Speed Running

Has anyone watched these? I'm pretty fascinated by the skill it takes, the efficiency of the playing, the time these people invest in order to be competitive and get their WORLD RECORDS, the various categories and lingo specific to each game, the knowledge of glitches and their ability to apply them to their runs, its growing popularity and culture, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-QpxN8wPo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DExvqc6z_94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkHSF3e6kY&feature=youtu.be

http://gdqvods.com/

https://gamesdonequick.com/

ive watched this entire thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTf3-AmwcTo

o ha wrong one here u go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMrWnUf3iN4

no wait theyre both goos

i resign

It's alright. I find it hard to keep track of what's what. There's so many "categories" per game.

some of the glitch ones r so crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14wqBA5Q1yc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTzs9bcNgMQ

Oh yeah, and that ^ no stars one is "tool assisted" so they're using programs to hack and help automate things humans can't do alone. So that's a whole other category itself.

The commentary on the zelda one in the first post really highlights all of the things a runner needs to know and practice and hope for to get a good time, though I don't understand what he's talking about in most cases.

Sorry if that particular one jumps to 30 minutes in for anyone else, sorry about that.

I actually watched significant chunks of GDQ this year live.
Planning to do the same for SGDQ in a couple of months.

I love the awful games done quick segments the most

i enjoy how different the speedrunning technique is for different games, with e.g. mario64 mostly being about abusing the game's physics and freedom of movement without actually breaking it, while ocarina of time (and the other 3d zelda games) is about breaking the hell out of the game with glitches

i used to watch a lot of speedrunning on twitch a few years ago but i've fallen out of the habit, at my peak interest i was actually running mario64 myself though i never got under 20 mins for 16-star or 1hr for 70-star so i was pretty much a scrub. was still fun to learn and practice all the tricks though

How much of your free time did that suck up? Some of these games require over an hour to run through, not to mention all of the grinding to memorize and perfect each little trick. Also the time spent glitch hunting I'm sure.

yeah i didn't spend too much time on it, that's why i never got good at it. was also mainly done during a period of unemployment. i'll leave it to the folks without jobs now

tbh i have more interest in TASes now than real-time speedruns but that might be a different thread altogether

They're the only ones that can dedicate the time needed to actually be competitive if I were to guess.

Nah same thread! It's just a "category" of speedrunning as far as I understand.

it's a top-level category then, there's a pretty big difference between 'this is the best a real person can do' and 'this is what is theoretically possible within the game engine'

For sure. TAS runs aren't to be compared to human runs.

fuck going outside, fuck this white holiday, fuck britain, fuck isil.... & thank god for gdq

there is some really bad mega man clone happening right now and it's like whatever
but yesterday i caught a bunch of this sweet totally broken f-zero-ey game and now i want a wii

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGxa37IRqNA

<3 these nerds. y'all been watching?

Oh, yeah I've been checking it out periodically! The less popular games that probably have a "community" of what- 10 serious runners maybe(? wild guess), is it weird for them to have such a deep knowledge of something that almost nobody else is paying attention to? And the time and energy they'd have to spend to get to that level. It's a strange existence to me.

Watching someone speed run the Japanese version of the GameCube port of Resident Evil 2 (Leon B path?). What a weird game to watch

Watching Leon eurostep through this game is so oddly mesmerizing

Goddamnit, I'm gonna spend all week watching this shit, aren't I

I'm already thinking about waking up tomorrow early to catch a 100% Bionic Commando run

Disabled runner forced to play one-handed makes a sweet speech after his run: https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick/v/76453001?t=02h39m01s

I love that guy. Last GDQ he did a run of that recent Transformers game that looks like the cartoons and solicited donation comments with Transformers puns only. It was memorable.

having a great time watching this Mega Man 2 run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mgZwf1lpLU

xp that was sweet

Useful to just check here to see the last day's archived videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gamesdonequick/videos
Just watched the Jet Set Radio speedrun which is amazing mostly considering (as much as I love that game!) how much you're fighting the camera controls and cut scenes themselves and this guy makes the insane building-to-building jumps and turns look like nothing

GDQ = hax with hands. I want to go to one eventually just to find out what makes them all tick

the tetris happening right now is a+ tetris

GDQ = hax with hands. I want to go to one eventually just to find out what makes them all tick

― El Tomboto

drama, mostly. :(

but yeah, speedrunning is basically what i watch when i want to watch something and not think about it. i really like watching "binding of isaac" because there's so much rng in it. i also have this strange fascination for watching people trying to 100% the ancient cave in lufia ii, just because it's such a completely ridiculous thing to do (and again, super rng dependent).

