Posted by When playing a videogame with a linear progression, most players go through the content a single time, gradually coming to grips with the mechanics and strategies via natural experimentation and play. Over time, players learn more about a game’s systems and quirks and become able to apply that knowledge to their play, eventually garnering the skills required to complete the challenges laid out by the game or community. While this process of learning and improving one’s play could arguably extend indefinitely, most players will rarely go much further than a single run-through of a game’s content, or, in the case of multiplayer games, will hit a burn-out point where continuing the cycle of play is no longer rewarding. In contrast however, players who go out of their way to play through a game as fast as possible via speedrunning pursue and display a mastery over said game that goes beyond the limits of a game’s traditional rulesets, and pushes the boundaries of what most consider “play.”
This subsection of gamers is generally known as “Speedrunners,” and though their communities are often quite small, and built around specific games, collectively they form a significant enough percentage of the gaming population that there can be entire events dedicated to their specific brand of play. One of the most popular speedrunning events is Awesome Games Done Quick, and it’s sister event, Summer Games Done Quick, where practiced speedrunners demonstrate their abilities live for charity. Games Done Quick is not only a popular event with noble intentions, but also a first-hand look into the ways speedrunning changes the way in which games are learned and experienced.
For the purposes of grounding this analysis, I’ve selected a speedrun from 2016’s Summer Games Done Quick. Specifically, a run of Super Mario Sunshine performed by speedrunner “Bounceyboy,” which is freely available to watch online. Using this particular run, I compiled a table of information including the level played, completion time, whether recurring mini-boss “Shadow Mario” was present, whether glitches were used, number of player deaths, and whether or not elements of normal progression were circumvented, otherwise known as “sequence breaks.” The table is inserted below for reference.
| Level | Completion Time
(Minutes) |
Shadow Mario? | Glitch Used? | Deaths | Sequence Break Used? |
| Tutorial Opening | 6:45 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Overworld Intro | 1:56 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Bianca Hills 1 | Skipped | N | N | 0 | Y |
| Bianca Hills 2 | 2:20 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Bianca Hills 3 | 0:53 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor Reveal | 0:46 | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Bianca Hills 4 | 1:03 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Bianca Hills 5 | 2:26 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Bianca Hills 6 | 2:38 | N | N | 2 | N |
| Gelato Beach Reveal | 0:47 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Gelato Beach 1-6 | Skipped | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Gelato Beach 8 | 0:49 | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Gelato Beach 7 | 0:27 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 1 | 0:51 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 2 | 1:02 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 3 | 0:37 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 4 | 0:53 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 5 | 1:50 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 6 | 1:24 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pianta Village 7 | 0:24 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Cutscene Skip | – | N | Y | 1 (Purposeful) | Y |
| Pinna Park 1 | 1:34 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 2 | 0:49 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 3 | 1:12 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 4 | 1:02 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 5 | Skipped | N | Y | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 6 | 1:45
(Partial Skip) |
N | Y | 0 | N |
| Pinna Park 7 | 0:30 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 1 | 1:14 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 2 | 1:06 | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Ricco Harbor 3 | 0:23 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 4 | 0:56 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 5 | 1:02 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 6 | 0:52 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Ricco Harbor 7 | 0:22 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Bianca Hills 7 | 0:25 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Overworld Yoshi Unlock | 0:05 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Sirena Beach 1 | 2:04 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Sirena Beach 2 | 1:13 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Sirena Beach 3 | 0:37 | N | N | 0 | Y |
| Sirena Beach 4 | 1:10 | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Sirena Beach 5 | 2:27 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Sirena Beach 6 | 2:10 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Sirena Beach 7 | 0:32 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 1 | 1:12 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 2 | 0:35 | N | Y | 0 | Y |
| Noki Bay 3 | 1:04 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 4 | 2:34 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 5 | 1:17 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 6 | 1:06 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Noki Bay 7 | 0:24 | Y | N | 0 | N |
| Corona Mountain | 0:54 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Final Boss | 0:34 | N | N | 0 | N |
| Level Transitions | 19:45 | – | – | – | – |
| Final Stats | 1:20:46 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 9 |
To play from the opening cutscene to the final boss took the speedrunner one hour, twenty minutes and forty-six seconds. An average player, as estimated by howlongtobeat.com, will take nearly seventeen hours to progress through the same content. So how does a player of Super Mario Sunshine go from a seventeen hour playthrough to an hour and twenty minutes? What makes speedrunning so different from normal play that it can so drastically reduce the average time to completion? The answer lies not just in how a speedrunner plays, but how they learn to play.
