Bootcamp

A bootcamp is a map that tests a user's mastery of platforming techniques and is typically very difficult to complete. A bootcamp must be completed without a shaman's help and involves extensive use of skills such as walljumping (WJ) and corner jumping (CJ) in order to pass various obstacles. Stats are not added in the game mode.

Rules of Bootcamping

To officially play and complete a bootcamp map, mice must follow a certain set of rules.

• The map must be completed without the aid of the shaman.
• Mice may not stand by corners making it difficult for other mice to corner jump.
• Suicide must be committed if stuck in a position in which it is impossible to recover and complete the map.
• Spam requests to the moderator to change or reset the map, play music, change the shaman, etc. are not allowed.
• There must be at least 6 mice including you for the bootcamp win to be official (i.e. to win titles).

Bootcamp Rooms

Any room with "bootcamp" in it's name becomes a bootcamp room. Bootcamp rooms run for 6:00 per round, and play only approved bootcamp maps. The most interesting feature is that every 15 seconds, dead mice and mice that joined the room after the start of the round automatically respawn. This may cause respawn lag.

History

Previous to the /bootcamp update, active bootcamping rooms relied on a bot moderator who automatically sets the room's map to a bootcamp map and recorded times. The system for bots was to take over the shaman position, keep the same map for a certain amount of rounds, during the end of which the bot would ask though moderation for mice to vote to continue to play this map, or to skip to the next one. Mice vote by whispering the bot either extend or skip. The bot was also able to be asked rules and help. Bots did not move or respond to any other requests. Bots included Bootmouse, Redobear, Testmodbot, Mapeditor, Xop, and others.

There were 4 actively held bootcamp rooms, bootcamp1 through bootcamp4; Occasionally more rooms (Bootcamp5) were created to accommodate numbers of mice.

Problems

The primary issue with the bot system was that there was there could be nearly a 2 minute wait between each round, and considering the difficulty of the bootcamp maps, most mice died by the first corner jump. Most of the time bootcamping was spent cheering on the few surviving mice, who most often died eventually as well. Another issue was that once there was one mouse left on the map, the time was reduced to 20 seconds, often causing the last mouse to run out of time before reaching the hole.

Bootcamping obstacles

Bootcamp maps require the three basic skills of walljumping, the act of jumping up a wall; corner jumping, the act of jumping off a corner; and airjumping, the act of jumping in midair. Most maps, however, also require extended versions of these skills.

Wall pegs (AKA overhangs)

Very commonly, walls have blocks in them that need to be jumped around and on top of, most commonly made of wood. Mice must walljump farther than they normally would from the wall so that they can turn around and grab onto the peg. Wall pegs are often placed on the wall in a series and have many different variations. Most wall pegs are wooden; others are made of ice with pointed ends, while more are angled or made of chocolate.

Wall pegs are usually passed in a similar way.

1. Walljump into the corner of the peg and wall. This often means purposefully falling slightly to time your jump so that you reach the corner at the height of your jump. Otherwise you may fall short, by a low jump or bouncing off the peg. Depending on the length of the peg, you are given some leeway as to how far into the corner you must be. A short 10px peg, for instance, barely requires that you be near the corner.
2. Quickly fall away from the wall. Continuing to hold onto the wall for too long and your mouse will slide down, causing your jump into the peg to fall short.
3. Jump to the level of the peg. This must be timed so you do not hit your head on the peg and bounce off, fall too far away from the wall and not be able to recover, or fall too far down to grab the peg.
4. Turn back towards the wall and grab the peg. Remember, just like all walljumps, you must be falling when you hit the wall in order to get the running animation and reset your jump ability. This might mean that you release the key for a moment, allowing your mouse to begin falling before hitting the peg.
5. Walljump the peg. One jump usually does it.

Turn-around

The turn around is a common bootcamp obstacle, requiring an extention of airjumping and walljumping skills. It is the act of going under and around a floating wall in order to walljump on the other side of the wall. Platforms that require turn-arounds are commonly called underhangs or overhangs. These are often tipped with a block of chocolate to make the turn-around easier.

