Overview
About a dozen tips for shaving off a few seconds apiece on the level “ABCs and 123s” (AKA “level 1”)
Let’s Hop Right In!
I would reccomend using the middle three desks to cross the first room. It puts you in a better spot to grab the ribbon. Not really a time-shaver, but it is helpful.
Instead of hopping to the cart to the left, just jump straight to the cart ahead. You need to jump at pretty much the last second, but it gets easy with practice.
At the entrance to the cafeteria, once you reach the vending machine, instead of jumpint to the trophy case to reach the pillars, jump onto the fire extinguisher box to reach the platform in the door just a few seconds faster.
Once you enter the cafeteria, jump to the second table and turn around. you can then jump to the desk, skipping the platform on the wall.
Still in the cafeteria, once you jump onto the final ballon stack, a high bounce and an abrupt turn to the right will get you to the trash can and counter that little bit sooner.
If you land on the back of the near chair, you can reach the far chair without jumping to the vending machines. It is a very tricky jump, so be careful!
In the History room (the one with the canadian flags) you can jump straight from the chair to the teachers desk and then to the final table. with practice, you can jump from the projector to the fire extinguisher box and straight to the enterance chair. I managed to make this jump the first time when I was trying to see if it was possible, but could not reproduce it afterwards. (thanks ReLiC71)
oh, hey, and there’s that last card I spent half an hour looking for.
on the chair right in the exit to the History room, you can jump from the chair to the rock outcrop to hit the checkpoint, and if you mash the jump buton and aim for the lowest part, you can even jump up on to the outcrop to avoid a death. (thanks ReLiC71)
You can reach the furthest cart from the second water fountain. (thanks ReLiC71)
When you grab the pipe, make sure you are looking straight up, so the delay before you start climbing is reduced.
In the gymnasium, the final stretch, once you reach the second trampoline in the group of two, you can use a high bounce to reach the pull-up bar just a bit sooner.
Just a few seconds after, if you drop onto the plank and jump immediately you can reach the balance beam without going around. You can also jump from that balance beam right to the platform.
Once you hit the checkpoint you reach by swinging on the rope, you can turn right around and swing up to the part of the climbing gym with the ladder, skipping about 10 seconds of platforming (thanks ReLiC71)
On the climbing bars, you can jump straight to the lowest one, but it takes a LOT of practice to get right, it is a VERY fine line. you will waste more time than you save unless you get it first try.
If you are having trouble jumping to the higher mat, you can jump to the basketball hoop for some extra height.
While you are swinging from the bars in the final moments, you can swing-jump straight to the far right bar, but this only saves a fraction of a second, if that.
What I like to do instead is drop to the trampoline, and with a high bounce you can reach the wooden platform even faster.
In the final jump, make sure to grab the pipe. if you slide down quickly you will get to the lower mat quicker than having to recover from a long fall. also, you can crouch to fit between the mat and ceiling to shave off one last fraction of a second.
Using all of these cuts, I managed to get a time of 4:22 seconds. and I am not even that good at the game.