Notable games for speedrunning
Encyclopedia
Traditionally, speedrun
s have been performed by members of online communities
about games in general, usually through discussion forums
, using strategies devised by members of such forums. When the activity became popular enough to accede subculture
, the first sites dedicated to speedrunning started appearing — usually specializing in just one or a few games. Some of these sites have sustained activity for a long time, sometimes even up to today, due to the large potential its games have for speedrunning.
's Quake file hierarchy. There were two distinct kinds of demos: those in which the player killed all monsters and found all secrets on the map (called 100% demos) and those in which the player ignored these goals in order to finish the level as fast as possible (called runs). All levels were, at that time, recorded solely on the “Nightmare” difficulty level, the highest in the game.
In April 1997, Nolan “Radix” Pflug first started the Nightmare Speed Demos web site to keep track of the fastest demos. The first Quake done Quick
of the game, carrying over one level's finishing statistics to the next. The run ended up finishing the entire game on Nightmare difficulty in 0:19:49; an astonishing feat at that time. It received widespread attention from gaming magazines, being distributed with free CDs
that usually came with them. This popularized speedrunning for a much larger audience than before and attracted many newcomers. Not all of those newcomers agreed with the old-timers's dogma that runs should be made on the hardest possible skill level. Thus, in August 1997 Muad'Dib's Quake Page came to be, run by Gunnar “Muad'Dib” Andre Mo and specializing in “Easy” difficulty runs. One month after that, the famous Quake done Quick movie was superseded by a new movie called Quake done Quick
er, on September 14, 1997, which improved the game's fastest playthrough time to 0:16:35.
In April 1998, Nolan and Gunnar merged their pages, thus creating Speed Demos Archive
, which today is still the central repository for Quake speed demos of any kind. Ever since its creation, a large variety of tricks have been discovered in the Quake physics, which kept players interested even up to today, more than a decade after Quake's release. Subsequently, Quake done Quick with a Vengeance
was released on September 13, 2000, which featured a complete run through Quake in the hugely improved time of 0:12:23.
As of March 2006, Speed Demos Archive contains a total amount of 8481 demos (on both official and custom maps), accounting for a total time of 253 hours, 44 minutes and 39 seconds. The fastest minimalist single-segment completion times that have been recorded thus far, as of June 10, 2006, are 0:13:46 for the easy difficulty run and 0:19:50 for the nightmare difficulty run, both by long-time Quake runner Connor Fitzgerald. The 100% single-segment completion times are 0:46:02 for the easy difficulty run and 1:09:33 for the nightmare difficulty run, respectively Marlo Galinski and Justin Fleck.
The most noteworthy Marathons are listed below. Many more have been created, however; for a full list, see Speed Demos Archive: Marathons.
, a collection of movies in which the game is finished as fast as possible with special rules and aims. Unlike the normal records listed above, these movies are created one level at a time rather than in one continuous play session; as such, it is possible for multiple people to help create the movie by sending in demos of individual levels, and much higher times can be aimed for as the segmentation allows one to easily try again upon committing an error. It also allows runners to only have to focus on a small portion of the game rather than all of it.
These movies are by far more popular than the conventional records, both in the community itself and outside of it. Some of them, most notably the movies that feature a fast playthrough of the game on the Nightmare difficulty level without additional voluntary challenges, have even been distributed with gaming magazines and posted on news sites. Slashdot
has published an announcement of the then newly created Quake done Quick with a Vengeance
movie on its front page. Out of all the series' movies, this one is also the most popular. In it, the entire game is finished in 0:12:23 on “Nightmare” difficulty, the hardest in the game. This run succeeded Quake done Quicker and the original Quake done Quick movie, in which the game was finished in respectively 0:16:35 and 0:19:49. The main reason for the latest installment being over 4 minutes faster, an improvement that surpassed the initial expectations of the runners, is the discovery of bunny hopping
, which allowed runners to attain a much higher speed in most levels and even made it possible to save rockets or grenades for jumps that could now be done without them. This movie is currently being improved by new and old runners for a production called Quake done Quick with a Vengeance Part II. As of May 2006, the improvements that have been made thus far would result in a time of 0:11:32 for the entire game, an improvement of 51 seconds.
