Getting Gamers
Getting Gamers
14 - Speed Runs
One popular thing that gamers do is finish a good game.. as fast as they can. In this short episode, we cover the general aspects of what a speedrun is, throw in the gamertags of some of the best speedrunners out there on twitch and Perf offers himself to you if you happen to be a Resident Evil fan
Speedrunners :
Zfg1 : Zelda Ocarina of Time
Firedragon764 : games for kids
Calebhart42 : Megaman and Final Fantasy VII
gettinggamers.com
@GettingGamers (Twitter and Facebook)
@Juke_ish (Instagram, Twitch, Twitter)
Perf: twitch.tv/perfectedl
Art by Arielle:
twitter @ProphetPossum
instagram @ProphetOPossum
Hello humans and welcome to getting gamers your guide to understanding the gamers in your life. I am Duke My pronouns are they them?
Perf:And I am Perf. My pronouns are he him. And today we're gonna talk about speedrunning.
Juke:Yeah, so it's been a few episodes that we mentioned that whenever the rare times and that Perf is on Twitch, he is likely doing speed runs of Resident Evil and we thought why not explain that? Because I feel like it's probably a common thing that kids watch too. Like the kid the parents are passing by. And like, not only is my kid not gaming, he's watching someone else game. And they they don't understand that already. So
Perf:I know for a fact that it's a very popular thing. Probably amongst kids too, because I know that a lot of speed runners are doing Nintendo games speedruns such as we just mentioned Super Mario Bros. Games on the SNES. It's a Super Nintendo. So
Juke:Is that the one that's like handheld?
Perf:I don't think so.
Juke:Nevermind. I don't know this stuff.
Perf:Talking about Game Boys?
Juke:No, there's like a Nintendo Switch.
Perf:No c'est ca, it's a more retro game.
Juke:Okay. So like the the games everyone grew up with? Like our generation grew up with?
Perf:Yeah, pretty much.
Juke:So people now are still playing those games, but like speed running them?
Perf:Yeah. So the kids from our time, are speed running, the retro games.
Juke:And then they like teams now are like, wow, those guys are so cool. But it's because they've played it their whole life.
Perf:Yeah, it must have been doing the game for a 100 times,
Juke:Damn.
Perf:And more.
Juke:All right. So before we talk about people who do speedrun, can you define kind of what speed running is?
Perf:Well, it's what like the name suggests is doing the game as fast as you can. And this includes using exploits in the game. There's some times bugs or, or, how can we do this, but it is exploits from the game design, let's say..
Juke:Like flaws or..
Perf:Yeah exactly.
Juke:Things you normally not able to do. But now because there was an in the programming of the game, a glitch or whatever, you can do this thing faster. Exactly. It's it's discovered by doing the games over and over again, or, just by chance, pure chance you you're stuck in a corner and you realize that by pressing a certain a sequence of buttons on your controller that you go through a wall, for example, or you jump, you gain access to a zone that you're not supposed to access at a certain giving time in the game. Okay, but this would be, because that sounds a lot to me like when like I don't have a lot of experience with this. But my stepbrother used to play Grand Theft Auto, and you can like you could find cheats, and you do a sequence of like a b x x x x Z, blah, blah, blah, and then you like helicopter view or something. But this would not be achieved.
Perf:It's a completely different, well, it could be still considered to be like cheating, but it's not, it's not a cheat code.
Juke:Okay.
Perf:It's just a way of exploiting the game in your favor for just for time actually.
Juke:So you were talking to me about a game that you play with Zik where if you like hug the wall and you you could like shoot through the wall even though you're not supposed to because of how the game is programmed walls there it made it kind of like accidentally shoot through it or something.
Perf:Well, that that's the case in many of these game exploits that you get.
Juke:Okay.
