Going Under – Speedrun Guide

This guide contains spoilers (duh) so don’t get butt hurt.

How to Speedrun

By Jowee

Full Game

Full Game runs are the longest and most time consuming out of all the other categories, yet they show off one’s true mastery of the game. Or it’s just a random deathless playthrough.

Setup

Full game runs are different from Impostor Mode or Individual Level runs because they are timed as an overall time and not the time presented at the end of each level, due to the different things that happen in between levels (i.e. cutscenes, buying skills, etc.). As such, if you are to run a full game, downloading a timer is in your best interests. Personally, I would recommend LiveSplit, because it is highly customizable and easy to learn. Also make sure to record your footage using something like OBS because all runs require full game footage.

The main time loss that comes from not doing anything and just going in is the loading screens. A little known fact is that you can actually decrease the amount of time between loading different floors and dungeons. This is accomplished by simply starting the game and alt+f4ing once you get to the title screen 3-5 times. Because of the amount of loading screens, this simple few second time save really adds up over the course of the run. 

The next thing you should do is to start a run on a fresh file. This is not your run, so go at your own pace. With this new file, simply complete the tutorial until you unlock Jobo 1. Next, quit out of the game to the menu, and delete the file. For some reason, any new file run on that file will skip some of the pop-up text that appears during the tutorial. With this, you should be all set up and ready to start some runs!

The Tutorial

As stated before, you should already be getting a time save during the tutorial just by starting your run on a fresh file that has beaten the tutorial in the past. The tutorial itself isn’t anything crazy, just a quick run through of things you (should) already know. When you get to the pin room, the skill you pick doesn’t really matter, unless it helps with the couple of rooms after (like scaled up). Something to remember is that Jobo weapons like the spear or sword (which should be the only types of weapons you should pick up during the tutorial) will kill any enemy you encounter in the tutorial with one charged hit and one regular hit. That being said, in rooms with 2-3 Joblins, it may just be better to swing. Make sure to use EBSS (see General Tech) to save a bit of time. 

Finally, a large time save can be achieved through the use of the Tutorial Cutscene Skip. This skip removes the need to do the last room in the Tutorial dungeon as well as skips the cutscene that immediately follows. To pull it off, you need to enter into the pause menu as you are entering the final room of the tutorial. The final room is the 6th room you enter (so 6 rooms starting from the slide room). The window for entering your menu and the dialogue with Caffiend is pretty wide so it shouldn’t be that hard. Then simply exit to Fizzle. While the loading screen for fizzle is going, you will see that Jackie and Caffiend are still talking with each other. Make sure to not exit the conversation until the post-tutorial cutscene activates. Finishing the Caffiend conversation will allow for the post-tutorial cutscene to be skipped. A video for this skip can be seen here:

Once you have this, just head over to Jobo 1. 

Pre-CWS

Joblin 1 is very straight-forward. There are a couple of things to note. First things first, jobo swords are probably your best bet for this dungeon. Always pick up the coffee pots that spawn in rooms randomly. The meat on the bone restores half a heart when needed. Always pick up skills for mentoring purposes. Money can be saved for the final room, unless there’s something good in the other shops (of course, this is just my opinion mostly because if you get stress eater, saving money for the final shop is very helpful). Just as a reminder, there is a coffee pot in the middle of the boss room.

Once you get out of Joblin and are finished spamming your way through the dialogue, run over to Swomp to get his first quest. Swomplifting is extremely good at providing sustainability and free skills throughout the run. It is imperative that you finish his quest in the next dungeon. On your way to Styx, purchase the Large and in Charge as well as the Aggressive skills on the cubit table. Both of these skills are fantastic and are a large help in later dungeons. No other skill is going to be bought for the rest of the run, because it’s a while before another good one shows up and your arsenal has a very good balance of meh and great skills. 

As stated above, obtaining Swomp 1 means an easier time later down the line. With his quest being setting 30 things on fire, it is lucky that Styx 1 has so many torches, gas lights, and other fire items. Whenever possible, grab anything on fire and try to spread it. In Styx 1, there are a couple of ways to make extra money. There’s sometimes rocks with styxcoin in them, as well as money guns that you can exploit for some extra cash. Another thing to note is that minecarts are especially useful in this dungeon, as they can act as both an instant murder tool as well as a speedy room crossing tool. You can use minecarts to clear rooms as well as get across them. When it comes to weapons, note that protractors, as well as many charged attacks can hit bats out of the air. The Aggressive and Exit Strategist charms are very powerful in this dungeon. Exit Strategist has the duping glitch which can lead to big outcomes, as well as one-shotting the drill enemies (which is also an achievement).

Aggressive is useful as the unbreakable vertical monitor benefits from the 2x buff in damage for each hit. For the Hustlebones fight, use the minecart or run to the opposite side of the room, hit the monitor once and try to stun lock Hustlebones to prevent him from starting any waves (which makes him invincible). This may be a bit tricky without Free Hand, but it still proves to work very well. Another thing to note is that if you have a high crit chance (say, through the use of Good Under Pressure), the monitor will stun 100% of the time. After finishing Styx, equip Swomp and, if applicable, any endorsed skills. Beeline straight to Winkydink. 

