## Getting Started

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/97n6gjzq.jpg)

JuH0 became interested in Speedrunning after stumbling upon a video of the [TAS run of Brain Age at AGDQ 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=906&v=mSFHKAvTGNk&feature=emb_title).



“I did like Brain Age a lot so I watched it and I was like, ‘wow, this is actually pretty cool,’” he said.



Soon after watching other GDQ videos, he submitted his first run.



He quickly discovered the joy of mixing things up and trying all kinds of new games.



“My favorite thing about speedrunning is the vast amount of games you can run and you’ll never get tired of just one,” he said.



He runs a lot of horror games like the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises. He said, “I love horror games for the environment and the atmosphere of how spooky a game is.”



JuH0’s favorite game to run, however, is Saw. As a fan of the movie, he’s familiar with the franchise and holds world records in both [Saw: The Game](https://www.speedrun.com/saw_the_game) and [Saw II: Flesh and Blood](https://www.speedrun.com/saw_ii_flesh_and_blood).![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/7rnq4rej.jpg)

He said, “I just love the game and its cool tricks and mechanics.”



“A lot of people are in awe with the coupler puzzles,” he said, “because those could get very confusing and time consuming if you try to do it casually.”

The coupler puzzles appear repeatedly throughout the game and involve a grid of square nodes that need to be rotated so none of the wires runs into a dead end.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/67e9o4e1.jpg)

A runner familiar with the puzzles’ limited starting patterns can make short work of the visual noise in seconds.



In contrast to Saw where he knows exactly what to do next, JuH0 used to run Minecraft and enjoyed the random nature of the game.



“Nowadays it’s like 1 in 2 runs you can complete with the new strats,” he said. “But back then it was just pure RNG.”



In March 2020, JuH0 completed a co-operative speedrun of Minecraft along with fellow speedrunner Shinriyun.



“At the time [Shinriyun] and I were top 100 in the 1.16 RSG Minecraft speedrun and we were the only few Singaporeans around so we decided to try,” he said.



When it came to dividing up the responsibilities in a co-operative run, JuH0 and Shinriyun had some preferences based on where their own skills lay.



In the end, however, RNG does what it wants, so they had to be flexible. JuH0 said, “If I find a bastion I do bastion and he does fortress. Vice-versa if he finds a bastion.”



After a few days of attempts, the two submitted a run that ranked 9th on the leaderboard and still stands in the top 30.



## Lion Speedrunning Assembly



In 2019 with the help of other gamers in the area, JuH0 planned and organized the first ever Lion Speedrun Assembly, a community for Singaporean speedrunners.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/r7z3j6ed.jpg)

JuH0 scoured the web for people who might be interested. “When SR.C had the function to click on the country I did that to find as many active runners as possible,” he said.



LSA has held online marathons for the past few years. “I tried to bring the community together to actually just speedrun games for the fun of it,” he said.



## Other Marathons



In addition to LSA, JuH0 has participated in other speedrun marathons.



In 2019, he flew to Sweden to attend ESA. It was his first out-of-country marathon.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/2qnyjgnp.jpg)“It was super memorable. The people there were super kind and friendly,” he said. “Made a lot of friends from that event.”



Since 2020, he has participated in several Fastest Furs marathons including the most recent where he ran [Concluse - Any%](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-L09KPS-4I).



“I really do like the furry community and also the speedrunning community in general,” he said.



At Power Up with Pride 2022, he ran [Muscle March and Bishi Bashi Special 2](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1499905943?t=25h52m5s

).



At SGDQ 2022, he performed [Alisa - any% NSE](https://www.speedrun.com/alisa) remotely with the game’s developers and one of the voice actors sitting on the couch.



Although he has contributed to GDQ HotFix in the past, this marked his first mainstage run at GDQ.



“GDQ was one of the best marathons I've been part of,” he said.



JuH0’s most recent marathon was Australian Speedrun Marathon (ASM) where he ran [Silent Hill 4: The Room - NG Easy](https://www.speedrun.com/sh4).



He was going to take part in ESA 2022 as well, but after ASM JuH0 tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the event.



However, JuH0 is back to streaming and recently achieved a new World Record in [MADiSON 2022 - Any% - Normal](https://www.speedrun.com/madison/full_game#Any).



Outside of speedrunning, JuH0 is interested in music and even makes his own sometimes. You can check out JuH0 on Twitch [here](https://www.twitch.tv/juh0rse).



This month we are spotlighting Juh0rse, aka Juh0, a Singaporean speedrunner with a love of horror games who founded Lion Speedrunners Assembly.

Spotlight: Juh0rse

This month’s spotlight is Ryan Ford, a former pro-Melee competitor who now speedruns a variety of games.



As a teenager in the mid-00s, Ford met RaynEX, a fellow would-be Melee competitor, through a mutual friend.



“RaynEX was telling my other buddy, 'I'm really good at Smash Bros. Melee’ and my other buddy was like, ‘I have this friend Ryan who's really good at Smash, you guys should face each other,’” Ford said, “and then we finally met and we played. He actually whooped me that time.”



Ford and RaynEX ended up going to the same high school and after plenty of matches competing with each other, they both entered a local tournament in Toronto.



Strangers to the other competitors, Ford and RaynEX arrived in style.



“RaynEX’s dad is a limo driver,” Ford said, “so he dropped us off in his limo and then came to pick us up so other people thought we were some rich kids.”



They thought they were going to take home first place, according to Ford. “We thought we were going to win because we learned advanced techniques eight months //before the tournament//,” he said.



Even though Ford and RaynEX didn’t take first, their confidence wasn’t totally unfounded. The two tied for 7th place out of more than 80 competitors. Not bad for their first real tournament.



Ford went on to become a professional Melee competitor, traveling full time with a sponsor. Since the Summer of 2018, however, his focus has shifted and he no longer travels with the same regularity.



---



One of Ford’s first attempts at speedrunning was in 2013 after he saw Cyghfer run Gimmick! at AGDQ.



Without a tutorial, he tried to learn and follow along with world record runs of Gimmick!, but he struggled to get the hang of it.



“I also didn't have an actual console to play it on,” he said, “so I really hated using an emulator because of the slight input delay.”



Jumping back ahead to the Summer of 2018, Ford had been playing Super Mario RPG casually when his friend Pidge offered to teach him the speedrun.



He took her up on the offer and until 2020, it was his only speedgame.



When the pandemic hit, like so many others, Ford got more invested in speedrunning.



He even picked up a physical copy of Gimmick!, and this time his efforts would not be in vain.



Along with Ford’s increased familiarity with speedrunning, the Gimmick! community had created some handy tutorials since he last tried to learn the run.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/0dz4m4z6.jpg)

Ford chooses his speedgames carefully.



He avoids games with long, unskippable intros and he’s not interested in running games that require too much out-of-bounds gameplay.



“Of course, I'll still make exceptions for some like, Link's Awakening DX,” he said, “...Metroid Prime, I don't think I would ever learn that game even though I like it a lot because of how often you're out of bounds.”



So far, Ford has stuck to speedrunning games with 2D gameplay, but he’s got some 3D games he might try in the future including Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.



In the case of Ocarina of Time, Ford previously learned some of the skips and strategies although some of what he practiced is already outdated.



