SUMMER GAMES DONE QUICK 2024
so, congratulations - you are, hypothetically, the organizer behind an incredibly successful and prolific set of speedrunning marathons benefitting various charities, and after years of navigating the tumultuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic, you are largely considered to be so back, and dare i say it, better than ever. where do you go from here? step 1: you get the dog back, of course.
another Games Done Quick marathon has just wrapped up as i type this intro on Sunday morning, coming in at just a pinch (read: tens of thousands of dollars) over its recent winter counterpart in its goals to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. this time last summer, we were already a month past a notably early and generally janky SGDQ, but this time, i'm happy to report that SGDQ 2024 keeps the marathon's hot streak rolling and might even eke out a place as my favorite week of speedruns they've ever presented.
there's not a ton to say on the usual meta-analysis of the tech that makes this event possible; all the notable improvements of AGDQ 2024, like running multiple stages or building some flexibility into the schedule with 'Checkpoint' interstitials, continue to pay off massively in terms of keeping the schedule on track and making the viewing experience smoother. i think the lasting impression i got out of this event, though, and an aspect i hope to capture in these highlights, was the sheer variety of what SGDQ had on the main stage. i'm sure you could find someone who maybe wishes there was another RPG or two, but this marathon had just about every genre you can imagine being played every way, with showcase events that helped broaden the horizon of what a GDQ marathon can do. arcade machines got hauled on stage, major finals matches made it all the way to a game 5, and yes, a dog did in fact play baseball.
i could go all numbers nerd if i really want to, but honestly, i don't think i have it in me like i used to. those marathons right before the pandemic, and the ones right in the thick of it, created some volatile patterns where it was easy to worry that something i really like wasn't doing as well as it ought to, but with a sample size of two revitalized events under their belt, it seems like somewhere around $2.5 million is the new reliable baseline. is it the most money a GDQ has ever raised? no, but like, money's weird, man. you heard about this 'economy' thing? weird. and don't get me started on the less big picture stuff like Twitch's shifting (and, if i can be blunt, objectively less supportive) place as a platform for doing this type of thing. $2.5 million is still a number so big it's kind of hard to fathom and it's going towards a cause that needs it now more than ever in 2024.
with all that being said, let's get into the games! standard format, here's ten of my favorites, chronologcial order, further recommendations underneath, all that good stuff. on the one hand, this marathon was so stacked that it was hard to narrow it down this much, but on the other hand, there were also so many moments where i knew i had to highlight something that it all kind of fell into place naturally from there.
POKÉMON VIOLET
getting me to focus up on an RPG run is a bit of a monumental feat, but counterpoint - no couch does commentary like a Pokémon couch. this community always brings their A-game on both gameplay and sheer commitment to The Bit, without fail. it happens to help, of course, that Pokémon Violet's open-world gameplay gives the run an interesting new layer of movement tech over its top-down grid-based ancestors, and that the framework of the Teal Mask DLC lends itself nicely to an amuse-bouche of the game's speedrun potential. it also helps that the route happens to be built pretty heavily around High Jump Kick, giving the whole thing a flair of uncertainty that other Pokémon games might solve with hardcore RNG manipulation. really, though, what always pushes it over the top is the people, whether it's actual-for-real-not-a-joke weatherman extraordinaire TPat doing live TCG openings in the middle of his run or keizaron taking the crown for Too Good at Ogre Oustin' Champion 2024.
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i'm gonna present you with a fork in the road. want more Pokémon? i didn't catch the whole thing, but Pokémon White 2 seems like your classic 3-hour saga if you're looking for something a little longer and cozier. do you want, very specifically, "games where also keizaron gets to play from the back couch for a minute and also there's probably a lot of math going on"? good news! i might not have the deep personal degree of affection and nostalgia some people have for Old School Runescape, but AColdOne's GDQ-debut showcase of it has your very specific niche covered.