A large aspect of Winkydink that makes it difficult is weapons. And by that I mean the lack thereof. First room trash can should always be picked up, there is almost never anything better available. Pick up every sticky hand; they’re the most efficient at clearing normal fights because they’re able to hit the flying / teleporting enemies from basically anywhere. Hockey sticks, Fans, and spear weapons should be your go-to pick ups if there’s nothing else, as well as the fire axe if you’re lucky enough to find it. The fan’s charged attack is really fast, so make sure to spam that (It’s helpful in the rooms that are mainly just slimes).

Low hanging fruit are also alright but they break easily. Old flame is the most busted weapon you can encounter, but only really found in shops. Large & In Charge and Scaled Up (preferably both) are the best for dealing with Hover Hands. The boss is actually vulnerable while hands are up, and can be hit if you reach high enough with your attacks. This dungeon should be a lot easier with the extra health from the previous two dungeons plus Swomp. Keep an eye out for slimes that drop peaches if you’re running low on health and be cautious of the elemental hazards that dot the landscape. The main hope at this point in the run is that you have an endorsed skill before Co-Working Space. Having any skill going in is helpful, and it shouldn’t be an issue getting an endorsed skill if you’ve been using the skill duplication glitch (which you should be). 

Pre-Cubicle

Co-Working Space is an interesting part of the run. The way up to Marv is usually a mess of random weapons and enemies with little skills to help. As stated before, having an endorsed skill is necessary to get a good time for this split. The main thing you need to know for this section is basically what weapons are good. For the most part, any weapon that was good in the previous dungeons will be good for this dungeon. Any room sweep-y type weapons are also very valuable because of how big the CWS rooms are. Ranged weapons like the Jobo-Crossbow may also be helpful because of this fact.

There’s also occasionally coffee pots that spawn, so make sure you grab those for the speed and attack speed boost. The Marv boss fight is really interesting. A lot of the time it’s just better to damage tank his attacks. That being said, dodging and saving those damage moments for when he does his counter attack is the smart way to go about it. Otherwise just spam charged attacks. The Corner Cutter given to you for the fight is pretty good, but you will most likely mainly use weapons you brought with you since the Corner Cutter is kinda slow. As a note: side dodging around Marv confuses his AI or something so it is pretty frugal to do so.

Clean up with Marv and spam your way through the dialogue. Make your way over to the stairs to Cubicle to start the Ray cutscene and open up the true founder dungeons. Be cautious as to which dungeon you start with, as there’s a large time loss to be had if you enter one with the impostor standing in front of it. That being said, if you want to throw caution to the wind and save a couple of seconds, you can clip out of bounds by rolling between the potted plant and toppled over trash can by the Cubicle elevator to get to Winkydink 2 faster (pictured). Just roll in between them and then move towards the trash can. 

Because the impostor throws off the dungeon order, I will be talking about the dungeons in the order the originals go in, so Joblin, Styx and then Winky. For Jobo 2, the name of the game is dodging. There’s a lot of enemies with armor, as well as many enemies with ranged attacks. Remember to get out of the way when you hear car tire screeching noises, and keep in mind the t-shirt cannon goons and the grenade throwing guys. This dungeon punishes mindless attacking, so keep your eye peeled and your mind sharp. Remember to grab your free Swomp loot and to watch out for the coffee puddles on the ground.

A thing to start implementing is buying business cards. In Founder dungeons, some enemies have a ton of HP, and one-shotting them with a card may help save some time. Also if you have the aggressive skill the damage goes from 50 to 100. Just don’t pick up the card to avoid the cutscene afterwards. Another aspect about Founder dungeons is that you get a LOT more money than regular dungeons.

Don’t feel guilty about dropping some cash on something you want cause chances are you’ll make the money back in the next room. This is especially helpful if you have the Stress Eater skill. Sadly though, Stress Eater isn’t great here, since the final boss cutscene goes on for long enough for the effect to wear off by the time the fight starts. For the boss, it’s mostly good to just damage tank or to dodge at the last second. Be cautious when using tablet pens for stun-locking the boss. 

Styx 2 is pretty similar to Styx 1, just without the need to set things on fire for Swomp. Once again, remember you can hit the bats out of the air with charged attacks. Also, target the Josh Patellas and the Summoners first. They will make your life difficult if you don’t take care of them. Minecarts are your go to for crossing rooms and killing enemies in a pinch. Your main run killers are probably the chain chomps, try not to let them get off of the chain. Rackets are pretty good weapons, just remember that they have increased knockback, so you may waste time just catching up to enemies.