He said, “it's now the ‘defeat Ganon’ category, but back when that was just called ‘any percent’ I learned how to do the warp to get to Ganon and stuff like that but I never timed a run.”



According to Ford, Melee prepared him for the grinding that speedrunning often requires. “I think that's the reason that I usually get mediocre-to-above-average in a speedgame pretty quickly,” he said.



At SGDQ 2021, Ford performed a run of Gimmick! - Any% (Glitchless).



At first, he intended to practice the run a lot in advance, but two days before the event he realized he hadn’t touched the game in weeks.



For those two days, he put in the grind, particularly working on a newly discovered death warp. In the end, he was able to deliver a solid run.



He found the experience unexpectedly relaxing. Used to the pressure of in-person melee competitions, SGDQ was comparatively nothing to worry about.



“I'm more used to not getting tilted by being nervous or anything,” he said.

Additionally, the GDQ staff and volunteers were helpful and easy to work with. “It was pretty cozy the whole time,” he said.



Ford has also participated in several GDQ HotFix shows. In some cases, the showrunners have invited him on because of rejected runs he submitted to AGDQ or SGDQ.



“Even if you get rejected there might be some benefit…” he said, “Definitely a ‘shoot your shot’ type of thing.”



This past February, Ford speedran Donkey Kong Country - 102% as well as Metroid Fusion - Any% for the first GDQ HotFix: Unapologetically Black and Fast.



And on March 22, he stepped a little outside of his comfort zone and ran Super Mario RPG randomizer for Random Number Generation.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/0wzx4ver.jpg)“It's definitely something that was more out of my element, but again, it was pretty cozy,” he said, “...Also, we got a cursed seed which is kind of what I wanted...if I got something that I just breeze through really easily because I got a bunch of good rolls…then it would make it less entertaining.”



You can find Ford on Twitch [here](https://www.twitch.tv/ryan_ford522) and keep an eye out for him April 3rd at 1 p.m. EDT on GDQ HotFix where he’ll be making a live PB attempt.



This month’s spotlight is Ryan Ford, a former pro-Melee competitor who now speedruns a variety of games.

Spotlight: Ryan Ford

This month we talked with Emray, a speedrunner, gamedev, and artist with a passion for routing runs and metal music.



Before we get into the article, Emray’s hometown of Houma, Louisiana was recently devastated by Hurricane Ida. Learn how you can support relief efforts [here](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=9005).



## Speedrunning



As a teen in the mid-aughts (before she knew about the larger speedrunning community), Emray used to run The Lion King on an SNES emulator. In 2015, she started running Banjo-Tooie and, in 2017, she joined the Pokémon community with a run of Pokémon X.



But at the time, she encountered a lot of sexism in both communities and ended up mostly leaving them when she started running Hollow Knight in September 2018. However, she maintained a leadership role in the 3DS and Nintendo Switch Pokémon communities.

Hollow Knight would quickly become her most-run game and as she became associated with the game some indie developers even reached out asking her to try early releases of their games.



Eventually, she was introduced to Shredrunners, a group of metalhead speedrunners. She promised the group that if she ever became a Twitch Partner she would make an official Shredrunners Twitch Team.



![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/1pzm6knk.jpg)

*An adorable pair of Amigurumi Emray made as a prize for SGDQ2020.*



In February 2020, she performed three runs at Frame Fatales and by May of that year, she became a Twitch Partner.



True to her word, Emray established Shredrunners as an official Twitch Team and in May 2021 they held their first “Shredathon” which was streamed via her own channel.



## Routing



Routing a speedrun can get complicated fast. In Metroidvanias and other games with nonlinear designs, the branching paths can create exponential possibilities to sort through in order to find the fastest options. To some, the prospect might be too much but for Emray, it’s the best part.



“You know how everyone has their niche in speedrunning? I'm really good at routing,” she said.



Emray has contributed to a lot of Hollow Knight categories including All Achievements, Egg%, NKG%, and Happy Couple. In fact, she pioneered every category for the Nintendo Switch version of the game.



“I went through the trouble of routing and running every one of the main Switch categories and inspired a bunch of runners to actually pick it up and now it's one of the main tab categories and there's a lot more people that run console now. That was my goal,” she said.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/2yzr64z4.jpg)

*A sample of Emray's extensive handwritten routing notes.*



When routing, she relies on pen-and-paper to get started. “I work better with paper so I'll write everything down that I need to get or locations or whatever and I'll put it together like a puzzle.”



From there it’s just a matter of trying out different possibilities, she said, “I shuffle them around until it makes sense. Then I test it out and see what needs to be fixed.”



## Metroid and Metroid Dread



Emray is also a huge Metroid fan and like so many others has been enjoying Metroid Dread since its release earlier this month.



“I just love the Metroid series. I've been playing it since I was a little kid,” she said.



Her favorite game of the series is Samus Returns. She said, “I love the way that she feels in that game. And it's just fun to control. And a lot of what they did in Samus returns translated to Dread.”



In particular, she said, “the way that she feels, the control, and a couple of quality of life things. Also the aeon abilities, the counters, the cool animations with the counters. I love that.”



But with Metroid Dread, she is doing some things differently than she normally would. Having recently experienced some severe burnout as a mod for Hollow Knight (take care of your mods, everybody!), she wants to avoid ending up with more responsibility than one person can handle.



She said, “I'm a verifier on the leaderboard so I do get to watch a lot of runs. I like to see what strats people come up with. I basically, for the first time in my life as a speedrunner, followed the community and just trusted everyone else's routing and everyone else's movement and things like that.”



And so far it seems to be going well. “It's kind of been a little bit comfy, just only having that one little responsibility instead of feeling like I'm carrying a lot more,” she said.



Right now she’s running the Any% category, but that is just temporary. “I'm running Any% until I get a sub-40. That's my goal-time for now,” she said.



## Outside of Running



In addition to speedrunning, Emray is a talented artist. She crochets stuffed toys called Amigurumi and has illustrated some incredible Pokémon art. She has also created emotes for some other streamers.



Along with fellow-speedrunner Corvimae, Emray is developing a Metroidvania game as well. She said it’s too early to reveal much, but the main character is a bird.



She said, “[Corvimae is] a programmer, and I'm an artist, and we're kind of working together on the story, and some of the ideas and the aesthetics and stuff like that.”



---



Thanks so much to Emray for talking to us. Check out her stream [here](https://www.twitch.tv/emray).



It's our pleasure to introduce you to Emray: a speedrunner with a flair for routing.

Spotlight: Emray

For this month’s spotlight, we talked to Kris De Asis, aka Meep_Moop. He is a Pico-8 speedrunner who mainly focuses on Celeste Classic. He’s also a Ph.D student, a visual artist, and a game developer.



## Speedrunning on the Pico-8



De Asis primarily speedruns Celeste Classic on the Pico-8 ‘fantasy console.’ A fantasy console is kind of like an emulator for a system that does not exist as physical hardware. The Pico-8 has some arbitrary limitations built in which make it a fun and challenging creative space for game developers.



Before the release of Celeste Classic, De Asis’s friend Justin Jaffray was already following the work of Maddy Thorson, who created the game along with their collaborator Noel Berry.