Some of the productions have been turned into Machinima
movies, using so-called “recams” (showing the run from preset camera perspectives rather than the first-person view) and sometimes even custom skins, models, and a script to turn them into film
s rather than speedrun videos.
For a full list of the movies that have been created, see the Quake done Quick Web site. Unlike the conventional records, the individual players that worked on these movies are not listed; there are always many different players working on these projects, and as such, they are usually attributed to the “Quake done Quick team”, while details on who made which portion of the run can be found in the description text files that come with them.
Doom. Among some of its major features, like at that time unparalleled graphics, LAN- and Internet-based multiplayer support, and user modification possibilities, it also gave the players the ability to record demo files of their playthrough. This particular feature was first picked up by Christina “Strunoph” Norman in January 1994 when she launched the LMP Hall of Fame website.
This site was, however, quickly obsoleted by the DOOM Honorific Titles, launched in May 1994 by Frank Stajano, which introduced the first serious competition between players. This site would create the basis for all DOOM demosites that would follow. The DHT were designed around a notion of earning titles by successfully recording a particular type of demo on pre-determined maps in the IWADs. These 'exams' became very popular as the player had to earn each title by sending in a demo of the feat to one of the site's judges to justify his application. Doom II was released in October 1994, and the DHT conformed to the new additions as well as the new Doom version releases. At the height of its popularity, the DHT had many different categories and playing styles. For example, playing with only the fists and pistol while killing all monsters on a map became known as Tyson mode, named after the heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson
. Pacifist-mode was playing without intentionally harming any monsters. Each category had easy, medium, and hard difficulty maps for players to get randomly chosen for. Many legends in the Doom speedrunning scene started out in the DHT, including George Bell (Tyson), Steffen Udluft (Pacifist), Kai-Uwe “Gazelle” Humpert, Frank “Jesus” Siebers (Nightmare), Thomas “Panter” Pilger (Reality), and Yonatan Donner. Unfortunately, the DHT always had trouble retaining a permanent Internet location. This, combined with the changing rules and the diminished importance of most of the titles, made public interest wane as the years rolled on.
In November 1994, the Doom speedrunning scene, in the form of the COMPET-N website, took off. Its creator, Simon Widlake, intended the site to be a record scoreboard for a variety of Doom-related achievements, but unlike its predecessors, they all centered around one key idea: speed. Players were required to run through Doom's levels as fast as humanly possible in order to attain a spot on the constantly-updated COMPET-N scoreboards which eventually made Doom one of the most popular games for speedrunning.
Like the DOOM Honorific Titles, this site experienced multiple location changes over time; it was even at Cdrom.com
for a while before István Pataki took over as maintainer and moved the site to the now defunct FTP server [ftp://ftp.sch.bme.hu/ ftp.sch.bme.hu]. From there on, since early 1998, it was in the hands of Ádám Hegyi, who has been the maintainer ever since. It is currently located at Doom2.net.
As of March 2006, COMPET-N contains a total amount of 6072 demos (on both official and custom maps), accounting for a total time of 462 hours, 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
(Nintendo, 1994) achieved popularity with speedrunners due to the emergence of console emulators with demo-recording features. In normal Super Metroid gameplay, the player may find certain items such as the high-jump boots. Since the path through the map is non-linear, this is a complication to finding efficient speedrunning routes: Areas with such items can by bypassed at the expense of the improved mobility. This drove the discovery of "sequence-breaking" in which a player can acquire power-ups before the game design intends, allowing whole sections of the map to be skipped.
series features some of the most defining games to the platformer
genre
. Due to their popularity and simple yet challenging physics and gameplay mechanics, every instance of the series is well-suited for speedrunning. As such, there has always been a lot of competition for the top times for these games.
is a game that is known for its fast gameplay and many speedrunners. There are 5 categories that are common in speedrunning: 0 star, 1 star, 16 star, 70 star, and 120 star.