Finally, if you see money guns sitting around, you can break them for more money. Also break Styxcoin rocks if they happen to be accessible for some extra cash. The skills you are looking for are Large and In Charge and Scaled Up, since they allow you to hit Hustlebones while he’s spawning minions. This way you can deal extra damage to him without any real need to worry about dodging his giant attacks or him dodging your attacks. 

Winkydink 2 is very similar to its regular counterpart. Good weapons are tough to come by. Make sure you grab as much stuff as you can in the slide room, because you might have to fight some high HP enemies and you need everything you can get. Sticky hands are more valuable in this dungeon because of all the teleporting and floating enemies. Make sure to keep an eye out for projectiles and know when you need to dodge. Some rooms may be tough just due to the sheer number of enemies that sometimes spawn, so know when to take a step back and go in at a different angle.

Keep your eyes peeled for good weapons in the shop and make sure you get your free Swomp loot. There aren’t really any specific skills that allow for cheese in this dungeon, so the usual good stuff is what you’re looking out for. For the boss, damage tanking is a pretty good strategy. Spacing swings to hit both hands helps a lot with getting the boss done fast. With all three of the true founder dungeons down, hop back to Fizzle and head over to Ray’s office to start the cutscene, grab the final share, and head into Cubicle. Make sure to switch your endorsed skill to something useful if you need to. 

Cubicle & Avie

At the start of Cubicle, make sure to open all the boxes in the first room. Grab the two blank business cards and whatever else you want. The business cards can two shot the giant robots so for the first room you can clear out faster while you still don’t have homies to help you out. Cubicle is a lot like Co-Working Space where there’s going to be a variety of weapons to choose from, and the ones you should choose depend on your wants and how they mesh with skills. The laser cannons that drop from the drones are pretty nice, since the rooms in Cubicle are pretty big.

Once you get help from previous enemies, the rooms go by a lot faster. Just make sure to open some more boxes if you need weapons. The skills you should be going for are any damage or speed increasing skills (basically anything in “ideal” or “strong” on the Skills for Fresh File tier list). That being said, Stress Eater is not that great for this dungeon. Upcycle is especially good since you have a high likelihood of finding it along with good weapons, and you can prolong the use of the good weapons with the healing effect the app has. Just spam attacks for the most part, but be cautious since you only have 3 hearts of healing items, and you need health for the boss. 

The Marv fight is not too tough. For a good chunk of the fight you can spam attack and dodge, since Marv will be caught up fighting your goons. If you run out of weapons, remember to grab more from your fallen comrades or from the boxes lining the border of the arena. Dodging rapidly around him confuses him a lot, but for the most part he will be stuck surrounded by your homies. Clean house with Marv, grab the Union Buster, and head into the final elevator. 

You get the choice of 3 skills before fighting Avie. The main skills you are looking for are Pugilist and Unapproachable. Pugilist doubles the damage you do to Avie when you punch her in the cloud, and unapproachable also increases your Avie dps, making the fight go a lot faster. Any damage or attack speed boosting skills are valuable. The Avie fight isn’t too hard, so feel free to be liberal with your health. Retaliatory can be very nice if you choose to take this path. The main strategy is mostly just to dodge and occasionally clear paths with the Union Buster until Kara gives you the Cloud app.

A strategy you can do is (if you have Stress Eater) to wait to grab the Jobowich that Fern gives you until right before you go into the Cloud so that you have double damage for the punches. The first time you go into the Avie fight, she will do a single lunge attack, so just dodge once and then spam punches. The second time you enter the Cloud, Avie will do a shockwave attack, so don’t move all the way forward yet. She then explodes and does the lunge attack, so make sure you stay a little bit away from the explosion and dodge once for the lunge attack so you can get in with punches. Avie does this pattern every time you enter the Cloud after the second time, so get to know the timing of the three attacks. A fast Avie is 3 cycles. Time ends on the final Avie hit. Boom, just like that you’ve fully speedran the Full Game of Going Under! Congrats!

Impostor Mode

Impostor mode by itself is a tough challenge for any gamer. Speedrunning it on the other hand is a different story. You literally just clean sweep floors with a glitch item.

Pre-Monitor

To start, make sure you continue to reset your runs if Styxcoin is not the first dungeon you come across. This is a very important time save that will help out later. For Styxcoin, weapon choice is very important. You will most likely be using anything you get your hands on, but the chisel hammers and any other one handed weapons will be helpful. Charger chisel hammer shots and the second pickaxe swing can hit the bats while they are flying. Also remember that Exit Strategist can one shot the drillers if you roll under them. Make sure to use minecarts if needed, and also remember you can grab the stakes that hold Chain Chomps down to temporarily bring them to your side. Also make sure to break rocks with styxcoin in them if needed. FInally, the cubicle boxes at the end of levels do give money but no skills, making them somewhat useful but possibly skippable. 

