Hello everyone! I’m Laurent Mercure, community manager at Frima. Last fall, we launched our latest game, Chariot, on PS4, and we were thrilled to have the PlayStation community embrace it! With Chariot, we wanted to make a game that was accessible and that players of different skill levels could play together and have a good time. My colleague Phil explained his vision in a previous post: Chariot, Bringing Gamers Together.
However, being seasoned gamers ourselves, we always envisioned a more hardcore side for Chariot as well. We wanted to give skilled players a worthy challenge to tackle. This is the idea that spawned the Speedrun mode for each level.
Speedrunning levels in Chariot and scoring the gold medal isn’t easy. Even the timers in level 1-1 are pretty unforgiving. We know that a lot of dedicated PlayStation players are Trophy hunters, so I’m here to teach you a few tricks to help you get the Greased Lightning trophy (Getting gold in all 25 levels).
1. Always Be Winding Up
Don’t just drag the Chariot around with your rope at full length. Keeping the rope short will help you make certain jumps, while winding up will allow you to speed up the Chariot, even on a flat surface. Keep a distance from the Chariot, then attach your rope and wind up while walking. The Chariot will gain more speed than your character, so you can jump on it while it passes and just ride it. When walking uphill, try jumping ahead of the Chariot every time you wind up to speed up your ascension.
2. The Ropes Are Elastic
The royal engineers used a little bit of rubber while designing the Chariot’s ropes. Try using this to your advantage. When the weight of the Chariot feels like it’s dragging you down, try playing with the length of the rope a bit. If you wind it up rapidly after it reaches its maximum length, the Chariot will be launched upward, making it easier to get from platform to platform. Remember to anchor your character when you do that, however, otherwise you might have to start all over again.
3. Cut Through the Walls
In some levels, the regular path has you taking the long way around to get the momentum necessary to break a brittle wall. If you’re equipped with the Repulsor, the Canary or even the Sprint Boots, you can cut directly through these walls and save a huge amount of time. This advice is device-dependent however, which brings up the next tip.
4. Choose Your Gadget Wisely
Some levels are mostly flat, some levels are all about going up, and other levels are mazes riddled with shortcuts. It’s crucial that you choose your gadget accordingly. The Sprint Boots may seem like the most pertinent gadget for a speedrun, but having more raw speed may end up causing you to fall off narrow ledges. In levels with a lot of death rails, the Repulsor can increase your speed. On levels with a lot of platforming, an Attractor double jump can let you skip entire areas. Trial and error will teach you which gadget is the best for each level.
5. Upgrade Those Gadgets
I kept the most important tip for the end. You absolutely must upgrade your gadgets, as they will have a major impact on your speedrun times. Not only will an upgraded gadget have a greater effect, but its cooldown will be reduced, allowing you to use it more often. That’s true for all the gadgets except the Peg… you don’t really need to upgrade the Peg for speedruns.
If you keep these five tips in mind, getting a gold medal in every level (except maybe the hidden level) will be a breeze. If you’re the competitive type, though, getting the gold isn’t the end goal; you can compete with other players on the online leaderboards. There are already some pretty impressive times on the PlayStation leaderboards!
If these tricks got you interested in speedrunning Chariot, take note that we’re launching a worldwide co-op Speedrun contest today, and the stakes are pretty high. You can find out more about the competition directly on our website. We will be streaming on our Twitch channel this evening between 5pm and 7pm Eastern to show you a couple more tricks.
Lastly, if you’re in the Boston area next week, we’ll be at PAX East in booth 10057. Come say hi and show us your speedrunning skills! Thanks for reading!
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