The speedrunning week has raised £2.5 million for a cancer charity
The speedrunning fundraiser festivalAwesome Games Done Quickended in the wee hours on Sunday, with one of its most spectacular runs coming in the final stretch. A speedrunner beatSekiro: Shadows Die Twicein just over two hours, which frankly is impressive enough to me. More than that, the runner known as “Mitchriz” was blindfolded from start to finish, guided by a combination of memory and feeling-out environments. In two hours! Ludicrious.
I enjoyed coming to realise how Mitchriz was playing. The foundation is memorisation, remembering level layouts and placements of enemies and items and such. This is augmented with hearing, picking up clues to his exact position from the noises made by things like pick-ups and long grass, striking with his sword to feel out walls, and telling what enemies are doing from their noises. Throw it all together and it’s hella impressive. Complete it in 2:00:35 and what the hell!
I strongly recommend watching for yourself (parts, at least) and keeping an eye out for different tricks he uses in different places.
Dozens of speedrunners zoomed throughover a hundred gamesacross a week of 24-hour streaming, and you can catch up on them allon YouTube. AGDQ viewers have donated $3,423,507.85 (£2.5 million) for thePrevent Cancer Foundation, thoughdonations are still open. It’s alreadya new recordfor Games Done Quick.
I didn’t see much AGDQ this year, so what else would you recommend, gang?
