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[quantumpotato]

Just watching AGDQ Dark Souls 2 and thinking.. what make a good game designed for a speedrun? I guess I'll have to play Shovel Knight I hear that was designed for speedrunners.

[Superb Joe]

i would suggest the computer game "streemerz", which was also built for speedrunning but is quite short and simple but with variety. the nes version seems to be the "competition standard".

[quantumpotato]

i would suggest the computer game "streemerz", which was also built for speedrunning but is quite short and simple but with variety. the nes version seems to be the "competition standard".

I knew I could count on you, Superb Joe! Wait.. did you make this? There's "Superb Joe" mode

[ThemsAllTook]

Offspring Fling has some design concessions for speedrunning, and is a lovely game overall.

Zelda 2 is my speed game of choice, though it certainly wasn't designed for it.

[DragonDePlatino]

Dustforce.

It's a painfully underrated platformer designed specifically for speedrunning. It can be played casually but when the runner knows what they're doing it has an incredible flow to it. MatthewMatosis also did a video on it.

[quantumpotato]

3 platformers mentioned, hm...

that Dustforce video is quite nice, ty.

[DragonDePlatino]

Mario 64 is a good example! And in addition to speedrunning, there are also masochistic weirdos talented folks who attempt to beat levels with the fewest number of jumps possible. As one example, a guy spent 55 hours abusing an item glitch to beat a level in 0 jumps.

And yes, this is the same guy who offered $1000 to the first person who could replicate another time-saving glitch. I really don't think there are more insane dedicated people out there than Mario 64 speedrunners. :O

[quantumpotato]

Wow that's some wild stuff in Super Mario 64!

So the trick is to make gameplay out of "glitches", hm..

[DragonDePlatino]

Though it's important to note, many of Mario 64's glitches arose out of years of experimentation. The number of seconds/jumps needed to beat the game have been shrinking every year and only because people keep finding obscure exploits.

From a game design perspective, you can't really plan for stuff like that unless you intentionally program poorly. The Mario 64 upward warp, for example, arises out of a collision detection issue. For Mario to grab a ceiling, the game checks if there is a grabbable ceiling above him and if he has hit a ceiling. It doesn't check if Mario hit a ceiling and that ceiling is grabbable, so you can warp upwards in certain situations.

There are some good practices if you want your game to be speedrunning-friendly, though. Make your AI complicated but consistent and don't add autoscrolling segments. Speedrunners hate those! Also, avoid designing bosses that can be invulnerable for long periods if they spam the same attack over and over. With that being said, the best way to design a game for speedrunning is to just make a fun game. Casual players and hardcore speedrunners will then follow.

[s0]

sm64's very "open" design and complex moveset did probably help in a sense tho. because even without the insane glitch stuff it's just fun to find new and unexpected routes and what not.

[ThemsAllTook]

I liked Super Mario Sunshine better.

ducks

[Schoq]

But without autoscrollers there's no time to read donations

[DragonDePlatino]

sm64's very "open" design and complex moveset did probably help in a sense tho. because even without the insane glitch stuff it's just fun to find new and unexpected routes and what not.

Oh! You mean "open" as in "nonlinear". Yeah, I wish the later Mario games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land didn't abandon that. It feels like a step backwards when you abandon the huge hub world in favor of a world map. :/

Will there every be a 3d platformer as tight and well made as mario64? I doubt it.

Super Mario Galaxy. As evidenced by the Game Grump's playthrough of Mario 64, some people really struggle with movement in the game. Unlike the later games (including Sunshine) movement is very momentum-based and even the simplest of jumps require a running start. The fact that Super Mario Galaxy improved on this despite the confusing gravity mechanics is pretty impressive IMO.

[s0]

super mario 64 is basically the game that turned me into a "gamer" and it's held up very well for me and is definitely in my all time top 5. a 3D platformer would have to reach an insanely high standard to make me prefer it over sm64. so far that game doesn't exist. this isn't helped by the fact that the genre is kinda dead aside from the occasional mario or ratchet&clank or w/e game.

tho if games like yooka laylee and hat in time manage to revive the genre, maybe we'll something that dethrones sm64 in the future.

[Michael Klier]

It doesn't have to be glitches per se IMO. Spelunky speedruns are "possible" by having good RNG and get/steal the right combination of items from a shop keeper (and obviously then also the skill to use them correctly).





I also really enjoyed watching Borderlands2 speedruns (though these are glitch based).

[DragonDePlatino]

Yeah, Spelunky speedruns are incredible! I remember seeing that one before and I was really impressed. Because of the game's randomization and zippy controls, it has an insanely high skill ceiling when it comes to speedruns.

And in retrospect, I guess that's what it has in common with Super Mario 64 and Dustforce? In general, games with easy-to-learn but deep movesets tend to produce better-looking speedruns.

[s0]

And in retrospect, I guess that's what it has in common with Super Mario 64 and Dustforce? In general, games with easy-to-learn but deep movesets tend to produce better-looking speedruns.

yep. plus, what spelunky has in common with mario 64 is the openness. both games use very simple goals (spelunky moreso) and don't give you a lot of restrictions in how to achieve them.

what makes speedruns for games like that fun to watch is that there is a huge element of creativity involved. so it's not just a physical but also a mental show of skill. seeing someone do really well at a game is cool, seeing someone do things that you didn't think were possible in a game is about 10 times cooler.

[quantumpotato]

what makes speedruns for games like that fun to watch is that there is a huge element of creativity involved. so it's not just a physical but also a mental show of skill. seeing someone do really well at a game is cool, seeing someone do things that you didn't think were possible in a game is about 10 times cooler.

Yeah, the creativity is impressive. I'm fascinated by that SM64 bounty, too.

So I showed a couple friends a co-op game I've been working on and a little incidental feature I put in to make the game feel more responsive.. turned out to let them speed-run each level without taking any damage. Whoops.

[ProgramGamer]

I really enjoyed the fame frumps series where Aran rages at how bad and unintuitive the controls are in Mario 65.

I also like how, depending on what arbitrary goal you decide to limit yourself to, the length of the game can range from a single level taking days to the whole game taking ten minutes.

[andrewlowa]

It doesn't have to be glitches per se IMO. Spelunky speedruns are "possible" by having good RNG and get/steal the right combination of items from a shop keeper (and obviously then also the skill to use them correctly).





I also really enjoyed watching Borderlands2 speedruns (though these are glitch based).

I totally agree with you.