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How to watch the Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 speedrun marathon
This year's Awesome Games Done Quick charity speedrun marathon starts on Sunday, January 14. Here's how to watch it and how to donate to Prevent Cancer Foundation.
Speedrunning charity event Awesome Games Done Quick returns in January
The annual Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speedrunning charity gaming event is returning in January. It’s also going to be an in-person event once again, the first time since covid. It all takes place in Pittsburgh at the Wyndham Hotel from January 14th to the 21st. Despite the change to an in-person format, there will be plenty of ways to stream the festivities if you are nowhere near Pittsburgh.
Summer Games Done Quick 2022 raises $3 million for charity
In its first in-person event since 2020, GDQ’s Summer Games Done Quick 2022 raised more than $3.01 million for Doctors Without Borders.
How to watch the Summer Games Done Quick 2022 speedrunning marathon
This week-long charity event starts on June 26th and will include at least one 'Elden Ring' run.
Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 raised a record $3.4 million for charity
Viewers enjoyed runs like a blindfolded 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' playthrough.
How to watch the Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 speedrunning marathon
Highlights include a blindfolded run of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' and the debut of 'Deathloop' at the event.
Games Done Quickly's stream for COVID-19 relief has begun
Today through April 19th, you can tune into Games Done Quickly’s (GDQ) streamed COVID-19 charity event to watch some of the fastest speedrunners in the world race through new and classic games and raise money for the coronavirus pandemic. The event, Corona Relief Done Quick (CRDQ), kicks off at 12PM ET, and 100 percent of donations will go to Direct Relief, which helps provide medical supplies to those in need. Earlier this year, a similar GDQ event raised more than $3 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, so we can expect this to be a significant fundraiser for COVID-19 relief.
Bit Brigade, the rock band that plays classic NES games on-stage
Bit Brigade could be more famous if they wanted to be. They're a five-man rock band, but one of their members doesn't play an instrument -- instead, he speedruns through a classic NES game while the remaining four bandmates play its soundtrack, live and completely attuned to the pixelated action projected above the stage. Bit Brigade has a built-in audience of nerds and nostalgia fiends, especially in an era dominated by live streaming, but they don't even have a Twitch channel. There is a YouTube page named "bitbrigade," but it has just four videos, all of which are more than 10 years old.
A week of speedrunning for charity starts Sunday
Summer Games Done Quick is back once again. Live from Minnesota, you can watch folks play through your favorite games as fast as they can, for charity. It starts Sunday afternoon at 12:30 PM Eastern and is scheduled to run until the wee hours next Sunday, June 30th. The benefactor this year is Doctors Without Borders, and games include Animaniacs for the SNES, the Wii U's Pikmin 3 and modern fare like Rise of the Tomb Raider. Closing it all out next weekend will be a glitchless run of Final Fantasy VI.
‘Minit’ is a delightful introduction to speedrunning
I've never liked rushing through video games. I prefer to take my time, strolling aimlessly through the digital brush and marveling at each beautifully-realized world. There's just one problem: I don't have 100 hours to spend on Monster Hunter World or Assassin's Creed: Origins. Still, when I dive into a game I want to immerse myself and move at a speed that respects the time and effort put in by the developers.
The life of an elite 'Super Mario 64' speedrunner
Allan Alvarez can complete the game Super Mario 64 faster than anyone in the world, which means that most days he gets out of bed around 4 PM. Afternoons consist of errands -- lately, finding a new apartment and office space with reliable internet for streaming -- and training with his volleyball team. After dinner, he does a few rounds of arm and finger stretches, makes sure he's hydrated, then turns on the Nintendo 64 to practice. At around midnight in Spain -- 6 PM on the US East Coast and thus peak viewing hours -- he starts streaming on Twitch under his alias cheese05. His shift often wraps up close to 7 AM. Alvarez is a full-time speedrunner; he competes with others around the world to beat a game in the fastest time possible. His primary game, the classic platformer Super Mario 64, is the most popular for speedrunners. Alvarez holds the world record for beating it: 120 stars, which essentially means conquering every goal in the game. It takes the average gamer about 24 hours to do this, according to HowLongToBeat.com, an online database of game lengths. Alvarez has done it in 1 hour, 39 minutes and 28 seconds, including cutscenes.