“The moment Celeste Classic dropped, Justin was like, ‘Hey, this is a sick game, you need to play it.’ And so on day one, we were already running it, finding strats for it, and routing it,” De Asis said.



Eventually, he and Jaffray connected with some other players over Twitter and they became one of the earliest seeds of the modern Celeste community.



“Some of us have been around for like five years now playing the same little game. And then we got to see it blossom into the new release of the game,” De Asis said.



In the early days, he focused on routing. Even though he was helping Justin, SecksWrecks, and BaldJared, De Asis didn’t submit an official run of his own until August 2016.



“The main push that made me start submitting runs was when BaldJared quit at 2:03 and I really wanted to see sub-2 happen,” he said. Later, when Celeste(2018) came out, his interest was revitalized.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/9kzwv8nq.jpg)

Outside of speedrunning, De Asis is a Ph.D student studying Computing Science with a background in things like mechatronic engineering and he has repeatedly drawn on his skills in those areas to contribute to the Celeste Classic community.



In terms of glitchhunting, De Asis learned Lua (the programming language used by Pico-8) and combed through the game’s code to understand different glitches and how best to execute them consistently. “I wrote up a glossary on our community website explaining all the relevant glitches,” he said.



Additionally, he has contributed to the development of Tool Assisted Speedruns and even created a brute-force searcher in Python to find the definitive fastest way through certain levels.



On top of all that, when Jaffray created a practice mod that allowed runners to do things like repeating challenging portions of gameplay for efficient practice, De Asis built on the concept, adding quality-of-life features and fixing bugs.



Improving the community’s accessibility has been one of his guiding principles.



“That was something that we didn't have before when we just had this small, four person group and some private Discord. So whenever people watched our runs, they're just like, ‘what the heck is going on? How are you doing all these spike clips? Are you cheating?’” De Asis said, “And then when I started the server one of the things I did was just document everything.” 

When he needs a break from speedrunning Celeste Classic, De Asis branches out to running other Pico-8 games.



The reason he has stuck to running games on the Pico-8 comes down to brevity. He said, “I don't have the attention span to play any long games. I can’t play Final Fantasy or anything. I really liked the game. I think it's fun, but I just can't finish it. And so Celeste Classic was just the perfect length that had the right amount of precision and platforming. And it just really resonated with me.”



The game’s short length makes the grind more relaxed as well. Often, De Asis will run repeated playthroughs while hanging out with a friend.



“Then whenever I have a good one going, I would like pause the conversation and then actually focus and then if that dies, I'll just get back to chilling with my friend,” he said, “and so it doesn't actually feel like I'm like throwing time at this game or it doesn't feel like I'm wasting time. It's just kind of like this fidgeting thing that I'm doing while doing something else.”



That practice pays off. Anyone who has played any version of Celeste understands the high death-rate that is central to each game’s design. De Asis’s first-place runs are completely deathless.



“The thing is that, in that run, you're not seeing all the attempts before where I died a lot. Like it's a really biased sample of the runs that I did,” he said.



Nonetheless, it’s an impressive feat of dexterity and skill.



## Mods

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/oxzdyvzm.jpg)

It is impossible to spend even a few minutes looking through Pico-8 carts without discovering a few mods of Celeste Classic which is great for fans of the game who want more fresh content.



“It turned this two minute game into a whole bunch of little level packs that can sometimes be like 10 minutes long…” De Asis said, “It's community driven content for the game and it's sort of helping keep this two minute game alive. And it has been going strong for a lot longer than I would have expected it to.”



Some of those mods make it onto the Celeste Classic Mods leaderboard and most of the mods on there have either been run by Meep or he had a hand in their creation.



“It's kind of weird because, as familiar as I am with the Celeste Classic engine, I do see a lot of these shortcuts and speed routes in my own mods," he said. “And some of them I would patch out, some of them I would allow, and then they would still find something new, they would still just break it somehow...there's some satisfaction to that even though there can be a little frustration.”



## Before Speedrunning



Before he knew about speedrunning as a larger hobby and community, De Asis got his start playing Megaman X on repeat. “Whenever I had friends or family over, it would be like trying to show them how quickly I could beat the level and see how quickly they could beat it,” he said.



Another precursor to his interest in speedrunning came in the form of Speedcubing, where he and other participants competed to solve puzzle cubes as quickly as possible.



De Asis even designed a robot to solve cubes automatically which he later retooled to scramble cubes for competitions. His scrambler has been used “[in parallel with human scramblers at WCA-sanctioned Rubik's Cube competitions](https://meep.cubing.net/portfolio/proj_phys_333scramblebot.htm).”



In addition to the dexterity and competitive-timing involved in both speedcubing and speedrunning, De Asis has noticed some overlap between the kinds of people he has met in both communities. However, he said that while speedcubing requires a lot of quick, moment-to-moment decisions, running a game without procedural generation like Celeste Classic is more about rote repetition.



## Creativity



De Asis has also designed a couple of original games for the Pico-8 and has created art in a lot of different mediums. For Ludum Dare 48, he created “Rolling in the Deep,” a Binding-of-Isaac-inspired roguelike with a penguin player character.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/y1n5pke3.jpg)

Penguins appear repeatedly throughout De Asis’s work as a visual artist as well as in his profile images on various websites. It all goes back to a stuffed penguin his sister gave him when he was born. “Ever since then, I've just been attached to it. And then everything that I've done has been sort of penguin-revolved.”



Attempts to render the penguin even led him to mediums like illustration, animation, game development and even to the technical focus of his Ph.D.



“My undergrad degree was in Mechatronics Engineering to focus on robotics. So that sort of bridged Game Dev into reality where...now I can interact with this physical system that's also animated and like real, but then I still wasn't satisfied with that…” he said, “and so that's what led me to computer science to focus my graduate studies on artificial intelligence and machine learning. But it all stems back to this little stuffed penguin.”



## Celeste Classic 2



In January 2021, Thorson, Barry, and musician Lena Raine surprised the Celeste community with the release of Celeste Classic 2.



“It was just a pleasant surprise for everybody. And, it was a nice growth of the Celeste Classic community. We got a lot of new people in who started running both games,” De Asis said. Shortly after its release he had already created a practice mod for the new game.



De Asis never expected the Celeste Classic community to grow as much as it has. “It did start out as this close knit community of mainly four people and then a few people who would come and go in this other server,” he said, “...It just sort of spawned into its own little thing and now it has like 700 people in it and I didn't expect this to ever happen.”



You can check out De Asis’s work [here](https://meep.cubing.net/portfolio/index.htm).





This time, we're shining the spotlight on Meep_Moop, a Pico-8 speedrunner with a particular interest in Celeste Classic.

Spotlight: Meep_Moop

This month, we're featuring a community of speedrunners who focus on games from developer Team Ico.