Perf:Let's say you're hugging the wall, pressing a few buttons and you end up being outside of the of the map of the program that's been designed for this particular level, a particular time in the game. And depending on the game, you can end up seeing, see the actual programming of the map design. So it allows you to go through walls, to, through enemies.. Skip entire zones of the game. So So speedrunning is not always fun. It's not... Because you you see all the flaws in the game, you see how it's made. But you skip some fun parts too sometimes. And..
Juke:So the goal of speedrunning is to get to the end of the game...
Perf:As fast as possible.
Juke:As fast as possible. Is there so? Like, is the goal of speed reading to find as many of these loopholes as possible? Or is it really just to get to the end? Because in my mind, if you're doing these loopholes, then are you really finishing the game? If you end up skipping a whole part? Because you found this loophole, then did you finish the game if you didn't do that part?
Perf:Clearly not. It's a, let's say a speedrun. Is as opposed as
Juke:It's the opposite you mean. a completionist. A completionist.
Perf:Yeah.
Juke:Okay.
Perf:Yeah, it's the complete opposite.
Juke:Okay.
Perf:Every file, every upgrades, every everything that the game designer puts inside the game. And as a speed runner, you're going to skip as much stuff as you can, and still be able to defeat let's say, the end boss.
Juke:So no side quests, unless you need that specific reward to beat the boss. there's a lot of Nintendo games that are, let's say spin offs from the real story. Because I was watching game. It's a game show called Hmm actually done by College Humor. You probably don't know, but probably a lot of listeners know it because College Humor is pretty big. And I'm actually is like a fun game show where the host says fact there's something wrong. In fact, first one to buzz in and say what's wrong with the fact that he said, he has to preface like after he buzzes he has to say Hmm actually and then say his correction, if he doesn't say Hmm actually..
Perf:I think you showed me that.
Juke:Yeah, so in that in that show. I found out that while we like in the whole Mario bros universe, Waluigi is not related to Mario, he is Mario's childhood friend, that ends up turning against them. So that episode of Hmm actually actually taught me that there was more to the lore of Mario Bros, than I thought, because I was like, Waluigi? I mean, Wario? I meant Wario. Did I say Waluigi, whatever I meant Wario, Mario with a W. Like, I thought, you know, they were related. That's why their names are so but no.
Perf:For some reason, I thought they were the evil cousin pair.
Juke:Yeah, something like that. Like I thought they were like the evil parallel universe or something or evil twin that was uglier. I don't know. But no he's a childhood friend or something. It's, it's, there's more story to it than I thought. But in the games, it's not that story focused.
Perf:No, sure enough.
Juke:And so do you find that in speed running? It's mostly games that don't have a story or is mostly games that do or speed runners don't give a fuck they just want to speed run,
Perf:I think is the third option. Okay, be honest. As long as the they can find all the experts needed, and they can speed run it. They don't care much about anything else. Okay, the only thing they care about is how to optimize their run to have the lowest time possible. Because for many of speed runners I think the the the end goal for them is not the lore it's not the completion of the game. It's world records.
Juke:So a bit like people who like to sprint you want to be the fastest sprinter Yeah, pretty much it's the same thing. Yeah, versus someone who wants to through hike they want to see the best views. Like a slow hiker wants to see all the views a sprinter wants, the best time.
Perf:I guess we could say it's the sprint version of a video games?
Juke:Yeah, that's, that's interesting. But so you were showing me I don't know, if you were leading up to that, but you were showing me kind of on the screen earlier, what a speed run stats look like?
Perf:Yeah, they stream it on, let's say on Twitch. For the viewers they're gonna the speed runner are going to show you the average time for which they should acquire certain items or attain certain place in their level or in the game. And right, besides this average time, you're going to have their own time, it's going to be green if they're ahead for, let's say, 15 seconds ahead or in red, or if they're behind. And all of this is in real time.
Juke:Yeah, so what what I'm getting from that is that the goal isn't only to get to the end of the game as fast as possible, but also to hit certain milestones before certain time. there's this, but I'm guessing there's a certain order anyways, that you have to do it to get to the end, as fast as possible.