In 2007, professor James Gee wrote about the principles of learning that good games use to engage and teach players how to play. Many of the principles outlined in his work “Good Video Games and Good Learning” manifest themselves regularly in the games we play, and anyone who plays games will inevitably encounter most, if not all of them in some form or another. However, when a player sets about the task of speedrunning a game, those same principles are employed in new ways that make the experience quite unlike traditional play.
Right off the bat the differences between speedrunning and traditional play are apparent with the first three principles mentioned in Gee’s work, ‘Identity,’ ‘Interaction,’ and ‘Production.’ In traditional play, the player is encouraged to immerse themselves in the world of the game, so as to have a more engaging experience. This means that ‘Identity’ is primarily based within the limits of the game. In Super Mario Sunshine, the player is encouraged to engage with the game as Mario, to take on his motivations and abilities as their own, and experience the challenges and events with that mindset. ‘Interaction’ and ‘Production’ follow naturally, as the way the player interacts and responds to the different elements of the world is partially based on how the way they interpret and respond to that identity, which then influences the “production” of that player’s own unique playthrough.
Speedrunning however, requires the player to assume a vastly different identity from standard play. A speedrunner has little investment in the characters or plot of a story, having already experienced it numerous times, and instead finds an identity in striving for mastery, learning all the tricks and skills, and ultimately, achieving the fastest completion times. The identity of play is no longer provided by the game, but by the player, who has forged their own motivations for playing. Once again, ‘Interaction’ and ‘Production’ follow naturally, the way the game and player respond to each other is radically altered by this identity shift. Speedrunners become hypersensitive to the minutiae of a game and the game itself will inevitably react differently to this level of play. Small sounds and subtle movements become vital cues for the player to make their next move, while the game reacts to this optimization in a variety of ways, some intentional, some not. The player is no longer producing an organic experience based on their natural style of play, but is striving to produce a very specific result by combining a deep understanding of the game in question and using precise action to manipulate events to their advantage.
Following up those points, are the principles of ‘Risk Taking,’ ‘Customization,’ and ‘Agency.’ These principles work similarly between standard play and speedrunning, and the differences come down to the game more than the player. A typical player of any game experiences risk taking normally throughout the experience; sometimes they are forced to do so in order to complete a challenge, or choose to do so in the hopes of progressing more effectively or gaining some sort of reward. Speedrunners do the same thing in many regards, but they often take more difficult risks for higher rewards. In his speedrun of Super Mario Sunshine, BounceyBoy takes advantage of several glitches and precise movement strategies in order to cut down on his overall time. In this regard, the actual risk incurred can vary greatly. In level six of Bianca Hills, slight mistakes during jumps caused two accidental deaths, creating significant delays. On the other hand, the game also features safer strategies that can be more reliably performed, such as clipping through a building and respawning in a specific location, which allows the player to skip a lengthy cutscene. These known and reproducible glitches, movement exploits, or sequence breaks often have specific names within the community, such as “Honey Skip,” “Yoshi Skip,” “Glitchy Wall Kick,” or “Early Yoshi-Go-Round.” These strategies and tactics also play into ‘Customization’ and ‘Agency.’ The inclusion of ‘Agency’ is, practically speaking, not much different to how most players experience it; a speedrunner is playing the same game and has the exact same tools at their disposal. ‘Customization’ works slightly differently however. While speedrunners, like typical players, have the ability to customize their play style or strategies however they see fit, they often tailor their play to maximise efficiency above all else, which means, like ‘Production,’ their gameplay is less about experimenting with different playstyles, and more about refining their specific technique.
Of James Gee’s learning principles, there are a handful of them that are less relevant to a speedrunner. The ‘“Just in Time” and “On Demand”’ principle for example, is of most use when one is first learning how to play, and since speedrunning is primarily centered around rehearsing to the point of automation, runners rely more on the information they’ve memorized than the information presented by the game. Likewise, the principle of ‘Situated Meanings’ can be glossed over for similar reasons, as a speedrunner will have run through a game so many times that they will be very familiar with all the information available, and don’t need to interpret it yet again.
