I was recently introduced to speed running community and decided I'd like to give it a try myself. SHODN is the game I chose to get started, because it is super fun and because it's new and has not already been thoroughly picked apart by other speed runners. I'm no expert on this game, so following list will not be exhaustive. I have not unlocked every weapon either. Just a series of strategies I have found to make consistently blazing through a randomly generated game such as this doable. A lot of this is applicable to normal play speed as well:

Killing things with the quickness

Melee Weapons:

There are two choices I think work best for speed. Nunchucks+ and whip. Nunchucks+ have fast (enough) attack for all applications where you would need the regular attack as opposed to the downwards dive. They also reflect projectiles, which is particularly useful in Abarghus fight. Whip has, i think, the fastest normal attack in the game (crouching regular attack), but does not reflect projectiles. Because dive attack kills everything in one shot regardless of chosen weapon, there's no need for a weapon that kills in one hit from the normal attack.

Update 18/03/13- If you get very lucky with the positioning of the floating purple bit during Aberghus fight, you can significantly speed this fight up by doing crouching attack repeatedly with whip provided floating bit leaves you within range to hit him.

Ranged weapons:

I use the non-upgraded boomerang for several reasons: 1. You don't have to worry about inventory stock with it, 2. the shorter range on the normal boomerang can result in extra hits on stationary bosses (Doom and Abarghus). Upgraded boomerang flies too far and takes too long to return to get the extra hits consistently on Doom. 3. The shorter range will also increase the average number of times you can throw it during a run through a level, as it returns to your hand faster. 4. It comes out instantly at close range. I will explain the importance of that below.

There is, however, a quick kill strategy with the gun for the lion boss. I'm not sure it's worthwhile to have the gun just for time savings on that fight though. Might make Abarghus dies faster? I haven't tested. edit---- Iongravirei run (posted below) shows the benefits of the gun for fast boss kills. Will be trying this shortly myself.

Update 18/03/13 - I'm not convinced that the time savings on Lion and Abarghus fights with the gun makes up for the lack of usefulness outside those specific fights. With wind magic and boomerang, the Doom fight is consistently faster for me as boomerang will always hit regardless of the position of flame traps (gun is blocked by them).

There is apparently a glitch involving magic used in conjunction with flame thrower for fast kills on bosses. I haven't seen this in video yet so I'm not sure how it works. I haven't unlocked the thrower to test. Update- Yes, this glitch is very good for speedrunning purposes. And simple to use as well. With flame thrower, hit attack when in range of boss, then immediately activate magic. Flame thrower will continue to hit during magic animation. This kills Lion and Doom in one shot.

Items:

Dynamite breaks all walls and floors that are not on the edge of the play area. You can use dynamite to strategically skip several of the more problematic random setpieces. I think it should be defacto item choice for speedrunning for this reason.

Magic:

Use Wind magic. It is very effective in boss fights.

Iongravirei strat: Wind magic can be used for extra hits on Abarghus! (see video below)

Update 18/03/13 - Wind magic also deals extra hits on Lion and will hit Doom off screen if you activate the magic as he is about to jump.

Weapon strategies:

Dive attack (down directional input when in the air) hits for three damage and kills all enemies in the game in one shot.

edit - forget the paragraph that was here before. Press jump and attack simultaneously when using nunchucks. This will keep you safe from everything, including deflectable projectiles.

There is no reason to ever move your directional input out of the downward angle unless you have to stick to a wall to avoid falling on spikes. Crouch run is same speed as standing run as far as I can tell.

Rage mode: Because you are invincible when in rage mode, it is advantageous to keep it going as long as possible to run straight through obstacles you would normally have to dodge. It's a judgement call whether running down an enemy to keep rage meter, or skipping it and letting rage deplete, is the faster strategy. Situation dependent.

Update - Using a ranged attack will not fill the rage meter as much as normal or dive attack. Try to avoid ranged attacks on normal enemies for this reason.