Perf:Exactly these milestones are, are there to give them a certain reference so they can evaluate if this speedrun is actually worth finishing, to be there on time. Or just to start all over again.
Juke:So like, halfway through the they realize like, they hit too many milestones late, so they know they're not going to beat their time. So they might as well start over.
Perf:Exactly.
Juke:Aha. I see.
Perf:I've seen that happen only for Resident Evil 2. Because it's the only game I have been trying to speed run a few times. But I'm not even close from the record world records.
Juke:But Resident Evil also gives you a grade at the end of your game.
Perf:Exactly.
Juke:Which I, the games I've played, which are very few, like Borderlands, you don't really have a you don't you don't get graded at the end of your run.
Perf:Borderlands is considered to casual I think to have a grade after.
Juke:Me, it was the first time I had ever seen a grade, at the end of a video game was Resident Evil and I was very surprised. I think from what I saw, it's consistent through all of the Resident Evil?
Perf:Pretty much yeah. It's graded from S to D or E I think.
Juke:And so on Resident Evil is your grade related to how fast you do it or related to how well like someone who does a speed run the fastest speed runner, is he gonna have an A plus? Or is he gonna have like a, b because he doesn't care about the grade only cares about the time
Perf:He's most likely gonna have S tier still, which is the highest because the main factors that determine your grade is the time you take for the run. So by definition, you will most likely have the best time you can. And the other one is the amount of time you save in the game.
Juke:Meaning doing the action of saving so as to not lose your progress?
Perf:As acheckpoint, exactly.
Juke:Okay, so it's important to..
Perf:Save less.
Juke:Okay, so the less you save your progress, the better you.
Perf:Yeah, cuz it's, it's harder if you save less, because if you die, you're gonna have to start over from a longer period of time.
Juke:So you're more badass if you did less save, so you get a better grade. And there's a in that in Resident Evil, it takes time, you have to go somewhere to save. That's why it takes more time.
Perf:Exact Yeah. There are different predetermined places that you have to go physically go in the game, to save.
Juke:Okay . See, that's an interesting thing. Because if your kid or your boyfriend is a speed runner, it's obviously not an online game. So you might think, oh well, he should be Yeah because technically. Well, speedruns are made offline. able to pause. If I'm going to talk to him, you know, he should be able to stop his game, whatever. It's not an online game, so I'm not bothering his friends. But if your partner is into that type of stuff, and is trying to get a good grade, then then that might be a huge thing if you ask him to like stop his game and save so that he can go I don't know, do whatever chore you need him to do. He it might hinder the result of the of the game so they're in another reason as to not being able to necessarily pause or end or save the game. Yeah. It can be done offline. But if you pause to go do something else, you're gonna it's gonna kill your momentum and your focus for sure. Yeah. That's interesting.
Perf:Because these guys aside from exploits, they can still do pretty impressive skill base feats, if I can say.
Juke:That's cool, is there, like competitions that are for speed runners?
Perf:Yeah, I can't say I know them very well. But I know that there's world records and competition, I think that was from LAN ETS. I know there was some competition for speed runners.
Juke:Ah yeah? There was like a speed running section?
Perf:Yeah. Pretty sure there was.
Juke:Interesting.
Perf:Just to give you like as somewhat of a reference, let's say Resident Evil 2, of course. A normal run would take you about, let's say, 8 to 12 hours depending on your level of completionism. But as far as I know, that best time and I don't remember the name of the person, but it was 53 minutes.
Juke:Oh, okay. That's...
Perf:So it requires you to know every weakness of every single enemies their pathing. The maps by heart, the timing of the enemies, when they're when and where they're going to come out. There's a few random elements you can't control because depending on how the game is programmed, the the enemies are going to spawn at some different spawn points. And this is randomly generated. So speedrunners have to do with that, it's generally the, the main obstacle they're going to go through. Because otherwise, they, they just remember everything else perfectly.
