AWESOME GAMES DONE QUICK 2025

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER

as mentioned above, this day 1 run was what really got me into a "damn, we've come a long way" mindset, in a few different ways. Wind Waker is a game that i grew up with (even if little baby FIXT could barely get past Forsaken Fortress), and on top of that, it has a lot of sentimental GDQ value, too - Linkus's 100% run of Wind Waker HD is still one of my favorite memories of staying up entirely too late to see the full six hours. it's also a game that i associate very strongly with speedrunning - before i was even watching GDQ, i was peripherally aware of things like its infamous unskippable Hyrule barrier. now? barrier skip isn't just real, but it's gone from a complex method of deloading objects to a different complex method of precise in-game positioning. super swims have gone from PAUSA-spam to raw feats of human endurance. zombie hovers have been absolutely revolutionized by ancient strats rediscovered in the most unlikely places. even if none of these words mean anything to you yet, Linkus7 is a fantastic runner and commentator who showcases the way this game continues to evolve 22 years past its launch, and i cannot recommend this particular run highly enough as a showcase of the Zelda community's collective talents.

RATCHET AND CLANK: GOING COMMANDO

the intense, attitude-tinged PS2 mascot platforming chaos of Ratchet and Clank might not be the first game that'd come to mind as a 'cozy' run, but... yeah, no, this one's weirdly cozy? in tackling the daunting challenge of maxing out a save file, Xem gets to showcase a wide range of glitches, whether it's technical platforming or integer overflowing. even as someone who hasn't played them in ages, there is something very familiar and cozy about the Ratchet and Clank series, and a run this long is an opportuntity to immerse myself back into that world, not to mention it leaves plenty of time for some of the funniest commentary of the marathon (to paraphrase Xem - when you're almost three hours deep, the game starts to feel like Subway Surfers running in the corner).

oh, and Xem's also like, an accomplished opera singer! and he gets to do a whole opera section from one of these games at the end! dude planned out choreography and everything! a recurring element of this GDQ was getting to see runners flexing their other talents, particularly musical talents, and as the event recap pointed out, it was a really fun capstone to the run that also felt like a fascinating moment of watching GDQ step up their production flow in real time.

NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII

showcasing the weirdest and wildest ways to play video games fast has been a long-time GDQ staple. whether your controls are dog-based or drum-based, blindfolded or shared with a friend, there's a vast scene of people finding ways to not just speedrun a game, but to do so wth some pretty absurd levels of flourish. perhaps one of the most absurd yet is this run of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. i clocked early on from the schedule that this was going to be a weird set-up, but i could never have predicted how weird - that "while" in the category is an important qualifier, because Wes just happens to be doing a lovely synchronized soundtrack, with all the actual Mario controls mapped to a tilt of his head and a press of his foot. that he can accomplish all this and play smoothly while still having a coherent conversation with his commentators feels like genuine, real world Professor X levels of mental focus to someone like me, and stepping it up further with the additional blindfolded run of 1-1 at the end might as well be actual sorcery.

FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS

tomatoangus (the g is silent, folks) has been a long-running favorite of mine at GDQs ever since his legendary Fallout anthology run at AGDQ 2020, but having played and developed a deep love for New Vegas in the intervening years, i think this particular slice of the wasteland holds up amazingly well on its own, especially under such unique conditions. to have this particular runner with this particular naming kerfuffle playing through a category where he has to dance around describing rendezvous with characters like Fisto and Dazzle feels like the fates aligning a little bit. comedic timing and dramatic roses aside, this hybrid route combining a whistle-stop tour of one-night stands with the political turmoil of the Mojave honestly features a lot of fascinating execution, juggling between disparate goals and soaring over the desert in style.

GOLF WITH YOUR GRANDMOTHER

Awful Block has held a special place in my heart for as long as i've been watching GDQs, and i'm happy to say that a rising tide truly does lift all boats, because i might argue it was better (awfuller? but in a good way?) than ever this year. there was an absolutely stacked lineup of bargain bin curiosities from every corner of the industry, and i'll absolutely shout them all out in that funny little box below, but i think the game that most immediately captured the spirit of Awful Block in my mind was, without a doubt, Golf With Your Grandmother. i try to go into Awful Block as blind as possible, so for the game to so immediately lay its joke out the instant the first level starts caught me off-guard and had me cackling, and i wasn't alone, as the shockingly lively 2am crowd reveled in the chaos, sincerely popping off for some astonishingly difficult grandmatricidal golf. if you ever wonder whether or not pulling the late night for these games is worth it, please, check out this run and join me in trying one day. if nothing else, i do now own a copy of Golf With Your Grandmother, at KingJO444's urging, and i can't wait to give it a shot myself.

