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Not my palms stop sweating, dripping grains of moisture from my controller buttons. My handle hasn’t changed in almost an hour, but I refuse to kill my attention with my touched hands. I try to regulate my breathing — inhale, slowly, exhale — but I have concerns. Don’t drown, I murmur to myself.
It’s a hot May night in Toronto, and I’m leaning over my computer, clicking on a Sega Genesis controller and trying to make a personal history. On my screen, a pixelated blue hedgehog zooms through the loop and hops from platform to platform. I breathe, getting heavier and heavier, until it’s over, until Sonic destroys Dr. Robotnik’s final form. Then I stop the timer: 49 minutes, 51 seconds. In the end in the official classificationsI will be ranked among the best players to win this special game Sonic in the fastest time possible. When the realization begins, I rejoice. All I want to do is play again.
I started speedrunning Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in January, eager to get a new pandemic hobby. Classic game, It was released in 1994 for the film Sega Genesis, was a basic element of my childhood: my older brother, who was then much more of a player than I was, played the game over and over again, and I would inevitably watch it every time. Players are games that aim to move fast, rotate and level up at high speed. So when Toronto settled on another city-wide closure at the end of last year, I tried to play with myself and see how fast I could do it, or at least if I could beat the pace of my brother’s years ago. I quickly became obsessed, pointing out magazines and notes. Unlike a real runnerEvery time I played I was eager for a brand new personal or PB. For every milestone I hit, I knew I could do better.
Why is Speedrunning so much fun?
While “Speedrunning” is playing its easiest as soon as possible, there are categories for each game with specific goals. When I finished, I chose to collect all seven emeralds Sonic 3“A tedious but ultimately satisfying task.” I’ve been working for months, spinning Sonic-like areas in secret areas and special stages, gradually improving until I officially reach the rankings. I would play almost every night; in the end, my partner asked me to wear headphones, playing the same tuned songs that play the tour.
You’ve certainly heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That’s the concept behind speedrunning. But fast runners do not experience instability or restlessness; instead, they are happy with the hope of playing the same game (same levels, same routes) over and over again.
Search speedrun category on Twitch any night and you will find dozens of amateur players playing fast favorite games. Speedrunning has become so popular over the years as to massive events around the world Games made fast they have gathered hundreds of thousands of viewers and won millions of dollars for charity. When runners pass the PB or finish the world record, they scream or cry with joy — or, if they’re like me, they walk around their little apartment with their fists in the air, ended up in YouTube viral compilations.
So why does the race (a strange sport to do the same thing over and over again) have such a cult following? A better understanding of how and why we play the game and how speedrunning exploits that psychology of the game can help players who play running get to go fast. But basically speedrunning meets some our most basic human needs: the desire to be the best we can be, to be among the communities of peer members and to get things done as quickly as possible.
How did it become such a fast race?
Speedruns have, in one way or another, been around for as long as video games have existed. There’s a simple reason for this: being the fastest at something is an easy and quantifiable way to measure a player’s greatness, unlike getting a high score. As game developer John Romero says Speedrun Science: A Brief Guide to Progress, “Anyone can get things done slowly, but that’s not competition.”
When communities of players gathered online in the early ’90s, runners began to find each other to exchange tips and tricks and share their time. Speedrunners in the classic first person shooter game Doom In 1994 they were the first among the major classifications; today, the final classification site Speedrun.com It has more than 2 million tracks recorded in more than 20,000 games.
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