Intro

-It’s easy to go to the idea of the speed runner knowing the game better than their creator but I don’t think that’s true. I think that reduces the game to the code and I think there’s tension between what the game is and what the game is made up of

  • speed running is subaltern play
  • This is particularly important when you think about how hard it is for players to challenge systems and not narratives

Half-life

  • I can confirm that it feels a little bad when someone figures out an exploit in your code even if I believe it shouldn’t
  • Speed reading is an interesting parallel, in part for how different the goals are
  • Speed running as seeing the game in the way of the designer is very interesting
  • Considering yourself to still be Gordon when speed running but not when no clipping is very true
  • Playful is a good term for it in contrast with, I guess consumptive

Conan

  • Racing to complete an autopsy is a good term - this one in particular feels like the game is dead and dissected. The TAS really pushes this
  • It feels like you’re not reading a book, you’re cutting it up to use as a ransom note
  • I also don’t think you’re engaging with the nature of games as much as the materials of the game. You can only understand so much of a painting by going paintdrop to paintdrop. You also need to step back a bit
  • The unambiguity of speedrunning separates it from the remapping of parkour

VVVVV

  • Completionism is also interesting to put against speedrunning. They both have similarity in how they try to break the game, but one is designed and the other is subversive.
  • When you talk about speedrunning as being like sports, I think it’s more like athletics. When I play basketball, it’s my team against the opposite team, or me against my opponent over and over again. This is more single-player, in parallel.
  • The subversiveness also makes me think of something like tagging or parkour. Part of the fun is saying “Look, I tagged this spot. Bet you can’t figure out how I got here.”

That Dragon, Cancer

  • I’m impressed by the concept. It is a massive remapping fo the idea of speedrunning.
  • It’s interesting to see that the game was so resistant to being reduced to systems.

GIRP

  • Interesting to see that in speedrunning GIRP, there are no tricks like jump patterns or physics system breaks, it’s just getting better at the game as it is meant to be played.

Punch-out

  • Absolutely both blindfolded and speedrunning feels like a product of more time than games
  • Can both survive in the age of the forever game?
  • Very interesting how OHKOs are good for both speedrunning and blindfold runs
  • Both also reward cheese
  • It sounds like beating a game blindfolded generates a sense of mastery. Does speedrunning generate a similar feeling? Is there a nuanced difference here?

Titanic Mystery

  • It’s interesting to position yourself as a non-competitive speedrunner. It feels like subaltern play in a lot of ways - part of the point of speedrunning is to be competitive. To make it about the kinship is a very interesting maneuver.
  • On nobody caring when you put up the first speedrun record - that implies that there’s no actual interest in having a speedrun record for every possible game, in contrast with say reviewing a game or providing a walkthrough.
  • What’s the opinion though about two people putting down records at once? ie; storing a record of their competition?
  • I like the idea of hitting the door when it least expects it. It’s a strong anthropomorphization of code.
  • It’s fun to see people lose at speedrunning, not just at a speedrunning goal, but speedrunning as a whole.

Conclusion

  • What else can I speedrun? Getting my driving license renewed?
  • It’s a good point that there’s some resistance towards games that are geared towards speedrunning. It’s like setting aside a wall for people to graffiti.
  • I like the point that speedrunning helps engage with games as software, even if much of what I try to do with my games is distance them from being software.
  • It also raises the question of can you speedrun a boardgame? It seems obvious that you can but you might have to manually verify it afterwards.
  • Optimizing a grocery run is not a speedrunning though because it has a tangible benefit to being faster

Neon White

  • The bench as a joke on the core of speedrunning is very funny