TAS Awake Guide

Intro

While not required, this strat is best practiced with savestates from the SpeedrunTool mod and the use of the CelesteTAS mod. The InfoHud the latter mod provides, can give you valuable speed and position values. Also it allows you to play TAS files. You can download a tas file with the full strat and some more comments here. This can also be used to set savestates in a later part of this strat to practice it more efficiently.

For recommendations on when to do this strat, it’s not even recommended for hitting 1:3x. When going for anything lower than 1:38 it definitely starts to be worth looking into. But at the end of the day the strat is really fun to pull off, so just learning it because it’s fun is completely valid and probably how a lot of people learn this at first.

Room 1

Starting from the campfire you want to buffer in total 3 dashes: 3 downright dashes and buffer a jump out of the freeze frames of the last dash to get an instant hyper. This might be awkward as this is buffering an instant hyper out of a buffered dash. If you press jump too early you might jump before buffering the dash, so make sure to delay the jump enough. A delay of 4 frames between the dash and jump input is the best for attempting a buffered instant hyper. Then hold jump until the transition where you can safely release it.

Room 2

Buffer jump on the bhop, this is not the normal buffer window because you would get too much half gravity if you buffer jump too early. You have 3 frames instead of the normal 5 to input this jump. If you didn’t buffer the jump you will hear the ground collide sound. But the ring behind Madeline is the best cue as it appears when buffering too early or if you don’t buffer at all.

Then you have technically a 3 frame window to downright. This window is really important as it determines your speed for the next room. Ideally you want to get over 403 speed into room 3. However this is only possible with the first 2 downright frames. So make sure to aim for those.

 A good cue for the downright is the edge of the background tile. After that make sure to release down and buffer the jump on the ultra and the cornerboost.

Keep holding jump and when just past the corner above you, input a downright. This downright is either a 2 frame window, or if you did the previous one on the first possible frame, you only have a single frame for it here.

Make sure to buffer this cornerboost, it’s really quick after the dash. Aim to land before the transition. This means that you want to aim for a 2 frame jump ideally, 1 frame jump works if you use the latter of the two downright frames. 3 frame jump does work on the first downright frame(sometimes even a 4f jump) but as 2 frame jump works for both downright frames, try to aim for that. Especially because 1f jump does not give you enough speed into the next room on one of the downright frames. See the graph at the beginning of the room 3 paragraph.

Reminder: Make sure to NOT hold down during any of the ground jumps in this room! This applies to all jumps in every room until specified otherwise.

Room 3

The speed going into this room depends on multiple factors in room 2. These include the downright timing on both downrights and how long you hold jump for on the delayed ultra cornerboost. Down below are the speed values listed that you get into room 3 depending on the 3 combinations. Below 400 speed is only possible if you did the first downright too late or if you don’t land before transition or didn’t follow other instructions lined out previously.

You want to have at least 403 speed into this room for the rest of this strat. You have a 3 frame window to get a good cornerboost starting roughly from the background pillar until just before the table. I currently do not know of a way to reliably save having 401 speed or less.

Try doing the downrights as soon as possible and again don’t crouch on the ultra. This downright is a 2f, so it’s not too easy but there are a bunch of things in the background that can help you line it up. With so many potential objects that work as cues, I personally would just see what works the best for you if you need a cue. I use being in between the hanging down part of the top background tile and the sticking out part from the bottom part as a cue. Below you see the 2 frames that work for the downright.

The second downright technically has a big window but you need to do it early so you have enough speed for the next 2 rooms to work out, and that you can land on the higher platform . First possible frame is when just over the left edge of the snow platform. This can also be a decent cue to aim for.

Room 4

This first ultra jump is definitely one that should be crouched. You do want to lose a little bit of speed here to make the next part of the room easier, which a crouch jump neatly does. Aim to jump before you reach the wooden platform. Jumping at the beginning of it can still work out, but will just make the rest harder.

Hold jump for at least 12 frames and then release jump before half gravity at the top of the jump arch gets applied. This is a 6 frame release window and definitely feels like a timing not used anywhere else. This is because full vertical jump speed can only last for 12 frames regardless of if you hold it longer. For a jump release cue, you can use the corner below. It is however recommended to just get this into your muscle memory.

This next bhop is again a case of a 3f buffer window. Too early and you get too much half gravity.

Crouching here is recommended but can be preference. You can be too fast here and crouching can fix it. Also it can sometimes give you an additional frame to downright dash.

