The Gold Split - Week #27: AGDQ Recap
Week #27 (Jan 16): AGDQ Recap; Niftski; Spider-Man; Mario Kart 8DX; Switch 2; Event News; TAS Movies; New World Records: Odyssey, Strider, Half-Life 2, Sonic 2, Final Fantasy VI
Happy Week #27!
After Awesome Games Done Quick is before Summer Games Done Quick. But first, the community sleeps off their collective post-event hangover. I managed to catch more of AGDQ 2025 than of any other GDQ event in the last few years, and thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of it. I’m also glad that the total fundraising amount beat both events from 2024 and managed to reverse the trend.
This week, we’ll do a short recap of the event and help you catch up on any must-watch showcases that you might have missed.
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
Frame by Frame (TAS Movies) 🔧
I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should cover, go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Story of the Week ✨
Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 raised more than $2,539,482 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation during the previous week. Since 2010, the organisation has now raised over $54 million for charity.
Before we recap the week and feature the most entertaining showcases, I’d like to put a spotlight on the on-site experience. While watching the runs live is all well and good, everybody who has been to a speedrunning event before knows that the true value of being there lies outside of the main ball room.
Socialising with hundreds of like-minded individuals and engaging in the many side activities is the reason most people go and stay there for the entire week. Our reporter on the ground, Joshimuz, went above and beyond and was kind enough to create an exclusive venue tour.
At the same time, the Prevent Cancer Foundation also published a lot of on-site content on their Instagram feed and stories. More than watching the stream, it really made me want to attend, participate, hang out with friends and make new ones.
Sunday
The event kicked off on January 5th with a hilariously choreographed pre-show, that was followed by many top tier runs immediately after. I could link any here and guarantee great entertainment, but Tomb Raider stood out to me for the stacked co-commentators and impressive skips.
Monday
Alan Wake II: Night Springs happened shortly after midnight, and while it barely qualifies for Monday, that is still my pick.
Tuesday
Toastedkat has been speedrunning Spyro: Reignited Trilogy for more than five years and been at the top of the Spyro the Dragon leaderboards for the majority of that time. Their expertise truly shines through in this showcase.
Wednesday
Spikevegeta needs no introduction on the GDQ stage. He’s a natural entertainer and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is his home turf.
Thursday
This event had a few runs performed by runners that were not on-site. This way, GDQ is able to give a stage to talented individuals who aren’t able to travel to Pittsburgh in person. Three players from Singapore showed off the super complex rhythm game CHUNITHM LUMINOUS PLUS. Not only did they have incredible chemistry and are some of the best in the world, the passion they have for the game also came across beautifully and was transferred really well. Forget about Guitar Hero, CHUNITHM is where it’s at.
An honorary mention goes to BLOCK DUDE by ADEF. You won’t find this one in the schedule, but it’s a hilarious and well planned and presented showcase of a game developed for graphical calculators.
Friday
EnglishBen is a good friend and GTA: Vice City the speedgame that is closest to my heart. It was my first speedrun back in 2013 and my entry to the community and scene I still call home. Together with a couch of GTA allstars he’s showing off a Kaizo mod for the game. The difficulty for every mission has been increased massively, often deliberately to spite speedrunners and the common strategies they use.
Saturday
The final day was once again completely stacked. I could choose any of the showcases and I highly recommend checking out the schedule and picking something you like the sound of. I’ll guarantee it’s good. But the thing I want to highlight is the Elden Ring Lockout Bingo between ADEF and CaptainDomo.
I couldn’t go through this day without mentioning the obvious highlight of Crazy Taxi, presented with a live backing band. Ya ya ya ya ya!
More
These are a great start, but they barely scratch the surface of everything showcased at AGDQ 2025. You can re-live the entire event by putting on the Youtube playlist. Alternatively, head over to the schedule page to pick and choose the showcases that align with your interests.
The next event, SGDQ 2025, already feels right around the corner and will happen from July 6th to July 13th 2025.
Up to Speed ⚡️
🐐 Niftski gets closer to perfection in Super Mario Bros. (9-minute video)
Just last week in our story about goals and predictions for 2025, speedrunner Niftski predicted that they would improve their record (04:54.631 at the time) in Super Mario Bros. Less than 24 hours after this edition of The Gold Split went out, they reached a time of 04:54.565. This time is now only 0.3 seconds or 18 frames away from absolute perfection and being tied with the tool-assisted speedrun.
🚗 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe time trials evolve with Glider Vectoring (8-minute video)
This one was sent in and written by gigacroc on the Gold Split Discord. Thank you!
Glider Vectoring is a strategy where you start a drift off of a ramp instead of tricking off of it. When done right, this allows for the mini-turbo to get released while your kart is on an angle, allowing you to use your joycon and/or motion controls to drift diagonally. This for some reason gives you a lot of foward momentum.
