Leap Year: Faster Achievement Guide

Intro
This guide assumes you have already completed the game once. Know that ahead is MAJOR SPOILERS, duh, You have been warned. You don’t need to memorize the game, but this guide assume you know the “secrets” and how to get to the exits of the rooms.

To begin with, this isn’t the worst achievement you’ll ever get, probably, but it’ll certainly take a few tries. My first run clocked in at 23 minutes (yikes), then the second at 15:45 ;n; until my third and final of ~14 minutes. My main advice is to take the hard sections slow. I’ll point out which ones I consider difficult and the most time wasting if you die. Oh yeah, try to avoid that. You’re character has glass bones and paper skin, one wrong jump and you’re back to the last checkpoint. Later in the run this can be several rooms, and though it’s usually only ~30 sec to get back, that adds up. Take your time. This isn’t the tightest speedrun ever, you can afford a few mistakes and being careful when it matters.

For those of you who wish to just watch someone speedrun to the end, there is a video made by TomSmizzle that I’ll link below:

But those that prefer a reading guide, please continue! I’ll be referring to the main collectable as “Days” from here on. We go out of order and skip some obvious ones as its faster to get them later.

This is the general order for which we will be collecting the days is:
1,2,3,4,16,5,6,7,24,28,25,26,27,17,18,23,8,9,10,12,11,20,22,13,21,14,15,19

Note that there is a bit of freedom in the order of some paths we can take. I think taking the most difficult path first to get it out of the way makes the most sense, since you mess up at least you don’t waste that much time.

I’ll also reference this map below, created by…me! Right before I found out someone already made a map. So here mine will rest. The route we are taking will be color coded, changing color each time we need to double back.

Blue 1
This section is short and follows the intended route, collecting days 1,2,3, and 4 in order with nothing fancy. However, once we reach the first grass screen, we want to double back, taking the upper left exit to the room, leading to the Red route.

Red 1
We continue to the left, diving down under the drill, passed the ores/spikes, then through the temple until we come up into the room with 16. We’ll snag it, then continue right.

One in this room we will ignore everything and head up. It’s just faster to get these days later.

Don’t collect 6 yet, we need to head left and grab 5 first, then we can grab 6 and continue going right. If you grab 6 first you can’t jump back down to get 5 and will be forced to go right. This isn’t a huge problem, you’ll come back to this screen a few times later, just make sure at some point to go back and collect 5.

Pink Path of Peril

Walk in and grab 7. You’ll be seeing this room a lot. This also begins a tougher section. For now though, head to the bottom right exit to this room through the spikes, then continue down to the snowman room. We’ll grab 24 while we are here. Don’t be afraid to get the checkpoint by the snowman before going for 24. It’s worth the 2 seconds, especially if you fall wrong trying to get 24 and end up in the room above.

Once you get 24, get to the upper left ledge, then jump in the highest crevice so you can dig below the 24 checkpoint flag. This section getting through the ice is tricky, which is why we do it relatively early in the run. You’ll want to reach the bottom around ~3 minutes into the run for good pace. A minute longer than that is when you should start sweating, and anything 2 minutes over you might as well reset.

At the bottom of the world, collect 28 and begin the climb back up, following the green path.

Mean Green

This climb can be brutal if you rush, so take your time. There’s a few screens between checkpoints, and spikes everywhere. This section can be fast, but dying will cause time loss. Make your way back up to the snowman room and head left.

In here you will collect 25 and 26 in order. Once you get the 26 checkpoint, jump off the right ledge with a slight left fall to dig down to day 27.

Once you collect 27, exit top left, then head up and hey! There’s 17 like I promised 🙂

Continue up again. We’ll be switching to the blue path next, but not before doing something first…

Blue Path of Murder

As we come up, introduce the 3 eager gents to Italian culture by lightly stepping on their heads. They are blocking our path. They shouldn’t have done that. But in all seriousness we need to get rid of them to reach day 23.

Heading right into this room, again, take caution not to die. Like in real life, after you murder someone they stay dead until you die. So if you die, they will come back. So long as the checkpoint in this room is active, just remember to head back left to kill them again before you progress. You monster. Take the upper left exit to this room to collect day 18.

