Speedrun
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A speedrun is a play-through of a computer or video game, the whole game or a selected part such as a single level of it, with the intent of completing it as quickly as possible. The term is only used in the context of games that were not originally or primarily designed with time-squashing in mind; one generally does not "speedrun" in a racing game (in those cases the game's standard setting for achieving and recording fast times is called a time attack or time trial mode). Both speedrunning and time attacking are often practised competitively in Internet-based communities.
There are two big subgenres of speedruns: unassisted or regular speedruns, and tool-assisted speedruns. Unassisted speedruns are done in real time using only whatever features there were in the actual game, while tool-assisted speedruns also use the features found outside the game, such as the "save-state" feature found in emulators.
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History
The first known game to have developed a coordinated speedrunning fanbase was Doom, with several websites collecting demos (files with recorded playing) around 1994 (see COMPET-N). Speedrunning entered mainstream with the famous Quake Done Quick demo for Quake created by the eponimous group. QdQ also produced Quake Done Quicker and Scourge Done Slick movies which in addition to top-notch speedrunning skills featured humorous plot and camerawork, making QdQ one of the pioneers of machinima community.
(to be expanded)
Techniques
Finding the route
An essential part of speedrunning is to find the shortest feasible route through the game. In highly non-linearly structured games, which are almost exclusively preferred for speedrunning purposes, there is often no obvious choice. The shortest possible route might contain so many obstacles that it is virtually impossible to use, and it is therefore often necessary to find a compromise between ease and distance. Depending on how the player's skill improves, faster but increasingly difficult routes may be chosen.
Sequence breaking
The best routes do in fact rarely rely upon the paths and progressions that were designated by the developers. Skilled players will usually discover ways to finish parts of the game in a different order than was intended, and they consequentially often find ways to skip parts of a game entirely. Using these shortcuts is sometimes called sequence breaking. Shortcuts are often possible because their existence has been overlooked by the developers, but they are sometimes actually implemented intentionally. A trick for sequence breaking in first-person shooters is the so called "rocket jump", which consists of jumping intentionally over a mine or explosive, or shooting with a rocket launcher on the ground. The explosion allows the character to jump higher than normal, reaching nearby but otherwise unreachable places. Obviously, the character incurs significant damage from the explosion. In another example (from the Quake Done Quick speedruns), the character jumped to an unreachable platform by stepping over a laser shot, just shot by a nearby enemy. This technique requires precise timing and study. Since the level was centered on finding an alternative way to reach the platform, the sequence breaking permitted a player to skip almost the complete level.
Glitches
Sometimes a glitch will allow for an interesting speedrunning opportunity. The classic example is being able to walk through a wall due to an inferior collision detection. A commonly used, minor glitch in Quake games is that turning makes the player move faster than running straight forwards, and jumping takes away the friction caused by hitting the ground; Thus by continuously jumping and turning, players can achieve 60% faster speed than normally (measurement taken from Quake 1). This is referred to as "bunny hopping". An interesting glitch found in Half Life 2 is that players can fly by grabbing a planar object, looking downwards and jumping continuously. Many polished and acclaimed speedruns are filled with glitch abuse, but the usage of several inconspicuous glitches may be left unnoticed by those who have not devoted their life to the given game.
Tool assistance
Tool-assisted speedruns make use of tools such as slow motion and re-recording. Emulators that currently feature the tools necessary to creating these tool-assisted speedruns include Famtasia, FCE Ultra [1] (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12395#12395), Nintendulator, VirtuaNES, Snes9x [2] (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/forum/viewtopic.php?p=25682#25682), Gens [3] (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4577#4577), ZSNES [4] (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/forum/viewtopic.php?p=28430#28430) and Visual Boy Advance [5] (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/forum/viewtopic.php?p=30138#30138).
The tool-assisted speedruns try to avoid comparisons to the unassisted runs, as this would be unfair to the players. In unassisted runs, it would be unacceptable to use emulator's save-state features to take a shorter but more dangerous path, saving the game when passing an obstacle. Likewise, many unassisted speedrunners frown upon glitch abuse, while it is highly desirable in the tool-assisted community.
Tool-assisted speedruns are not done to show off one's playing skills, but more to show off all kinds of crazy things that are theoretically possible in the game but impossible to do in practice. While speed is desired, the focus is on entertainment. For example, there is a famous tool-assisted speedrun of Super Mario Bros. 3 by "Morimoto" that finishes the game in approximately 11 minutes - the fun is in the breathtaking speed and overall craziness of the game, not the skills. The video has since been "obsoleted" by a faster tool-assisted speedrun, but this video is still the best-known example of its kind.
The controversy revolves around the similarity between the finished products. Websites exist dedicated to each side in the hopes that the movies will be considered separate. However, some individuals have allegedly tried to submit tool-assisted speedruns as unassisted speedruns. Without careful analysis, it is hard to tell the difference between the two, and this undermines the effort put into unassisted speedruns.
Official recordkeeping only considers unassisted speedruns. Some believe this is the only real way to do a speedrun, even going so far as to describe tool-assisted speedruns as "fake" or "cheating."
Popular games for speedrunning
- Doom and Doom II
- The Mega Man series
- The Metroid series
- Quake
- The Sonic the Hedgehog series
- Halo and Halo 2
- Diablo II
- Super Mario Brothers
- Half-life and Half-life 2
See also
External links
- Collection of speedrun videos (http://www.archive.org/movies/movieslisting-browse.php?collection=speed_runs) at the Internet Archive
- Speed Demos Archive (http://speeddemosarchive.com/) - Speedruns for several recent games
- Quake Done Quick (http://www.planetquake.com/qdq/) - Quake in 12:23 on nightmare among other runs
- Speed Demos Archive - Quake (http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/) - Individual Quake maps done quick
- Tool-assisted console game movies (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/) - Speedruns through various NES, SNES, Genesis and Game Boy/Game Boy Advance games, made with emulation and by slowing down the gameplay.
- NintendoRecords.com (http://nintendorecords.com/) - Tool-assisted speedruns through various NES games.
- Metroid 2002 (http://www.metroid2002.com/) - Metroid series
- Time Attack Theatre (http://www.timeattacker.tk/)
- COMPET-N (http://www.doom2.net/compet-n/index.cgi) - Runs for all Doom games, excluding Doom 3
- Samus.co.uk on Sequence Breaking in Metroid (http://www.samus.co.uk/metroid/sequence_breaking.shtml)
- The GoldenEye and Perfect Dark Elite (http://www.the-elite.net)
- High Speed Halo (http://highspeedhalo.org/) - A source for Halo and Halo 2 speed runs
- Metal Gear Solid series (http://homepage3.nifty.com/shin3/MGS.htm)de:Speedrun