The Gold Split - Week #28: More Reading!
Week #28 (Jan 23): Reading; Frost Fatales; SpeeDons; Astro Bot; Prize Competition; Event News; Fun Stat; New World Records: Roblox, Zelda, Mario Kart DS, Quake, Mega Man X3
Happy Week #28!
The world outside is still grey and I don’t have great intro for you this week. Just make sure to tell your pet I said hi!
I expected to have a very neat spotlight ready for this week, but it’ll just take another few days to be ready. So instead, I’ll showcase some speedrunning-related essays I’ve been reading recently. Enjoy!
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
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 ✨
Every now and then I come across a longer article or essay that mentions speedrunning and it ends up on my reading list. My reading list has a very close relationship with my game backlog, but I finally got around to catching up on a few recent texts. Am I’m glad I did!
In some, speedrunning may be compared to and matched with concepts I hadn’t even heard of before and others do a really good job at introducing the hobby as a whole or one aspect of it in really interesting ways. Reading about something we’re already familiar with helps shape our own understanding of the matter. Everybody’s perspective is inevitably going to be slightly different, and I encourage you to seek them out, even if they might just be introductory in nature.
Here are three cool texts I got to read during the last week or so:
Sam Norcross: Play Fast / Read Close: What Speedrunning Videogames Taught me about Close Reading Literature
Sam Norcross briefly discusses games as an art form and then defines speedrunning as a new form of engagement with a game: focusing on how they work rather than how they’re intended to be played. He touches upon glitch discoveries, cite various famous examples and then draw parallels to close reading in literary analysis. Quote:
“In a narrower sense, speedrunning is especially resonant with the interpretive practice Rita Felski advocates for in The Limits of Critique, in which close reading is described as a method of “plac[ing] ourselves in front of the text, reflecting on what it unfurls, calls forth, makes possible” such that we recognize the text as its own actor and approach close reading as “a coproduction between actors rather than an unraveling of manifest meaning, a form of making rather than unmaking.” ”
Speedrunners engage with a game differently, creatively reinterpreting the goals and challenges within, not unlike how a critic or analyst might approach a text to uncover a deeper meaning.
Miguel Rivera: Paradox Newsletter - Issue #362: The Philosophy of Video Game Speedrunning
Miguel Rivera introduces and defines speedrunning, but also focuses on other challenges beyond just going fast. In their essay, inclusivity and representation are centerpieces, and they illustrate how GDQ events promote these by welcoming marginalised communities and forming connections between them and the audience. Speedrunning is so much more than just setting a time on a leaderboard.
Ross Miller: Made by Humans for Humans - The art of playing video games really, really fast
You might be tired of yet another look at AGDQ, but do give this one a chance. It’s a great introduction to the scene and the hobby and this quote is a really good analogy.
Speedrunning, in effect, is a form of careful choreography, following a script co-written by hundreds hoping to nail every move so well that they scratch seconds off their personal best time over the course of many, many attempts.
Scientific Literature
Speedrunning is featured in scientific literature a surprising amount of times. I love seeing that, combing through long papers about quantum mechanics I understand nothing about and recommend scouring the plethora of texts available on scholar.google.com, especially you have institutional access through a university or another kind of subscription.
Here are a few really awesome examples:
Gabriele Lami: Speedrunning and Path Integrals
Riley Scott Kelfer: What Is "Speedrunning?" Industry, Community, Identity
Andri Gerber: Game Over - A Manifesto for Speedrunning Architecture
Up to Speed ⚡️
Even though the Story of the Week might look like the news section, this is and will always be the true news section! It has emojis!
❄️ Showcase schedule for Frost Fatales 2025 released (5-minute read)
Frost Fatales is the annual winter event of the Flame Fatales community, focussed on showcasing speedruns by women and femmes, but also non-binary people. The 2025 event will be live on the Games Done Quick Twitch channel between March 9th and March 16th, raising money for the National Women's Law Center.
🌍 SpeeDons 2025 gets an English Restream (Bluesky Post)
SpeeDons is the largest charity speedrunning marathon you have probably never heard of, unless you speak French. Last year’s event raised €2,066,663 for Médecins du Monde. SpeeDons 2025 will be live from the Lyon Congress Centre and on Twitch between February 27th and March 2nd, raising money for the same charity. For the first time, it will also be restreamed in English, German and Japanese. To make that happen, the team partnered with Games Done Quick, Germench and Japanese_Restream respectively.
