Speedrunning

  Gotta Speed fast!

So perhaps I haven't always afforded the art of speedrunning, or those who partake, with the respect it and they deserve. That comes from an inherent disconnect between what I fundamentally seek out of games and the way that they make a career out of twisting systems and breaking sequences in order to get to the end faster. I'm all about the adventure of delving into another world, experiencing a new story and becoming immersed in any life other than my own; whereas Speedrunners are all about breaking the magic box down to see all the machinery underneath, then rearranging all that machinery however they so choose. (Actually, that analogy makes them sound a little like modders. Ideally there should be a difference between those two branches of the gaming community) My particular leaning towards games is the very reason why I don't exactly gel with those 'playground' games which pop up every now and then, such as the Just Cause games. I just run out of reasons to come back after the explosions lose their appeal, which for me is around about the third explosion, and thus I've no reason to really clamber after the series. Now admittedly, this is a problem of my personal perception which I've struggled to rectify, but I'm made some inroads now that I'm helplessly addicted to some speedrunning content. (Send help.)

Now the speedrunning world that I'm currently invested in revolves around the sort of game you'd usually not expect to see in these circles; Grand Theft Auto V. Yes, it's one of the biggest and most talked about video games of the last generation, (Or should I say 'the generation before that') but it's also an openworld adventure game with a simply ludicrous amount of uncontrollable factors. This isn't like a straightforward 'A Link Between Worlds' sort of game where every single run of the game is more or less the same, there's things like randomly generated traffic to watch out for, inconsistent ragdolls, several physics based script moments; it's boggling to try and break down into a speedrunning game. And yet there are folk who do it, and the sit down and grind out this 20 hour game in ludicrous times that make one quite honestly balk. And the things that you can learn about how this incredibly intricate videogame works just by watching one of these runs is fascinating.

I think what really grabbed my attention then, for the kind of running game that GTA is, is the fact that it's a very freeform kind of run where pretty much anything can happen and so the talent in charge has to be highly knowledgeable about intricacies. Such knowledge such as how in Blitz Play your AI companions are actually programmed to be unable to kill enough enemies to move the scene forward. As in their guns will just stop doing damage and they'll effectively be shooting blanks for most of the mission whilst the player cleans things up. Really shatters the illusion of 'three man money heist', now doesn't it? Or how about in The Paleto Score, when you're tasked with driving Micheal and Trevor to the steelworks in a bulldozer and the national guard are called in, the tanks that arrive on the scene are actually programmed to miss you. All these little tips and tricks and quirks of the programming aren't enough to shatter my realm of immersion but to just edge in a little to the development minds behind a genuine masterpiece of a game, and I appreciate that chance.

But then, as with any community, the meat of the speedrunning circles are the people behind the scenes that try they hardest to keep everything official, and that's what really impresses me. When it comes to speedrunning, afterall, you're talking about people who are competing to attain an accolade as coveted as 'the best in the world', with a world record run. (At least until that record is inevitably broken) To everyone's credit this is actually a whole world more professionally handled than 'The Guinness Books of World Records' in that there's no system in place to buy yourself a world record for free marketing rights. Rather, runners typically Stream and have their whole process viewable for any judge to view, or there's some sort of save file offered around for specific runs that ensures everyone is playing on the same playing field. These judges and moderators have such passion and dedication that they can disseminate even the slightest inconsistence and pull it apart, all because they have a desire to keep the art of Speedrunning somewhat legitimate. (Or maybe that obsession is just a kneejerk reaction to the 'Billy Mitchel' effect, I don't know.) 

And even with my stipulation which got me into GTA V speedrunning 'It didn't shatter my immersion too hard', there still has been another speedrunning game that's caught me up in it's world, although that might just be a reaction to the ludicrousness of it all. 'Mr Krabs Overdoses on Ketamine' might not officially licenced Spongebob product, but it is a real game. (One I actually saw the launch trailer for and decided not to cover on this blog for some reason) This is a little joke game about collecting Ketamine in order to... okay, let's not pretend the game has any story. But it managed to somehow get the attention of the speedrunner community and now it's a title with a dedicated crowd around it as well as some drama involving a slightly muddled run. All in the space of couple weeks. (Wild how these things develop, no?)

Then of course there is the Minecraft Speedrunning community who's entire premise makes even less sense to me than the GTA one. Whereas GTA V has some huge RNG factors that can leave runs in the hand of chance, Minecraft is literally a game designed around procedural generation, so runs are destined to be scuffed almost every second. Some streamers spend hours resetting until they get that perfect start to launch themselves off, and I just cannot fathom the amount of precision one would have to nail to speedrun Minecraft. So you have to track down, kill and get lucky with Enderpearls, go to the Nether and get blazerods, then trackdown the End Fortress and kill the Elderdragon? The amount of chance behind each of those actions rattles my mind. Heck, I can't even get my head around the strats other than the lava bucket strat to get around building a nether Portal without needing to find diamonds.

Of course, when anything as invaluable as pride is on the line, there's bound to be controversy and Speedrunning is in no way immune to all that. I mentioned before how a 'Mr Krabs Overdoeses on Ketamine' run was called into question on accounts of allegedly doctored footage, but that's just the absolute tip of the iceburg in these sorts of scandals. Recently a popular Minecraft record, which wasn't number 1 but still insanely high scoring, was called into question over allegations of teaks to probability systems in order to make things drop easier. All of this calls back to mind the classic aforementioned debacle with Billy Mitchell who maybe wasn't a speedrunner, but the way that these communities delved into the microanalysis level to unravel the subtlest of lies is honestly quite humbling to watch. It's the sort of dedication you'd see from organised professional sport, and I love to see that people care that much.

So whilst you'd never catch me on the grind to knock my run down in the microseconds, I've developed something of an appreciation and understanding for those that do. Rather than unravelling and depreciating all the things that I love about my favourite games, I understand that it's another way of expressing that love through competition. (Although, that being said, I'm sure there's some guys out there who just hate the games they speedrun with a passion.) Now with that out of the way, I have a 4-hour livestream speedrun to watch...