SONIC ROBO BLAST 2
i've never really had the opportunity to give it a shout-out or even really play it myself, but man, Sonic Robo Blast 2, am i right? what a weird thing. for those unfamiliar, this is a fangame that's been in relatively continuous development since before Sonic Adventure even came out, running in the DOOM engine of all things. this isn't the first time it's made its way to the GDQ main stage, but this really is an amazing showcase of how far the game has come. part of that is the chance to show off the game's special stages and give a pretty full and well-rounded view of what makes Robo Blast 2 tick, but without a doubt, the secret sauce here is Argick. he's become a real mainstay of GDQs as a remote runner and expert on basically any Sonic game you can think of, but this is his first time making it out in front of a live crowd, and you really gotta hear his commentary to believe it. somehow this dude is talking at full-blown turbo auctioneer pace and still managing to clearly convey what makes this particular game so unique with its alternative vision of a crazier, more momentum-based 3D Sonic experience.
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right before this run, there was another amazing showcase of Sonic fandom ingenuity with Sonic Project 06. you'd think trying to 'fix' the most infamously unpolished game in the franchise might cut down on its appeal as a speedrun, but Stelmo98 did a fantastic job showcasing how actually, making the game's core fundamentals more consistent just means you have way more opportunity to draw out its latent potential for huge tricks.
SUPER "SONIC SAVES THE WORLD" WORLD
kaizo Mario as a subculture and a pillar of speedrunning is endlessly fascinating to me, so i hope you really listen when i say that Shoujo's run of Super "Sonic Saves The World" World is one of the best showcases the genre's ever had at GDQ. 'allegedly' created by Maddy Thorson of Celeste fame (she's here doing remote commentary for this run, so take that 'allegedly' as you will), this ROM hack is a really fantastic showcase of what makes kaizo so beautiful to me. it's easy to view the core principle of kaizo as being absurd difficulty - and don't get me wrong, that's definitely part of it - but i think S"SSTW"W is also a demonstration of the free-flowing iterative remix culture that defines these passion projects. it is also, weirdly enough, a surprisingly personal piece of art about gender, sometimes? it'd already be more than entertaining enough just to watch one of the best kaizo players in the world blast through a highlight reel of this game, but on top of all of that, you also have potentially the funniest couch of the whole event. it really is worth your time, so just watch it, but if you need a taste, does it interest you when i say that the creator of one of the most beloved indie games of all time says "this is just like when David Bowie died" about a bad Kermit the Frog impression and it's only like, maybe the third funniest thing that happens in that 30-second conversation?
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if you want a similarly unhinged kaizo Mario showcase complete with its own creator commentary, i cannot recommend Grand Poo World 3 and its nailbiter of a final boss enough. while it might not be the exact same thing, I Wanna Be The Guy feels like a close cousin of kaizo with its own rich history, so this also feels like the best place to point you towards the absurd genre-bending gauntlet of WannaFest 22.
HALO 3
my long-running complicated relationship with the Halo series is pretty well-covered on this web domain, but just this once, as a treat - i will permit some good old-fashioned Halo 3 with the boys.
the Halo games are already a surprisingly rich vein of speedrunning (complete with their own website - did somebody say haloruns.com?) that i enjoy seeing broken down, but some of their fullest potential shines when they're run in a co-op setting, and to my knowledge, this is the first time GDQ has showcased a full four-player crew. some of these runners are long-time favorite GDQ commentators of mine, people who i didn't even know ran Halo, and their team chemistry really shines through here. trying to keep up with four screens can be incredibly hectic, but there's a real charm to how raw and real this run feels - as they emphasize throughout the run, their commentary is less of the polished presentation you might expect from a GDQ run and moreso just their live trial by fire as they power through the game at its hardest difficulty. Halo 3 especially shines as a speedgame thanks to its physics implementations, and seeing the balance between wild Gravity Hammer jumps and tense combat sequences spread out across four runners of this caliber is a really great showcase. speaking of showcases, wrapping the whole thing up with a classic 2v2 on Guardian really brought forth a lot of positive vibes - it's surprisingly laid back for a primetime main stage event, and i think it speaks to the passion that people have for their game of choice whether it's as a speedrun or just as a way to mess around with friends.
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probably the easiest shout-out on this list is Zoo's run of Halo 2 from earlier in the week - that's the one right before Halo 3! it's a very different energy, of course, with its own nuances as a speedrun and a solo focus on one of the greatest Halo runners on the scene, but i'm willing to bet if you like one, you'll like the other.