, which has faster loading times than the Nintedo 64 Cartridge. Because of this, most speedrunners consider Shigeru's 51:20 as the true world record and place Siglemic's run in another category. There is a TAS in progress
as protagonist
was Super Mario Bros.
, for which Andrew "AndrewG" Gardikis recorded the world record with a time of only 4:59 as of August 2011. This is only 2 seconds slower than the second fastest tool-assisted speedrun, which stands at 0:04:57 (adjusted for timing differences), created by R. “Pom” Yoshizawa in July 2005. However, this run has been obsoleted by K.H. "klmz" at a TAS time of 4:57.33. Despite the fact that tool-assisted speedruns are usually much faster than their unassisted counterparts, due to the way they are created (for example, many game engines have bugs that allow the player to pass through walls, but these glitches are usually so difficult to exploit that they are only considered to be a viable strategy in tool-assisted speedrunning, where one can get the necessary precision required to do so), the difference between the two runs in time is very small. This is because the gameplay of Super Mario Bros. leaves much less room for impressive speed tactics due to the constant running speed.
Another incredibly popular speedrun in the series is Richard Ureta's Super Mario Bros. 3
run. He runs through the entire game and uses warp whistles
to skip worlds 2 through 7 entirely, bringing the final time to 0:11:11. This time was obsoleted in mid-2007 by Freddy Andersson with 0:11:03. Andersson's run was replaced by Andrew Gardikis to a time of 11:01 on 5/27/2008 which was finally obsoleted again by Freddy Andersson to a time of 10:48 on 2/11/2010.
Interestingly, the tool-assisted speedrun of this game, made by “もりもと” (“Morimoto”) in November 2003, was also very popular outside of the speedrun community as it was the first published run of this famous game, ending after 0:11:04 of input. As such, there was little knowledge of how and why tool-assisted speedruns were made, which spawned a lot of controversy
over his run; after it was mass-posted on forums
all over the Internet
, the users of those forums would call it a hoax
after finding out that it was created using an emulator
, citing that Morimoto himself “admitted” to creating the movie “frame by frame” and that it took him two years to do it. These claims came to be after a page was found on Morimoto's now defunct site in which he explains how he created the run with the Famtasia emulator, using conventional tool-assisted speedrunning methods; however, when it was posted, a machine translation
was used instead of the original text, causing it to differ severely from the intention, which spawned the misunderstandings. His run has, however, since been obsoleted a few times by faster versions. The current fastest tool-assisted speedrun for Super Mario Bros. 3
stands at 0:10:26.42, by Thomas "Lord Tom" Seufert and Mijitsu.
Super Mario Bros. 2
is speedrun frequently, especially on TASvideos. The record is held by Andrew Gardikis, at 9:15, the warpless record is 26:36 held by Tommy Montgomery. The tool-assisted record is 7:52.67. The record playing as Princess Peach
only is 8:29.57. The warpless tool-assisted record is 19:39.93.
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is another game popular for speedrunning. The tool-assisted record is 8:09.23.
The record using Luigi
is 8:16.42. The regular speedrun record is 8:34.
Speedrun
A speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
s have been performed by members of online communities
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
about games in general, usually through discussion forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, using strategies devised by members of such forums. When the activity became popular enough to accede subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
, the first sites dedicated to speedrunning started appearing — usually specializing in just one or a few games. Some of these sites have sustained activity for a long time, sometimes even up to today, due to the large potential its games have for speedrunning.
Quake
Quake is arguably the only game to rival Doom as the most popular game to speedrun ever. People first started recording demos of Quake playthroughs when it was released in June 1996 and sharing them with others on the demos/e directory in Cdrom.comSimtel
Simtel is an Internet-based archive of shareware for various operating systems, particularly Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS. The Simtel archive has been available on the public Internet since 1993, when its older ARPANET host was shut down....