ESL eSports makes cable TV debut on Disney XD
For the first time, eSports league ESL is coming to cable TV, broadcasting ESL Brawlers and ESL SpeedRunners on Disney XD. The two series will feature on Disney's D|XP, a summer programming block devoted to gaming. ESL Brawler pits the best Street Fighter V players in a first to 10 match, with winners defending their title against a new contender each week and fighting it out in a final Vainglory championship on week seven. The SpeedRunner event is more of a free-for-all, pitting the best players against each other to finish the game fastest, while chasing a world record.
Speedrunners have already torn 'Prey' apart
Bethesda's Prey reboot has been out for less than a week and already players are posting some truly insane speedruns. Arguably the best is a 19:34 dash posted by "DraQu" on YouTube. It's a mesmerizing playthrough that uses the GLOO Cannon -- an early weapon that can slow down enemies and create small platforming blocks -- to access areas that would normally take hours to unlock. There's some trickery involved, carefully placing foam boulders to clip through the environment and scale parts of the spaceship developer Arkane Studios never intended people to see. Still, it's all within the confines of the game -- technically DraQu isn't cheating.
Streamer completes every NES game ever made
In May 2014, Piotr Delgado "The Mexican Runner" Kusielczuk wanted a new challenge. His Super Castlevania IV speed runs were leaving him burned out and he wanted to tackle something different for the entertainment of his Twitch followers. Friends suggested that instead of completing NES games as fast as possible, he should perhaps think about beating every game ever made for the platform. Starting with Whomp 'Em on May 28th, 2014, Kusielczuk methodically completed all 714 titles, eventually completing the final world in his final game, Super Mario 3, yesterday.
Watch your favorite games quickly conquered for charity here!
It's the long holiday weekend, we're smack dab in the middle of the summer drought for big game releases and you want to make it to Tuesday with all your fingers intact. That basically rules out lighting fireworks or playing a new game. And, let's face it, the chances of you actually playing anything you bought during the Steam summer sale are slim, at best. What's there to do? How about plopping down and watching a ton of video games beaten in record time, for charity?
ICYMI: Amazon's Treasure Truck, mood-altering wearables and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-523847{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-523847, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-523847{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-523847").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Strap a neurosignaling device onto your forehead and control your mood from an app ; Amazon delivers deals on wheels via a new 'Treasure Truck;' and a new Super Mario World record has been set by a speedrunner who did it all blindfolded. But we need your help! Let the team at Engadget know about any interesting stories or videos you stumble across by using the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd. We will be ever so thankful!
Behold: The power of watching pros play video games
Awesome Games Done Quick is a yearly charity event starring the gaming industry's best and brightest speedrunners -- people who play games very well, with truly superhuman quickness. This January after 160 hours of live streaming on Twitch (a live video service dedicated to gaming), Awesome Games Done Quick raised $1.58 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Yep, people playing video games on camera raised nearly $1.6 million to help fight cancer. Sometimes, the world can be a great place.
Speedrunning Shadowfang
This is something cool that I haven't seen in WoW before. The video above is a paladin named Daz on EU Bronzebeard speedrunning Shadowfang Keep in 11 minutes and 17 seconds.Now, I don't know if that's fast or not, only because I haven't seen anything at all about doing speedruns in WoW. Speedrunning (beating the game as fast as possible) has gotten popular for games in the 8bit era, probably because of emulators and save states, but WoW instances seem like a great place to race through. I wonder why it hasn't happened much yet. Well, except for that one big exception.One reason may be that, unlike battleground twinking (another "below the radar" kind of competition), the classes just aren't balanced for it-- while the paladin here does pretty well, I'd imagine that at level 70 in a lower level instance, a mage would always be faster, just because they can push out the most AoE damage. But that doesn't mean we can't pit the same classes against each other. Anyone want to give the pally's time a go and see how fast you can tear through SFK?