KEN GRIFFEY JR. PRESENTS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
it is my pleasure to say that once again, this run has a dog in it. this time, the doggy plays baseball. he's still such a good boy!
this felt like kind of the thing going into SGDQ this year, and i mean, i get it. what more can i say? on literally America's special birthday, Peanut Butter the dog walked out and played some baseball on a new and improved contraption. i am outrageously, supernaturally bad at processing any of the rules and mechanics of baseball in my head, but from what i've gathered off people who do know, it was genuinely a pretty thrilling game! what really makes this run special - aside from, you know, the dog, the dog who plays video games, the good doggy who's great at button - was the full-blown commitment to the entire thing from everyone involved. i haven't seen the GDQ stream room this packed in half a decade and for one magical half-hour, all the nerds in the crowd and at home got transmogrified into proper jocks, with crowd chants and ref booing and a seventh inning stretch. genuinely speaking, what JSR_ and Peanut Butter have proven themselves capable of is really impressive and wholly unique within speedrunning, and i cannot wait to see that boy learn Silent Hill 2.
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obviously, there were so many other good runs that involved a dog playing baseball that i can't mention them all.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS
this one was a bit of a sleeper hit for me, honestly. gymnast86 and spikevegeta are both seasoned GDQ mainstays, but i wasn't expecting to tune into a 3-hour randomizer run of what's probably the least interesting of the big 3D Zelda games to me. i'm super glad i did, though, because it ruled! randomizers can be a little tricky to wrap your head around and really sink into in the same way as a vanilla run, but this particular team is well-equipped to keep things moving smoothly. even just structurally speaking, i think this run really showcases the improvisational aspects of speedrunning a randomizer in some really cool ways - the rolling incentive to throw more dungeons into the route is the big official backbone, but the community around this particular niche really chipped in a lot, throwing down challenges to double and triple their donations for weird specific tricks. as a result, you get to see wild things like fighting the water boss without the Zora armor, or spikevegeta straight-up learning a new boss set-up strat live on stage. you can tell everyone involved is having a great time with it, and that's always the type of vibe that magnetizes my attention in, even when i wasn't expecting it.
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honestly, this could go a few ways! if you're looking for more Zelda, Twilight Princess was only one of three big runs for the series on Friday, with A Link to the Past done swordless and a revitalized Ocarina of Time showcase utilizing the absurdly complex new 'Ganonfloor' set-up bookending the day. if you're chasing the thrill of randomized chaos, though, i have to give a nod to everyone's new favorite clown game, Balatro.
EVIL ZONE
this one's definitely a little weird! even for someone like me who can hyperfixate for a whole week on this stuff, there's a lot of event culture at GDQ that doesn't necessarily surface on camera - these are full-blown conventions with game setups, meet-ups, panels, the works. back during AGDQ 2024, though, us digital attendees got a glimpse into something that's become a bit of a cornerstone in the practice room, with an interview highlighting the twice-a-year Evil Zone tournaments. this weird little two-button fighting game has wormed its way into the hearts of many a runner, and they've been running an on-site tournament (the biggest in the world by default, with a game this obscure) at every GDQ for almost ten years now. it may be a little unorthodox for a speedrunning marathon, but Evil Zone does have a very real place in the tapestry of GDQ history, and it sets a really exciting precedent that they opted to branch out and give it the main stage treatment for SGDQ 2024. it's not really a run, but it is absolutely in line with the ethos of showcasing people's talents and passion, and honestly? just an absolute banger of a set. you had attendees with only a few days of Evil Zone experience taking seasoned veterans down to match point, demonstrating this game's eclectic cast and showing how despite using literally two buttons, there's actually a lot of really impressive depth to the game's flow. obviously speedrunning will always be at the core of GDQ, but i really do appreciate their willingness to take some big swings on showcasing a wider breadth of gaming prowess.
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rhythm showcases are less of a brand-new never-before-seen event at these marathons, but WACCA Reverse still marked a first for GDQ as they hauled the entire arcade cabinet on stage. absolutely fantastic showcase, with some really good technical work to showcase both the screen and the absurd dexterity of the runner, and the general vibes of a loving funeral for this now-defunct washing machine of a game.