's Quake file hierarchy. There were two distinct kinds of demos: those in which the player killed all monsters and found all secrets on the map (called 100% demos) and those in which the player ignored these goals in order to finish the level as fast as possible (called runs). All levels were, at that time, recorded solely on the “Nightmare” difficulty level, the highest in the game.
In April 1997, Nolan “Radix” Pflug first started the Nightmare Speed Demos web site to keep track of the fastest demos. The first Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick is a series of machinima and speedrun movies in which Quake, its mission packs, and a few of its related games, are completed as fast as possible, utilizing any shortcut or trick necessary...
of the game, carrying over one level's finishing statistics to the next. The run ended up finishing the entire game on Nightmare difficulty in 0:19:49; an astonishing feat at that time. It received widespread attention from gaming magazines, being distributed with free CDs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
that usually came with them. This popularized speedrunning for a much larger audience than before and attracted many newcomers. Not all of those newcomers agreed with the old-timers's dogma that runs should be made on the hardest possible skill level. Thus, in August 1997 Muad'Dib's Quake Page came to be, run by Gunnar “Muad'Dib” Andre Mo and specializing in “Easy” difficulty runs. One month after that, the famous Quake done Quick movie was superseded by a new movie called Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick is a series of machinima and speedrun movies in which Quake, its mission packs, and a few of its related games, are completed as fast as possible, utilizing any shortcut or trick necessary...
er, on September 14, 1997, which improved the game's fastest playthrough time to 0:16:35.
In April 1998, Nolan and Gunnar merged their pages, thus creating Speed Demos Archive
Speed Demos Archive
Speed Demos Archive is a site dedicated to speedruns done on many computer and video games.-History:The site originally began as a demo archive of Quake play throughs. SDA was formed initially by Nolan "Radix" Pflug of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by merging with a site created by Gunnar and Jesse in...
, which today is still the central repository for Quake speed demos of any kind. Ever since its creation, a large variety of tricks have been discovered in the Quake physics, which kept players interested even up to today, more than a decade after Quake's release. Subsequently, Quake done Quick with a Vengeance
Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick is a series of machinima and speedrun movies in which Quake, its mission packs, and a few of its related games, are completed as fast as possible, utilizing any shortcut or trick necessary...
was released on September 13, 2000, which featured a complete run through Quake in the hugely improved time of 0:12:23.
As of March 2006, Speed Demos Archive contains a total amount of 8481 demos (on both official and custom maps), accounting for a total time of 253 hours, 44 minutes and 39 seconds. The fastest minimalist single-segment completion times that have been recorded thus far, as of June 10, 2006, are 0:13:46 for the easy difficulty run and 0:19:50 for the nightmare difficulty run, both by long-time Quake runner Connor Fitzgerald. The 100% single-segment completion times are 0:46:02 for the easy difficulty run and 1:09:33 for the nightmare difficulty run, respectively Marlo Galinski and Justin Fleck.
Records
The records listed here are continuous runs through all of Quake that are recorded in one playing session. This kind of run, done on either a full episode or the entire game, is called a Marathon. Such runs are categorized in two types and difficulty levels; 100% runs, in which it is required that the player kills all monsters and finds all secrets on every level, and runs without this requirement.The most noteworthy Marathons are listed below. Many more have been created, however; for a full list, see Speed Demos Archive: Marathons.
| Category | Time | Date | Player |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy difficulty (run) | 0:13:46 | June 29, 2005 | Connor Fitzgerald |
| Easy difficulty (100% run) | 0:46:02 | March 7, 2004 | Marlo Galinski |
| Nightmare difficulty (run) | 0:19:50 | July 19, 2005 | Connor Fitzgerald |
| Nightmare difficulty (100% run) | 1:09:33 | October 18, 2005 | Justin Fleck |
Quake done Quick
As mentioned earlier, another very important aspect of the Quake speedrunning community is Quake done QuickQuake done Quick
Quake done Quick is a series of machinima and speedrun movies in which Quake, its mission packs, and a few of its related games, are completed as fast as possible, utilizing any shortcut or trick necessary...
