Games Done Quick (A biannual speedrun community event)

[Shade Vortex]

Quote

 Games Done Quick is a series of charity video game marathons. These events feature high-level play by speedrunners raising money for charity. Games Done Quick has teamed up with several charities in its five-year history, such as Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

This is from their website, which can be found here.

The schedule for the games/runners can be found here. It should automatically use your computer's date/time settings.

VoDs (Videos on Demand) can be found here.

This is a twice-a-year event, one in the Summer (Summer Games Done Quick), one in the Winter (Awesome Games Done Quick). Anyone from the world's most notable speedrunners to the no-name underdogs can get together for a great cause at this event, which serves to entertain a wide audience at the same time as raising a large amount of charity money for completely legitimate means- proving once and for all that competitive gaming can be used for great applications.

Some of the most hype, awkward or hilarious situations occur because of the occasional drama or technical messups at GDQ events. Watching live speedruns can be really cool, because you never know what could go wrong, or on the other hand, how impressive someone can be when playing at an incredibly high level live in front of a huge audience.

The reason I'm making this topic now is that because, since it is Summer, SGDQ is coming up quite soon- July 26 — August 1st is the duration of the event, and I'm hoping that at least some people here on this forum would find this to be an event worth tuning into, and even potentially donating to if you enjoy it enough.

With an event like this, it gets bigger every year, and the more the merrier. I've debated on making this topic in previous years but didn't know if anyone on this forum would care that much. But I finally decided that I may as well try to get people interested in it!

To give you an example of the greatness that can come from the GDQs, this is one of my favorite, most awkward moments from last year's SGDQ:

[Alternate Evolutions]

I've seen bits from various GDQ's over the last year or two, but watched my first proper event back in January and it was amazing to have on in the background everyday. So many ridiculous and amazing runs do happen and it being for great causes makes it even better. I've actually been counting down the days until SGDQ, that's how excited I am!

[DarkRula]

I remember tuning in occasionally to the Winter one last year, and saw DarkspinesSonic run Heroes as Team Rose, as well as a Spyro game.
This one I might tune into as well, considering there are a few games I wouldn't mind watching being speedrun.

[Alienrun]

 

I don't get how this was supposed to be funny...except for the jumping jacks bit, that was a liitle funny I suppose!

[Shade Vortex]

It's kinda funny how he goes "I'd like you to be quiet. But yes, you are correct". There are probably better "funny" moments, and in general, humor is subjective, but that was definitely one of the most awkward moments- and do note that I did say "best and most awkward" for that video in specific, not funny.

On the other hand, you had really hype things, like this 4-player race for Super Metroid from AGDQ 2014:

[Alienrun]

Youtube humor is something I explore a lot, because its something I feel WAAAAAAY too many people miss the mark on! Its too easy to record yourself playing a game and constantly yell at it till you beat it and upload the big 3 hour playthrough to youtube and call it a day! (oh wait I did that once...ONCE i'm not doing that again, and for the record its not uploaded for that reason, even tho its good and only 50 minutes long!) Speedruns I tend to find very interesting, and in that regard they can catch my attention...but only for so long! I can't really say they are "entrataining" per say, and I don't know too many people who "consistently watch speedruns" (if any) so I think that speaks for itself!

[Shade Vortex]

Actually, many people watch speedruns pretty consistently (some speedrunners have a consistent viewership over a thousand). I am one such person, they can be really impressive and entertaining. It's more about player skill than actual commentary, so technical feats can speak for themselves. But I'd say it's a plus when someone can be entertaining at the same time.

One such speedrunner in my opinion is Gamej06, also known as Big Jon. he had a really impressive run of Mario 2: The Lost Levels at GDQ, and he was entertaining enough that his run was very well received- though Witwix's run of Boshy made AGDQ 2015's viewership peak.
 In fact, here's Gamej06's Lost Levels run:

And here's Witwix's Boshy run:

[Shade Vortex]

So since tomorrow is the beginning of the event, I wanted to update this topic with the link to the schedule. I'll also edit the OP with a link, just incase.

Keep in mind, I think the estimates account for setup time , and also use an average time that the game is able to be completed in. In many cases, runs finish early (or in rare cases, late).

It should automatically use your computer's date/time settings, so no need to do any conversions to figure out which games are at which times for you. You can prioritize the games/runners that interest you most- after all, being a marathon, it'll be constantly going from its beginning to its end, and thus nobody will be able to catch everything live.

Me personally, since I like a variety of games/runners, I'm gonna have to watch VoDs (Videos on Demand, just incase anyone might not know) after the marathon is over. Speaking of which, I'll probably post a VoD source once one is available.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Shade Vortex

[Ristar]

I am interested in the megaman x runs but they are all past midnight here :C Luckily, the one I am interested the most goes first (X8), and I don´t mind staying up late for it, but I wonder if I´ll be able to pull an all-nighter for the rest...