This is all just general Styx survival tips though. One of the MOST important parts of impostor mode runs comes down to who you get from the mentor room. Do not spend money on anything until you get a mentor. This is key: RESET YOUR RUN IF YOU DO NOT GET SWOMP. Swomp makes runs SO much easier and faster. Number 1: He allows for crazy survivability. People who run full game know that Swomp just makes the run so much easier. He saves money, he gives you free skills / healing items, he’s just really that good. 

Post-Monitor

Before fighting Hustlebones, make sure to exchange all your styxcoin into regular money since your coin isn’t going to be useful later. In the boss room, make sure to ride the minecart over to the left side of Hustlebones’ couch (supposing the minecart is in an opportune location) to grab the unbreakable vertical monitor. This will be your weapon for the rest of the run. Every single skill you get in this run should be beneficial to the vertical monitor. Some of these skills include: any kind of damage buffing (go-getter, stress eater, aggressive, aggro pal, scaled up, etc.), any kind of crit boosting, free hand, large and in charge, or any other skill that may help with increasing the size, damage, or other attributes of the monitor. You can apply upcycle on the monitor to increase damage or crit rate, just remember it will heal it, so you’re going to have to get it down to low hp again to get the benefits.

The monitor will always electrocute enemies because of the game thinking the weapon is constantly breaking, so the rest of the dungeons should just be clean sweeps. Make sure to get your skills, check the shops for free Swomp drops, and generally just go fast. Like I kid you not, just rampage your way through the dungeons. Most of the time save / loss comes from the skills you get and how fast you can clear out rooms with the monitor. All the bosses except for the impostor can be stunlocked by the monitor. Even then you can still kind of stunlock the impostor, just be careful. Make sure to grab every coffee on the floor and all the caffeine boosting apps for extra speed and dps. I honestly don’t know what else to say, you basically just hope and pray for good rng and just go all doom slayer with a vertical monitor. 

General Impostor Stuff

There’s some debate on if going through with the 27 skills you get from playing the main game + the two you buy for the speedrun or the full list of skills is better. On one hand, having only the first 27 increases your chances of getting the ones that you want, but on the downside you don’t gain access to the good ones that are in the full group.

The main downside is the lack of free hand, which allows for the dps of the vertical monitor to be just about doubled from it going from a two handed weapon to a one handed one. The full list of skills also allows for the obtaining of skills like aggro pal (which is a free 2x damage boost), and break stuff move faster (which is self explanatory). The issue is that you also have the other like 90+ skills that are absolute dog butt clouding up the spawn pool. In a perfect world, the entire list would be faster, but the amount of rng might detract from using it. 

Individual Levels

The more casual side of Going Under speedrunning. Fast, simple and fun.

Overview

Best Starting SkillSkills to look out forExtra Notes
Jobo 1The current state of Jobo one sees Self Starter as the most popular choice, the double damage is really good for the weak enemies there. Exit Strategist can also be good if you get 2+ speed skills from the first end floor box.Any damage or speed boost. Nothing really too crazy is coming at you in this dungeon. Always get the coffee. The dungeon is easy enough that you should be able to skip one or two pin rooms / shops. 
Styx 1Self Starter is a nice option, but rooms are pretty large and the effect wears off pretty fast in Styx. Scaled up is a good option too, as it’s just a basic damage dealer, but it allows for certain weapons to hit the bats. While they are flying. Exit Strat is also a really strong option for the duping properties and the one shotting of certain enemies.  Free hand is really good in this dungeon, since there’s a lot of good two handed weapons.  Aggressive is really helpful for Hustlebones. Otherwise damage and speed are nice. Use the vertical monitor glitch for Hustlebones for a clean sweep of the boss. Charged attacks can hit bats in the air if you don’t have a skill to hit them. 
Winky 1Self Starter may be the best one again, since the weapon variety is lacking in this dungeon.Exit Strategist is also really good because of the skill duping properties.Scaled up / large and in charge are helpful since you’re able to hit Hover Hands with certain weapons. Disaster Proof and Thick Skin help with survivability but shouldn’t be desired if skilled enough. Also just damage boosting and speed boosting stuff is good. Always grab the hockey sticks and sticky hands. Keep an eye out for Old Flames in the shop.
Jobo 2Recruiter is currently really popular since you can effectively one shot any enemy provided you have the funds. Exit Strategist again is also a good idea for the duping.Thick Skin may be helpful with all the shooting enemies. Skills that help break armor are helpful as well. Otherwise nothing too crazy so go for (once again) damage and speed. Careful of the coffee spills on the floor and also listen for the car screeching sound to dodge. Stress Eater also doesn’t help with the boss because of the pre-fight cutscene. 
Styx 2Self Starter for damage, Exit Strategist for skill duping you know the drill by now.Free hand is super good for this dungeon. Attack and Speed again are large priorities You will NEED at least one or both of Large and In Charge or Scaled Up. You can hit Hustlebones while he’s spawning goons if you have one of these skills. Also you can pick up chain chomp stakes to make them on your side for a little bit. Money is pretty tight in this dungeon so Swomp is pretty important. 
Winky 2Self Starter is always a nice starting skill. That being said, many of the enemies in Winky 2 dodge or are hard to hit, so it may be better to stick with a more permanent buff to your damage. Exit Strat because skill duping is also a good option.Disaster Proof and Thick Skin are very good here, but if you are confident in your survivability, you may skip these. There’s not many skill based tricks for this level so just stick to the tried and true speed and damage skills. Large and in charge is good for cleaning out rooms, since sometimes Winky has rooms with lots of slimes in them. Keep in mind that slimes can steal your weapons. Watch out for floor traps. Keep a lookout for Old Flames or Ice Queens in the shop. Don’t really know what else to say, no one runs this level lol. 

