by Finn, Grade 7
(WARNING: This does contain spoilers for areas in Slime Rancher. If you don’t want to be spoiled, I would recommend playing Slime Rancher before reading this.)
Slime Rancher. Known for being a cute resource management game with collecting slimes and trying to sell their plorts, that’s what Slime Rancher is to most people. But, there is an actual story underneath its cute surface with a way to activate the credits. So, when credits are to be obtained, there are speedruns. So while the spirit of the game is still seen in categories like trying to fill the entire Slimepedia, we’re going to be looking at the Any% Glitchless category and all the interesting movement and techniques it brings with it.
To show you the true potential of the game, we must take our business to speedrun.com, the hub for most speedruns currently. So, as we take a look, we find ThePigKing with the current world record of 12:51, and that’s in minutes and seconds. The goal of this speedrun is to activate the credits as fast as you can like with most of them. So, let’s watch and see his techniques.
So, immediately as soon as they gain control, they’re running in the direction of a Gordo, collecting fruits along the way. These Gordos are scattered throughout the map and are each different types of slimes, with the first one being a Pink Gordo. These Gordos then give Slime Keys, which are used to unlock other areas needed to get to the credits, but only a few of these Gordos actually have them. So, as they get to the Gordo, they feed it, take the key, and move onto the next section.
I forgot to mention this but along the way there’s one thing they always need to keep track of: Stamina. Stamina has a little blue electric bar underneath the health and shows how long you can run or use your Jetpack for. If you run out of Stamina, you begin to walk and your Jetpack doesn’t work. So, to avoid using Stamina, wasting time, or even needing to get jetpacks, ThePigKing uses slimes to shoot themselves upwards to skip sections or long waits. This technique is used throughout the run a lot and I’ll just refer to it as Slime Climbing, which really shows how much potential this game has as a speedrun since you have to constantly control variables like Stamina or how much food or slimes you have.
After some small movement and Slime Climbing, they shoot a slime and jump on it, constantly pulling it back to them and letting them fall and repeating until they make it to a pile of rocks to skip a large section of movement. This is another technique that will be used again later in this run, so let’s call it Slime Jumping.
After inserting the Slime Key into a door, they begin to Slime Jump over a wall, skipping a cutscene or section of waiting. After some more tight movement, they then collect Mint Mangos, a type of food in that area and feed it to nearby Honey Slimes to get their plorts for something we’ll get back to in a bit. Then, they collect some Boom Slimes and keep them on them for that section I was talking about. After collecting some Cuberries, they enter the conveniently placed teleporter to the ranch and then begin what I believe is the most interesting part of the speedrun.
After coming to the ranch, they begin the money gathering process. “But why would you do that, it kind of seems like a waste of time! A speedrun is meant to go fast, right?” you may be asking. Well, here, you need the money to buy gardens and Stamina upgrades needed to make certain parts of the map accessible. So, here’s how you do it: Using your remaining money you buy a garden and put your Mint Mangos in there, this will be important later. Then you put your Boom Slimes in a corner and feed them Honey Plorts, we’ll also get back to this later. Taking a nearby Pink Slime and throwing off a cliff is NECESSARY since if it eats a plort its not compatible with it turns into a hostile slime, and hostile slimes waste time. Then just take a casual 48 hour nap, checking your emails constantly. Also collect Pogofruit. Alright, you got your sleep? Good. Go outside and check on your now Honey Boom Largos which have produced loads of plorts while you were gone. Throw out 3 of them but leave Jim near the plort collector, we’ll need Jim later. Collect the plorts and food and sell the plorts on the stock market-like plort collector. Get around $2,800 (If you don’t, sleep for another 48 hours and run’s dead.) and make another garden. IT’S SO PRETTY BUT WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO APPRECIATE NATURE WE’RE HERE TO GET IT OVER WITH. Throw a Cuberry in it. Make another garden and throw another Cuberry in it. Then, time for another 48 hour nap, constantly checking your emails again. Wake up, go to the upgrades and buy the Jetpack, Water Tank, Power Core, and Tank Booster. You’re slightly faster now congrats. Collect the berries and mangos and destroy the mango garden since it didn’t look cool anyways. Leave and never look back. And that’s the end of my favorite segment, I don’t know if you can tell since I really like the concept of resource management in a speedrun.
After some more movement and collecting carrots and a Rock Slime (You’ll need him for later.) and jump off a cliff and land in a cave. Feed the Phosphor Gordo until they give up and give ThePigKing the next Slime Key. Do this while feeding the Rock Slime a Carrot. After collecting its plort, they throw it in the ocean since they didn’t matter anyways. Then, feed the Phosphor Slimes that appeared berries and collect their plorts/ Also take one for later.
Remember the one they just took? Well, they use him to Slime Climb back up and continue. Grab the box you also took and after a little bit, they do a variation of Slime Jumping called Box Jumping, which is the same thing but in a different area but with a box. Moving on, climb up a hill and feed the Honey Gordo. Take the key and move on.
Grab a Tabby Slime while running, they also need them for later. Jetpack to a near ledge and throw the Tabby Slime. Collect a hen and throw it at the Tabby Slime. Collect their plort, insert the key to the door nearby to move on. Also leave them there. Throw the plorts you’ve been collecting into their respective slime statues. Go to the other nearby wall and enter the other key. Then, Emergency Escape home. After sleeping, sleep again. Check your email and leave. Buy the second forms of the Tank Booster and Power Core. Congrats, you’re slightly faster. Again. Collect the fruits and destroy one of the gardens and take its remains. Go to the plort collector and take Jim and hold onto him. Jim might block your view but good thing he’s mostly see-through. Throw him and remove another garden and collect those remains. Do that again. Grab Jim and Slime Jump over a wall, moving on to the big door again.
After some more tight platforming, they collect Rad Plorts and Slime Jump with Jim. After jetpacking over a gap, they throw Jim and collect fruits and feed them to Jim to get the remaining plorts needed. After inserting all of the plorts and the slimes at the gates start singing, we go to the Ancient Ruins and Slime Climb over one last wall, where we unfortunately have to say goodbye to Jim.
After activating a button, we then feed the food we brought with us to the Quantum Gordo, where we once again collect the Slime Key and the plorts. After finding a large room, we throw Quantum Plorts into statues, which for plot convenience brings us to the past or something like that. After Slime Climbing up a cliff, we feed our last Gordo with remaining food. We collect the Slime Key and move on deeper to the area. After more tight movement and stuff like that, we activate the only required lore spot and Emergency Escape home.
After that, the run is basically over, as you just need to sleep a few times and check your emails to end the run, giving ThePigKing a final time of 12:51.
Well, that got off topic fast, but hopefully that summary shows you what Slime Rancher speedrunning is all about. Through tight movement and resource management all combining to make one amazing one, it’s definitely interesting to me, and I hope its now interesting to you.