Juke:That's interesting, because if I think back on the times that you showed me, Resident Evil, which is a game you speed ran, as a beginner, it was interesting to see because we would walk by a dead body that was just laying there that wasn't necessarily I wasn't able to interact with at that moment. But you were like, but you you were telling me on your way back, this guy's gonna reanimate which was interesting for a beginner, especially a beginner who doesn't like horror games. Because then that had, I had a sense of preparedness.
Perf:It's taking out the effect of jumpscares.
Juke:Yeah, so I think that that, if a last, not last episode, sorry about that. In one of our previous episodes, we talked about how you got me into gaming and stuff like that, I would say, for a gamer who might want to get the partner into gaming, maybe a game that you know, as, like, if you're a speed runner, maybe that's a good game, to show your beginner because you can give them all these cues that are going to make it easier for like a first game depending on the game, of course, but if you know a game to that level that deep where you know, the maps by heart and the timings by heart, it might be a great game to explain since you know, know it, so well, you know.
Perf:To a, to a noob?
Juke:Yeah, not in the speed run manner, but in the sense of like, since you know, all the timings and you have your noob playing, you'll be like, Okay, so like that, see that guy over there, he's gonna get he's gonna walk all the way to that point. And he won't go further. So you can do this or that, or this, you know, stuff like that, which is really useful when you know, a game so intensely.
Perf:We could certainly do that together. But it takes out the the element of surprise, and it takes all this.. It's clearly spoiling the game.
Juke:Yeah. But I mean, in the in the sense, not necessarily for me, like you've shown me Resident Evil. It's not necessarily my vibe. But if we're thinking about a gamer trying to get a non gamer into gaming, maybe someone who's more reluctant, and who doesn't. Who just focuses on the fact that it's hard, which I think a lot of non gamers who don't want a game, just focus on the fact that it's hard, and they don't get past that, then that could be an option. I don't know we don't have to..
Perf:It is but you'd have to take the person by the hand and show them exactly what's gonna happen. But it's certainly doable for sure. Yeah, if you guys want to just check out a few of the best speed runners there's out there. And there's a on Twitch Of course, yes, there's a Zfg1, which is the most reknown speedrunner for Zelda Ocarina of Time. I know there's a lot of people that know this particular game. Even if you're not a gamer, you have surely heard of this before. So he's got like, 77,000 followers. So that's quite a lot. If you want some more kids, kids like game, you can go with firedragon764. He's got a lot of Nintendo game speed runs and there's also Caleb Hart. 42. With streams, Megaman speedruns. For the more retro gamers out there.
Juke:I think we'll try to remember to link them because Twitch, fight names are never
Perf:Yeah, I'm gonna put them in the description of course.
Juke:Yeah. So what's the appeal? Like when people watch speed runs? Are they watching? Are they watching to learn, like, in your opinion, because I know you don't watch that much speed runs. But in your opinion, when people watch speed runs, is it more because they're trying to learn how to speed run? Or is it more like when you're watching people sprint at the Olympics? You're just like, wow, they're fast?
Perf:I think it's a mix. It's both. You can clearly watch some speed runners to try and speed run yourself. But it's not it's not the other than the entertainment. I don't think there's much else to speed running.
Juke:Yeah, it's more of a watching a sport. Like a fast.
Perf:Yeah, exactly.
Juke:All right.
Perf:It's only for good sports.
Juke:So let's say someone at home, like one of our listeners has a speed has a speed runner at home. Is there anything that like they can do? For you know, that can help your speed runner out? Other than leaving them alone? I guess not right.
Perf:Good question. Maybe just trying to help him find some other speedrunners that are better than him.
Juke:Yeah, I would not go with that. Generally, people don't like your mom. You definitely don't want your mom to say, I know you like that game. I found someone who's better than you. That's like the most annoying mom thing you will hear. But no, I don't think there's really anything that that like a home can be done to improve that, but I'll definitely say.
