You Gotta Speed, Keed with Retronauts Episode 23

retronauts 23 cover

Hey folks—it's Bob again, and happy to report this is the first episode of mine in a while where I didn't sit down to edit and discover some horrible audio problem that didn't present itself during the recording. So hooray for that! Anyhow, you might not think this topic is your cup of tea, but in recent years I've become a huge fan of speedruns, and discovered they're much, much more than watching people cruise through games at an alarming speed. And if you don't believe me, listen on and prepare to have your mind changed and/or blown by our deep dive on this topic—and be sure to check out the links below if you're interested in seeing these speedruns for yourself. Thanks again to Nich Maragos, who provided the generous donation (and topic suggestion) that made this episode possible.

Libsyn (1:27:50 | MP3 Download) | SoundCloud

This episode's description:

"The art of speedrunning is barely two decades old, but in that time we've seen our share of stupefying feats from game masters that would put Captain N himself to shame. Will this burgeoning subculture be the key to keeping love for classic games alive? Thanks to a generous donation from Kickstarter backer Nich Maragos, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Ray Barnholt, and guest Christian Nutt as the Retronauts explore the joys of breaking beloved games open like so many digital pinatas."

This episode's music comes from the arranged tracks on the Wild Trax (Stunt Race FX) - Rare Tracks for Driving album.

Relevant Links:

The Let's Play Archive

Awesome Games Done Quick

Speed Demos Archive

COMPET-N

The first tool-assisted speedrun (for Super Mario Bros. 3)

Gameological Society feature on Mario 64 speedrunners

Aaand here are some handy links that organize all of the Awesome Games Done Quick runs into a single list (keep in mind there's more than one page for each of these). You can find almost all of the speedruns we talked about through the following:

Awesome Games Done Quick 2013

Awesome Games Done Quick 2014

Summer Games Done Quick 2013

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