Do you like speedrunning?

[OffBased]

I’ve been on a huge kick lately and I just wanna talk to more people about it

I got into speedruns once I got a Switch with Super Mario Odyssey. One of the Youtubers I watched did any%, which led to watching NicroVeda’s runs back when he was trading WR with Shaeden. From there I found GDQ, then EZScape’s top 10s, then Summoning Salt’s first ultra shortcut video. If I couldn’t catch my favorite runners live, I would always watch the VOD later.

This has been a hobby of mine for over 3 years, but now I’ve finally started to learn a route myself—Specter of Torment any%. I’ve only been at it for two weeks. Boss patterns and precise inputs are hard, but it’s worth it when I see my progress play out right in front of me. Yet my interest in speedrunning had skyrocketed even before I started practicing. Maybe because I’ve discovered so much new, interesting content than ever and there’s been breakthroughs in so many communities? Or maybe I’m just mega bored inside lol

How did you get into speedrunning? Which runners or games do you keep up with? Do you run any games yourself? I’d love to know your experiences!

[rajillustration]

I fully admit I'm a nerd that loves GDQ and AGDQ. (can't really do it because I have carpel tunnel so my favorite runs which have a lot of mashing are impossible for me.) I think what drew me was that they had a Tetris block several years back and it was like--freakin phenomenal. From there I just found some runs really interesting. The Sonic 06 run is always a hoot becuase the havoc engine just kinda throws cars everywhere and the game itself is hanging by a thread so characters will just...die sometimes (like I think they recently found out that Shadow can just despawn iblis...and it's a hilarious glitch). There's a guy called TieTuesday who speedruns Sonic 06 a lot, but he is more of a comedy streamer (still does a good job but isn't like top of the world) but he always finds new stuff when he does a run.

I always like the Zelda 3d runs, too. Got a soft spot for the Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword runs that go into the home screen and use manipulations there to do time warps in game. Like we've kind of broken Zelda so freakin much and it blows my mind that people are still finding completely new strats for doing Ocarina of Time.

Anyway, a few years ago I donated a painting for SGDQ, and it was super easy to do, so I highly recommend doing that if you've ever wanted to do art for it. It was a little baby bowser painting, and it was cool to see it there on the screen.

Also there's a channel connected to TieTuesday that does a community speedrun every month that I follow run by two runners, Smight and Authorblues. It's called Speedbump, and you may be interested because if you win the monthly competition you get like...50 bucks (most people ask for it to be donated, but also most people that win are these two guys who are real good). but Authorblues is on AGDQ often, so he's chosen some really interesting and different games to speedrun that don't have a whole lot of history so the game is ripe for finding stuff. I think right now they're doing the Smurfs? Anyway you can find them here: https://discord.com/invite/Smight it's a huge open discord related to his twitch channel so feel free to jump in.

[DiegoPalacios]

Have never attempted one, but have a blast watching them.

[CMYKat]

I LOVE speed running! 90% of who I follow on Twitch are speedrunners. I'm a huge fan of most retro games (GameCube and earlier, mostly). On the NES I love 100% runs of Mario Bros 2 & 3, Ducktales, Adventure Island (I & II), and Zelda's I & II. There's a HUGE number of titles on the SNES I enjoy, but I particularly seek out the Donkey Kong Country games, 2 & 3 being my absolute favs. c: Zelda: OoT is one of the few games where I feel like I enjoy almost every category. A weird run I also love is Space Station Silicon Valley, mostly because that game is so horribly bad-good and deserves more recognition!

My fav runners are Vo0id, Bluebeary, MitchFlowerPower, Butterlord, stew_, halfcoordinated, PopeSquidward and ZFG. I try to stick to Canadian runners c: I'm searching for other girl runners to follow too! AeonFrodo is great and I just recently found a really hilarious chick who runs Space Station Silicon Valley and I caaaan't find her username, whomp :T

I run Paper Mario Glitchless on the N64 (via Wii U Virtual Console), and I'm learning Any% and Soap% (a meme-run where you run the game to Chapter 4's Peach sequence where you bake a cake for Gourmet Guy, but use soap. Time is when Gourmet Guy spits out the cake :'D ). I also run The Lion King on the Genesis and want to learn a few other Activision Disney games cuz they're so great. c:

Sorry, I can ramble and infodump about speedrunning forever! I got into it in like 2007 when more and more "time-attack" videos of people beating games absurdly quickly started getting popular on YouTube.

I actually just got a bunch of GDQ merch from the Yetee in today from this year's AGDQ, funny this should come up! Good luck with your Specter of Tourment Any% runs!