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/07/how-to-beat-super-mario-bros-3-in-less-than-a-second/

i enjoyed this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXggQm9EGLw

Damnnn GDQ has really upgraded their setup in just a few years

yeah they used to look like they were in someone's basement

I got to the point where he starts grinding for 10 minutes for money and was like "nooooooo i've watched a speedrun on this before"
this game is really terrible

this SGDQ's Bioshock run is pretty entertaining to watch because the runner is basically being an asshole about the whole thing - he loads from prior saves at multiple points, the couch commentators are just dumbfounded ("this is literally cheating") and despite the donations coming through for the bad ending, because he loads up from a previously saved game to finish it off, he gets the good ending and basically tells everybody to fuck off and watch the bad ending on youtube. I have to assume the organizers gave him a talking-to afterwards.

Like right around here he just basically says fuck it

https://youtu.be/2gnnweoN76Q?t=3414

Anyone else attempted/thought about attempting a speedrun besides ciderpress? I've been thinking about what game I might already be good enough at to be semi-competitive out of the gate, and I think for me it's GTA2. Seems the record is well under an hour too, so that's good.

I'm pretty fair at some RPGs too but those all seem to run into the multiple hours, even if you can find some kind of glitch/exploit, ain't got no time for that.

i had started running Nightsky towards the end of my last speed running phase, if I was gonna do it again i'd stick to that and other similar short lite games

Closest I probably ever came was this joke game on Steam called DLC Quest that lasts about 15 minutes long and (naturally) has an achievement for speedrunning it that I tried in vain to get. But I can dream...

Why?

https://www.twitch.tv/underscoretrix/v/87810660

To clarify it's a 300% run. So it's a 100% run in all 3 save slots done consecutively.

well, that's one way to kill eight hours anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mpHGZIgPaA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WilkndNIIfI

"Awesome Games Done Quick" happening now

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick/

psyched for pacifist NG1 and 2 runs tonight

twitch has ruined speedruns

Because of how ubiquitous they are now?

seeing how the sausage is made?

Too many people are good at video games

1. you have to look at the gamers 2. you have to listen to them

like the twitch experience of watching someone play a video game and chatting is one thing its a facsimile of hanging out playing games but if you want to fire up a youtube of some world class gaming it tarnishes the zen

i only watch TAS now

if the guy is actually skilled at speedrunning i actually love listening to them jabber on about the ridiculous glitching that leads them to finish Blaster Master in an hour or something. but Twitch has just made it easier and more popular for idiots and bad presenters to get out there, hello internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR1ZhWpi_dY

You been watching summoning salt's speedrun progression docs? Information heavy but really good.

https://youtu.be/p2etSAWJKTs

Certain speedrunners are less irritating to listen to. The first two videos I posted in this thread are very reasonable fellows.

speedrunners talking over their runs are exactly what the mute button is made for.

the worst are those japanese runners who have the robot voice reading chat aloud to them. i hate the way that robot voice sounds.

this isn't quite speedrun stuff, but has anybody watched any videos from themexicanrunner's recently completed attempt to beat every licensed ntsc and pal nes game? i like themexicanrunner okay.

I haven't. Heard about it though. Any memorable moments?

family feud

This guy seems great. A polite, soft spoken cowboy with the world record in Ninja Gaiden.

https://www.twitch.tv/arcus87

otm - i love how he noted that the sunrise cutscene was his favorite

he's telling his origin story right now. this is awesome

"jumpin' and a spinnin'
spinning and a winnin'
flip flop drop
spin, jump, and boom - good boom!"

it's not completely different from bob ross

ha, love it. 'slice and dice...nice.'

speaking as someone who spent a lot of time playing NG it's cool to see how he handles all these little moments, especially with the 'booms' (intentionally taking a hit to get the rebound and invincibility).

Great find, love this game and the guy is pretty cool!

The most informative world record I've seen yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iTmRmx9fK8

what....

what, the Dr. Mario WR vid?

yeah, he's playing an audiobook? lol

p subtle treatment of the politics of the great war while playing dr mario

Ars did a piece on the logistics of GDQ

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/01/how-to-play-and-broadcast-video-games-non-stop-for-a-week-straight/

I watched quite a bit of it this year. Pretty fun!

