This is kind of a strange post, so please, bear with me. I'm a big fan of speedrunning. I don't know whether you guys are aware of it, but several of Nifflas' games have received attention from the speedrunning community, and there are some really impressive runs of WADF, Knytt 1 and NightSky out there. Now, Knytt Underground is a fantastic game for speedrunning - it's fast-paced, it requires skillful execution, and above all, it's open, with countless potential routes to take. A number of people, myself included, have worked on this game already - figuring out the best route, and finding time-saving tricks. There's some friendly competition and even a cash prize on SpeedDemosArchive for the game (in case you were wondering, the best time from start to finish so far is 30:02 by FearfulFerret). So, thank you, Nifflas, for making a game that can be appreciated at such a variety of levels of depth.

There is a small problem, though: loading times. While the differences are tiny, Knytt Underground spends a varying amount of time on each room transition depending on the power of your computer. Even if each individual load creates much less then a second's discrepancy, across the entire game this might add up to at least half a minute or more. I think this is a fairly common issue with speedrunning PC games and is certainly not limited to KU.

However, I remember that an early version of WADF came with a timer for this very purpose. An in-game timer is, of course, much easier to compare consistently. So, while this might seem like something of a selfish request, I figured with the new update around the corner I might ask if it would be possible to add such a feature to KU (either for each individual chapter or one that would just run the entire time, whichever seems more logical).

Thanks for reading.