General IL Stuff

When it comes to choosing a mentor for individual levels, there has been some debate as to the best one. For many of the true founder dungeons, the survivability and free stuff that Swomp gives you may be best, along with the chance that his chill room gives you the skill that gives everything an attribute. Also all of the buddies that spawn may help clear out rooms faster. Kara may also be good for the increased app drop rate (more coffee in non-jobo levels) and the chance for the level 4 apps. Ray may seem like a smart choice because of his car, but in practice it doesn’t really work out as well as just going for Swomp or another person. 

Most of the time with individual levels, the name of the game is just ignoring most things. Only grabbing weapons if they just so happen to be along your path, sometimes skipping pin rooms or shops. Most of the time gain / loss comes from skill rng, enemy rng, and room rng though. Make as little stops as possible and try to clear out rooms as efficiently as possible. Luckily, all individual levels are short (>10 mins), so it’s not as bad if your run isn’t perfect, since you can just boot up another quick one. These categories are more laid back, so have fun with it. 

Finally, for some more skill tips. One of the most useful skills for speed is to move fast and break stuff (and to a lesser extent, go-getter). This skill is nuts once you get it going. It synergises well with unapproachable. Aggro pal is also a really good skill, since the buff it gives you lasts a pretty long time and is a free 2x to attack. Stress eater is a very good skill but may not be useful for individual levels since money is pretty scarce. May be good when used with Swomp since he gives out free food sometimes. Recruiter is also a very valid and pretty good option for True Founder dungeon ILs.

It effectively one shots harder enemies at the cost of money but you get so much money from true founder dungeons anyways that’s it’s a pretty good option. Can also be used for regular dungeons, but it’s not as effective. The trend that seems to be popping up ever since Pungulator discovered the ability to more easily obtain 3 skills or higher from end of level cubes is to start with Exit Strategist and skip everything except maybe pin rooms and ride off of the drops from end of level boxes. Exit Strategist can also get you free money from breaking briefcases so if you have a skill like Recruiter or Financial Gains you can get a lot more out of it.

General / Niche Tech

(Important for wr attempts) sabertwooth’s skill manipulation 

How It Works

When a skill is newly unlocked, its progress towards endorsement starts at 0%. After using it in a run, the progress will go up. However, the game seems to be coded to ALWAYS give you a 0% skill first over any other skill in the pool during a run. Example: If there are 3 skills newly unlocked (0%), they will show up first in rooms over any other skill, INCLUDING THOSE >0%.

With this in mind, if we keep essential skills like Free Hand and Go-Getter at 0%, they will always appear in item rooms first.

-Say you have 5 skills at 0% in your skill pool. This is how the game will distribute them throughout a run:

  • 2 in skill room, 1 in shop, 1 in end battle cubicle box, and then the last skill should appear in the next floor in one of those places along with other >0% skills.

If Ray is your mentor, that last skill will instead go in his meditation room, making Ray Mentor MUCH MORE VIABLE. He will also allow you to buy whatever skill is in the shop with his company card ability, for a potential of 4 essential skills on 1st floor (possibly more if you decide to go into crippling debt and reroll the shop, but I wouldn’t recommend it)!

Going Under is a rough game to speedrun because of skill RNG and room RNG. With this, both of these aspects are alleviated (room RNG less so, you’ll still deal with that lol), making runs much more consistent and more execution based.

This is the lineup of skills I used in my first runs using this exploit:

  • Self-Starter as pinned skill
  • Free Hand, Scaled Up, Go-Getter, Beggar Queen, Move Fast and Break Things, Wear Many Hats

Wear Many Hats paired with Beggar Queen and any of the costumes with hats (Joblin Jackie is the coolest) is already a +6 to your damage. Pick up Free Hand and Move Fast, you’re blowing through the level.

Other skills that could be taken into consideration:

  • Large & In Charge (Notably for TF Hustlebones fight), Aggressive (CRUCIAL for Impostor mode and normal Hustlebones), Financial Gains (Not ideal imo but could work), Exit Strategist (For exit strat duping), Pugilist (speed and damage buffs could unironically make punching a good strat, but needs testing).

