Speedrunning is when you play a videogame as fast as possible. It's a hobby where you get to spend countless hours making small improvements to your results, develop jargon unparseable to outside observers, and become an expert recognized by your community of (a few dozen) peers. In other words, it is a lot like academia.
Speedrunning is even more like computer science academia. Speedrunners optimize, they solve traveling salesperson problems, and they are perhaps the only part of civil society interested in computing lower bounds. What's more, is that speedrunning too has a sort of conference system.
This weekend I got to perform at Games Done Quick (GDQ), perhaps the world's biggest stage for playing videogames fast. It is every speedrunner's dream to be on that stage.
Just like an academic conference, you can submit your best work, and a program committee will decide which submissions will be included in the event. This year GDQ had its event in Europe, at Gamescom in Cologne Germany. Because of that proximity, I submitted a run together with my friend Chelsea. Our submission was a run of Hades II (Supergiant Games, 2025) in the Fresh File category. As an extra hurdle, we played this single player game with two players on one controller (2P1C). I press most of the buttons, Chelsea does everything else including movement and aiming.
I was more nervous about this submissions than any paper I ever submitted, but we got accepted! What's more, our run was being highlighted in the Gamescom promotional emails.
Unlike an academic conference, your performance at the event is the only part that counts. And unlike in practice, you only get 1 shot at it. After the notification came in early June, we had just 3 months to prepare. Chelsea and I live in different countries, so finding practice time was an undertaking. However we are an experienced duo, having 2P1C runs on the official leaderboards in 4 different categories[1][2][3][4].
To give the best possible show, we prepared a host of things. We procured two mods for the game: one to respawn us in place if we died (its a difficult game but the show must go on), and a second one to rig the first crucial coin flip in our favor. Besides that, we strategized lots. Which boons do we want to see, and which ones should we exclude because of their added unpredictability and cognitive load? Which flashy strategies can we try to show off, and where do we need to prepare dedicated safe strategies instead? Hades II is a roguelike game, which means that randomness can make or break your day. We needed to have a plan for every eventuality.
Last week was Gamescom, with GDQ taking place friday through sunday. GDQ gave us runners free tickets for all three days. Chelsea and I would play on sunday, so we had two days to simply watch and experience the event. Gamescom itself, I did not care for. It is unbelievably crowded, not a good time. But attending GDQ in-person (instead of through the usual live stream) was a joy. When you're there in the audience, everything hits that much more. The clutch moves are that much more exciting. The funny bits are that much funnier. (And to be honest, seeing that the other runs didn't always go perfectly did a lot to soothe our nerves about our own run.)
Just like an academic conference, meeting the people in your community makes everything more fun.
On sunday it was our turn. After Donkey Kong Country and Skylar & Plux, before Silksong and OOT Blindfolded. The GDQ staff was amazing, they are a well-oiled operation handling all the complexities of audio, video, computers, German internet connections and livestreaming. After we were in place with all the setup, it was time to play. The game had it out for us, but Chelsea and I were able to put on a good show with the help of our commentator Dr Omega. Check out our show in the embed below or at this link.
I am super grateful to Chelsea for playing with me and being such a good friend, to GDQ for coming to Europe and for the opportunity to have a dream come true, and to Dr Omega for the stellar commentary.
| [1] | Hades 1 Fresh File |
| [2] | Hades 1 Loyalty Card (Routed) |
| [3] | Hades 2 Fresh File (early access patch 3) |
| [4] | Hades 2 Fresh File (release version) |