SUPER MARIO WORLD
you fool! you've fallen for HYPERFIXT's very own kaizo trap! nobody said i couldn't put kaizo Mario on the list twice!
maybe it's a little silly of me to highlight this when i've talked such a big game about how diverse the lineup was for SGDQ, but i can't help it. the traditional sort-of-annual kaizo Super Mario World relays always tend to have a special place in my heart, and i do think it's worth highlighting as having a different vibe from a solo showcase. not only does the competitive nature of the relay bring together some of the scene's top runners in a way that really lets them flex their own bonafides, but these are also blind level reads, and watching these players figure out the increasingly absurd gimmicks they're being asked to play with is a fascinating process. moreover, it's just as much of a showcase for the level creators. the words "kaizo is art" come up a few times throughout the relay, and it really does get treated with that level of reverence on the biggest stage in speedrunning, with shout-outs to all sorts of individual level designers cross-pollinating to push the SNES to its absolute limits. kaizo really is a whole subculture that's developed to the point where you can discern artistic styles between different designers and players, and this eight-level gauntlet is one of the absolute best places to see that subculture come together and thrive. whether it's bullet hell survival AMVs, or remote control mid-air shell jumps, or a wild west finale that feels like it's begging to be turned into its own whole-ass game on Steam, this relay is delightfully diabolical from start to finish.
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we are, against all odds, still not done covering the many forms of kaizo Mario at SGDQ 2024! Super Mario Maker 2 has its own cultural flourishes, defined by its limits and the often hostile relationship Nintendo has with level designers pushing the envelope, but the troll level race was a surprisingly fun and laid-back showcase of another sort of 'kaizo cousin', combining absurd glitches with sharp comedic timing.
PIZZA TOWER
on top of the absolute cornucopia of 2D Mario i've already yapped your ear off about, SGDQ 2024 was also full of some amazing indie platformer speedruns. it was hard to narrow down which one i wanted to put forward onto the list, but with the couch's absolute commitment to their bits, i think Pizza Tower wound up taking the lead at the last second for me. it helps that i've got a good frame of reference for seeing this game played absurdly fast, but that was almost always with the classic Peppino - this run shows off the recently added Noise's route, which somehow feels like even more of a manic grease-fueled rollercoaster. the precision it takes to play Pizza Tower at any sort of high level, let alone in a speedrun setting, always blows my mind, and i love a good 'no major glitches' category that showcases such a perfect balance of high-octane platforming and game knowledge trickery.
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for real, so many good indie platformers and any one of them could have had this slot, probably! Celeste D-sides dny% (not a typo) if you want to see that cool game with the dashes modded out to even higher difficulty! Pepper Grinder is like, brand new, and it's 50/50 between sick drill schmovement and even sicker hover glitches! Gravity Circuit is just a game i personally happen to really like on a casual basis and it's nuts to see it played by someone more competent than me! there's never been a better time for indie platformers!!!
SUPER MARIO 64 RANDOMIZER
so, during AGDQ 2024, when talking about CZR's drum-based run of Super Mario 64, i mentioned how this game is an incredibly familiar classic, one that GDQ's careful to always spice up a little bit so that it doesn't wear out its welcome. in that, i mentioned both randomizers and blindfolded runs as examples. so, of course, here's the logical conclusion - why not do both? in an interview given the night before his run, Bubzia laid out the basic ethos this challenge by comparing to blind Rubik's cube solving - you get the chance to look at a fresh new puzzle and then don the blindfold after rapid memorization, with all of this counting towards your final time. it's a really novel approach, and i think the end result speaks for itself as an incredibly novel and hands-on way to see a taste of what goes into developing not only the fastest route, but the one most optimized for blindfolded play. the quickness with which Bubzia identifies a replicable, reliable set of tricks to collect 10 stars would be astonishing on its own, but seeing the execution really is something else, particularly when mistakes are made and he gets to prove that he can recover from them on the fly even while blindfolded. the extra 'star rush' challenge at the end shows a whole other facet of Bubzia's mastery over Super Mario 64 too, as he rapid-fires through just under a sixth of the game's stars on the fly. really, there's nothing i can say other than "Bubzia's talent is amazing, oh my god, what the hell, how".