[thecrystalrook]

ye I'm a big fan of speed running Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time. I've got a 3 and a half hour record 100% glitchless on banjo-kazooie and about 1 and a half hours on the first 3 dungeons of Ocarina of Time

[OffBased]

I’m glad you can enjoy them even if you can’t do them yourself! I never tuned into that block specifically, but I’ve seen some phenomenal Tetris runs before. Just magical. The Sonic 06 runs are great too! I caught the one from AGDQ last year and that was hilarious

I’m not too familiar with Zelda runs outside of BoTW, but TP runs have caught my interest in the past. Especially low%, since Link clipping into anything at the speed of plate tectonics is the funniest thing in the world

I didn’t know that’s how they got those! That’s really cool. Heavily considering doing the same for a future event.

Always love seeing obscure games getting run! I might have to join and see what it’s all about

[OffBased]

That’s cool! They aren’t for everyone. I’m glad they’re enjoyable for you to watch anyway

[Rhonder]

Same boat as @DiegoPalacios , Speed running by nature isn't really my thing (I don't often replay games very much of have the want to, let alone practice a single game a whole bunch to get good at it like that xD) but I do like watching sometimes~ Over the last like 10 years I've probably watched like 3 or 4 GDQ's or something.

One fond memory I have is my friend and I watched the Zelda Ocarina of Time any % (I think that's right? with lots of glitches) one year, and so he came over to my house that evening and decided that he wanted to learn how to do some of the glitches like right then, so he spent some number of hours trying and falling to clip through the door at the temple of time until like 3 or 4 am lmao

[OffBased]

Retro runs are awesome!! I need to watch more of them. I’m a huge fan of Mario 3 runs (Mitch is one of my favorite runners too) and watching Ducktales records got me to buy the game for myself. Haven’t beaten a single level though lol
Also super big on Kirby Air Ride runs. 50% nostalgia, 49% watching everyone blaze through the modes, 1% being validated about maining Wheelie Scooter

I just started watching ZFG after he got sub 3:10:00 in OoT 100%. First it was just highlights from EZScape, but now I’m watching his attempts just to see how much more he improves upon it

Yessss I love RPG runs! From what I’ve seen Paper Mario is a fun game no matter the category. I love meme runs too, so I’ll look up Soap% because that sounds funny. I don’t know much about Lion King Genesis except that it’s stupid hard. Good luck on your runs as well!

[OffBased]

That’s great that you have those times! Must’ve taken a lot of practice

[OffBased]

XD At least you had fun! Sometimes you just get that urge after you see something crazy like all the OoT glitches.

[DiegoPalacios]

One friend showed me a speedrun of Mario 64 and my mind was blown, so ocassionally seeing pros breeze through games in epic and unusual ways is entertaining.....

Also, as a game designer is always interesting to see how players interact with games, even if a specific way to play was not thought by the developer

[DiegoPalacios]

Is the one where Link backdashes like Michael Jackson's ancestor?

[Rhonder]

I don't recall exactly, but that sounds correct haha

[AmysGames]

I do! My games of choice at the moment are Celeste and Final Fantasy VII, but I enjoy watching all kinds of speedruns. All the tech that goes into cutting times down is really fascinating to me, especially if it involves exploiting glitches in a creative way, haha.

Speaking of which, I may or may not be partially responsible for the crazy glitching in the FF7 PC scene currently.

[OffBased]

Dude I love watching those runs too! Celeste has such a flow to it and I’m mesmerized with all the glitches and menu-ing in FFVII no matter the version. Do tell about the PC glitches!

[CMYKat]

The crazy thing about ZFG's runs is that even with how often he PBs, his sum of best is always like.... :0 ....I haven't tuned in to his WR attempts in a few weeks due to life so I don't know if his sum of best has tightened up at all, but I'm sure he's going to get his hundo run under 3 hours eventually.

[CMYKat]

Yes it is :'D That's called a super-slide

[nostalgicroxas]

I'm only interested in kind of looking at speedruns of games I know fairly well. Ocarina of Time is a speedrun I'll watch off and on, but I've started to enjoy the 100% speedruns over the any% since they involve different kinds of glitching to progress. They're also longer so I am not watching the same content of the game re-run for an hour.

I actually just saw a Wind Waker speedrun, recent ish world record of just about an hour or so long? It was interesting watching the barrier glitch.

[AmysGames]

Dude I love watching those runs too! Celeste has such a flow to it and I’m mesmerized with all the glitches and menu-ing in FFVII no matter the version. Do tell about the PC glitches!

Well, if you've seen a PC any% run (there was one in the last AGDQ), you might have seen that there's a wrong warp glitch at the end that takes you to the debug room, which takes you to the end of the game. Previously you had to go to Rocket Town and get the Tiny Bronco in order to perform the glitch, but I was the nerd that found out you could carry the wrong warp glitch through multiple game overs (which I was using for NG+):

...So another runner took this knowledge and applied it to any%, so now you don't have to do Rocket Town in either category.