One of my favorite events of the year is starting up soon, and if you’re at all in to video game speed runs, you’re going to have a busy week ahead of you. It’s called Games Done Quick, or, specifically, this time around, Summer Games Done Quick. The idea is it’s a week long event where top tier speed runners from all over the world play through a ridiculous amount of video games as quickly as they can, streamed on Twitch, while people make donations to charity. It’s a lot of fun, and this time around they’re raising money for Doctors Without Borders. They do this through “donation incentives." So, for instance, they’re going to do a speed run of Metroid, but if they hit $X.XX in donations, they’ll do one of those crazy no-equipment speed runs, or whatever other insane objective they come up with.
To watch, just head over to their Twitch channel. The full schedule of what games are being played is here, and should automatically convert to your local time zone. There’s not a whole lot of games being played which are also available on iOS, but here’s the ones that you can get if your only gaming device is an iPhone:
- Jet Set Radio ($2.99)
- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse ($4.99)
- Earthworm Jim ($4.99)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Free)
- Bastion ($4.99)
The last event they had, while the whole thing was super rad, two particular games were cool enough to go back and watch the archive videos for. First off, the four player Super Metroid race was ridiculous, particularly as four people managed to be so close while playing the game:
If you thought that was cool, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Here’s a guy from the same event playing Punch-Out!… Blindfolded:
The event is starting in a few hours, and will run the entire week through Saturday. Definitely check out the schedule, set some alarms on your phone to remind yourself, and tune in for the games you’re interested in. They typically have full commentary with someone explaining the history of the game, how a particular speed run evolved, and things like that. It’s incredibly interesting, and totally worth watching, and potentially donating to.
