[BACKER EDITION] Speedruns Are Awesome, And Here's Why

also, from a petty point of view, i wish you'd included some audio of that Two Worlds speedrun, because it was one of the funniest speedruns i've ever seen. WHAT A GOD. NO ANIMATIONS

Mallow

I had to miss the editing stream but I just wanted to pop in to say that I really appreciate that you addressed both how hilariously absurd the set-up Donkey Kong 64 is, along with how speedrunning at its core is a group effort, requiring multiple people to work together to reach the true capabilities a speedrun for any game can reach.

Mallow

Hey, so I did the "beat this thing I played as a child now that I am a boring adult with a job" back a couple years ago with the Extreme version of Metal Gear Solid 2. I literally saved before the final battle with only a tiny sliver of health and no rations, and I found the save on a memory card and decided I would use it to finally beat the game. And after several grueling hours of remembering how to play a game by trying desperately to beat the final boss (which I absolutely do not recommend: 1.7/10, maybe), I finally FINALLY beat him. And just that swell of emotion, that pure joy of accomplishing something that I so strongly wanted to accomplish, that linking my past self and my aspirations to the present me who had come back around to that same moment, that same beautiful enjoyment of a well-made game, THAT feeling is just the best feeling. Anyway. TL:DR - video games are great and they make me happy.

A_Blinkin'

Glad you brought this up - we did a lot of cutting of that sort of stuff in the editing stream. Hopefully there's enough removed in the finished video for your liking ;d

Hbomb

I feel like there is a lot of waffling about how things are "just your opinion". I wonder if that's a direct response to some of the criticism that you "state your opinions as though they were facts"; as though your target audience aren't basically functional adults who can tell the difference between opinions and facts without being told. Of course I may only be noticing it because I noticed the criticism.

Dandi Andi

Can you remove the jokes about the Japanese Dark Souls player's name? It's obnoxious.

Jeremy

Like the idea of “frame perfect” and how shaving off seconds can come about through certain optimizations

Talia P

I should have mentioned in my initial comment but you should mention, in however detail you want, the mechanics of speed running and various “movement tech” skills required for certain games

Talia P

yeah

Hbomb

Oh, I can't wait for this to go public live, a friend of mine has been super into watching speedruns evolve recently, I think she'd really rev with this.

Shawna Lee

the stream is today right

Siegfried Pinzer

hey hbomb, I expect you saw the video averagetrey (sunshine speedrunner) did on the history of sunshine speedrunning?

Shame you didn't mention Pepsiman, it's my favourite speedrun, because it's so weird!

Useless Himbo

Really like the idea of the video spreadsheet!

Great video HBomb. The critical question, however, is how do I get my hands on a Shaun T-Shirt?

Jay Bob

Enjoyed the video. Was a little sad that Breath of the Wild didn't get a mention, since it was literally designed with speed running in mind. ie. you can attempt the final boss almost immediately after leaving the starting area

James

Just gonna casually swoon over this video. I always have mixed feelings watching speedruns due to the, uh, toxic nature of the community at times (I know you mentioned there being other trans/queer folk at the end of the video, but they're relatively rare, and you know how these audiences can be), but at the end of the day I have a great deal of respect for people who put in this amount of work to do something. I actually watched that SMS run live, it was pretty incredible tbh.

At around 15 minutes or so in you say that the longer in game speedrun is a minute faster in real time but isn't it a minute slower according to the numbers on screen? Or am I just reading that wrong which is definitely possible

Could tell this one is from the heart. 7-year-old me felt similarly about DK64, a game I didn't beat until High School for the same reasons (Jet Pack gave me just as much trouble as the other arcade game). It does feel like there's some fat to trim, but I can't point to anything specifically. I'm sure you'll suss it out in the final editing stream.

William Heathcote

Aha, I'd thought of that too. I'll do it lol

Hbomb

I think you could cut a few minutes out of the middle of the mirror's edge section - you restate your feelings about any% vs glitchless a bunch of times

Kristaps Porzingis

Though I am surprised you didn't note the sexism and harassment seen in the community.

Dave

Fun stuff!

Dave

45 minutes of new Hbomb content?!? Yes please <3

Andrew H

This was really great ! I actually looked up the speed runs for my favorite game of all time (dark alliance 2: Baldur’s gate) and there was just one guy who held the record in all categories, not even any other attempts. It just shows how much love someone can have for a game and I love it 💜 thanks Harris !

