Think you can finish a game faster than anyone else? Participate in the Summer Games Done Quick event and test your speed!
Speedruns have been a challenging proposal for gamers worldwide ever since gaming started to become what we know and love today. But the idea of organizing an event related to this type of challenge in order to raise funds for charities has been around only since 2010, and this year, the Awesome Game Done Quick 2016 raised $1.2 million for cancer prevention.
The concept of speedrunning is basically completing a game from start to finish in the fastest time possible. But the AGDQ added a couple of variations, with participants being asked to complete a game 100% or to play levels while being blindfolded. Ever since this even started to become popular on Twitch, millions of dollars have been raised for various charity foundations, with this year being no different, with all the proceedings being transferred to the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
Sure, you could say that you finished a level in Super Mario in one or two minutes, thinking that you were extremely fast, but this will pale in comparison to the times achieved during the event. For instance, the JRPG Final Fantasy IV that would take sometimes over 100 hours to complete, similar to other JRPGs, was finished in 3 hours and 30 minutes, with all of the optional boss battle done as well.
The highlight of the event was the Super Mario Maker race, peaking at 220,000 concurrent Twitch viewers, while on average, the viewer number was marked at 100,000 for the entire week. Because the game is so amazingly popular, professional speedrunners had to go neck and neck with players around the world in order to shave off just fractions of a second so that a new world record would be achieved.
Racers also attempted to play through the Turbo Tunnel level in Battletoads while blindfolded. Although the race ended in a failure, with no participants being able to beat it, viewers enjoyed their attempts nonetheless. Also worth noting was the achievement of racer SpootyBiscuit who finished Crypt of the Necrodancer in Coda Mode.
Even the developers behind the roguelike rhythm-based dungeon crawler said that this mode was probably impossible to complete, but this only pushed SpootyBiscuit even further. The rules of this mode are rather severe to say the least. The player cannot use any other weapon besides the basic dagger, if he touches gold at any time, he dies, he dies in one hit from any enemy, he only has one life, and the tempo is two times as fast than normal levels. It’s safe to say that the developers were not kidding when they called this mode basically impossible to beat, bearing in mind that just the normal game is rather difficult at times.
Although the Awesome Game Done Quick 2016 raised $1.2 million for cancer prevention, the sum is still a bit lower than last year’s $1.5 million. But one has to take into account the fact that in 2015, Humble Bundle also participated in the charity, offering several games at prices starting from $1, raising an estimated $200,000 in the process. If you missed the event, all of the races will be uploaded on YouTube, and between the 3rd and 9th of July, the Summer Games Done Quick event will be held in Minneapolis, with even more races and challenges alongside it.
Image source:gamesdonequick.com