Spotlight: Team Ico Speedruns

Speedrunning is a niche, that we can say for sure. Some speedrunning concepts can be extremely hard to grasp without deep technical knowledge of a certain title. A lot of runners can possess this knowledge, but a viewer will need to seek out answers themselves. For many, speedruns become far more enjoyable to watch when you understand the technicalities of such a run, and appreciate all the work that goes into them. For this reason, there has been an increasing demand for glitch breakdowns and explanations from the experts as a method of bridging the gap between the well-versed communities and somebody fresh to the scene.



catalystz has been producing some of the best educational content covering speedruns I’ve ever seen. His videos include world record histories, glitch explanations and much more, all written in an easy-to-digest manner that makes it perfect for those unfamiliar with the specifics to learn and get involved. cata is well known as [one of the best *Dark Souls* players on the planet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqWjTcAlW0), but there is a whole other skill set that allows him to develop this internal knowledge into teaching resources for newcomers and veterans alike. Whether you’re someone who wishes to learn more about the world of speedrunning, or how to begin as a teacher yourself, cata has you covered with his fantastic perspective and advice.



*Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?*



> Hey, I'm catalystz and although I have a varied history of speedrunning different games dating back all the way to 2012, I am primarily known for my Dark Souls speedruns the past three and a half years. 



*What/who inspired you to start creating scripted content?*



> I was inspired by several fellow speedrunning content creators which I look up to, especially by what they are able to provide in terms of presenting speedrunning to casual audiences and being able to bring more interest towards our hobby, which can quite often 

be misunderstood, I mean just look at the YouTube comments at some popular speedrunning videos. I don't think people are ignorant towards what speedrunning is, I simply believe they need to be introduced to it in a proper way.



*What does the process usually look like for such content? How long does a project take?*



> The process always has to start with an idea of what to present. Luckily Dark Souls is so varied even before speedrunning comes into play, so there is always something interesting to be relayed to the audience. My videos serve both educational AND entertaining 

purpose, but the main concern is how to relay interesting information in an engaging way as concisely as possible while keeping the desired amount of detail. When I have a clear idea of what the video will represent, I sit down to draft a script. Starting with a rough outline is a must, followed by a couple of rounds of writing the actual text. Since my videos are highly produced, I script them word by word. Then I mark each section with corresponding video footage ideas. When most of the script has some footage assigned, I go ahead and record or otherwise collect it and then mark it off. In the meantime, I will also be recording my audio in small chunks, so that my voice does not get too tired during it, that does not sound good. After collecting all the video footage and going through a bit of post for audio (cutting out saliva noises, de-essing...), perhaps the most fun part of the process begins - the editing. 



> Premiere Pro and After Effects usually serve most of my needs for a project. During the editing process, many ideas might come up when it comes to presenting specific ideas throughout the video and the evolution of having an empty canvas gradually filled is very satisfying. When I'm done with the first version, I send it out for a round of feedback to some close friends, definitely recommend doing that. It helps if you can contact both people who know lots of things about the subject that is covered and also people who might be complete outsiders. After implementing the necessary changes, the video can pretty much go live.



*What have been your favorite and least favorite projects so far?*



> I do not have a least favorite project of mine, of course the quality of my videos has evolved through time, but every single project has been a stepping stone for my improvement as a content creator and has taught me many valuable lessons. You cannot 

get better at creating content just by observing or learning about it, you need to get out there and do it. My favorite project on the other hand is probably my [Force Quit World Record History video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNdxuTieog), it took quite a while to produce, pretty much 6 weeks of nonstop work next to streaming and I really like the story I managed to tell there.



*Do you focus your content towards a casual audience, or towards the speedrunning community as a whole?*



> Produced speedrunning content presented in the correct manner can be a great way of bringing more eyes to the community. I always try to ensure that things which might not be clear to the general audience are properly explained. A lot of the "hate" speedrunning gets in places like youtube comments are in my opinion coming from a place of lack of knowledge, when people don't understand the concept of what we do. I think bridging this gap is something content creators can strive to do.



*Do you have any advice for new creators who wish to start producing educational speedrunning content in the future?*



> My advice for new content creators would be to just go for it, if they feel like they have something interesting to relay, they can always at least try. Plenty of speedrunners know fascinating things about their respective speedgames which they consider to be mundane, but you need to take an outer look and realize that these ordinary things for them might be fascinating to the right audience. Give it a shot and learn with every step of the way.





If you’d like to delve deeper into the mind of catalystz, I’m sure he’d be happy to see you. Whether it be on his [Twitch channel](https://www.twitch.tv/catalystz) where he frequently streams his attempts to break records and write history, or on his [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA9uZZsfbQDbvW8Z9e3rFGA) where all of the teaching masterclasses happen.



Who is catalystz? He produces educational speedrunning content as well as being one of the world's best Dark Souls players. Check out our interview with this skilled speedrunning content creator!

Insight into the mind of catalystz

FrozenFlygone is a Celeste speedrunner as well as a runner and Admin for Frame Fatales who earlier this month performed a Celeste Custom Map at SGDQ.



## Celeste



Like a lot of Celeste runners, the game’s tight mechanics and meaningful story are what keep FrozenFlygone invested in the game.



“It's very clear about talking about mental illness and struggling with yourself and perfection, and always wanting to be the best,” she said.



She also thinks the story is fitting for a speedgame.



“Celeste has over 2500 runners. And so it's a daunting task to get into running this game. But the story of the game itself is like ‘you can do this. Keep pushing,’” she said.



Additionally, she has found the Celeste community to be a welcoming and supportive environment where members are often quick to help one another with difficult tricks and questions.



As well as running the base game, FrozenFlygone runs and creates Custom Maps for Celeste. Currently, she is a map designer and level manager on the collaborative [“Strawberry Jam”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOg-LqoUgiA) project and in the past she has worked on maps like [Quickie Mountain 2](https://gamebanana.com/mods/150732).



“It keeps a game alive to have content like that,” she said.

She is grateful that Celeste’s development team has maintained a positive relationship with the speedrunning and modding communities including promoting custom maps and actively seeking community feedback on future game patches.



![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/3xz03xzl.jpg)

## Other Games



In addition to Celeste, FrozenFlygone tries her hand at all kinds of speedgames to keep things fresh and interesting for her.



She frequently runs Super Mario World Kaizo Rom Hacks as well as other platformers like VVVVVV.



She prefers games that lend themselves to a gradual learning process where she can incorporate strats overtime as her skill improves.

Although most of her passion lies with platformers, she still explores other game genres.



FrozenFlygone owns every Hamtaro game (as well as some Hamtaro plushies and miniatures) and early on she decided to speedrun [all five of the Hamtaro video games](https://www.speedrun.com/hamtaro).



“It's been really fun to run those just because it's totally different. It's not input intensive like Celeste, it's more routing and I really like that aspect of it,” she said.



She has also made a point of running every Powerpuff Girls game and while she doesn’t recommend the trilogy on the Gameboy Color, she still actively runs Him and Seek on GameBoy Advance.



As her username implies, FrozenFlygone is also a fan of Pokemon games however this year was the first time she speedran any titles from the franchise.



“I'm not an RPG runner by any means. But I wanted to challenge myself and so me and about seven people all ran HeartGold SoulSilver in a discord call together. So we were just hanging out for like six hours,” she said. 



She also ran Pokemon Let’s Go: Eevee for the first time in June and is hoping to run it again this month.



Overall, she enjoys branching out and learning new games because there’s always a chance to find something she connects with and wants to continue running.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/9kzwq8zq.jpg)

## Community



Getting involved with Frame Fatales has played a major role in FrozenFlygone’s speedrun journey. 