CHUNITHM LUMINOUS PLUS

rhythm game showcases have rapidly carved out a niche for themselves at GDQs over the past few years, and while i always find them wildly impressive, i do also try to steer towards highlighting a wider variety of stuff that i can articulate my affection for, rather than constantly telling you "man, some people are really good at rhythm games and it puts my jaw on the floor every single time". i had no idea what CHUNITHM would be going into this run, and while i was prepared to be impressed, i still walked away having had an exceptionally good time. by featuring a rotating cast of three experts (broadcasting live from all the way over in Singapore), the team wound up with a wildly packed showcase, able to swap off and share different facets of expertise in their commentary, all while avoiding exhaustion so they could fit even more mind-boggling bangers in their setlist. it's one thing to be able to blow my mind with rhythm gaming, but to have essentially a full panel of masters explaining their craft, all while playing to impress each other just as much as the crowd, this showcase wound up with a whole new layer of enjoyment for me.

FRESH HOPS

i've constantly worn my love for kaizo Mario on my sleeve - doubly so, back at SGDQ 2024 - so it should come as no surprise that all of the kaizo runs at AGDQ were must-see, plant-myself-in-the-nearest-seat viewing for me. in the case of Fresh Hops, it helps to have some of my absolute favorite runners and commentators handling things, grabbing and, indeed, regrabbing my attention throughout. Fresh Hops is a kaizo concept... album? concept hack? it's really hard Mario with all sorts of fun mechanics, and it has the thematic backbone of each level being named after a beer. i may not know a lot about beer, but i do know good kaizo when i see it, and this was an absolutely fantastic showcase of community creativity, player execution, and delightful commentary. Fresh Hops is truly my favorite game in the Celeste series, and seeing the next entry with a preview level from Fresh Hops 2 was a really cool way to wrap up the run.

PS1 MYSTERY VS. TOURNAMENT

as Evil Zone demonstrated back at SGDQ 2024, tournaments are a fun, thrilling strand of GDQ's DNA that doesn't necessarily make it front of the camera all that often, and it's been a real treat to see some of that coming to the surface with full bombastic main-stage treatment. the idea of doing a grab-bag of original PlayStation games - a lineup that's notably eclectic and runs the gamut from hidden gems to Irritating Stick - lends itself naturally to a chaotic blind tournament, and the games that the wheel chose for these finals really tap into some deep, rich veins of charming obscurity. i will be the first to tell you that Simple Series 1500: The Basket 1-on-1 Plus low-key seems like kind of a banger! i would play that game willingly, let alone in a blind tournament!

really, this tournament condenses a lot of fantastic aspects of GDQ to me. the random pulls lead to both first-time reactions and moments of "wait, this contestant is coincidentally probably the one person in the world who knows enough about this to play it well", and both of those lanes end up being pretty delightful to watch. i also want to take this moment to shout-out the team responsible for uploading these tournaments to YouTube - even i, with all my GDQ hyperfixations, didn't know they recorded the off-stream tournaments, and now they're all preserved right alongside the main runs, so if you want even more PS1 mystery goodness, go get it.

ELDEN RING

i've mentioned before that i don't really have 'FromSoftware brain' - never played one of their games, don't think i have the impulse to start now. what i can tell you about, though, is bingo. as kitschy as it might sound, bingo is genuinely a thriving subculture of speedrunning, and one i hold a lot of fondness for. much in the same vein as a randomized run, bingo tests not just memorization and execution of an optimal route, but challenges runners' overall knowledge of their game of choice, asking them to route on the fly between a variety of not-quite-optimal goals. add in the competitive lockout element that creates a layer of meta-strategy around the bingo board, and you have, in my opinion, one of the most thrilling types of head-to-head speedrunning possible.

even as someone who barely knows anything about Elden Ring, this was an absolutely captivating showcase on all fronts. Mitchriz is an amazing expert who handily condensed years of Soulsborne wisdom into commentary that even a novice like me could follow, and both runners showed off such high-level play, not just in tackling Shadow of the Erdtree's bosses, but deftly sniping them off the board, sometimes literal seconds apart from each other despite complete isolation between the two. even if you're like me and don't know your Paleblood from your Tarnished or whatever the hell, i cannot recommend this run highly enough, and i don't think i can quite convey how exciting it was to hear adef allude to even more bingo on GDQ's horizon.

CRAZY TAXI

okay, so, if you've been anywhere near me or anyone else watching AGDQ 2025, you have already been told to watch this run. that being said, once more, with feeling - watch this run.

there's really so much going on here that i think makes it such a milestone moment for Games Done Quick as a whole. on the one hand, you have the circumstances - increasingly tight copyright enforcement on Twitch has put Crazy Taxi out of reach for ten whole years, and the lengths that chuckles825 and Limit Cutter have gone to make it viable again by performing the game's famous licensed soundtrack live on stage are nothing short of astounding. on the other hand, you have the production side of things. i cannot imagine GDQ even just a few short years ago having the confidence and prowess to turn the marathon into a live punk concert so seamlessly, and they really nailed having to make such a monumental shift, letting it shine as a special showcase rather than disrupting their flow.