The Bad News:

  • Since you must keep your desired skills at 0%, you have to backup your save and replace it every time you either finish a run or abandon to Fizzle. You can quit to title and it will not save your progress. Still annoying though.
  • Setting this up is a lot of work. You have to buy your way through the skill pool until you get all the skills you need, then use every other junk skill to get them over 0% while NOT using any of your essential skills. And beat the game again.
  • Swomp has competition for mentor for once. Ray the GOAT.

This exploit also works in Impostor Mode (but I don’t like running it (yet)) You can check out my runs on Speedrun.com to see it in action in ILs. Needless to say, not viable for fresh file runs. 

With this tech in mind, Full Game runs are going to be required to pick up as many skills as possible in order to be able to achieve a pinned skill pre-CWS. This involves every pin room, end of floor cube, and 2 to 3 shop skills. Of course this can be thwarted by skill duping a skill 3+ times to instantly endorse it, but is something to keep in mind. This also means that if you pick up a skill, it will NOT reappear in the dungeon until you have picked up enough skills to minimize the not ever picked up skill pool.  

End of Battle Slowdown Skip (EBSS): By spamming the focus button as soon as you kill the final enemy in the room, it will negate the slow down effect that happens during the final kill in a room. You are also still able to move so you can head to the next room faster. This is a small time save, but with the amount of rooms you go through, the time save really does build up. Not as useful for single dungeon runs but still very nice.

Costumes that stack with many hats skill: Some costumes actually stack with the many hats skill, starting you with 2 extra damage instead of 1. This is good for runs that are using all of the skills instead of the 27 you use in full game. 

Counts towards many hats

  • miner/styxcoin
  • contracter/joblin
  • flirt/winkydink
  • the soldier/masked

Doesn’t count towards many hats

  • the intern/default
  • the haunt/hauntrepreneur
  • the zoomer
  • the fool/clown
  • the uncanny/realistic
  • the crustacean/crab
  • the impostor

Infinite Coffee: Although very unlikely and frame perfect, if you have the retaliatory skill and are hit on the same frame that you pick up a coffee pot, the jittery effect will never run out. Not very useful for runs, but may have potential for future Jobo 1 Individual Level runs. 

Skill Duping: If you have the Exit Strategist skill and roll under the end of the room skill drone, it will make the drone drop two skills. Most of the time, the effects of multiple of the same skill stacks. An example is if you could get multiples of the Break Items Move Fast skill and zoom through a level. If you are able to use this strategy to obtain more than one skill per level in a Full Game run, you can endorse the skill very fast.

As recently discovered by Pungulator, you can roll under the flap of a just opened box with Exit Strategist to dupe the contents inside of it. This means that you can dupe ANY box’s contents. This method, although more time consuming, has the ability to net you 2+ skills. Having 3 or 4 skills can make your runs a whole lot faster, and so the time gain compared to time loss is most of the time worth it.

Warning: if you have any size changing skills, the skill duping for going under the drone will not work. 

Get Pedestal Briefcases for Free: Also discovered by Pungulator, you can also use Exit Strategist to instantly get money briefcases in pedestal rooms without having to activate the rooms fight. So if you have Exit Strategist and you see a room like that, it’s a free 50 dollars.

Unbreakable Weapons: Any item in Going Under can technically be unbreakable. While the reasoning behind unbreakable items is still unknown*, you can get things that are near unbreakable. With a high enough attack speed through the use of coffee and the attack speed up weapon buff, you can attack cancel a weapon before the game registers durability but after the attack is thrown out. The timing is tight, but if you switch weapons right after the weapon hits, you will negate the durability being applied to the weapon. Since this trick involves coffee, it is really useful for Jobo 1, especially with the coffee pot in the boss room since you can use the tablet pen to stunlock the boss. Otherwise the coffee buff app would suffice. Again, this isn’t a 100% success rate unless you can hit multiple near frame perfect inputs. 

There is an exception to the “No truly unbreakable weapon” thing. In the Styx 1 boss room, there is a vertical monitor to the left of Hustlebones that you aren’t technically supposed to pick up. Once you wack it once, you have to rub up against Hustlebone’s couch area and snatch up the monitor. The monitor will never break. Since it is an electronic item it will shock when it breaks, which because it’s unbreakable, is every hit. With this you can stunlock the boss. It also gains the breaking buff from the aggressive skill. The item is pretty janky, so if it starts pushing you around or anything just unequip it and equip it again. You cannot drop the monitor. This weapon DEFINES Impostor mode runs, and less useful but still pretty useful in Full Game and Individual Level runs. This weapon is NOT considered an actual vertical monitor in the case the skill that buffs damage for having the same item in your inventory is being used.

* There is a very rare chance that an item will be unbreakable without any kind of input, the reason for this is still unknown.