🤖 Astro Bot gets even more levels (3-minute read)
The PlayStation exclusive Astro Bot was highly praised for its support with new levels post-launch last year, helping it earn the title of Game of the Year. No more new levels were officially announced, but one was unveiled to the public during a live tournament called PlayStation Tournaments: XP in London. It’s safe to assume that Team Asobi have even more in store for Astro Bot in 2025.
💰 $500 speedrun competition for action-roguelite Katanaut (2-minute read)
The competition focuses on the free demo version available on Steam. It runs until February 2nd and the full prize money will be awarded to the person with the fastest time. Links to leaderboards, the game’s Steam page and several videos are available in the post.
Briefly
💥 How Speedrunners Mastered Peggle Extreme’s 100% Speedrun (33-minute video)
Event News 📅
magFAST 2025 is starting within 30 minutes of this Gold Split being published. Go watch! It’s a 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
Aquathon 2025 raised $400 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
⏱️ Running
Until January 26th: magFAST 2025 (Schedule), benefitting Child’s Play
🔜 Upcoming
Starts January 24th: Fleet Fest VI - From the Ashes (Schedule), benefitting the Bellingham Food Bank
Starts January 25th: UKSG Red 2025 (Schedule), benefitting Crisis
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place
Roblox: DOORS (The Hotel: Solo, No Shop, Legacy (Hotel-)) in 00:12:18.232 by speedwr (He/Him)
VideoThe Legend of Zelda (Any% No Up+A: First Quest) in 00:27:42.000 by Greenmario
Video • TwitchMario Kart DS (32 Tracks) in 00:52:14.000 by mkdsabel
Video • Twitch • YouTubeKirby and the Forgotten Land (Any%) in 01:34:14.000 by kikurage (He/Him)
VideoQuake (Easy Run) in 00:11:28.000 by Muty
Video • Twitch • YouTubeMega Man X3 (100%) in 00:44:09.000 by Geo_X3 (He/Him)
Video • TwitchMickey's Safari in Letterland (Any% Normal) in 00:03:42.199 by ZodaNOR
VideoWe are Eva (Any%) in 00:09:10.159 by PurpleNinjaGrrl (She/Her)
Video
🥈 Second Place
Wii Sports Resort (Golf: 18 Holes) in 00:10:06.000 by MudkipSR
Video • Twitch • YouTubeThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Any%: pre-v1.2.1) in 00:40:41.000 by moistgoolash (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSplatoon (Any%: WiiU) in 00:27:29.000 by Negat (He/Him, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeElden Ring (Any%: Glitchless) in 00:54:37.000 by Forsa
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥉 Third Place
Portal 2 (Single Player: No SLA) in 00:55:55.715 by leough
VideoResident Evil 7: Biohazard (Any%: PC, Easy, New Game+, Full Game) in 01:27:14.000 by nyiddle (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeStray (Any%: PC, Glitchless) in 01:16:16.000 by jonuhtan (He/Him)
Video • TwitchKingdom Hearts Final Mix (Any%: PS4/PS5, Beginner) in 02:09:26.000 by soraguns
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Fun Stat of the Week 📈
As covered last week, Niftski’s new record in Super Mario Bros. is only 0.3 seconds or 18 frames away from absolute perfection and being tied with the tool-assisted speedrun (TAS), thanks to frame rules. In any level apart from the 8-4, the final one, the game only checks every 21 frames, whether or not Mario has completed it. That means that time can only be lost and gained in these increments. Even if the player loses a few frames, they might still end the level within the same frame rule as the TAS, effectively tieing it. Niftski manages this in every level up to the last one.
The video below puts his record and the TAS side-by-side. Because the music is included, you can clearly see how it de-syncs a few times throughout the run, only to be perfectly synchronised again at the beginning of the next level. It’s a beautiful way of making frame rules visible, or in this case audible.
Reddit Choice 🔝
The r/speedrun choice of the week is… this thread about speedrunners that are actively playing and due to set a new world record in the near future. Many more than I realised! Here’s a few:
Gunnermaniac playing Pokémon Yellow (Any%, Glitchless)
Dayoman playing Spyro the Dragon (120%)
MisterMonopoli playing Halo 2 (Legendary)
Schwartz_RTA playing Super Mario World (100%, No Cape)
The thread is very recent, so go and check it out for more suggestions or even add your own!
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, January 30th 2025. 👋🏻
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Knock Knock.
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Thanks for reading.