“That was really the place I got to meet a ton of amazing people who are now some of my best friends,” she said.



She reflected that getting into speedrunning communities can be intimidating for newcomers and finding a group she could really click with has significantly impacted her experience.



Now she serves an Admin position with Frame Fatales, which she says has given her some exciting perspective.



“With this past event...I was runner and volunteer liaison, which was so much fun because I got to really be on the other side of the marathon besides just running in it,” she said. “I'm going to be on staff again for our next event, upcoming in August. So it's been a great both professional and personal experience and I absolutely love the group.” 



## SGDQ 2021



Earlier this month at SGDQ, FrozenFlygone ran a Celeste Custom Map called “Glyph.” It was her first time performing in a mainstage GDQ event as well as the first time a Celeste Custom Map has appeared at GDQ.



[She ran the same map in June at Power Up With Pride](https://www.speedrun.com/news/769-2021-6-1-power-up-with-pride-2021-5-years-strong).



According to FrozenFlygone, [Glyph by Marshall H](https://gamebanana.com/mods/150453), is a great place to start for anyone who has finished all of Celeste and wants more of that tight, complex platforming (though there are also plenty of maps out there for other skill levels).



“Its theme-ing is so beautiful. Marshall’s eye for aesthetics and he wrote all the music himself as well,” she said. “It’s just an amazing experience to play.”



She hopes her run will open the floodgates of Celeste Custom Maps at future GDQ events.



Her SGDQ run was, like so many of the best GDQ runs, equal parts fun and informative.



During her run, several developers and artists who worked on Celeste dropped by to donate and wish FrozenFlygone good luck.



Her experience creating custom maps also allowed her to share unique insights. As she avoided an obstacle by going up and above the screen, she said, “As any Custom Map Maker knows, a lot of times you just forget that you need to put a ceiling and this is one of those times.”



You can check out FrozenFlygone’s SGDQ run [here](https://youtu.be/_zon5vP6qIo) as well as an SGDQ interview with FrozenFlygone [here](https://youtu.be/t6XU7wEuyHw?t=7891) 

Check out FrozenFlygone on Twitch [here](https://www.twitch.tv/frozenflygone).



***All images provided by FrozenFlygone.***



FrozenFlygone is a Celeste speedrunner who recently performed runs at SGDQ and Power Up With Pride. We spoke with her about speedrunning for our July Spotlight.

Spotlight: FrozenFlygone

During Pride Month, we had the opportunity to speak with three LGBTQIA+ streamers who performed runs at Power Up with Pride earlier this month about their experiences speedrunning and more.

 

Let’s get right into it!



## Ori_Sky



Ori Sky is one of those gamers who was interested in playing games quickly before they realized that speedrunning was a thing.



They primarily run platformers with a focus on games with “fast, fluid, and high control movement” but it’s also important that games have a solid story and great music.



“Music honestly plays a big part in reinforcing how fun and engaging the gameplay is, and of course I wouldn't like having awful music playing when I'm replaying a game over and over,” they said.



[At Power Up with Pride, Ori ran Mindseize](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1053117390?collection=iIj_VrujhxaKEg), an indie Metroidvania that was so fun to watch that I ended up picking up my own copy to try it out.



Ori first started running Mindseize to get away from the anxiety that was keeping them from speedrunning Ori and the Will of the Wisps.



Even though they wanted to run the new Ori game, they kept thinking “‘other people have already routed this way more than me and already have times better than I'll ever get.’”



It’s an anxious obstacle that a lot of speedrunners face.



While their fears were negative, they were able to turn the experience into a positive when they looked around for other games they might be able to run.



“I felt like what I really wanted to do was be able to feel like I was actively contributing to a speedrun, rather than just trailing behind everyone who had already put hours and hours of work into it,” they said.



They enjoyed playing Mindseize casually and came up with exciting ideas for what a potential speedrun might look like, so they got to creating that run. 



“What I like the most about the game is the way in which all the movement mechanics interact and combine with each other to allow you to move super fast towards the end game if you know how to,” they said.



Additionally, they enjoy the challenge of finding new and faster ways to take down the game’s bosses.



While they don’t enjoy the overall task of glitch hunting, they do enjoy refining glitch discoveries by looking for simpler setups and new implementations.



“Another runner of MindSeize who actually ran the unrestricted category discovered a lot of glitches for the game, and although I would not have enjoyed hunting for those glitches myself, I've really enjoyed getting the chance to find new places to apply those glitches, or better setups for them so that it isn't as difficult to pull off frame-perfect tricks,” they said.



Over time, Ori has also moved away from their speedrunning anxieties by engaging with positive speedrun communities.



“The speedruns I've become interested in more recently...have honestly been spurred on by the communities I hang around in, not the other way around, so I think having a good, supportive community is a real plus for me,” they said, naming the Sonic Robo Blast 2 community among others.



It’s a great reminder that while World Records are exciting, it’s important to approach speedrunning with a focus on having a good time and connecting with positive community spaces.



Additionally, Ori said they’ve had a lot of positive experiences in speedrunning as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.



“All the speedrunning communities I've stuck around in have been incredibly supportive and understanding of the LGBTQIA+ community, and especially supportive towards me as I've gone through the journey of exploring my identity over the past year, realizing I'm non-binary, and accepting that,” they said.



Altogether they see speedrunning as an opportunity to engage with a game from new and exciting angles as well as a way to spend time with like-minded people.

“When a game has good mechanics, good story, good music, etc, being able to speedrun it and replay it over and over without necessarily getting bored of it, lets you breathe new life into the game,” they said.



## SaberaMesia

While some folks take to speedrunning easily, for SaberaMesia it took a few attempts to get invested in a speedgame.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/9qzpw6e3.jpg)

In early 2015, SaberaMesia took a shot at learning the speedrun for Shovel Knight with the goal of posting as soon as she could get a sub-hour run.



But the prospect of learning the necessary currency routing and item switching for Shovel Knight was overwhelming so instead, she committed to a different strategy.



“I was like, ‘I'm just gonna jump and stab things. And that's going to be a whole lot easier!’” she said, however, things did not go according to plan. “It was not easier. You don't get any HP upgrades and you don't get any of the strength upgrades.”



In the end, she did not get a sub-hour run so she never submitted to the leaderboard. 



“At some point, I just wasn't making progress anymore,” she said.



She took a short break from speedrunning and streaming in general but later on, she toyed around with learning a run of Axiom Verge, but again found the process overwhelming.



“The idea of having to remember where to go and where to find items was really scary to me at that point in time,” she said.



She made a few attempts at the Any% run, but again nothing clicked.



After playing through Celeste casually (including the B-sides and C-Sides) and learning a bit of the advanced movement tech, SaberaMesia decided to try for a sub-40 run of the game. 

“I was like, ‘there are no enemies in this thing, how bad could it be?’ and I got really into it,” she said.



To some extent, her practice paid off when she brought her run under 43 minutes, just shy of her goal but still a worthy accomplishment.



“I wasn't sad about that time. But I also, again...kind of hit a wall at that point, and...leaned away from it...just kind of coming back to play the game, occasionally, here and there.”

