I think this week’s assignment has been my favorite of the three so far, it really tapped into my competitive side. With the “simple” goal of running a single level in an allotted time, there was always a ton of room for improvement with every run of the level I made, really pushing me to keep going.
Here’s the run of the level that I used for reference. I may have been a bit unlucky with getting attached to this level given how difficult it is (and how it is hard to skip most of it), but still, playing the level over and over really piqued my interest as well as made me realize why people speedrun.
The problem with me and speedrunning though is that it might be a little too addicting. Like getting good at fighting games or first person shooters, learning the engine of the game from the users perspective really helps a player improve. I’ve already spent a good amount of time in high school on the former and unless I really really like a game I probably can’t imagine getting much into speedrunning myself (and I would first need to 100% a game before I’d want to speedrun, I think). As I mentioned in class, I really appreciate the community effort to explore the nooks and crannies of game engines through ‘breaking’ games, especially when the engines are easily exploitable, allowing players to go out of bounds/etc. Overall though, I think I would rather watch speedrunning communities develop from a distance rather than engage with them myself (although this experience was wonderful, frustrating, and addicting).