Other Tips and Tricks

  • Hitting X + A on the controller makes text go by faster. Similar effect on keyboard by spamming spacebar as fast as possible.
  • Endorsed skills are cheaper in shops
  • Stress Eater stacks, the more food the more damage (busted due to boss killing potential)
  • Good Under Pressure + Disruptive stunlocks when you’re on half a heart
  • Heavy attacks (holding down attack) is generally better since you can aim, it does double damage, and you can cancel the attack if need be 

Things to Pickup

Skills for Fresh File

  • Ideal: These skills are strong, if not optimal, in almost any situation.
  • Exit Strategist: Allows skill duping. It’s not something you want as a floor 3 reward, or in a pre-boss shop, but if you get it at the right time or if it’s endorsed, it makes dungeons fly by. See the General / Niche Tech for more on why this skill is busted. Has extra benefit in Styxcoin where you can one-shot the big dudes (Powerloaders?) by crawling under them.
  • Unapproachable: Always decent damage upgrade. Helps with armored enemies, AoE situations, and even scales with other damage upgrades like Scaled Up, Stress Eater, and Scaled Up.
  • Stress Eater: Even if it’s not always active, you can purchase some food on most floors, and some enemies drop it (jobo sandwiches, melk, peach). Saving up for pre-boss shop works too, except in Joblin 2 (effect doesn’t last through the long cutscene).
  • Strong: These skills are useful in most situations.
  • Scaled Up: Extra damage and increased size is basically two boons in one. +1 strength doesn’t always break any breakpoints though. Extremely valuable in Winkydink1 bossfight.
  • Large & In Charge: Increased size helps a lot in normal encounters. Extremely valuable in Winkydink1 bossfight.
  • Retaliatory: Turns out it’s quite useful in almost any dungeon. Getting hit is going to happen eventually, and the buff solves tough situations. Tanking hits that don’t knock you back increases your damage by quite a bit in boss fights.
  • Go-Getter: Increased move speed alone is helpful in any situation. Faster attacks for slightly higher DPS and easier time handling tough situations in true founder dungeons.
  • Situationally strong: Skills that might be optimal, but only under specific circumstances.
  • Aggressive: The thing you’re looking for in Styxcoin 1 the most. Doubles broken vertical monitor damage. It’s also useful in other situations where you go through a lot of weapons — normal fights, and long boss fights, like Winkydink1 & 2.
  • Pugilist: Ideal in Avie bossfight since it gives your punches +1 damage. Not useful anywhere else really. Even if you’re able to dupe it once or twice, it’s not exactly stronger than an average weapon.
  • Good Under Pressure: Strong in situations where you are confident enough you won’t get hit again. Mostly Styxcoin1 boss fight or when you also have Disruptive, or you’re able to gain armor at 1-2 hp.
  • Composed: Strong with Relentless. It also provides a lot of safety for true founder dungeons, where it’s otherwise possible to get chain-hit for 3-4 damage. Also quite good in the first marv fight, so you don’t have to waste quite as much time dodging attacks, or getting knocked back.
  • Disruptive: Strong with Good Under Pressure, but that’s mostly it. Can be decent with caffeine and/or Penny Puncher, but it can also cause a softlock if it procs during boss phasing animations, which is kind of problematic.
  • Somewhat beneficial – Skills you don’t wish to see, but have a positive effect, either damage or survival wise.
  • Penny Puncher: +10% crit chance is not nothing, but there are better options for damage.
  • Clap Back: Helps in true founder dungeons, so you won’t get chain-hit quite as much. Also deals some AoE damage.
  • Bloodsucker: Helps with survivability. Not helpful with speed.
  • Vindictive: Also helps with survivability. Also not helpful with speed.
  • Charismatic: Cheaper shops, but the effect doesn’t seem to be very impactful.
  • Cubicle Membership Card: Gives you slightly more money from crates. Ok, but the amount is negligible and there’s many better skills. Still free money I guess.
  • Fail Forward: Helps with survivability. Also provides a damage buff after it procs.
  • Intimidating: Knocks down enemies sometimes. Doesn’t work on enemies that spawn with a delay (co-work space). Also enemies don’t approach you to attack them faster, but can help with survivability. Overall quite weak.
  • Agile: Makes dodging skills slightly faster, and perhaps safer. Mostly not very noticable.

Not Useful – These skills hardly provide anything meaningful in a speedrun

  • Overprotective: Overhealing is hardly ever going to happen with Swomp 1 as the only mentor perk.
  • She Don’t Miss: Throwing items in general is quite weak without specific skills we don’t get to unlock in Fresh File, and I swear it’s still possible to miss even with this skill.
  • Scrappy: Unfortunately weapons classified as junk are quite weak and almost never get used.
  • Room for Growth: Healing is expensive. Usually you can’t get enough of it to fill the extra heart.
  • Resourceful: Might be useful with black cubes, but they are quite rare.

Avoid – Actively bad

Bomb Dropper: Usually ends up making fights harder because the bombs also hurt Jacklyn. 5 damage simply isn’t high enough where it makes up for the extra difficulty and risk. Potentially pickable in the first set of dungeons where you aren’t worried of dying, simply so you won’t see it again on the next floor.

