to save an extra cannon shot for the last wave and to stand in the middle of the kleer spawn to be closer to the final door.

Alley of the Sphinxes (0:02:06) 9 segments

16:06 - Using a bunch of damageless bullboosts to get through the level quicker
17:27 - Another rocketboost through the door into the end level trigger.

Karnak (0:06:51) 15 segments

This is another level with an unskippable arena fight making it rather long.
17:35 - This level starts with a rocket jump into an edge/slope jump which gives just enough height to jump into the window saving a second or two.
19:03 - Grabbing this pack starts the arena and for the first wave it's only important to kill the last kamikaze as soon as it spawns.
20:06 - Next up are the kleers and I found this part really hard to optimise just because the last ones spawn on all sides very quickly and the cannon doesnt shoot fast enough to get them all on time.
20:50 - I tried a lot of different ideas and combinations to kill the red scorpions quickly but they just have too much health and anything but a charged cannon shot is too slow or too weak to kill them quickly, so the only optimisation I could make here was to get as far from the furthest scorpion as I could, prefire him and then shoot the other one a little bit after he has spawned.
21:20 - The next wave starts off with harpies, but you dont have to kill the first ones quickly.
21:41 - You have to kill all but one of these harpies so I start by prefiring some rockets and taking a certain path so it would be easier to fire at the distant ones that I could barely see and to reach a position that would let me kill 3 at once with the cannon. Right after this the next red scorpions spawn so optimally you just shoot at them as soon as possible with an almost fully charged cannon.
22:10 - Just before the bulls start spawning I grab 50 armor and max out my health in preparation for the next level and its important that I dont lose any of this health. All of the bulls are also on timers so I just kill the last one as soon as it spawns to save time.
23:53 - 2 seconds after you hear an item spawn red biomechs start spawning so you just kill them quickly.
24:10 - As it turns out the last door opens after the last red biomech dies, but the time it takes for him to spawn and for the door to open after his death is really random. So random infact that my best and worst segment with pretty similar kills had more than a 4 second difference.

Luxor (0:01:22) 2 segments

A short level due to a relatively new way to enter out of bounds.
The reason I want to start with a specific amount of armor is that I want to enter out of bounds after 3 rocketjumps with atleast 100 hp allowing me to grab the health supplies that are conveniently lying under the map faster without having to grab the smaller healing items first before grabbing the +100 hp heart.
24:54 - A tricky high jump.

The Great Pyramid (0:05:06) 20 segments

Last level in the game with a boss who can refuse to die whenever he wants.
Right at the start I use a bouncepad which is designed to return you back inside the arena in combination with rockets for a massive boost and a single very high rocket jump over the gate of the arena into a trigger that you must hit to spawn the boss and the UFO that will kill him.
26:12 - Running straight through a trigger that spawns a large amount of enemies and bulls that get used to boost quicker to the pyramid.
26:20 - Since I have so much health I can combine the momentum of rocketboosts to go even further and grab the armor before the bulls throw me off. The next section involves reaching the pyramid as fast as possible to trigger a timer for the door to the last arena while keeping as much health as I can.
26:57 - The timer has started but I dont rush up the ramp because it turns out that if you get up the ramp this quickly the boss wont break the walls at the start of the level and they will block your cannon shots so you will only be able to damge him with the limited amount of rockets that you have. However this is not and issue because I figured out that killing all the enemies around you and backtracking for ammo allows you to do much more damage to the boss before entering the arena saving around 3 seconds in the end.
27:38 - The boss doesnt take damage until his healthbar shows up and this ammopack has 30 cannonballs in it and you have a lot of time to shoot at him.
29:14 - Entering the arena as early as posssible and with over 20 cannonballs and the boss under half health.
And now all that remains is to do enough damage to the boss while jumping through the 4 hoops that trigger a laser which is the only way to kill the boss. Since the boss is already so low on health I dont have to constantly shoot at him so I can do some rocketboosts and I can afford to turn around to hit the jummppads quickly more easily.
29:57 - At this point his health is in the red and he gets increased regeneration, If you had more cannonballs you could get his health so low that he would immediately regenerate back to almost full health, but I just use the minigun for a while to limit his regen for a while so I could then reduce his health to as low as I can before the laser hits him without triggering his healing.
31:00 - ignore the in game timer that keeps running because the real final time is in the end statistics screen.

Recently there was a pretty cool discovery that had the potential to save a minute on this level involving using the jumppad + rockets to boost almost to the pyramid but it was impossible to trigger the boss this way, and even if you backtracked after starting the timer at the pyramid you would have to wait over a minute for the spaceship or it wouldn't open to fire at the boss in the arena.

Levels - Time
Hatshepsut - 0:00:38
Sand Canyon - 0:00:33
Tomb of Ramses - 0:01:27
Valley of the Kings - 0:01:05
Oasis - 0:00:47
Dunes - 0:00:43
Suburbs - 0:00:57
Sewers - 0:00:59
Metropolis - 0:07:39
Alley of the Sphinxes - 0:02:06
Karnak - 0:06:51
Luxor - 0:01:22
The Great Pyramid - 0:05:06

Total - 0:30:20

As for a comparison my previous segmented run (which was not on SDA) times using one segment per level

Levels - Time
Hatshepsut - 0:00:38
Sand Canyon - 0:00:33
Tomb of Ramses - 0:01:31
Valley of the Kings - 0:01:13
Oasis - 0:00:48
Dunes - 0:00:42 - this segment was really lucky on top of having no armor for the bull + rocket boost
Suburbs - 0:00:58
Sewers - 0:01:03
Metropolis - 0:07:54
Alley of the Sphinxes - 0:02:20
Karnak - 0:07:06
Luxor - 0:01:23
The Great Pyramid - 0:05:35

Total - 0:31:50

Thanks to the Serious Sam speedrun community that is still alive and active to this day on the Serious Sam Done Quick Discord server - https://discord.gg/PfHmhHE Feel free to join even if you are not a speedrunner and just want to have a chat. Special thanks to all the runners of the game and the people who find all the crazy optimisations to this very day.