Bosses:

Universal Boss strategy: dive attack does 3 units of damage to all bosses. At the correct angle, it is possible for angled jumping dive attack (not the straight down one) to hit twice, which does 6 units. This is tricky but very effective. Second, if your attack will kill the boss -say it has three or fewer health units- you will not take damage from colliding with its body. So go kamikaze in that scenario.

Green flying bug thing-

I dunno a fast strat for this guy yet. Just hit him with boomerang and jumping attack.

Lion-

Boomerang strat - activate magic immediately at the start of the fight, then throw boomerang as quickly as you can right after. Dive attack him as he runs at you. Repeat once more.

Gun strat - activate Wind as in boomerang strat, then fire at him until he gets close, dive attack etc. Using gun in this fight is probably a consistently faster method. It depends on how good you are about landing the double dive attack damage.

Rhino-

Use wind magic at the start of fight and throw boomerang. Boomerang will usually, although not always, do two hits on him as he runs towards you. Double jump over him and hold down so your dive attack hits the back side of him as you land. Double hit is possible. Timing on this is tricky. The easier and slower way is to use super jump to avoid him. With whip, you can land, turn around, and chase him while mashing attack for extra damage. Sometimes. His hitbox is really weird and I don't completely understand why some things hit and others don't on this guy. If you don't mind taking extra damage, you can let him hit you, then repeated jump/dive attack as he stands over you. There might be more to this strat. It seems like sometimes if rhino and ninja are standing in exactly the same place, you don't take damage. hrmmmmmmmm..........

Doom-

Activate Wind magic immediately at start of fight (it will hit him when he is off screen- pay attention to his life bar). Run back and forth across the screen and try to react appropriately to dodge him as he lands. Throw boomerang, then double jump straight up to avoid the fire trap guys. If you're close enough you can also mash regular attack as the boomerang is out for extra damage. Activate Wind again as he is about to jump. In the unfortunate event that he lands on top of you, mash magic button so you at least do some damage to him in the exchange.

Note - Gun shots will be blocked by the red fire traps, so position yourself accordingly if you choose to use this range weapon.

One armed ninja:

He doesn't take damage from ranged attacks and is only vulnerable when flashing orange. Basic jump and dive attack works best here, just don't land directly on him. Don't forget to kamikaze if he is below 3 units of health.

Abarghus:

Herbiebug super-slow and not very good strat: In order to stay safe from his white bombs, crouch in the corner and mash attack with nunchucks to flick away any that come close. Or be a pro shmupper and dodge them. Run back and forth to avoid his arm. I don't think there is any way to skillfully anticipate it, unfortunately. Also throw boomerang when his abdomen opens to kill the regular enemy that comes out right away. Use regular boomerang attack and magic when he is in vulnerable state.

Update: Iongraverei quick kill strat: Jump and shoot weakness part with gun and jump/dive it before he is about to pull it back up (intentionally eat the 1 unit of damage). Then immediately start mashing magic (Wind magic), which will deal an additional amount of damage while weak spot is off screen. <---- watch the video below.

New Iongravirei strat: Take advantage of the fact that the game resupplies your items every time you get hit. In 5:02 video below, player repeatedly takes damage against the spikes on the wall to enable him to cast wind magic over and over again.

Lastly, don't worry too much about going out of your way to pick up time extender items. If you're doing this right, death guy won't be catching up to you anyway. He also disappears from the screen when you hit a new time extender, it is not necessary to hit it before your timer depletes.

Hope some of that stuff is useful for SHODN fans out there. I would love to hear any other strategies you have for this game, either for safety/consistency or speed.

reserved for example videos when I figure out how to set that up. might be a few weeks.

Here's a video. It seems to be the current WR, at least as far as what is available on english speaking internet speedrunning community.

Iongravirei is the player, with a completion time of 5:32 for True Ending. I guess that'd be the any% category for this game.

Looks like I need to take another look at the gun. It significantly speeds up Lion and Abarghus fights. Biggest news to me in this run is the Wind magic being able to get extra hits on Abarghus even after his weak spot has moved off screen.

And another Iongravirei run, this time 5:02 completion time. This video features brand new flame thrower strategies for bosses.