While some learning principles, such as the previous two and ‘Cross-Functional Teams’ are simply less relevant, there are also a few principles that are contradicted by the speedrunning style of play. ‘Well-Order Problems,’ for instance, relies on the game progressing in an expected and logical way so that challenges can be structured in way that they lead into each other logically. As BounceyBoy demonstrates in his playthrough of Super Mario Sunshine, speedrunning often circumvents this structure by exploiting glitches or workarounds that re-order, or entirely skips certain challenges, as is seen when he heads straight for the boss of Bianca Hills 2 instead of completing Bianca Hills 1, or when he exploits a glitch in order to skip nearly all of the Gelato Beach missions. This also somewhat invalidates the principle of ‘Pleasantly Frustrating’ which relies on careful design to push the players limits without overextending them, though speedrunners do often create their own methods that would satisfy that requirement.
Another contradiction is found in the learning principle of ‘Explore, Think Laterally, and Rework Goals,’ which suggests that good games encourage the player to take their time, reconsider their options, and think up new ways to solve problems. Yet again, speedrunning requires almost the direct opposite, encouraging the runner to plot out their course ahead of time, ignore anything that isn’t immediately required, and avoid everything that could even possibly slow them down.
Back on the topic of more relevant principles, we have ‘System Thinking’ and ‘Smart Tools and Distributed Knowledge.’ Gee discusses how the character being played has their own skills that the player need not worry about. Mario knows how to long jump, slide, spray water, etc. BounceyBoy doesn’t need to worry about every little detail because the game itself handles much of that for him. The more important task facing the speedrunner is ‘System Thinking,’ which requires them to understand how all of those mechanics interact and can be used to their advantage. BounceyBoy, for example, makes frequent use of Mario’s ability to spray water and slide on it in order to build momentum quickly, which allows him to make longer jumps and get around faster. This mechanic also makes it safer to move around, as the water will damage enemies and clear the environment of some obstacles, and as such BounceyBoy makes it a critical element of his movement, not just for the move itself, but because of how it interacts with the game’s other systems.
Speedrunning is not entirely distinct from normal play, however, and there are two principles where it falls closely in line with standard play. First, there is ‘Challenge and Consolidation,’ which opens with Gee stating: “Good games offer players a set of challenging problems and then let them solve these problems until they have virtually routinized or automatized their solutions.” This sentence quite accurately summarizes a great deal of what speedrunning is all about: running a game, or portions of a game, over and over until the player has maximized their ability and efficiency. Though speedrunning doesn’t always allow for boss battles and complete tests of skill, it leans heavily on the idea of consolidation, almost to the point of overwhelming most other principles. To demonstrate: Shadow Mario is a recurring mini-boss of sorts in Super Mario Sunshine, and through repetition and refinement, almost every encounter BounceyBoy had with him was completed in thirty seconds or less, and is perhaps the best example of consolidation one can find in such a speed run, being both highly efficient, and extremely consistent in execution.
Finally, we have the idea of ‘Performance Before Competence.’ Similar to consolidation, this principle is perhaps the backbone of all speedrunning communities. In order to speedrun a game, a player must become familiar with that games tricks and strategies, in order to do that, they must understand how the games systems interact, in order to do that, they must figure out exactly how to play the game in the first place. Every speedrunner needs to start somewhere, and whether they’re a hobbyist or a world-record holder, at some point they picked that game up for the very first time and had to come to grips with it’s mechanics. Speedrunning, at it’s very core, is about performing over and over, increasing one’s level of competence each playthrough, hoping to someday rank among the very best performances of all time.
When it comes to playing most video games in the typical way, James Gee’s learning principles are highly relevant, and form a basic understanding of the cycle of play that teaches and improves the player’s ability and experience. While speedrunners do experience some of that cycle normally, the way a runner plays their chosen game both subverts and alters the implementation of a significant number of those learning principles in such a way that their method of play is not only more technically impressive, but so different as to be almost unrecognizable in some cases. There are certainly variations in play between individuals who play games more casually, whether they choose to play conservatively, aggressively, with meticulous exploration or wild abandon, but those who choose to speedrun games embrace radically different methodology and intent, to the point where typical learning principles, and the traditional cycle of play no longer apply in quite the same way. These players refine their strategies and hone their abilities in ways that go far beyond what most will ever succeed in, or even attempt, and there is no denying the technical accomplishment of such a skill level. This is part of the reason why such runs are popular shows, so much so as to justify their own live events. Speedrunning is not only an example of extreme dedication and skill for those who partake, but consists of a totally reworked method of learning and performance, so distinct that it can, in fact, be recognized, by both participants and viewers, as a truly unique form of play.