, a collection of movies in which the game is finished as fast as possible with special rules and aims. Unlike the normal records listed above, these movies are created one level at a time rather than in one continuous play session; as such, it is possible for multiple people to help create the movie by sending in demos of individual levels, and much higher times can be aimed for as the segmentation allows one to easily try again upon committing an error. It also allows runners to only have to focus on a small portion of the game rather than all of it.
These movies are by far more popular than the conventional records, both in the community itself and outside of it. Some of them, most notably the movies that feature a fast playthrough of the game on the Nightmare difficulty level without additional voluntary challenges, have even been distributed with gaming magazines and posted on news sites. Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
has published an announcement of the then newly created Quake done Quick with a Vengeance
Quake done Quick
Quake done Quick is a series of machinima and speedrun movies in which Quake, its mission packs, and a few of its related games, are completed as fast as possible, utilizing any shortcut or trick necessary...
movie on its front page. Out of all the series' movies, this one is also the most popular. In it, the entire game is finished in 0:12:23 on “Nightmare” difficulty, the hardest in the game. This run succeeded Quake done Quicker and the original Quake done Quick movie, in which the game was finished in respectively 0:16:35 and 0:19:49. The main reason for the latest installment being over 4 minutes faster, an improvement that surpassed the initial expectations of the runners, is the discovery of bunny hopping
Bunny hopping
Bunny hopping, or bunny jumping, is a term used in video games to describe the basic movement technique in which a player jumps repeatedly, instead of running, in order to move faster.-Concept:...
, which allowed runners to attain a much higher speed in most levels and even made it possible to save rockets or grenades for jumps that could now be done without them. This movie is currently being improved by new and old runners for a production called Quake done Quick with a Vengeance Part II. As of May 2006, the improvements that have been made thus far would result in a time of 0:11:32 for the entire game, an improvement of 51 seconds.
Some of the productions have been turned into Machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...
movies, using so-called “recams” (showing the run from preset camera perspectives rather than the first-person view) and sometimes even custom skins, models, and a script to turn them into film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s rather than speedrun videos.
For a full list of the movies that have been created, see the Quake done Quick Web site. Unlike the conventional records, the individual players that worked on these movies are not listed; there are always many different players working on these projects, and as such, they are usually attributed to the “Quake done Quick team”, while details on who made which portion of the run can be found in the description text files that come with them.
Doom
December 1993 saw the release of id Software'sId Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
Doom. Among some of its major features, like at that time unparalleled graphics, LAN- and Internet-based multiplayer support, and user modification possibilities, it also gave the players the ability to record demo files of their playthrough. This particular feature was first picked up by Christina “Strunoph” Norman in January 1994 when she launched the LMP Hall of Fame website.
This site was, however, quickly obsoleted by the DOOM Honorific Titles, launched in May 1994 by Frank Stajano, which introduced the first serious competition between players. This site would create the basis for all DOOM demosites that would follow. The DHT were designed around a notion of earning titles by successfully recording a particular type of demo on pre-determined maps in the IWADs. These 'exams' became very popular as the player had to earn each title by sending in a demo of the feat to one of the site's judges to justify his application. Doom II was released in October 1994, and the DHT conformed to the new additions as well as the new Doom version releases. At the height of its popularity, the DHT had many different categories and playing styles. For example, playing with only the fists and pistol while killing all monsters on a map became known as Tyson mode, named after the heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
. Pacifist-mode was playing without intentionally harming any monsters. Each category had easy, medium, and hard difficulty maps for players to get randomly chosen for. Many legends in the Doom speedrunning scene started out in the DHT, including George Bell (Tyson), Steffen Udluft (Pacifist), Kai-Uwe “Gazelle” Humpert, Frank “Jesus” Siebers (Nightmare), Thomas “Panter” Pilger (Reality), and Yonatan Donner. Unfortunately, the DHT always had trouble retaining a permanent Internet location. This, combined with the changing rules and the diminished importance of most of the titles, made public interest wane as the years rolled on.