it helps that while Crazy Taxi has plenty of technical aspects going on under the hood, it's also a run that largely speaks for itself, allowing the band the space to rock out, not just belting out All I Want but cutting themselves off just as quickly to pivot right into the menu music with each level cleared. i also need to shout-out the fact that, unless i'm mistaken, everyone in the band is also a speedrunner? like, what an amazing way to bring the community together, not just over a game but over a shared musical talent. this showcase is the type of thing that shows how GDQ can provide runners with not just a fresh new audience, but also the creative bandwidth to do huge high-concept runs like this. this is, to my knowledge, the first GDQ run with a mosh pit, and it absolutely rules.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

this one's gonna be a doozy, because the whole schedule was so thoroughly packed that i still feel like i'm skimming the surface a little bit. Kirby Air Ride was an early tour de force with its solo commentary and four simultaneous controllers, UFO 50 was a fantastic mini-marathon of retro throwbacks that reminded me how badly i need to pick that game up, Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS was a fun peek into a weird corner of Mario history, and Dumpy and Bumpy takes home the awards for both "most unexpected game i now want to try" and "best name for a video game, not just at GDQ, just in general".

on top of that, there's two honorable mentions who i'd like to give a little extra honor on top. i'm pulling out my creme brulee torch and giving these mentions a fancy, luxurious layer of honor on top. it's fancy.

the first of these would be Block Dude, which is a big first for GDQ, and not just in the very obvious way where it's a game being run on a calculator. this was the first run where production was handled by the interstitial team, and that might not sound like a big deal, but for someone who cares a lot about the little technical details of a week-long marathon, it shows! the lighting and camera work is actually really good - absolutely bizarre thing to say about a GDQ run, but it's true! given the context of how excited the team sounds about their future, i expect to see a little more of this type of thing in the future, in terms of being able to play with the format a bit more. i'm not sure how much of these bells and whistles i'd want out of a major hours-long showcase, but i do feel like in a year or two, Block Dude will be like, this watershed moment where in hindsight, some really amazing technical development in GDQ as a live video production will be traced all the way back to this run being done semi-jokingly on a random Thursday afternoon.

the second would have to be Tetris: The Grand Master, which has shown up here and there on the GDQ stage throughout the years, but for it to be done so smoothly while transitioning from PS4 to arcade hardware feels like a flex of that newly strengthened production pipeline. like, the video archive is edited down a bit to remove the gap, but something that might have taken half an hour to do in the olden days felt like it got done in five minutes. i mean, way way more importantly, wow, some people are really good at Tetris, but i needed a little extra leg room to give the tech team their props before getting into how i think my brain would short-circuit if i tried to play Tetris at these speeds, let alone talk at the same time.

both mainline GDQ marathons in 2024 were already some of the best i'd ever seen out of them, but in the most positive way possible, i can see now that those weren't even a fraction of what was possible. all the hard work that's gone into running these events smoothly has been polished to a mirror sheen, and with the growing pains largely shaken off, we're getting things you'd never expect to see at a Games Done Quick marathon. GDQ has held a special place in speedrunning culture for years as a massive community gathering and a place to showcase your specific niche to the world, but now more than ever, it feels like the size of the stage isn't just about the prestige or the audience, but about the room to execute fresh, exciting showcases of what you love. the excitement from everyone involved, from the organizers to the runners to the crowd, all felt like it leapt off the screen and made me feel so thrilled to be here for this, even from a distance.

as i mentioned at the top of all of this, it's been a very difficult time in the world. i don't like getting overly specific about it, but... i mean, you live in it just as much as i do, you know what's up. GDQ's firm stances on inclusivity have always meant a lot to me, given how often gaming culture swerves into a far worse direction, but now more than ever, seeing an event that so proudly stands by the communities that built it up genuinely got to me, on a very personal, emotional level. if anything, i think this is part of why the Crazy Taxi run hit as hard as it did - right now, even if we're a bunch of dorks fixated on playing video games fast, there's something a little punk, a little radical in all senses of the word, to continue putting your foot down, to continue loudly standing by LGBTQ+ runners, to continue building a space that pools together hundreds of sub-communities and focuses their collective energy on putting something good into a rough world. maybe i'm getting a little overly sappy, but now more than ever, i kind of needed an event like AGDQ in my life.

all that being said, even if i could go on about the sappy sentimentality, about the personal meaning and the feeling of seeing familiar faces step up into busier behind-the-scenes roles, the overwhelming feeling i get when i look forward is excitement. they had a live band up there this time. what could they do next? what's the next big bingo run? how much more stacked can a GDQ schedule get? what wild idea am i not even thinking of right now, that'll feel blindingly obvious when it becomes my next favorite run at SGDQ in July?

and, on top of all of this... i gotta go, at least once. at least once! i've put out feelers about this, and the sense i get is that i might want to get into a speedrunning community in a more hands-on way if i want to make the most of the trip, but with all the emotions this event has pulled out of me over the last seven years, now more than ever, i feel like that might be a hurdle worth crossing, a hurdle i might be personally equipped to handle. this isn't me saying "see you in July", but it is me saying i have a tab open ready to install LiveSplit after this article goes up. maybe that's just that post-New Year's manic energy flowing through me, but i think especially right now, i can really say GDQ means enough to me to give it a go, somehow.