Turn-arounds are done by holding the arrow key towards the wall and slowly sliding down and off the wall. A timed airjump is done when sufficiently under the wall, launching the mouse diagonally up to the other side where they then hit the arrow key towards the wall, grabbing the other end of the wall, and allowing them their jump back.

To quicken their times, mice can often release the arrow key temporarily to fall sooner under the wall. Mice may also ignore the sliding portion of passing a turn-around and simply drop under the wall. This is dangerous and requires a thin turnaround with few other mice and little lag.

The Turn-around was originally called the W-J Shift (Wall Jump Shift) and was created by a mouse named Oaix. The map editor was released as part of update 0.63 on August 22, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1vg57etiIU&feature=channel_video_title

Note that the video was posted on August 31, 2010, 9 days after. Because no record of any turn-around of W-J Shift exists during that 9 day period, Oaix is first credited with the W-J Shift, later to be known as the turnaround.

Advanced Turnarounds

Variations of the turnaround include those that must be done with cheese, without a choco-tip, or are simply very long. These are often much more difficult than a regular turn-around.

• A chocolate-less, or choco-less, turn-around, requires firstly that mice must both fall down and under the wall much more quickly, and that they must be falling when they hit the wall. With these, mice must jump sooner once under the wall, while avoiding hitting their head and bouncing off. The return to the other end is perhaps the most difficult part of the the chocolate-less underhang. Knowing that they've fallen lower on the wall than usual, mice tend to get back to the wall as soon as possible. This often means that they hit the wall early and not falling, and they then slide off when they attempt to walljump. A successful choco-less turnaround is often done precariously walljumping near the bottom corner of the wall.

• Doing a turnaround with cheese requires more precision due to the weight of the cheese giving your mouse more inertia and making it very difficult to turn back and hit the wall after jumping under. When sliding down, mice should periodically release the arrow key in order to slide down. Near the bottom, be set to hold it for longer so that you may fall under and jump diagonally to the other side, immediately hitting the arrow key towards the wall.

• Long turnarounds force you to do the jump under at a very precise moment. While regular turnarounds let you jump early in your fall, longer turnarounds force you to jump after fallen quite a way. If not timed correctly, mice may fall too far to reach it, or jump too soon and bounce off.

Trampoline walljumping

Frictional trampolines can be walljumped off of. Depending on the restitution of the trampoline, this can be done by either walljumping normally, or without the need to hit the key going away from the wall.

Trampoline speed

Some maps rely on running into a trampoline wall in order to gain speed to reach the next obstacle. Because trampolines bounce mice back at inconsistent speeds, mice generally run back and forth, hitting it and immediately running away, until they find that it bounced them back at a sufficient speed.

Ball jumps

A few bootcamp maps force mice to use anchored balls as trampolines to bounce to higher heights. These are generally done the same way as one would reach height on a trampoline: jumping at the height of your bounce.

Bounce-to

The choco cannot be reached unless mice utilize the bounce to get from falling in order to assist their jump. These mice have failed and are partying.

Bootcamp maps are increasing forcing players to use the tiny bounce from falling in order to reach the height necessary. By falling, mice can create their own trampoline-like bounce, from which they must immediately jump off of to reach the neccesary platform. Mice may create their own bounce without a large fall by jumping and jumping again: the second jump will be slightly higher. In some maps, this is required.

Long jump

A long jump lets you jump farther from the top of a ledge, allowing one to safely make longer jumps. To longjump, stand at the edge of a corner until your mouse stops moving. Then run and jump. The closer you are to the edge, the farther you'll go. This doesn't work as well with cheese.

Wall push

A wallpush is an advanced technique which gives you a tramplike boost when jumping off a wall, letting you travel greater distances. Wall pushing is required for a few maps and many more shortcuts. To wallpush you must change directions just before you touch the wall, then jump. If successful you'll notice that you go much farther.