Summer Games Done Quick (the summer version of Awesome Games Done Quick) is back for another year of speedrunning madness to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. It’s a celebration of those who can beat video games as quickly as humanly possible. With over 100 runs to go through, over the course of six days and nights, there’s something here for everyone. There are multi-hour RPGs and games that can be beaten in under 10 minutes. Trying to watch everything is very difficult, so here are six planned runs that strike me as being a cut above the rest, and are ones you should absolutely check out.
Summer Games Done Quick can be watched on their Twitch channel, and all runs will be uploaded in VOD form to their YouTube channel after the event is over. All times are estimates and will be updated on their website as the event continues. All times given are in PDT.
SNOLF
Games Done Quick is often a way to showcase playing games in ways the developers did not intend. While it takes an incredible amount of skill to be a speedrunner, one must also be willing to think outside the box and bend the game’s rules to the player’s favor, something which I think SNOLF perfectly encapsulates. SNOLF is a mod for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that takes the game���s rules and bends them so much that it becomes an entirely different game. SNOLF transforms Sonic the Hedgehog 2 into a golfing game, with Sonic as the ball. Can you navigate Sonic 2’s iconic zones with only a golf club at your side? Probably not. But it’s a task the GDQ runners are more than capable of. Prepare your putting cup for Tuesday, May 30th at 2:33 AM.
All of the game’s hazards and enemies are fully intact. Good luck. You’ll need it.
Sifu
One of the joys of watching speedruns is seeing people absolutely crush games and see them driven before them with their unparalleled skill. And it’s harder to get more joy out of that than when it comes to games that are incredibly difficult. Soulslikes, for example, are very common runs to see at these events, for a very good reason. They’re popular games, they kick people’s butts, and people want to see their butts kicked in return. Elden Ring is present at this event, but I wanted to highlight Sloclap’s rock-hard martial arts game Sifu, because it hasn’t been run on GDQ before. Sifu is a game that takes an average player dozens of hours to conquer, but runner EileenCream is going to be getting the true ending in under an hour, and on the highest difficulty to boot. Catch it Wednesday, May 31st at 6:47 AM.
Hesitation equals death when it comes to speedrunning, especially in games as difficult as Sifu
Pepsiman
Yes. There is a game called Pepsiman. And it is art, an utterly baffling game from start to finish. It’s a Japan-exclusive PlayStation 1 game, starring a Japanese Pepsi mascot, who is a superhero who saves the world with Pepsi, and the stages are punctuated by live-action scenes of a fat American man speaking in broken English and gorging himself on pizza, potato chips, and Pepsi. Pepsiman is the highlight of GDQ’s so-called “Awful Block”, a block of, well, awful games. Pepsiman is something that must be seen to be believed, and it never ceases to be funny. You must see Pepsiman if you haven’t before because you owe it to yourself to marvel at this piece of legendary garbage. Get your drinks ready for Tuesday June 1st at 2:57 AM.
Go! Pepsiman! Save the day with the power of Pepsi!
Pizza Tower
We go from a game about a drink to a game about food. From the moment I set my eyes on Pizza Tower, I knew, from the bottom of my heart, that it would be an amazing speedgame. The incredible speeds you can go at and Peppino’s myriad abilities are exhilarating to use casually. But in the hands of a speedrunner, Peppino can be a platforming god. When a speedrunner has mastered Peppino’s abilities, they can ensure that he never stops running, always goes full speed, nails every obstacle, and simply becomes hypnotic to watch. I’ve never seen a Pizza Tower speedrun before, but I’m really excited to see this one. Watch it with a pizza on Thursday, June 1st at 4:40 PM.
Peppino moves with all the grace of a swan. A swan that’s been fed a diet exclusively consisting of Pepsi and pizza.
Celeste
Celeste is an absolute speed-running classic without a shadow of a doubt. Its place at the top of the platforming genre is uncontested, and it’s already known that watching top-level players blitz through the game’s stages is joyous. But this year’s Celeste run marks the return of a frequent GDQ guest known as Tasbot. Tasbot is a Tool-assisted-speedrun bot, capable of playing back pre-recorded inputs. That doesn’t sound too crazy, but I assure you, the results are nothing short of breathtaking. Check out Tasbot’s run of Brain Age at AGDQ 2016 if you want an example of what I mean. Celeste will probably not match those sorts of breathtaking heights, but it will still be an amazing run to behold, and it’s on Friday, June 2nd at 8:59 PM.
There’s no time for sleeping in a speedrun.
Breath of the Wild
This is a bonus donation incentive, so it technically might not happen, but GDQ’s fanbase is usually very good when it comes to meeting these incentives. Given the hype for Tears of the Kingdom and the new amazing tools you get in that game, surely there’s nothing new in Breath of the Wild that can surprise you, right? Think again. Should that donation incentive be met, runner Bubzia will have the unenviable task of running Breath of the Wild blind. Yes, he will be playing this entire game completely blind. Not blind as in not having played it before. Blind as in wearing a blindfold. To say that will be a sight to behold is an understatement. Prepare for the madness on Saturday, June 3rd at 8:09 PM.
How can Link save the world when he’s as blind as a bat?
So that’s my list of must-watch SGDQ runs. But there’s plenty of other incredible runs in store, so many that I didn’t have time to mention here. I always make sure to watch SGDQ each and every year, and I think you should too. It’s a truly amazing event that pushes the art of video games to it’s absolute limit.