But you can also be just barely fast enough to make the strat work with a normal jump, where crouching would lose you too much speed to make it past the next room. See what works the best for you, but normally crouch jumping is preferable.

Downright when past the corner marked in the screenshot below. When landing on the left of the previous platform, the frame below is the first possible frame. When landing further right, you might need to downright slightly later.

You want to aim to land before the transition for this downright. One frame later can also work depending on positioning. Make sure to not hold downright here after the dash to not lose unnecessary speed.

Room 5

Your speed coming into this room should be between 566 and 585. Anything below or higher will make the strat not work. This assumes landing before the transition.

Sometimes it might still fail even with the right amount, as with really precise positioning you might end up not adjacent to the transition after entering this room because of your speed. Being a few pixels away from it can mess up the strat by being able to get a good cornerboost of the first corner. If you can see your position doesn’t look right, you can fix it by getting an intentional bad cornerboost. As this is really hard to get right with bad positioning, I personally wouldn’t worry about it and always buffer it instead. Most often than not you have a good position though and don’t have to worry about it.

A TAS file to see this happening in action can be found here. 

The first cornerboost should be a bad one with the right speed and positioning. And the timing is a 3f buffer after the first jump if the first jump is buffered out of the transition. Landing after the transition can make this cb a 2f or even 0f.

The next cornerboost is a big indicator for if this strat works or not. You want to have a good cornerboost here but getting that by not colliding with the wall requires a specific position that you only get if you have the right amount of speed. So the previous rooms need to be done correctly to get over this corner with the right amount of speed.

Make sure to downright early enough to not lose too much speed or bonk the wall. Want to downright when past the window/over the right edge. Also make sure to release grab after the cornerboost to not grab the wall after the downright.

You want to make sure to release down and just press right after the downright dash and slide a bit. Try aiming to jump in the middle of or after the hole in the ground. This jump is a full height jump.

Room 6

Just continue to hold jump and buffer the bhop off the platform while holding the first jump. Then the next downright can be a bit tight and earlier than you think. Hard to look for a cue with so much speed but it should be roughly at the right edge of the broken window. Or just as you reach the corner of the highest platform.

The jump on this ultra needs to be at least 2 frames and you want to land before the transition. Depending on your speed and on where exactly you land, a jump height of 2 to 4 frames can work.

Room 7

Buffer the jump out of transition and now for some bit of sauce. Hold right for as long as possible and as you buffer the climbjump for the cornerboost you want to go neutral. Then downright dash as soon as you can make it past the pillar. This should be as you make it to the edge of it, see the screenshot below. Make sure to keep holding downright and have grab released to not accidentally grab the wall. Then buffer upright and cornerboost out of the room.

The neutral climbjump for the cornerboost off the pillar is because you can easily have too much speed to be able to buffer a cornerboost out of the room. Alternatively you can also release right after the downright. This loses a bit more time but can be easier.

The fastest way would be to keep holding right all the way and delay your climbjump after the upright a little. This is way tighter, so not really recommended.

Room 8

Just make sure to not upright too early to kill your speed before the cutscene trigger. Ideally you want to dash early enough that you keep the most of your speed and hit the trigger at one of the later dash frames.

Backups:

Depending on what you messed up, there can be some backups:

Room 2: you can try one of the older and harder setups like the corner corrected demohyper into buffered downright. I personally don’t recommend it as they work a bit differently and messing them up again loses even more time after all. But definitely can be an option if you’re good at it. Example video

In general not having enough speed: Sometimes adding a few cornerboosts might be able to give you enough speed to continue the normal strat. But because of what we call cornerboost RNG* you might not be able to gain speed, so this might be a very unreliable backup.

*This is not actually RNG, but depending on your position you might not get a speed boost. Your precise position is pretty much impossible to control for a human, which is why we call it RNG.

Not having enough speed into room 6: If you realise you don’t have enough speed you can release jump at the beginning of the room and bhop off the lower platform. Then you can try to horizontal cornerboost over the middle pillar in the next room and hyper bhop and wavedash into the final room like in the gif below.

With a very small jump on the cornerboost and depending on your speed, you might even be able to land on the next platform and can just jump and wavedash or demohyper out.

Messing up in any way: Just continue into a normal Awake strat. Pretty much the safest way to do after failing any part. If you get into the room with the checkpoint icon and can recover quickly you still can save a bit of time. Example of a set of standard Awake strats can be found here

Outro

If you have questions or can’t figure out issues yourself, please ask in #speedrun-help in the Celeste Discord Server preferably with a clip of you attempting the strat.

Guide made by Tiyo