Wow nice. The stream has been impeccably stable and seamless the last few events.

RE VII run from the just-concluded AGDQ is a good watch.

Watched some of the Super Mario Sunshine run, which was filled with crazy stuff

I was gushing about the Legend of Zelda ALTTP randomizer on another thread but no ilxors were interested. Anyone see that race at AGDQ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1AHCaokqhg

this is pretty cool. it is a history of figuring out the fastest way through 4-2 in Super Mario Bros. this is the famous underground level that has the warp pipe that zips the player to 8-1. there is a glitch where you can trigger the warp vine and then go down the pipe to skip the animation, jumping through various bricks along the way to offset Mario & the camera enough to trigger the glitch. the person to discover the final technique used for the fastest completion of 4-2 was someone named xx_420_blazit_xx.

i wonder if there's any crossover between these guys and the extreme couponing people

Oh hey there's a European Speedrunner Assembly marathon going on right now https://www.twitch.tv/esamarathon

was coming in to post that 4-2 mini-doc. it really is fascinating, just how much time and effort is spent breaking down the inner workings of Super Mario Bros. just to shave a third of a second off a world record time

decisive intervention of xx_420_blazit_xx was great to see

https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/25/17050500/super-mario-bros-speedrun-minus-world-kosmic

KM Celeste is on right now on AGDQ

on it, thanks!

i don't speed run, but i do speed reply

I love how he's dressed like he's about to do the Tour De France

i didn't realize that in the third stage the order that you choose to clean up the hotel affects how the remaining pathways play out! that's really neat, and especially impressive because it must have taken a good amount of extra work to implement and few people will even realize it's there.

xp lol yeah he's in full pro videogame gear

jeez, this guy is pretty good at celeste

so he's doing all the a-sides and b-sides...also the c-sides?

Some guy just did a super fast Hollow Knight run, too.

the sphincter muscles of these speedrunners must be incredibly developed

speed pooping - they probably can propel it from the stomach to the toilet nearly instantaneously

I actually don't know anything about this game, really! But yeah this guy is the best there is at Celeste.

And speed pooping is not about power... it's about control.

i appreciated the shout out for the amazing music in the chapter 4 b-side. i raved about it in the celeste thread, too. of course, a big part of the reason i love it is that it sounds amazing on a loop, developing in pleasing directions and repeating in a way that makes it difficult to determine where the loop restarts, which is really important when you hear it a million times while trying to beat a difficult level. whereas...i don't think the song even completed a single cycle during this speed run.

And speed pooping is not about power... it's about control.

well yeah, i mean if you're a control specialist. but some people, it's all about the power, the ability to generate intense squeezing bursts

it makes me happy that you're willing to engage with me on this, evan! lol

Always down to shoot the shit

in intense squeezing bursts of course

sometime i want to watch a version of this includes all the strawberries (even if its' just the regular chapters, or just the b-sides). the flow of the game when the person doesn't make many mistakes is so good, and the process of grabbing the strawberries just makes it even more mesmerizing imo

153,000 watching

that chapter 7 ending with the crowd counting down was kind of amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tewTKpAclms

lol

ha

https://youtu.be/b3rw1aQQeBw

FIRST EVER Super Mario Odyssey Speedrun in UNDER 1 HOUR! (1P World Record on March 23rd / 2019)

nice, i've seen a few SMO runs, def more fun to watch that game than play it. skimmed through a little, lol @ ndc miniboss 'fuck fuck that sucked that was dogshit fuccckkkk' *loses 0.4 seconds*

Watching this guy play Dr. Mario is very relaxing...

https://www.twitch.tv/acmlm

here to shill for this kickstarter, hope some of you nerds can help put this project over the top and give the world the Narcissa Wright documentary she deserves and the world isn't good enough to deserve

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/977822609/break-the-game-the-documentary

I tuned in to AGDQ just in time to see the first-ever Terraria marathon run by erstwhile twitch streamer TVGBadger and omg is he having a terrible time. technical difficulties out the wazoo & he's already busted his estimated time. I wonder if they're going to have to give him the boot. This is literally the worst speed run I've ever seen

they totally had to kick him off the stage after the server bugged out for the umpteenth time. I feel so sorry for the dude

never mind he's being made into memes for positivity now

https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/terraria-speedrunner-badger-doesnt-finish-his-agdq-run-still-raises-30000/

Ha yeah heard about it but I got the impression it was entertaining and positive somehow?

my wife saw and thought it was pretty cool

badger is relentlessly positive and entertaining as a streamer. I’m glad to see it worked out in his favor

I couldn’t have hoped for a better Mario Maker 2 relay race!