But her journey didn’t end there. 



One of her friends, NeoMagusX, hosts a yearly “Metroidvania Day” stream and for the 2019 event, SaberaMesia thought it could be fun to give Axiom Verge another shot and race against NeoMagusX.



“My best attempt at Axiom Verge Any% had resulted in a two hour and 49 minute time or something like that. It was my one and only Axiom Verge speedrun attempt,” she said, “so I was like, ‘I can probably get that down to around an hour...in a year, right?’”



To her surprise, the World Record had improved significantly since her last attempts but undeterred she began practicing the new tech and strategies.



Crucially, she joined the Axiom Verge Speedrunning Discord to ask for help about a trick she was struggling with and on the spot, another runner booted up a stream with his controller inputs displayed so she could see exactly how the trick needed to be performed.



As she continued to learn and practice, she found herself connecting with the game and bringing her own time down to sub-40 minutes which unfortunately meant a race against NeoMagusX would not have been as fair, but on the bright side SaberaMesia had finally clicked with a speed game.



“I just fell in love with Axiom Verge speedrunning and I've run it pretty consistently with breaks here and there ever since,” she said.



From there on, she was able to go back and get her sub-40 Celeste run and started branching into running even more games.



At Power Up With Pride, SaberaMesia performed runs for two games: [Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1053131719?collection=iIj_VrujhxaKEg)(“Deedlit” for short) and [Axiom Verge](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1053131721?collection=iIj_VrujhxaKEg).



She admins Deedlit and was the first person to publish a run to the leaderboard. In early access before the game’s full release, she was already finding glitches and exploits, some of which have gone on to be useful in running the full game.



During her Axiom Verge run, she premiered a glitch that had not been previously performed in a marathon. 



An older version of the glitch was only ever performed once by one player and nobody has been able to replicate it, but SaberaMesia discovered an alternate setup that made the trick a lot more feasible.



To put it shortly, the glitch involves using the “Address Disrupter” to turn an enemy into a glitchy, moving platform, standing atop the platform, releasing a drone, using the drone to push the platform and character into a wall, leaving the room, and recalling the drone.



Because of several interacting factors, things get weird. 



In her own words: “It resets the room that the drone is in and also the room that the character is in, instead of keeping state between those rooms. And when room state is reset and your character is embedded entirely inside of a wall. The way the game tries to fix this is by moving you straight up until you either end up out of bounds at which point it fixes that by putting you in your last known valid position, which was in a wall or it finds a free space that you can stand in, at which point it stops. And so that happens and it shoots you up to the back area of a room that you're otherwise not able to get to that allows you to bypass the boss.”



As far as her experience as an LGBTQIA+ speedrunner, SaberaMesia says she has been pleasantly surprised to find just how many LGBTQIA+ folks seem to be drawn to speedrunning and that for the most part she has found a lot of welcoming and supportive communities. 



“It's been way better than I imagined and has really helped me in a lot of ways that are unrelated to gaming in general,” she said. “And it's been a really, really wonderful experience that has made the last year...substantially more tolerable.”



## Crrool



Crrool wears many hats including speedrunner, physics teacher, and Oengus Community Manager.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/v5e18mn0.jpg)

As a speedrunner, he mostly plays Pokemon games and is particularly drawn to strange challenges.



“I'm mainly known as somebody who does a lot of dumb stuff you know, the kind of run that most people wouldn't really be particularly inclined to do,” he said.



While many of the most popular speedrunning games are platformers or other action titles, the RPG speedrunning scene makes up a significant portion of the community as well.



“It's a lot less execution heavy and a lot more planning and knowing what to do when RNG doesn't go the way you want it to. You know, being able to play around that,” he said, “...that's also why I do a lot of challenge runs, just being able to look at the game, look at what's going on, and then adapt on the fly and try and figure out which pathing works and what doesn't work and how to potentially adjust things if they don't work.”



As a testament to his dedication to Pokemon games, Crrool participates in the yearly Pokemon Series Race. 



The exact requirements of the race have changed from year to year but in 2020 it required runners to play through 62 different games including every version from each generation and obscure spinoff titles like Pokemon: Typing Adventure.



This year’s race will be less intensive but will still include a whopping 30 games.



Of course, many of the Pokemon spinoff games are not RPGs but Crrool enjoys the way they push him outside of his comfort zone.



“At the end of the day, I don't really run to compete for top times. I run because I enjoy running and because it's fun to challenge myself one way or another,” he said.



As previously mentioned in our [Power Up with Pride highlights article](https://www.speedrun.com/news/782-2021-6-9-power-up-with-pride-an-un-bee-lievable-hit), Crrool achieved a new World Record during the event when he beat his previous Personal Best in [Finding Paradise](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1053057806?collection=iIj_VrujhxaKEg).



“The speedrun isn't really anything too special. It's a lot of text mashing, and just kind of knowing where to go. But the story is what makes it such a phenomenal game,” he said.

In fact, the story was so moving that Crrool’s run made a lot of audience members cry including some of the event staff.



“I did the prequel at Powerup with Pride in 2018 I think. So, now I got to do part two of the series, and part three is scheduled to release this year. So maybe next year,” he said.



A lot of speedrunning events rely on Oengus.io to schedule marathons and other speedrunning events, but in early 2021, site-creator Gyoo decided to step away from the project which was going to mean the end of the site as a whole.



Knowing how important the site has been for the speedrunning community, Crrool and his boyfriend Duncte123 took over the site to keep it running in Gyoo’s absence.



“It is kind of a big platform for the speedrunning community. So you know, that was kind of also a moment where we were like, ‘Yeah, no, we got it, we can't let this just die out like that,’” he said.



In order to maintain the financial side of the project, Crrool reached out to friends and contacts he had made as a speedrunner and marathon planner. The response was incredibly supportive with various marathons agreeing to contribute funds to the site.



Moving forward, Duncte123 is working on a new version of Oengus with the help of another developer to make the tools even better.



“The goal is to make the platform run a lot smoother, a lot more stable, far less issues and when issues do arise actually give us error codes that we can do something with rather than just having to run by the five most common possibilities of what could be going wrong, and from there on allowing us to actually build in new features from the back end, and we've got a fair few things planned, but you'll have to stay tuned for that,” Crrool said.



As a physics teacher, Crrool controls the conversation around his speedrunning and streaming by bringing it up at the start of each school year.



“‘This is what I do with streaming. If you want to know my name, just ask at the end of class, I'll happily give it to you.’ conditions do apply, obviously. But it's better that way. Because at least that way, I control the conversation,” he said.



Over the years, current and former students have dropped in the chat to say hello and hang out.



“Most of them drop in once and then never again, but there's always the odd few who actually got involved in the community,” he said. “One of my former students is now a Mario Odyssey speedrunner.”



Thanks to these runners for taking the time to share their experiences with us. You can find out more about each of them at these links.



Ori_Sky: [https://www.twitch.tv/ori_sky](https://www.twitch.tv/ori_sky)  

SaberaMesia: [https://m.twitch.tv/saberamesia](https://m.twitch.tv/saberamesia)  

Crrool: [https://www.twitch.tv/crrool](https://www.twitch.tv/crrool)



***Header image features Crrool, third from right. Used with permission.***

For Pride Month, we spoke with three talented LGBTQIA+ streamers about their experiences with speedrunning.