Full game skills tier list and guide by Bablo, slightly tweaked by Jowee because of newer information.

Apps in General

Instant Pickup – Helpful in just about any situation

  • Upcycle: Heal Weapons and gives them a buff. Not great if you get the Smart buff but really good if you get literally anything else.  
  • MobFlash: Super good. Allows you to stun lock anything you want. Works great with bosses and large enemies, as well as helping with large groups. 
  • Jitter: Free speed and attack speed. Super good for speedrunning for obvious reasons. 

Pretty Good – Pretty Useful

  • WinkedIn: Free spammable damage, good for whittling down the health of large enemies. Good with bosses, but outclassed by the stun locking abilities of MobFlash
  • JoblinSquad: Distracts enemies and deals damage. Only downside is that it might draw enemies far away from you, losing time when you need to clean up. 
  • StyxRoad: Invincibility and damage. Doesn’t really do a lot of damage but helpful in a pinch. 

Useful but not great – most of these are outclassed or niche

  • CoupSnoop: Helpful but less helpful after you unlock Swomp. Usually it’s better to carry other apps, but this one is good to have if nothing else is around.
  • TubeYou: Just a worse JoblinSquad. 
  • SelfCare: Helpful for survivability but the time lost from standing still is not great for runs. 
  • WheresApp: Helps for beelining your way to the end, but like the dungeons are pretty linear anyways so it’s not too useful. 
  • CubicleReverb: Just a worse WinkedIn. Okay for large groups. Kinda nutty in Cubicle. 
  • CubicleNOW: It’s just not great. Sure you get a weapon but like you have to wait for the box and the weapon usually isn’t better than the stuff you find lying around. 

Which Curses are Worth? By Bablo

In general, evaluating curse vs rewards is tough. There are a couple of hard rules you can keep in mind, but unless the curse isn’t free, or isn’t totally abysmal, you’ll have to quickly process the pros vs cons on the spot. Crazy weapons like The Old Flame are often the best thing you can find, so be prepared to take a not-so-great curse to get them. Personally though, there are a couple of bad curses I’m never willing to take.

Take always

  • Burnout: The best curse. Literally free as long as you remember to keep your analog tilted or movement button pressed down. As long as there are any rewards you can utilize, take this one always.

Situational

  • Brain freeze & Distraction: Focusing is not necessary to do well, although hitting enemies gets tricky if you’re holding spears or guns.
  • Tunnel vision: You might miss out on some items, apps traps, etc. but still pickable.
  • Self-Centeredness: Kinda tough to play with ngl. But in theory it’s fine to pick up.
  • Womenswear: Usually you can find enough weapons to make this work. Just make sure you pick up a fresh item before entering a new combat. It can screw up your plans of holding a specific weapon for boss fights though.
  • Non-Disclosure: Lasts long, but isn’t necessary all that bad if you have a good feel for how big of a beating enemies need to take in order to die.
  • Employee Benefits: If you can kill enemies very fast, it’s not really problematic to pick this one up. However, dealing with an elite when you don’t have a strong setup is hard enough even without them healing, so definitely don’t take this curse blindly into any situation.
  • Brick Walls: This one can get a little bit more tough to take in True Founder dungeons, where the enemies are harder to deal with in general. But if you have strong skills & weapons, you may not need to stun enemies at all.
  • Busywork: Always a bit of a timeloss, but most curses are in one way or another. This one perhaps a bit more than some other ones. But if the reward is something great, like a weapon that can deal with the boss much more efficiently, the curse might be optimal to pick up.
  • Butterfingers: In most fights you need to roll, so it’s a bit of a time loss to pick the dropped weapons back up or swap to other weapons. Unless you have a crazy setup that allows you to one-shot enemies. 
  • Void Warranty: Be prepared to cycle through a lot of weapons in the next three combats. Combos quite well with Aggressive skill. However, if you’re holding one or two durable S-tier weapons, you may want to skip this one.
  • Frozen Assets: The freeze effect is quite annoying ngl. It lasts for five combats, and pretty much automatically loses you a lot of seconds because of the slower running speed. Might even hurt your combat capabilities. However, it’s still pickable, but you probably want the rewards to be on the strong side.

Terrible

  • Postmortem: Not only does it last 5 combats, and the effect hurts you, but on top of that it’s very buggy, and not to your benefit. Sometimes it lasts longer, and enemies don’t drop any money. It’s almost never worth it to take this curse.
  • The Graduate: It’s quite bad. Slows you down *a lot* between combats, and can possibly even get you killed in combat since you can’t position yourself quite as well.
Egor Opleuha
About Egor Opleuha 4461 Articles
Egor Opleuha, also known as Juzzzie, is the Editor-in-Chief of Gameplay Tips. He is a writer with more than 12 years of experience in writing and editing online content. His favorite game was and still is the third part of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic saga. He prefers to spend all his free time playing retro games and new indie games.

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