In November 1994, the Doom speedrunning scene, in the form of the COMPET-N website, took off. Its creator, Simon Widlake, intended the site to be a record scoreboard for a variety of Doom-related achievements, but unlike its predecessors, they all centered around one key idea: speed. Players were required to run through Doom's levels as fast as humanly possible in order to attain a spot on the constantly-updated COMPET-N scoreboards which eventually made Doom one of the most popular games for speedrunning.
Like the DOOM Honorific Titles, this site experienced multiple location changes over time; it was even at Cdrom.com
Simtel
Simtel is an Internet-based archive of shareware for various operating systems, particularly Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS. The Simtel archive has been available on the public Internet since 1993, when its older ARPANET host was shut down....
for a while before István Pataki took over as maintainer and moved the site to the now defunct FTP server [ftp://ftp.sch.bme.hu/ ftp.sch.bme.hu]. From there on, since early 1998, it was in the hands of Ádám Hegyi, who has been the maintainer ever since. It is currently located at Doom2.net.
As of March 2006, COMPET-N contains a total amount of 6072 demos (on both official and custom maps), accounting for a total time of 462 hours, 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
Metroid series
Super MetroidSuper Metroid
, also known as Metroid 3, is an action-adventure video game and the third game in the Metroid series. It was designed by Nintendo Research & Development 1, programmed by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
(Nintendo, 1994) achieved popularity with speedrunners due to the emergence of console emulators with demo-recording features. In normal Super Metroid gameplay, the player may find certain items such as the high-jump boots. Since the path through the map is non-linear, this is a complication to finding efficient speedrunning routes: Areas with such items can by bypassed at the expense of the improved mobility. This drove the discovery of "sequence-breaking" in which a player can acquire power-ups before the game design intends, allowing whole sections of the map to be skipped.
Super Mario series
As games, the Super MarioSuper Mario
Super Mario may refer to:*Mario , a video game series by Nintendo- Video games :*Mario, the star character of Nintendo's Mario series...
series features some of the most defining games to the platformer
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
genre
Computer and video game genres
Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. They are classified independent of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction...
. Due to their popularity and simple yet challenging physics and gameplay mechanics, every instance of the series is well-suited for speedrunning. As such, there has always been a lot of competition for the top times for these games.
Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
is a game that is known for its fast gameplay and many speedrunners. There are 5 categories that are common in speedrunning: 0 star, 1 star, 16 star, 70 star, and 120 star.
120 Star
A 120 star speedrun consists of obtaining every star available in the game. The world record for a non-tool assisted run is held by Mike "Siglemic" Sigler with a time of 1:49:06. The world record TAS (tool assised speedrun) is held by Rikku with a time of 1:39:02.13.70 Star
To beat the game without major skips, 70 stars are required to reach the final Bowser stage. In 70 star, the optimal route has the speedrunner not entering the level Jolly Roger Bay at all. The non-TAS world record is held debatably by Mike "Siglemic" Sigler with a time of 50:45. There is contreversy surrounding Siglemic's time because he ran it on the Wii Virtual ConsoleVirtual console
A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...
, which has faster loading times than the Nintedo 64 Cartridge. Because of this, most speedrunners consider Shigeru's 51:20 as the true world record and place Siglemic's run in another category. There is a TAS in progress
16 Star
16 star is what used to be the fastest way to complete the game, before it was obsoleted by the 1 star and 0 star categories. It abuses 2 glitches to enter other areas early. The first is known as the "Mips Clip", where the player collects 15 stars to make Mips appear and then uses it to get on the other side of the 30 star Bowser door. The second glitch is known as the "Backwards Long Jump" which is used on the two stairways upstairs in the castle after the player has obtained the second key. This glitch abuses the mechanics of the long jump to propell the player through the 50 star door and to skip the endless stairway. The 16 star non-TAS record is held by Akira with a time of 15:54. The TAS world record was completed by Swordless Link with a time of 14:27Super Mario Bros
One of the first platformer games to feature MarioMario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
as protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
was Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...