Perf:But I mean, watching other speed runners is sure surely a good thing to do because you're gonna have more chance to discover and learn about new exploits on the game that you might not have thought before.
Juke:Yeah, but I meant more like as a partner or parent of someone who likes speedrunning because if I think of the games that you are not in like that you don't speed round but that you just play I I would say this like a parent or partner to just like, like I checked off on my phone for the news, gaming stuff. So like, since you were into Hearthstone, I wanted to get like Hearthstone news and Blizzard news, since you're you you play a lot of Blizzard games. But if you're if someone's up to speed running, then you're not really interested in necessarily going deep into the lore of the game. So there's not really anything that you can do as like a partner or parent of a speed runner to like really get into that vibe especially if speed running isn't your thing you kind of just have to let them do their own thing and and maybe just ask them their scores and be like oh, did you beat your record?
Perf:Yeah, but whether we pretty much it because it's very specific and you can't really have.. is that would be very surprised you're getting a lot of those Oh, I've tried trying these, this sequence of buttons in that specific corner and this specific level ..
Juke:It's like asking your speed runner his his score at the end. If he beat his level or asked your speed runner what's the hardest part? What's What's the part that like slows them down every time in the game and like make him explain that to you that that's a fun..
Perf:Yeah, exactly. Maybe just do something in a casual conversation about it and you maybe first he's gonna like the attention and second and maybe he's just while he's talking to you maybe he's gonna find or think about another way of speedrunning this this particular part of the game.
Juke:Yeah, cuz if I think not a game that your speed running, but the game that you play would say critical Gears of War. Yeah, yeah. Is that the game where you can accidentally shoot through walls?
Perf:Yeah, it's one of them. It's like a loophole. Right? If we want, we can say that.
Juke:That for me, because get your Gears of War is a game that doesn't really interest me. Like every time I see you play, I'm like, oh, cool, you're playing but I'm never like, Oh, I'm gonna play, you know?
Perf:Yeah, well, it's a very high skill cap. .
Juke:High skill cap?
Perf:Yeah. Third Person Shooter.
Juke:And it's online too. So, but but it was interesting even though it's a game that I'm not interested in it was interesting to find out about this little loophole because it's, it's like, oh, like, that's weird that you can shoot through walls and do this random stuff. Like there.. there is stuff that can be interesting if you're even if you're not interested in the game. So if you want to start a conversation, and you're clearly noticing that your gamer is more of a speed runner type, then having those types of conversations like Oh, what, what's the cool loopholes in this game? You know, and stuff like that?
Perf:Yeah, it can take all their imagination. Maybe they're just gonna talk to you about that with all their heart. You can also buy them drugs so they can go faster. No don't do that.
Juke:Don't do that. we're not giving such advice on this podcast.
Perf:No. Clearly, not giving advice and telling people to go buy drugs.
Juke:No.
Perf:That would be evil. And fun, but mainly evil.
Juke:Alright, so this episode's gonna have been on the shorter side of things appropriate for a episode about speed running for it to not be too long.
Perf:Yeah, is a speed speed episode.
Juke:Can go to getting gamers.com We have a glossary there that gives great little definitions of gamer terms. And you can find us at getting gamers on Twitter and Facebook mainly. And you can find me at Juke underscore ish on Twitch Twitter, Instagram. That's pretty much it. And Perf is Perfectedl no twitch.tv/perfectedl.
Perf:Perfected with an L at the end. And if if there's even only one person asking for it, I can do a personal speedrun well try a personal speedrun from Resident Evil 2 remake. Yeah, there's gonna be my very own easter egg from these episodes.
Juke:To be honest, I think even if people don't ask for it, he might do it.
Perf:Yes but I'm just gonna make it twice.
Juke:Alright, then. GG!
Perf:GG!
Juke:The artwork for this podcast was made by my dear friend Arielle you can find her on Twitter at @profitpossum. And you can find her on Instagram at@profitOpossum. Our intro and outro song is made by David.
Perf:Job's done.