Thanks for the tip, this is good clean fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fXE2E49NWg

Damn, another SMB world record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wR8x5b_ExM

100000 bit donation Pog

had this bookmarked for months, finally watched that relay race, A+!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u1tVD7UEqw&feature=youtu.be

When Arcus eventually grows a moustache and starts wearing the cowboy hat I was like "OHHH THAT GUY!!"

I'll always be fascinated by him, wondering if anyone in his life was concerned when the sudden cowboy transformation wasn't just a phase, and criticizing him for not getting a job then realizing he makes decent enough money playing frickin NES in his house all week as if it were a 9-5 (Look I don't know how much he makes but streamers with that ~500 regular viewer count can apparently afford rent and food from what I hear. We'd all probably be a bit surprised by how much they actually make? I don't know. It's not something they talk about!).

i kinda like that guy, thanks for introducing me to him

Couldn't sleep so I watch this 60 minute one on Mike Tyson's Punch-Out also made by SummoningSalt. Great stuff too, with... a teeny bit of a twist ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBR9ypSOTGQ

Ok I'm finding this Ninja Gaiden video much more engrossing than expected.

It helps that I used to play this game all the time, I would get to the last boss (or just before) but never quite finished it. And also that the speed run doesn't involve any stupid glitches or zips, just familiar aspects of the game that I remember using just to get through.

Ha yeah "Oh cool we get to see how he gets pas- [zzzzzip!] ...whelp"

And yes omg @ pre-cowboy Arcus

for some reason the video Nhex posted 4 days ago isn't working for me. can someone post the name of the video so i can search it on youtube?

i think it was summoning salt's ninja gaiden video

hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u1tVD7UEqw

...shivering erotic king banana?

Om

i overthink things so much

i guess what arcus is doing is no more or less normal than anybody else in 2020, his life is no more or less normal than mine

it's not so much the cowboy hat or the bolo tie, but the cowboy hat and bolo tie open me up more to questioning things i guess? how does one get to a point where one says "you know what i'm just gonna play ninja gaiden 8 hours a day for a living" (i mean i assume he keeps a regular schedule, the video didn't mention it but he seems well-adjusted so i imagine he's got that part of it sorted)

i don't say that to judge him, i'm not gonna be some damn boomer complaining about the kids and their avocado toast. i don't think his career choice is any less worthwhile than mine. that's what i think about. it's so fucking absurd.

and i'm tying that into nancy this week where there's the storyline with the magnet school where everyone is The Best at something. that's the pressure everyone's under, right? you gotta be #1. it doesn't matter if the thing you're #1 at is meaningless and absurd, and i just think of milton, "better to reign in hell". and why not, after all? this is hell.

i would do what arcus was doing, if i was good enough. he's also one of the best streamers on twitch, not in terms of his skill but because he is a good guy and completely stands out among his screaming, loudmouthed, boring peers

i guess that's the other thing that makes me wonder about arcus, just the fact that he is a pretty professional, put-together guy. a lot of these streamers, i just figure they stream because they're not cut out for anything else (and, you know, fair enough). arcus just has such composure!

i watched that youtube documentary about ninja gaiden speedruns last night, it was great!!

arcus just has such composure!

i liked this youtube comment:

wwwaldo333
4 days ago
Arcus barely loses a 1/27,000 run to minor tail RNG after spending literal years in the attempt
Arcus: darn.

Turns out that Ninja Gaiden streamer is a pretty pandemic-proof job.

he probably doesn't even know what's happening in that world. and he may already have a bunch of masks, as i'm assuming at least some fans have sent him replica ninja gaiden Ryu costumes through the years

by "that world", i mean "this world"

hard to tell the difference sometimes

Ryukahr has that same vibe. mellow powerplay video game streamers are my jam

ooh, i don't know Ryukahr! i will check them out

oh lord, i am COMPLETELY hooked on Ryukahr.
Try here as a nice place to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arV86_1iPC0

And here's a completely unbelievable mario world romhack speedrun from him for thread accuracy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8mLT9gM5EA

i've watched literally hundreds of his mario gameplay videos and still load them up the instant he posts a new one.