 

Edited July 26, 2015 by Ristar

[Phos]

I feel like the Twilight Princess route isn't really ready for primetime yet, aside from using the title screen state to skip part of ouran, the game's barely broken.  

Funny thing: I actually think Sonic speedruns (aside from 06 and rise of lyric) are some of the least interesting, it's basically just playing the game only you spam spindash more.  

[Shade Vortex]

I don't always quantify how good a speedrun is by how broken a game is- mainly how technical it is or how optimized. If you think about it, with a longer game, you're expected to play well for longer, so arguably, it's more tedious to get the best time even though it's also easier to PB when there's quite a few mistakes people make over long runs (until it gets optimized enough, anyways). Also, of course marathon runs use safer strategies in general, for more consistency.

Then again, I'll say TP isn't my favorite speedgame either, just because of how long it takes to sit down and watch. From the runner's standpoint, it feels like it'd be a chore to play for me personally, because you don't get as much practice at individual parts- since the run is so long you can't afford to reset too many times in a single session, even when you're not doing a marathon.

Also, in regards to Sonic speedruns, I dunno, Generations is pretty broken whenever it's been run. Same with Unleashed. Lots of 2D trigger skipping to get out of bounds and skipping large amounts of the levels. Some of the 2D games are pretty cool to see speedruns of as well, like Sonic 2- mostly because of zips (where you clip through a wall and skip to another part of the stage).

I'm pretty excited for Metroid Prime 2 and Castlevania speedruns tomorrow, I find those to be pretty cool.

[Phos]

It's not really about length that puts me off from runs that are mostly natural route, it's more about seeing something more interesting or entertaining.  The Knuckles Chaotix TAS breaks the game a lot but you really only need to see a few acts before you get the picture. I actually prefer the reverse bottle adventure route to OoT because of how many different ways in which it breaks the game, and one of my favorite GDQ videos was Battletoads & Double Dragon for NES, because that run was more about showcasing that you can basically just do whatever you want in that game.  

Boost game speedruns, those 2D escape bugs are amusing in their own way because for those two games, they just built the level and the decided if a section would be 2D or 3D after the fact.  Ha, I remember thinking, "Maybe this is just this game's Chemical Plant Zone?"

[Shade Vortex]

So for this year, Summer Games Done Quick is now over. But as I said, I would link to a VOD source for those who wanted to watch specific runs but couldn't catch them live. Or you know, if you wanted to watch anything again/multiple times.

Anyways, here's a Youtube Channel that's been uploading vods since SGDQ 2014 (so they have those VoDs). They have the AGDQ 2015 VoDs and have been uploading the SGDQ2015 ones too.

The Boshi, Super Metroid and Wind Waker runs were probably my favorite this year. Unfortunately the ru I was most hyped for (Joden's run of OoT) had a really terrible case of bad RNG, but in its own way, that made it something special to experience. I felt so bad for him, especially since I made a donation with the comment that he could show off his skills at the game!

[Mystwalker]

I really enjoyed the Super Mario Bros.: TLS run by BigJon, plus the 0/1 Star run in Super Mario 64. BigJon, similar to his AGDQ run early this year, for being that guy that could crack some jokes while going fast through a really tough game, that was an impressive combination of skills and entertainment. Meanwhile 360Chrism did a super good job getting what seems to be an incredibly hard skip to pull off. First time seeing that category as well.

Other runs I liked seeing was Rayman, the Super Metroid race (2 people got taken down by the game, ouch... the route was interesting as well compared to AGDQ's run), M&L Superstar Saga (I was legit curious when they said the game was broken when I thought it was fairly solid... now I know xD), Legend of Zelda swordless, Super Monkey Ball and Shovel Knight low% shovel only.

Now I'm gonna wait for the VoDs so I can watch a few runs I've missed for being ultra late in the UK timezone, such as Pokémon Blue or Earthbound,

[Shade Vortex]

Talk about a bump and a half. We're already at January 2016, so that means the winter(and main) event of GDQ, the Awesome Games Done Quick event is right before us... in fact, it starts tomorrow. The first run of the morning is Splatoon, which I'm pretty excited for- that game has really interesting speed tech thanks to all the movement options you get with the ink mechanic- you have to optimize the usage and fire of your ink at all times, while constantly moving forward.
Here's this year's AGDQ schedule.
And here's the link to the Twitch stream.

This year, I have a job, so I won't be able to watch as much as I did with SGDQ or AGDQ last year (though I hadn't made this topic for AGDQ last year). Maybe this year I can actually donate some money, at least.

AGDQ is the bigger event than SGDQ, so people who may not have liked SGDQ might like AGDQ better. They tend to have the more interesting runners/games doing stuff for their main event.

[caseykz]

Thanks. Pretty excited for ori and the blind forest. I saw one youtuber ragequit on this a while back.