Summer Games Done Quick is speedrunning away
And they're off!
Seven days of speedrunning have started, as the livestreamed run-o-rama Summer Games Done Quick returned on Sunday. Runners will blaze through 140 games during this week to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and we can watch the whole shebang on Twitch. I'm a virtual potterer myself, happy to amble through games staring at digital trees and toilets, but I'm always hugely impressed by Games Done Quick. Some players speed by with pure skill, mastering how a game is meant to be played, and that's great. It's also great when skill goes into making the game do things it's not meant to, carefully breaking it to cut corners.
Summer Games Done Quick started yesterday with a one-handed run of Nier: Automata's first ending by Clint 'halfcoordinated' Lexa. As I write, MDK has just started.
Casting an eye over the schedule, I see a good number of PC games still to come, including: Knytt Stories, Sonic Generations, Mirror's Edge, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Clustertruck, Defunct, OmniBus, Poi, I Am Bread, Hollow Knight, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Half-Life, Dishonored 2, (Nu)Doom, Half-Life 2, 1001 Spikes, Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Divinity: Origin Sin, Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, Ys Origin, Kero Blaster, Bleed 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Talos Principle, Portal, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Alwa's Awakening, Splasher, Super Win the Game, Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, The Maître D', Rise of the Triad, Superhot, Titanfall 2, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, and Dark Souls 3.
More, probably, but I've just got back from a week's holiday where the only games I saw were Plunkbat and Isaac so heck if I know what video game am.
My personal top tip is the Tetris block on Friday morning, as this lot always play with ridiculous skill at unfathomable pace. Any favourites of your own, gang?
Games Done Quick usually upload individual runs to their YouTube channel afterwards. For now, you can still watch 'em by scrubbing through streams in their Twitch archive. Patience!
As ever, if you donate you can vote on conditions of certain runs and enter into raffles. And all sorts of SGDQ merch is on sale. Last year's Summer Games Done Quick raised a whopping $1,294,139.50 in donations.