Big same, my youtube diet is 98% Bon Appetit and Ryukahr at this point. It's just very satisfying to see him working through these levels (without having to sit through every full attempt).

he's good!
what's the deal with that ROM hack, did he co-create it?

also one thing i keep wondering is how the runners are capturing the segment times during play. is it something in the PC or twitch software and they hit a physical button?

Super Ryu World 1 and 2 were made for him; both are loads of fun to watch.

xp it's a separate piece of software that lets them set up their splits and usually the streamers will either have it update when they hit a key like spacebar or if they're reeal fancy a footswitch

I made a big goofy post last year about some rom hacks i enjoyed (spectating!) if anyone's been getting into this stuff

which mario games are not easy?

I watched through the Punchout video then stumbled across this - apparently the only video footage of Matt Turk completing one of his many world records. Some nice comments from him about the speed run community in pre-streaming days

https://youtu.be/MZs4MCdVznw

Big same, my youtube diet is 98% Bon Appetit and Ryukahr at this point. It's just very satisfying to see him working through these levels (without having to sit through every full attempt).

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, May 21, 2020 1:00 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well, I sure hope Ryukahr doesn't turn out to be a racist asshole.

oh god it would truly be the most milkshake'd of all ducks in my worlds

to be clear, there has been no suggestion whatsoever that he's problematic afaik

i know the feeling. any of these guys can be another pewdiepie at the flick of a switch...

the proverbial "heated gaming moment"

Heh, it only clicked with me right now that "speed running" is sort of redundant. I guess it needs the "speed" qualifier because "run" has so many definitions (top three number of definitions in English iirc).

Yeah in gaming a “run” really just means a repeat play through, so the qualifier is actually useful here.

"i'm going running now, talk to you later!"

*plays videogames for 12 hours straight without moving*

You know what's ironic is that despite how unhealthy the hobby of grinding video games for hours while being immobile can be, speedrunners seem very universally dedicated to the importance of staying hydrated. They all have bots that remind them to drink water and they fill up huge jugs/cups like they're doing intense workouts. So that's good, I guess!

in college I spent 2 days trying to speedrun Jaws for the NES before realizing that 1) someone already did it in half the time of my best run and 2) this guy understood the random encounter algorithm way better than I did

I spent a month learning Kid Kool. Maybe I'll try again some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVX6sctV3c
I found a Kirby Air Ride speedrunner on twitch. Having never seen this gamecube game before, I was surprised at how fast the powered up vehicles could move and how much the gameplay seemed like a more versatile version of Mario Kart battle mode. You're not just killing guys - mostly you're collecting things and performing obscure tasks to fill in checkboxes on a big grid (100/120 wins the game). I've watched his stream several times now. Learning the ins-n-outs is very compelling; but mostly, I enjoy the sleepy chill trance his streams put me in.

But you don't want to stay too hydrated, do you? Because it would stink to have to pee when you're on a record run.

OR WOULD IT

People on job interview panels should be required to hydrate heavily before each interview, and doubly so before the final selection decision.

kirby air ride looks fun

Boy, do I love SDQ. Watched a crazy super glitched backwards order run of Zelda II yesterday, as well as The Last of Us 1 on Grounded/HUDless mode.

There's an Ocarina of Time randomizer run tonight some of you may be interested in

The guy who streamed Alien:Isolation was a hoot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDSVzyXhJw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uRIyAgtpE
I love videos that go deep into game engine quirks.

Speedrun to eat a baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m19Py9K_yUI

I love the idea of making your own speedrun categories. That was a fun idea.

I liked this history of the high score for one specific Trackmania track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b67SC7Y4qA

weirdly compelling

Yeah that was a good one!

The end made me emotional for some reason lol

yikes stripes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSStfwaOies

This Andy Samberg youtuber guy has a knack for explaining geeky BOTW speedrunning techniques without coming off like that "bro explaining" meme

That's fun. Though when he declares someone in a clip "just blindly went for it" or whatever I more than suspect that person may have blindly went for it, like, 1000 times until they got it. A lot of speed running seems to me, a know-nothing, like the product of years of trial-and-error at a molecular level.