Motion Glider (where both the motions controls and joystick are used) gives an insane amount of speed, in a game where air speed is often a bad thing. This is not something really seen on 150cc, but the MK8DX TT community have recently found viable set ups in two tracks using motion glider to cut significant time off of their time trials: Ice Ice Outpost (Video 1, Video 2) and Electrodome (Video).
🕷️ The Amazing History of Spider-Man (PS1) World Record (2-hour 25-minute video)
Sotaleer gives a comprehensive overview over the world record history for Spider-Man, released in 2000 for the PlayStation. Thank you to Spyran for sending this one in through the Gold Split Discord!
✨ A first look at the Nintendo Switch 2 (3-minute video)
The console will be released in 2025 and will be backwards compatible with Nintendo Switch games. More details will be shared on April 2nd. Until then and likely even until the full release we can only speculate what it will mean for speedrunning. For example, if games run with more frames per second and have better loading times on the new device, we’ll likely see leaderboard splits on many titles in the original Switch library.
📰 The State of Video Gaming in 2025 (50-minute read)
This presentation explores the recent history of gaming and offers predictions about the trends and developments expected in the gaming industry this year. The deck is currently available on SlideShare and Squarespace gallery, with a PDF version due to be released in the near future.
Event News 📅
AGDQ 2025 has concluded and I promise that this is the last time I’ll mention it. We’ll firmly draw a line after this week’s Gold Split.
Naturally, there will always be a bit of a lull following the largest events of the year as the entire scene recovers collectively. Nevertheless, Aquathon 2025 is currently running and features a large variety of games and runners 24/7 for the next four days.
Next week I’m very excited about magFAST 2025, a charity speedrun marathon live from music and gaming festival MAGFest. On the schedule you’ll find a great variety of speedruns, but also tool-assisted speedrun content as well as non-speedrunning showcases of other types of gaming excellence, like a Just Dance 2025 idol performance and indie game presentations.
🏁 Finished
Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 raised $2,539,482+ for Prevent Cancer Foundation
⏱️ Running
Until January 19th: Aquathon 2025 (Schedule), benefitting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
🔜 Upcoming
Starts January 23rd: magFAST 2025 (Schedule), benefitting Child’s Play
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place:
Super Mario Odyssey (Any%: 1P) in 00:55:59.933 by Tyron18 (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSuper Mario Bros. (Any%: NTSC) in 00:04:54.565 by Niftski
Video • Twitch • YouTubeStrider (NES) (Any%) in 00:03:31.768 by COOLKID
Video • TwitchHalf-Life 2 (New Engine: Any% No Voidclip) in 00:37:42.375 by Buster12 (He/Him)
VideoSonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sonic: Beat the Game) in 00:17:37.000 by eandis
Video • Twitch • YouTubeRed Ball 4 Vol.1 (Any% Glitchless) in 00:03:18.800 by Starline (She/Her)
Video • YouTubeFinal Fantasy VI (Any% Glitchless (US)) in 04:59:30.000 by bdewd (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDivinity: Original Sin 2 (Any%: Current Patch) in 00:07:08.550 by fazerer (He/Him)
Video • YouTube
🥈 Second Place:
Hollow Knight (Any%: No Major Glitches) in 00:31:37.000 by LoLNebula (He/Him)
Video • TwitchMario Kart 8 (32 Tracks: 150cc) in 01:18:23.000 by hinase
VideoSuper Mario Kart (All Cups: NTSC, 1P) in 00:31:43.000 by onwagames (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDevil May Cry 4: Special Edition (NG (PC): Nero/Dante, Devil Hunter, Unrestricted) in 00:53:47.000 by Artkiller
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥉 Third Place:
Portal (Glitchless: PC) in 00:14:46.860 by Hrvatskii (He/Him)
Video • YouTubeSpyro: Year of the Dragon (100 Egg) in 00:51:42.000 by Fady180 (He/Him)
VideoRatchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (NG+ No QE) in 00:21:22.000 by king_dedede (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeRayman (PS1: 100%) in 01:16:48.000 by Destabilize
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Frame by Frame 🔧
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) in 26:38.22 by Geinuhayst & hellagels
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game (Shanoa)
Arkanoid: Doh It Again (SNES) in 58:08.67 by eien86
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Warpless
Micro Machines (NES) in 28:35.62 by Challenger & eien86
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
Elevator Action Returns (Arcade) in 12:25.51 by Ryyudo
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game (1 Player)
Trio the Punch: Never Forget Me... (Arcade) in 16:27.72 by illayaya
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
Ultima: Runes of Virtue (GB) in 25:30.78 by Twisted_Eye
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
The Death and Return of Superman by KusogeMan in 32:47.73
Video • Author Notes • Goal: Beat the Game
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, January 23rd 2025. 👋🏻
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Gg – good split