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there's not much that slots right into the vein of this very specific high-level challenge, but i figure it's as good a time as any to spread some love to some of SGDQ 2024's other 3D platformers. i was a little cautious on seeing too much of Penny's Big Breakaway, given i just bought it for myself in the SGDQ Humble Bundle, and my immediate reaction to seeing like, five seconds of the Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom race was "ohhhh no, i want that really bad, actually, don't i", so i guess my schedule's kind of packed for the next few weeks, huh?
HONORABLE MENTIONS
as with last time, there's still a few extra runs that i feel like i have to give props to, even if they didn't slot super nicely into the main list! one big one that comes to mind is the event opener, Yoshi's Story. Dan Salvato, while he's not busy making that game about that scary book club, has been trying to get this run into a GDQ marathon for the past 10 years, and you can really feel that dedication pay off watching him play. similarly, the Chibi-Robo! lockout bingo seems to have been a long-term goal for that game's entire community, and i think their heartfelt messages at the end of the race were some of the sweetest things said all week.
of course, with every marathon comes the perilous attempt to pull the all-nighter for some weird games past Wednesday, and this time, my family actually opted to join me in trying after years of hearing me ramble on about Virtual Hydlide or whatever the hell. we didn't quite pull it off, but i did catch around the first half of Silly Block, and while i don't think any one run on its own is going in my hall of fame next to Urban Yeti, the whole thing was thoroughly fun. C.B.T. broke out of containment with its marble-esque mayhem, Golf It! showed impressive commitment to its core bit, Barbie got the biggest laugh out of me with the 'thick shakes' pop-off, and Mad Panic Coaster takes the award for the most befuddling, "how have i never heard of this" game of the night.
while i'm still rambling, i'd also just like to say that while i don't have the deep core memory nostalgia some people hold for Super Metroid as a video game or as a GDQ must-have staple, the four-man race between some of the game's best players was a pretty stunning showcase of how far the game has come, with the commentators noting that for perhaps the first time in GDQ history, all four runners managed to get to the end of the game without bailing out over an unrecoverable death.
and, as usual, my final honorable mention is everything i'm not mentioning here. i'm one person, i do sleep, i do have certain games that i'm fine not seeing. for all i know, someone in my readership is actually the world's biggest Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals fan and they just might not even have any idea that game was in the marathon if i didn't bring it up. now multiply that by like, i dunno, 130 times? please go check the schedule, feel around, find a cool game you like and watch someone run it real fast.
if AGDQ 2024 was a statement of intent to show that the marathon was ready to get back into its groove better than ever, SGDQ 2024 was the flex of proving they could go back-to-back, arguably even topping themselves. honestly, right now, it kind of feels like the sky's the limit in a lot of key ways. there's always room for improvement and questions worth asking about things like viewership numbers, or the role of inflation in these donation totals, or if it might be time to break the long-term Twitch exclusivity pact, but in terms of the experience as a viewer, a donator, and an enjoyer of the culture, GDQ is absolutely thriving.
AGDQ 2025 - is it just me or does 2025 just sound weird and fake as like, a number that will soon be a year? - has its dates set for January 5th through 12th, and i can't wait to see what they have in store for us. honestly, even knowing there's months until we'll even be thinking about submissions, there's a lot of games where i see a real path towards an amazing main stage debut. Hades 2 would have been eligible for SGDQ's second submission period, and i was kind of shocked nobody put it forward, but i bet those extra months of polish will make it an even better showcase. Echoes of Wisdom feels primed and ready to be the next big Zelda speedrun with a mechanic begging for some creative usage. and, quite frankly, the shout-outs to the Donkey Kong 64 randomizer have reached a fever pitch, and i feel like it's about time for that dam to break.
whatever AGDQ might have in store for us, i already can't wait. between the massive technical improvements and the constantly innovating horizons of what these runners can showcase for good causes, it really feels like things are looking up.