My favorite speed-runs from the first half of AGDQ 2025

One of my favorite events, that comes along twice a year, are the Games Done Quick charity speed-run marathons. I've been tuning in to these in some capacity for almost 10 years, and I figure I should start making note of some of my favorite runs of the week here.

Context

If you haven't heard of this stuff before, speed-running is when folks try to complete a game (usually a video game), or a specific part or set of objectives of a game as fast as possible. There are leaderboards, and different categories agreed upon rules, and a whole community around speed-running many, many different games.

For me, it's compelling to watch for a few different reasons. I love video games, both new and classic ones, and this is a cool way to see games played that I'm both familiar and unfamiliar with. It's also fascinating to see someone who's put so much time into practice a game really master it, just like watching sports is compelling. On top of that, the community around speed-running is simultaneously competitive, but also inclusive and welcoming in a way that's refreshing to me.

Games Done Quick marries all of those great things about speed-running, with a week long, 24x7, charity event, broadcast on Twitch. Each year in January, this event is called Awesome Games Done Quick and raises money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The other flagship event each year is Summer Games Done Quick which raises money for Doctors Without Borders. These events each year typically raise $2.5 million for each charity organization, which is amazing to see.

GDQ is one of the best ways to watch this stuff. Runners invite folks to help commentate each run, so the audience knows what's going on, can learn about the niche techniques used, and generally give context to what you are seeing. On top of all that, it's fun to tune in to a live event!

This video from hbomberguy on YouTube captures the magic of this stuff pretty well, in my opinion. It's not a short video, but if you want to understand this stuff and haven't heard of it before, it's entertaining and worth a watch.

My favorite runs of the week, so far

While you can watch the event live, each run is also archived to YouTube, so here are some of my favorite so far this week (in order of when they happened in the marathon):

I love The Legend of Zelda, and Wind Waker in particular, but had a hard time finishing it when I was a kid. It is fascinating to see this game broken this way.

Another Legend of Zelda game! It is mind-blowing to see Breath of the Wild completed so quickly while these two share a single controller.

F-Zero GX is normally a very fast-paced racing game, but to see it played with these techniques, that speed is taken to a new level. I played this one a good bit late in my childhood, and I'm terrible at it, so I can't really fathom the amount of time spent practicing this, although that applies to most speed-runs really.

Super Sheffy World 2 is a Super Mario World ROM hack. I can't imagine this game, let alone this quickly.

This one is fascinating from a tech perspective. FlibidyDibidy has put together tech that allows him to basically combine the video feeds of multiple runners so you can see them all on one screen together in a way that's super compelling. If you are going to watch just one of these, watch this one.