Spawning
When you first spawn, your main goal is not to pick up a rock ASAP and chop some trees. Instead, observe your surroundings. These are what you should be looking for:
Huts
Villages
Caves
Black chests
Carts (^ if you can't see any of the above nearby)
Huts can contain valuable jump-start tools, such as wooden axes/pickaxes, gold/steel axes/pickaxes, or even mithril swords! However, speed running Muck is not all luck-based, so you can still leave the island extremely quickly without a Nightblade spawn in a cave. But if you happen to get a Nightblade or an interesting set-up like this:
Then go ahead and use it to your advantage of course. Huts can also contain apples, bread, and other food, so that you don't have to take time to make some yourself. Most huts will contain coins as well, which can be used to open chests.
Villages contain several huts and other work spaces with green chests. The chests you find usually have basic wooden tools, if not better tools. You can also break down barrels for wood and occasionally will also drop stone, bread, wheat, or other items. The woodmen won't attack you unless you open the Chief's chest, so be sure to open this one last when you are done with the village (trading and looting). However, if you break the chest with an axe, the villagers won't attack you, and you can still grab all of the stuff. It can contain food, gold bars, and other good stuff. Be sure to come with coins so that you can trade with the villagers. Trading with them is key to speed running Muck.
Caves have chests that hold a large variety of items; iron ore, adamantite ore, coins, or even a hammer shaft or a Nightblade! They can also give you tools as well.
Black chests are free and usually give you common power-ups, but common ones are still really helpful. Power-ups are another key to speed running. A single sniper scope can save you so much time (as long as you get chunky hits from it).
Carts don't usually have tools, which is why you only go to these if its the only option, but they still can and usually have good food items. They also have materials like wood (regular, birch, fir, and I think even oak sometimes) and stone.
Once you get your hands on a set of tools (wooden, steel, or gold, doesn't matter) you are ready to start getting your hands on adamantite.
Trading
Trading will save you TONS of time. When you get some tools (really, a pickaxe is all you need), find some cows guarded by mobs or a battle totem. Defeat some mobs and earn some coins. You might have to wait until day 1 to trade if you can't get enough coins. Once you have 75-125 coins, you are set. Find a woodcutter in a village and buy a adamantite axe for 75 coins (the price is always the same. However, not every woodcutter sells adamantite axes). Then, find a smith and buy 5 adamantite ore or a adamantite pickaxe.
Once you have an adamantite axe and adamantite ore, get a furnace (craft one with stone that you've picked up along the way or use one from a hut) and smelt the ore. If you are really trying to speed run, you can buy an anvil from (some) smiths instead of trying to find one or craft one. While the ore is smelting, chop down oak trees to get 10 oak. Then, simply get some bark and craft an adamantite pickaxe.
Unfortunately, there are villages without woodcutters or smiths, or there are some but they don't sell what you need. So this means speed running is slightly luck based, but not completely. Make sure to check the wildcards, though. They sometimes sell some good stuff.
If you really want to save every minute you can, you can also buy an ancient bow and elemental arrows from archers (I don't know if that's what they are called or not) to be able to fight Bob at all times, whether he is on the boat or in the air.
After you've traded for some adamantite tools, building a weapon (or buying one) is not a bad idea as long as you can still work towards building the boat in the process (like mining obamium and dark oak wood for the boat and using the excess to craft a sword).
Getting Power-ups
Once you have your adamantite gear, go ahead and start some battles and/or open chests around the map. Also start easier bosses such as Big Chunk, or Chief or Gronk who can give you wood for the boat (but at the same time, you already have an adamantite axe, so fighting Gronks/Chiefs might not be necessary, except for coins).
Now, you just have to determine when to stop collecting power-ups and to start building the boat. Not getting enough power-ups could end up costing you more time and possibly kill you when fighting Bob, but getting too many power-ups might eat up too much time. However, this may not be an issue if you're not going ultra try-hard mode.
Why power-ups? Because they will decrease the time it takes to build the boat and fight Bob. Power-ups like Dumbbell, Orange Juice, Juice, Sniper Scope, and such will help you defeat Bob quicker and destroy resources faster. Sneakers will increase your actual speed. Spooo bean, peanut butter, and those of the like may not help you win faster, but will decrease the amount of food you need to eat, keeping your focus off of collecting food.
Collecting As You Go
One of the most annoying things that can happen while trying to beat Muck is when you build everything on the boat except for a few spots (such as the sail, some crates, or a gem is missing on the engine) and you find out you do not have that item with you. Then you are running like crazy trying to find some flax to finish the sail or some wheat to build the last crate. To avoid situations like this, pick up wheat and flax and other materials you know you'll need as you go. If there are some cows in your way, go ahead and kill them all since some crates on the boat require raw meat. If there's wheat or flax on your path, spend the extra second to pick them all up. Also, when you come to a hut, take the work station from the hut (unless you already have it or it's not necessary).
If you do indeed collect things as you go, you're inventory will likely fill up fast. It's fine to take a trip to the boat to build some things and put some materials (such as all of the gems if you don't have iron for the engine yet) in the chest there on the ship.
Key Factors
If you don't want to read everything I mentioned above and only want a brief explanation of how to speed run Muck, then here is a recap of everything I've said:
1. Look for Huts, Caves, Villages, or ways to get tools super quickly.
2. Get coins and trade with villagers for adamantite gear. (Can also get weapons as well)
3. Gather power-ups from chests and statues.
4. Pick up things like flax, wheat, meat, and rocks along the way.
5. Build the ship
6. Beat Bob
There may be other ways to speed run after you get adamantite gear, but this is what I've found to be a super quick way to beat the game.
I know that there are a lot of intense and harsh instances where you cannot do anything but work towards winning the game, but of course you still get a really good time without being perfect.
The End
I hope you enjoyed this guide!
If you want to know exactly what you need to build the boat, here's an awesome guide from Waltuber that shows you what you need! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2553825165
This guide is not being actively updated.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2555400454
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