, for which Andrew "AndrewG" Gardikis recorded the world record with a time of only 4:59 as of August 2011. This is only 2 seconds slower than the second fastest tool-assisted speedrun, which stands at 0:04:57 (adjusted for timing differences), created by R. “Pom” Yoshizawa in July 2005. However, this run has been obsoleted by K.H. "klmz" at a TAS time of 4:57.33. Despite the fact that tool-assisted speedruns are usually much faster than their unassisted counterparts, due to the way they are created (for example, many game engines have bugs that allow the player to pass through walls, but these glitches are usually so difficult to exploit that they are only considered to be a viable strategy in tool-assisted speedrunning, where one can get the necessary precision required to do so), the difference between the two runs in time is very small. This is because the gameplay of Super Mario Bros. leaves much less room for impressive speed tactics due to the constant running speed.
Another incredibly popular speedrun in the series is Richard Ureta's Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3
, also referred to as Super Mario 3 and SMB3, is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System , and is the third game in the Super Mario series. The game was released in Japan in 1988, in the United States in 1990, and in Europe in 1991...
run. He runs through the entire game and uses warp whistles
Warp zone
A warp zone is usually an area in a video game where players can go from one place or level to another. They are sometimes used as cheats and sometimes as ways to avoid too much walking...
to skip worlds 2 through 7 entirely, bringing the final time to 0:11:11. This time was obsoleted in mid-2007 by Freddy Andersson with 0:11:03. Andersson's run was replaced by Andrew Gardikis to a time of 11:01 on 5/27/2008 which was finally obsoleted again by Freddy Andersson to a time of 10:48 on 2/11/2010.
Interestingly, the tool-assisted speedrun of this game, made by “もりもと” (“Morimoto”) in November 2003, was also very popular outside of the speedrun community as it was the first published run of this famous game, ending after 0:11:04 of input. As such, there was little knowledge of how and why tool-assisted speedruns were made, which spawned a lot of controversy
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
over his run; after it was mass-posted on forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
all over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, the users of those forums would call it a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
after finding out that it was created using an emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
, citing that Morimoto himself “admitted” to creating the movie “frame by frame” and that it took him two years to do it. These claims came to be after a page was found on Morimoto's now defunct site in which he explains how he created the run with the Famtasia emulator, using conventional tool-assisted speedrunning methods; however, when it was posted, a machine translation
Machine translation
Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.On a basic...
was used instead of the original text, causing it to differ severely from the intention, which spawned the misunderstandings. His run has, however, since been obsoleted a few times by faster versions. The current fastest tool-assisted speedrun for Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3
, also referred to as Super Mario 3 and SMB3, is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System , and is the third game in the Super Mario series. The game was released in Japan in 1988, in the United States in 1990, and in Europe in 1991...
stands at 0:10:26.42, by Thomas "Lord Tom" Seufert and Mijitsu.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2, often abbreviated SMB2, is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1985 game Super Mario Bros. The game was also remade as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection for the Super Nintendo Entertainment...
is speedrun frequently, especially on TASvideos. The record is held by Andrew Gardikis, at 9:15, the warpless record is 26:36 held by Tommy Montgomery. The tool-assisted record is 7:52.67. The record playing as Princess Peach
Princess Peach
is a character in Nintendo's Mario series of video games. She is the Princess of the fictitious Mushroom Kingdom, and often plays the damsel in distress role within the adventure series. In 2007, Princess Peach landed on Forbes magazine's Wealthiest Fictional People list, with a fortune upwards of...
only is 8:29.57. The warpless tool-assisted record is 19:39.93.
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is another game popular for speedrunning. The tool-assisted record is 8:09.23.
The record using Luigi
Luigi
is a fictional character, featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by prominent game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the slightly younger fraternal twin brother of Nintendo's mascot Mario, and appears in many games throughout the Mario series,...
is 8:16.42. The regular speedrun record is 8:34.