SpeedRun-0-1

By William Hurt

his is it. The final challenge. You’ve been playing the game for hours now, but this is finally your chance to make it. You leap across the enemies and dash past any obstacles in your way. You go through so fast it almost seems inhuman. You’ve somehow made it to the final boss, it’s only a matter of seconds now. You make a mad dash for the finish line, and… You’ve done it. Somehow, you’ve gotten yourself a world record.

This is the life of a speedrunner.

Speedrunning, put simply, is the act of completing a game as fast as possible. Runners of a certain game will compete with each other for the fastest time, and the best of the best will attempt to earn the ultimate goal: A world record. Getting a world record not only signifies your skill, it cements your place in history as one of the greatest. This feat is not without its struggles, however, as to become good enough to ever dream of getting a world record, you must dedicate yourself to the game. The near sisyphean task of playing until perfection is unwavering in its dificulty, and yet so undoubtedly alluring in its rewards. Thus, it’s no wonder why speedrunning’s popularity has skyrocketed the last few years – a daunting task leads to a grand champion.

Speedrunning originated with the dawn of video games, as players ran through them as fast as possible to compete for bragging rights. As technology further developed, internet forums and message boards began popping up, allowing speedrunners to discuss new times and strategies. This caused a boom in speedrunning’s community, as it introduced speedrunning to a whole new generation eager to try it out. Recording runs also became common, giving an easy way to verify and document new times. These videos spread far and wide throughout the early internet, because frankly, the strategies look

Bizmuth

Speedrunner and content creator

really cool. As niche speedrunning communities grew into larger ones, so did the internet at large. With the introduction of video sharing websites like Youtube or Twitch, It’s no shock that speedrun recordings spread both further and farther than ever before. And, it was easier for anyone to go out and submit a run, with forums that can automatically rank and compare the latest times. Moreso than ever before, people were getting interested in speedrunning; and players were more than willing to give the public what they wanted. To achieve perfection, you must know every nook and cranny in a game. The best speedrunners utilize whatever glitches available to gain a lead, and for heavily optimized games, this often leads to a series of difficult glitches you must perform in a row – any wrong move ruining a run. These pixel-perfect gauntlets are strung togeth- er by their thriving communities, with people studying and experimenting on the game for potential new strategies. In this sense, games are like a puzzle that must be solved. Hundreds of hours of work from people all over the world are put into a game for the sole purpose of gaining a world record, with the best speedrun representing the culmination of all that effort.

This quest for perfection is something that both drives and haunts players. Even just finding a “perfect run” is a challenge, as countless hours must be spent optimizing until every last millisecond is shaved off. Not to mention how precise the tricks are, putting into question if they are even humanly possible in the first place. Some tricks are referred to as “pixel-perfect”, meaning that there’s almost no room for error! Even a perfect time is agreed upon, then completing it is a years long endeavor that players must face. They complete run after run after run, most not making it past the first few levels in a given game. But, the few runs that do are truly mesmerizing.

Imagine this: For the first time in hours, you’ve gotten every single difficult glitch in a row. Now, you’re on a world record pace. You feel your hands begin to sweat. Your thumbs begin to ache with each new button press. The sounds around you fall silent as you focus on the buzzing CRT television. The pressure builds with each new success – you dodge past the enemies, you jump at each new obstacle. Your hands nearly shake, but you must remain focused. Still, and focused, your only thoughts are the game. After a minute, you’ve made it to the final challenge. Your fingers move at an almost inhuman speed, this is what you’ve spent countless hours practicing for. You jump for the finish line, and you jump up from your chair in excitement. You have just gotten yourself a world record, and your name will go down in gaming history.

The sheer amount of anxiety when performing a run like this cannot be understated. When you’re in the midst of it, the air around you feels electric. When you’re finished, a warm wave of serenity flows over you from head to toe. The feeling is unmatched, and any speedrun will gaurentee you there’s nothing quite like it. For that reason, that sense of accomplishment, speedrunning will always be around in some form or another. Whether it be between friends or champions, it is breathtaking to not only to partake in, but to simply watch as well. The want to overcome such a daunting challenge is innately human, and so it is no wonder why speedrunning is so wildly popular today –for it shows that even sisyphus can reach the top of the cruelest mountain.

By William Hurt

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