Pride Month Speedrunners Spotlight

For this month’s community spotlight, we spoke to Coldeggman, an Animal Crossing speedrunner who recently completed a month-long Animal Crossing: New Leaf 100% run.



## THE LONGEST SPEEDRUN



Hypothetically, a runner could intentionally stretch out a run of almost any game and call it the longest speedrun, but this is a real-time, first-place speedrun that is incredibly long because it has to be that way.



Previously, this record was held by [Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean 100% with a world record runtime of 338:43:26 (a bit more than 14 days)](https://www.speedrun.com/baten_kaitos_eternal_wings_and_the_lost_ocean#100), so how did Coldeggman beat that?



Animal Crossing: New Leaf introduced a badge system that rewards players for certain achievements including the “Villager of Honor” badge which is awarded for 500 hours of playtime.



Because of this badge, nobody has completed a 100% speedrun of New Leaf since it was released. No one, that is, until Coldeggman.



For as much as 12 hours a day throughout most of April, he played New Leaf, working to collect the various other badges while he let the 500-hour clock tick by 24/7.



In the end, his run clocked in at 638:27:29 (almost 27 days).



“It's still weird to me that I was able to pull that off. I was always telling myself that I wouldn't make it past like the first week,” said Coldeggman.



This run was in a league of its own even for someone like Coldeggman who has experience competing in 20+ hour categories.



## THE RUNNER



Coldeggman has played Animal Crossing games since childhood and since 2017 he’s collected world records in titles throughout the franchise.



Starting with the original Animal Crossing for the Gamecube, Coldeggman learned and practiced the shorter runs like “All Debts” and “Golden Net.” From there, he put together the building blocks of the 100% run.



He became interested when he saw a clip of the at-the-time World Record holder, P4ntz, entering some “Tom Nook Codes” to acquire specific items for the run. Coldeggman timed himself entering the same codes and found that his untrained inputs were as much as 20 seconds faster than P4ntz’s had been.



P4ntz had set the record at 38:00:37, but Coldeggman was able to bring that time down to 27:02:17 and from there, he has improved the Animal Crossing 100% run to 19:25:35.



It can be tough to imagine a single stream of 20+ hours and Coldeggman says it takes practice to focus for such a long time. 



“I used to do like a 24-hour stream every month which is bad for your health so I try not to do that much now,” he said.



For a lot of speedruns, the common wisdom is to grind a run in full to make progress but with runs that long it is not realistic or healthy so prepping for runs involves practicing different segments, menu navigation (aka ‘menuing’), and movement.



Coldeggman said that movement doesn’t seem like it would be that important in Animal Crossing games, but tighter control can add up in a competitive setting.



While he has run other Animal Crossing games, the Gamecube original is his favorite. “I would say Gamecube and New Leaf are very, very close but I think I would put Gamecube just slightly ahead just because I’ve played it ever since I was way younger,” he said.



But again, even 27 hours is nothing compared to 27 days.

![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/d3ekd5zx.jpg)## 600+ HOURS



The idea came to him during a walk on the very first day of this year. “I just thought to myself ‘wait a minute, since there's a 500-hour badge in New Leaf, I wonder if you could do a 100% speedrun of it.’ I just laughed it off at first but quickly got to work on it.”



For most other runs, Coldeggman tries to jump into them pretty quickly, but for this one, he needed some time for more planning and mental preparation. He practiced and frequently modified the route.



“I had already decided on doing two streams a day, with an hour-long break in between to take a mental break which really, really helped in the end and I think without that I wouldn't have been able to do it for sure,” he said.



But even with all his preparation, as Coldeggman worked on acquiring every badge, he found something which had slipped through the cracks.



Some of the items he needed could only be purchased through Club Tortimer, an online function which Coldeggman already banned from the run due to the risk of encountering hackers or other issues that would disrupt the record.



The only alternative was to hope for an incredibly unlikely RNG-dependent interaction. After some tense consideration, the decision was made to ignore those items for this run.



“It was really stressful having to deal with that in the middle of the run not knowing about it beforehand,” he said.



Despite setbacks, Coldeggman eventually achieved the 500-hour “Villager of Honor” badge and from there he just had to tie up some loose ends to reach 100%.



After 27 days, he completed the longest real-time first-place speedrun. “It was a very emotional moment for sure,” he said. “Would I ever do it again? Probably not...It was a very stressful experience a lot of the time. Still fun, but man it was rough a lot of the time.”



As far as advice for anyone considering a run this long, Coldeggman doesn’t think it’s for everyone. “Unless you were super motivated...I wouldn’t recommend doing a run like this. You have to be very good at playing for long periods of time...but despite that, I’d say just make sure you take breaks often and eat/drink properly to keep your health in check.”



Overall, just take care of yourself. This is a cool achievement but you should always make sure to take care of your health first and foremost!



## WHAT IS NEXT



Even right after that huge undertaking, Coldeggman has some future runs in mind. He’s considering jumping back into some other Animal Crossing titles and might further improve that Animal Crossing 100% run with some new discoveries and strategies.



To anyone considering running Animal Crossing, he said, “I definitely recommend it. If you’re talking about the Gamecube one, start with ‘All Debts’ or ‘Golden Net.’ It’s actually a very fun speed-game. It’s very chill. It’s not too complicated and it's pretty easy to learn. It’s not just RNG there’s a lot of skill involved too.”  



*Check out Coldeggman on Twitch [here](https://www.twitch.tv/Coldeggman/about).*



What's the longest speedrun you've ever done? This month's Spotlight focuses on Coldeggman who recently completed a speedrun that took more than 26 days. That's dedication, folks!

Spotlight: Coldeggman and Animal Crossing

For this month's spotlight, we spent some time with the Prince of Persia (PoP) speedrun community. It is impossible to cover every fascinating detail about this community, but we hope this article can give a glimpse to the rest of the speedrunning world. Let’s get into it.



## Zipping



Nearly every person I spoke to in the PoP community has fond childhood memories with the original game, which was already being speedrun as early as 2000. But for a while, the community was more focused on the Sands of Time Trilogy released between 2003 and 2005.



It is impossible to talk about the history of PoP speedrunning without ‘zipping.’ Originally discovered in late-2014/early-2015, zipping takes advantage of the physics engine in the Sands trilogy to launch the player in different directions and clip through the environment.



“The depth and scope of zips was crazy so throughout the entirety of 2015 it was amazing working on this trick,” said Joee, a runner who used to go by “Heneko_”.



When the glitch was discovered, the potential seemed almost limitless. Pretty much anyone who tried could find new ways to use zipping, and this led to incredible time saves throughout the games.



In the second game of the Sands Trilogy, Warrior Within, zipping vertically can even be used to move between the game’s separate time periods. It’s not actually useful in runs, but it speaks to the breadth of possibilities the glitch provides.



At Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) 2015, Joee represented the PoP community with a run that, infamously, [did not go as planned.](https://www.polygon.com/2015/7/30/9073717/prince-of-persia-sands-of-time-sgdq-speedrun-henneko)



Clocking in at 16 minutes past the estimated time, pretty much everything that could go wrong did. However, while the run time was dead on arrival, the run itself was not a complete flop. 



