Null Egg

Individual Level Strats

World 2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 2-7 2-8

World 3 3-1 3-2 3-3 3-4 3-5 3-6 3-7 3-8

World 4 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 4-7 4-8

World 5 5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4 5-5 5-6 5-7 5-8

World 6 6-1 6-2 6-3 6-4 6-5 6-6 6-7 6-8

Introduction

This is a glitch that was originally thought to be a random occurrence at the end of 2-2, where some people would get a strange crash without reason. That was until ArneTheGreat discovered that it had something to do with the rat carrying an egg. He looked into it further and the first truly broken category was born: Magical Journey
The following video explains the sprite IDs regarding the Null Egg and also demonstrates the different uses of it.

Null Egg Demonstration

How To Get The Null Egg

In 2-2, enter the final screen with 6 eggs, do not use any eggs and do exactly what is shown in the videos, this includes spitting the first rat into the shy guy, since this will guarantee the correct sprite ID slots for this trick to work.

Null Egg-Fast Setup (Emulator)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRAl9hd4DrY

Null Egg-Fast Setup (Console)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHz2c1BOJk

Getting the Boss Key

Enter the boss fight with exactly 4 eggs + the null egg (which you can't see). Throw one egg at the boss, and kill him off by throwing the slimes into him. Do not catch the egg with your tongue when it is flying through the room, if you catch it sprite IDs will be messed up and this trick won't work.

Getting the Boss Key into your Null Egg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRNHdhAV_RE

Tutorial

The following Tutorial will explain all the needed information to get started with running the Magical Journey. It shows ALL levels!

Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHycyivJHYA

How not to Null Egg (Crashes)

Many sprites can crash the game upon entering the goal ring if the glitch setup is done incorrectly.

Null Egg Crashing The Game

The game will also crash on many stages when using the boss explosion sprite to complete levels. This is due to the stage being completed before it has been properly loaded. While in theory this would be faster than using the key sprite, it is much more unstable.

Further Information

Now that you know how to Null Egg, it is time to learn some more specifics about the Null Egg.

Key Position

The position the key is in affects how quickly it ends the level.

Compared to having 3 eggs in front:

• Having 2 eggs in front loses 9 frames per level
• Having 1 egg in front loses 47 frames per level
• Having no eggs in front loses 49 frames per level

Version Differences

The Boss Key sprite affects a few levels differently between versions. The version that a strat works on is specified for each level that has differences. The strats are from slowest to fastest. Version tiers: J1.0 >>> J1.2 >>> J1.1 >>> U1.1 >>> PAL >>> U1.0

Null egg in other levels

As said earlier, the Null Egg is not 2-2 exclusive. Here are 2 examples.

3-6 Null Egg

As shown in the next video, the Null Egg can also be aquired in 3-6. A screen transition sprite is then loaded into the null egg to trigger a 1-1 Warp. Unfortunately, for the IL run of this level the null egg warp strat is slower than doing the level normally. If null eggs were allowed in 100% the 3-6 null egg strat could be used multiple times to save a lot time.

3-6 IL warp route (slower)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jkXXeH8s9g

How 3-6 Null Egg could save a huge amount of time if it was allowed in 100%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHkVhsFkhe4

6-4 Null Egg

The next video shows how to get a null egg in 6-4. While harder than in 2-2 it is possible and unlike in 3-6 this is actually a little bit faster in an IL run, since it can skip a large portion of the room right before the boss where you normally do a Lava Skip (or take the log).

6-4 IL null egg route IDEA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAVquE4jNwI

6-4 IL Speedrun (w/ Null Egg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzaYuIm2jKQ

Save Corruption

Doing specific stuff in 3-1 can corrupt save data when having the boss key in your egg inventory - sometimes it can unlock arbitrary stages (usually w6).
See: Any% No Credits Warp for the category that was spawned by this new discovery.

Any% No ACE TUTORIAL (2-2 to 3-1 + Save Corruption)

*NEW* Any% No ACE Info (2-8 + 3-1) [Read the description of the video]

Script

Head over to the DLC page to find useful tools that will help you a lot learning Null Egg specific stuff.