Yo, that Shaun shirt is wonderful

Chaotic Deluge

That was really nice! The only thing I think that *could* be mentioned is, like, Tool Assisted Speedruns? Otherwise that was an excellent summation of why speedruns are so engaging as well as why speed might not be the most essential thing

Samael

So how soon before someone posts the first speedrun of your video essay on speedruns?

Kevin James

It's the same reason people watch sports. We love watching others kick ass at something we find fun, especially if you're mediocre or worse at it. Moving on to another topic, you're doing this Donkey Kong thing along with all your other projects? How do you find the time? I envy your time management skills.

Lovin' the Shaun shirt!

My only suggestion is a short sample of Deathgrips music played during the second the name is onscreen. Otherwise great.

Theodore Hall

I'm looking forward to ruining seventy hours of your life "youwoo"-ing on stream. Also this video strikes me as in a very similar vein as Halcyon Dreams and I love it. It's great that you can make such amazingly engaging videos about things that are simply... nice. It's incredibly important and I should give that a shot myself.

Nichtschwert

that was a nice goodnight video, thanks and sleep well, everyone

civilization fiction

this is great hbomb! i love your point about how the accomplishment comes from something so small== recently, inspired by sgdq, i wanted to get into speedrunning, and everything online about how to go about that suggested picking one of your favorite games to run. out of what i guess was a mix of facetiousness and feeling intimidated by running longer titles i tried to run thirty flights of loving, a 15-20 minute walking sim. i didn’t expect there to be much of a community but there was about 10ish runs on speedrun.com, so i watched a few and, as i expected, most runs were kinda uneventful since tfol (as great as it is as a short story) is mostly just walking to a trigger that lets the next thing happen. however, i noticed a lot of them were moving way faster than they were supposed to, actually breaking cutscenes, thanks to a glitch where if you use both a keyboard+mouse and a controller you end up doubling the player move speed. now that i type that out, it’s sounds so minute and uninteresting, but learning that at like midnight was enthralling, and i immediately tried to run the game again... and again.... aching to get a good time. despite, or maybe because of the fact there was so little the player could do to better the time, any time you COULD do something it swelled in importance in a really cool and engaging way that i haven’t found anywhere yet. i can’t pull off every glitch reliably yet, but i’m trying. that, and the inherent goofiness of trying to control k+m and mouse with your hands while using a controller with your feet, made what was already a very special game to me into something so much more so, even though i initially decided to run it more or less as a joke. anyway, sorry for the rambling comment, it’s just cool to see someone articulate WHY such a “pointless” and overly-detailed hobby gets so exciting. can’t wait for the dk64 stream and, afterward, your funeral proceedings!

what a great name for the stream

Hbomb

Cheers!

Hbomb

I had thoughts on that too. I thought about removing the long part with me rambling into the mic. What do you think?

Hbomb

"I probably could have thought of a clever ending to this video... but this was faster." -END-

James Adair

Neat! Are you doing your streamed run as part of Great Games Done Slow?

Hmm, yes. I need to make a note here "steal all DK cartridges". Then he wont have any other choice but to do Homestuck live reading stream for charity.

Your Resident Homestuck Guy, Gumba Masta

wonderful

dj empirical

Check out Xem92s Rachet and Clanks Up Your Arsenal NG+ run from March of last year. He’s a good friend of mine and has a really passionate view of speed running. This was a fantastic video and I’m excited to help with minor edits tomorrow night!

Talia P

The Black Firebomb bit kinda drags on a bit too long, tbh.

LemmaEOF

Good video! Not sure if the "koings" at 28:31 is a joke or a typo.

Aplomberguy what are you doing we need you alive for the revolution

The part where the music swells and the OoT speedrunner *ahem* finishes... literally brought me to tears. Great narration and build up!

Spoodle

Great video. I only have one nitpick if you want notes: Is there a way to clean up the audio after the black firebomb segment at 9 minutes? The distress in your voice comes off well but I think that if it was made less hard to hear it wouldn't remove any of the humour from the clip.

Jens Nielsen

I JUST REACHED THE END, HBOMB NO

bear

holy shit i love this

Now that was amazing to watch!

Mario Babić

tangentally related, but i just watched a video on mario kart speed running and boundary breaking

Dammit Joe

lovely video, youve convinced me to watch speedrun vids.

I was just talking with my uncle about why I enjoy speedruns whereas he doesn't get it. What the fuck