In fact, Joee’s positive attitude through his missteps led to an increase in donations for SGDQ and showed the speedrunning world just how carefree and positive the PoP community could be.



Of course, there is more to the Sands trilogy than zipping, even if zipping gets most of the attention.



There’s the ‘first-person glitch’ discovered by epicdudeguy that allows players to teleport backward and once again clip through the environment.



“At first we found it by accident and we didn’t really know what to do with it but then we discovered later all the things you can do with it and that was really cool,” said epicdudeguy.



In 2019, when runner Jaka was still new and learning the game, he accidentally discovered a new, easy strategy in The Two Thrones that replaced a previous overly-precise run-killer.



He didn’t even realize he’d done anything important until 7eraser7, another PoP runner who was watching the stream, got really excited about the discovery.



A clip of this accidental discovery is available [here](https://www.twitch.tv/jakvrh1/clip/CredulousMistyTapirHeyGirl?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time) and while the chat messages are no longer visible with the clip, Jaka’s reaction to the revelations in chat give a strong impression of the moment.



---



## PoPRuns



2016 was the first PoPRuns event, a yearly Prince of Persia marathon where the community showcases different runs and generally has a good time. In the words of 7eraser7, “the only purpose is to have fun together.”



For the past couple of PoPRuns, runner Samabam has hosted Prince of Persia-themed Dungeons and Dragons games to go along with the event. “It gives us an interesting way to interact with each other that we normally don’t since we’re usually focused on the video games,” he said.



While the event has mostly been held online, in 2019, ten community members crammed into 7eraser7’s home for a hybrid-live/online event.



“Even people who were not running the game anymore...still came,” said 7eraser7, who also thanked his girlfriend for being ok with hosting so many people at once.



“That was pretty special. I hope we can do that again sometime,” said epicdudeguy.



They are hoping to hold another partially in-person PoPRuns once the COVID-19 pandemic ends.



---



## The DOS Boom



After the earliest known PoP speedrun in 2000, world records for Prince of Persia (DOS) progressed inconsistently with some segmented records here and there.



It wasn’t until June of 2015 when a runner called Cap’nClever performed the first continuous PoP DOS Any% 

record and uploaded it to Speedrun.com. He improved on the record in January of 2016, but from then on his 14:44 run remained unbeaten for more than three years.



In 2019, Prince of Persia (DOS) experienced a bump in popularity and some new runners challenged CapnClever’s World Record.



Eventually, a runner named Karlgamer took first place and that year, the creator of Prince of Persia, Jordan Mechner, included a screenshot of Karlgamer’s record in his self-published book on the making of the game.



Throughout 2020, Karlgamer continued to improve his run as new runners and glitch hunters entered the scene.

The history of the Prince of Persia (DOS Any%) was [recently detailed in a documentary by Youtuber The Otter’s Pocket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6E07UR6vDY), but even in the few months since the video went up, the run has gotten progressed even further.



In mid-2020, a new runner called Higlak joined the community and quickly rose to the top of the DOS Any% and Any% Glitchless leaderboards.



“The second that I joined in, everyone was very helpful with any question regarding the game mechanics,” said Higlak, for whom Prince of Persia was his first speedrunning game.



It’s a testament to how much impact a new member can have on a run as well as how much well-maintained community resources and a welcoming attitude can really make a game accessible to new players.



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## The Vibe



The most common word used to describe the PoP community has been ‘welcoming.’ With resources available for nearly every game in the Prince of Persia series and an inviting vibe, the community is always happy when newcomers show an interest.



“I’m not the type of person who usually joins an online community and makes friends, but just being there and being around them it was kind of inevitable. It’s full of a lot of helpful, polite people and they’re very passionate about the hobby,” said Samabam.



Another runner, WinterThunder said, “The guys are quirky and have a big sense of humor, and are quite helpful - if you have a problem with a trick, or setting up something - ask on Discord, and the answer will come in less than 5 minutes most of the time.”



The community also has something that pretty much any good speedrun community needs, rivalry and teamwork existing side by side.



“We are against each other on the leaderboard but in reality we are against the game. So we always try to help each other,” said 7eraser7.



New glitches, strategies, and exploits are readily shared so that everyone can compete on equal footing and work together to bring the game to new heights.



“I think most of the members are concerned more about pushing the games to the limits rather than getting themselves a personal record. We just love to see the records get lower because of new strats or just by improved movement regardless of who accomplishes it,” said GMP.



“The one trick that always was my Achilles' heel was jumping the guards...Almost every guard in the game can be skipped that way, and I couldn't do the trick reliably for the longest time - until Karlgamer, who seemed to pick up the technique more readily - explained to me that the set-up is more complicated and sometimes you need to jump twice before you're in the correct position,” said WinterThunder.



Because it’s existed over several years, some community members have become less active as speedrunners while still remaining part of the community.



Originally, Joee ran the community discord server before passing ownership to another runner, toca_1. Still, Joee maintains his connection to PoP. He said, “they are just my friends now.”



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## Technology and PoP



Throughout the PoP community’s history, there has been an undercurrent of community members using technical tools to push the games to new levels.



For the Sands Trilogy, this included user Sphere writing a script to visualize game code in Blender, a popular 3D graphics software, so community members could identify potential flags and triggers for runners to take advantage of.



![](https://next.speedrun.com/static/blob/2qnyp3np.jpg)For DOS, things get even more futuristic. In January of this year, glitch hunter Crem developed an artificially intelligent bot to optimize the best routes at the time.



Eien86, another glitch hunter in the community, initially found glitches with more common methods like brute force as well as tools like CheatEngine to get inside the game’s code and find ways to take advantage of it.



With those standard approaches, eien86 was able to find skips for the 7th and 8th levels of the game which were then optimized by crem’s bot.



About applying skips to the 8th level, he said, “I didn’t have too much evidence that it would be possible but I felt like I could do it and that it could be done. And I couldn’t sleep the day before...and I worked the full day thinking about -- I need to try this. As soon as I was over with work I threw myself to it and it was such a huge rush. It’s a single frame window opportunity.”



Then in March, eien86 and crem teamed up to push crem’s bot into new frontiers. The new, collaborative version of the bot, codenamed Jaffar, is widening the scope of applications, and eien86 has plans to run the bot in a supercomputer.	



What is also incredible is how Higlak and other runners were quickly able to implement the AI-discovered strategies and optimizations into runs that have been shaved down by more than half a minute



This is both a feat of computers and a feat of humans that brings new perspective to the idea of “man vs machine.” Here the computers and the glitch hunters who programmed them are just another part of the rival-teamwork dynamic, always pushing the game to see what is possible.



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Thank you to the PoP community for being open and excited to share their stories with us.



*Header image of community members at an in-person Prince of Persia event in 2019, used with permission from the community.*

This month, we put a spotlight on the delightful Prince of Persia community. Let's learn about the history of these speedrunners.

Spotlight: Prince of Persia Community

EBen

xwpw4y0l

summertimealice

A Difficult Game About Climbing

The leaderboards will open 2 weeks from launch to allow discussion about the categories we want to start out with.