Play to be fast and furious

In many traditional esports games, players compete online at the same time. But the single-player game speedrun is another exciting aspect of the world of competitive video games with its own interesting history. To put it simply: speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or a section of a video game, as quickly as possible. Yet the exact methods for completing a speedrun can vary wildly, depending on the type of speedrun the player is doing.

If we use the original Super Mario Bros. game as an example, the aim is to complete the game as fast as possible. However, in many games, there are bugs, or glitches, which can allow players to skip ahead levels to reach the end quicker. This means we can divide speedrunning into two simple categories: speedrunning which uses these glitches, and glitchless speedrunning which involves playing the game as the game creator intended.

Some speedruns can also be assisted with tools. Players can use software and tools to advance the game frame-by-frame and record a series of controller inputs helping reveal certain strategies and glitches.

For most speedrunning entertainers, using glitches is a popular tactic to save more time. For example, most players spend about two hours finishing the game Super Mario Bros., but while using glitches, it can be shortened to about five minutes.

Apart from glitches, beating a game fast sometimes can involve out-of-the-box thinking or techniques that still operate within the "rules" of the game. One popular example of this is "bunny hopping", usually performed by jumping and crouching at the same time to get some extra momentum.

Another feature that attracts many speedrun game players is its community-based nature. Major marathon competitions like Games Done Quick in the United States and the European Speedrunner Assembly in Sweden are held each year along with continuously updated online leaderboards and forums. These all help to bring a sense of community to the speedrunning scene as players seek to both break records and work together to find new and unexplored speedrunning techniques in games.

patrickmccarthy@i21st.cn