Once here, and with the gents dead, jump straight down and drill to day 23 in the top right corner.

So ends the short, but murderous spree, of the blue path. Onto purple.

Plain Purple

After collecting 23, head up, then right.

Here we go again with this room, but at least we can finally collect day 8 at the top right. Move through the next room, heading right into this oddly orange room. Is it magma? I don’t know.

In truth the order of which you collect the days in this room won’t matter a ton. Personally I suggest following the blue route then the green route back to minimize turning around. Enter the room and jump up for days 9 and 10. Going for day 12 you’ll want to sacrifice both of the little guys to save yourself. You don’t need to die to reset them, as you can jump far enough on the return trip. You’ll land just on the left over the rightmost spikes, and can jump over the leftmost spikes and land safely on the raised orange bit. Just don’t overshoot and break your tiny legs and you can grab 11 on your way out.

Sad Red

Okay, so my organization of routes based on when you need to double back has some shortcomings, and this is one of them. After exiting the orange room and heading up, you’ll want to get to the highest ledge to jump down, drill, and exit to the bottom left. Collect day 20, then double back along the blue path.

Blue Circle

Coming back into the room, grab 22 by walking through the spikes, then exit through the top to grab an easy 13.

In the heart room, carefully go down the steps to put this guy to sleep, then jump back up to the upper right ledge. We’ll need to jump down to drill to 21. Honestly, you could collect 14 before this, but you have to pass through this room again anyways. Just make sure to leave one of the guys on the upper right platform alive so they can save you (die) later. If you die between 21 and 14 then it doesn’t matter, but every death is time loss.

Last Green

Head back to this room, grab 14, and be on your merry way. Or your sad, frustrated way, I’m just a guide I can’t tell you how to exit a room. Head all the way left to the room that teaches you about purple, collect 15, and then we are on the home stretch. One more to go!

Orange Homestretch

Rapid fire now, we want to head back right, then down, then right again to get back to this room. Exit top left where you collected 18. Jump through the spikes, then on top, and jump back right to get to the ledge. Go up to collect 19, the final one!

Yellow and White

All that for a drop of blood. We need all 28 days to get passed the lock and ultimately just so we can flip upside down. Continue to the left from where you collected 19 until you get to the Vault of Days (trademarked), jump down dah hole and bounce back up. From here its just a walk to the end, er, beginning… okay, not really. This is the toughest section, with many rooms between checkpoints. Be careful, mistakes here are the worst, not only for the time loss, but because you are so close to the end. Take it careful, I believe in you! Here’s the path you need to take in White to get back to the beginning.

The journey between the checkpoints in these 3 rooms is a big time waster. Be slow and careful. It’s easy to overshoot a lot of these jumps and restart. You can lose a lot of time here.

Which brings us to the snowman area. I believe this is the longest string of rooms without a checkpoint. It’s actually not as bad as you think if you know the path. The problem is the nerves and how much time is lost if you die right at the end. Be careful! After this is some tricky platforming, but not a ton of time loss. Once you get to this checkpoint, it should be straight to the end, er, well I’m not making that joke twice. If you make it here by ~11 minutes then you shouldn’t have any worries getting under 15.

And that’s it. Mostly, after routing, the key to speed is getting better at the game. It’s easy to forget your jump kills you after you get into the groove of things, so resist the urge to mash buttons while the character runs across the screen. Take ledges slow whenever you need to go down, and eventually you should get it. You can make mistakes and still get the achievement. You can die many times, in fact, so don’t let the pressure get to you. It’s just what those deaths are and where that makes a difference. Do try to minimize them though.

I haven’t made a guide like this before, so forgive me for any errors, or points where I didn’t explain enough or rambled on too much. Personally I like guides I can check as I go, and videos don’t cut it for me. Since one didn’t exist and I was sleep deprived, I took to this in a frenzied state. Someone is welcome to make a better guide of course. Anyone who’d like to translate has my permission, as I am a scrub who only speaks English, and barely at that.

I hoped this helped, now go 100% this neat little game you speedrunner you.