Revamping My Blog + Gaming Pursuits!

Hey guys! I've decided to try and revamp this old blog I started a few years back. I've decided I'm going to use this to regularly inform you guys about my gaming accomplishments, tactics, aspirations, and thoughts on the competitive gaming world!


This might be a little long-winded, but to start this off, I'd like to talk about my gaming involvement and how I came to be a competitive gamer. I think I'll talk about Twin Galaxies (TG), the authority on video game world records, and my involvement there first, as it was what introduced me to the competitive gaming scene. I've been competing on classic games at Twin Galaxies for close to 10 years now, originally starting with a speedrun of the classic Super Mario Bros. for NES.

In 2004, I discovered Twin Galaxies. I was just 14 years old and had just seen a speedrun for the game Super Mario Bros. played on G4TV's "Cinematech." The time? 5 minutes and 20 seconds! "Wow!" was my initial reaction, absolutely memorized by the TV gameplay, watching Mario gracefully avoid every obstacle and enemy. After watching the entire speedrun, I started to wonder if there was anyone that tracked world record times or scores. A quick online search later and I found Twin Galaxies. Really, it was one of the coolest feelings to find Twin Galaxies. As a kid, I always felt that I had a skill for video games. I especially enjoyed the Mario series, from NES all the way up to the newest consoles. However, these games were not multiplayer, nor were they especially good for competitive high scores. For the first time ever, I had a chance to prove my skills on the old games I mastered as a kid, speedruns!

Of course, the first thing I did on Twin Galaxies was look up the fastest completion for Super Mario Bros. I expected to see the 5:20 time I saw on G4, but I was surprised to see the time recently eclipsed by a 5:17 time by a player name Scott Kessler (Sdkess).

I soon found this exact article detailing the new world record completion:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/111080-Super-Mario-Brothers-(NES)-NEW-WORLD-RECORD-!!

I was determined to beat that time. I spent several months doing attempts, starting out with a time of 6:21.  Once I finally got my times down to the 5:20 range, Scott actually started improving his own times. By the time I reached that 5:17 time, the record was all the way down to 5:09! Despite this, I was persistent, knowing I could perfect this game, and just maybe edge out that time. Then one day, it happened. I got what I felt was the perfect run. I must have timed it 20 times with my stopwatch, but there was no doubt that the time was a tied 5:09 with player Trevor Seguin. This was my first Twin Galaxies submission. The best part about this was that I had to have my parents sign the Twin Galaxies submission form because I wasn't old enough to submit it on my own behalf.

At the time, the Super Mario Bros record was a big deal. Actually, I still feel it hasn't lost its appeal. Anyway, because it was a particularly notable achievement, 3 referees had to verify to make sure it was legitimate. A few months later, it was announced that I tied the world record. I was happy to finally have my name on the official scoreboard. From here, I started trying speedruns for all my favorite games.

Around 2006, I found a website called Speed Demos Archive (SDA). This is a website solely dedicated to tracking the fastest completions of every video game. As time went on, I felt the SDA community to be more and more welcoming where the TG community started to fall apart. SDA had a more relaxed set of rules and I noticed many top TG players submitted to SDA also. The former record holder for Super Mario Bros, Scott Kessler, eventually managed to break the coveted "perfect" time of 5:09 with a new [thought to be perfect] run of 5:08 (5:05 SDA timing), displayed on SDA's website for everyone's viewing.

The article for Scott's 5:08 time:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/117017-WR-NEWS-NES-Scott-Kessler-Gets-Holy-Grail-of-5-08-in-SMB1!

I really wanted to have my speedrun up on SDA's website. SDA posts the fastest video, and does not accept other runs like TG. In order for my run to replace his, I'd have to beat it by at least one second. Now again, as I mentioned, this time was thought to be unbeatable. However, Twin Galaxies does not allow glitches and Speed Demos Archive allowed few. There was one tactic that was known to save time (a glitch - a frame perfect walljump) in the last stage of the game, which meant that technically the run could be beaten. Regardless, no one thought the run was going anywhere for a long time.

Fast-forward to March of 2007. I had been working to beat the time back ever since Scott got the 5:08 in October 2006. I decided that I didn't want TG or SDA dictating how fast I could play Super Mario Bros. Twin Galaxies did not allow any glitches and SDA did not allow "mysterious teleportation." Investigating the game thoroughly, I stumbled upon one of the most groundbreaking tricks ever. I figured out a way to save around 5 seconds by confusing the game. Basically, I'm pretty sure I found the first 'wrong warp' ever useful in a speedrun. I tricked a pipe into taking me to the 4-2 warp zone rather than taking the vine that is normally required.

After finding this, I realized I could use the trick and easily beat the record by a couple seconds if I wanted. However, I didn't want to just improve the time, I felt that if I were to submit my first SDA run, I wanted my play to be as optimized, if not more optimized, than the current run. I didn't want to submit a one second improvement and have my time be the fastest solely due to a new trick, so I didn't. Sometime in April, I not only beat the run, but I was able to pull off a walljump in 8-4 to boot! The new time? 5 minutes flat! A whole 5 second improvement.

I submitted the run to SDA despite the "mysterious teleportation" ban they had. I felt that it was definitely mysterious warping, but I also felt the run would not be rejected. I had actually never told anyone about the trick I discovered. The first instance of the trick ever seen was from the submission video itself. No surprise, everyone was surprised! That month, the mysterious teleportation rule was eliminated, maybe partially due to my run?
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To this day, I'm still involved with both websites to a degree. I am still working on high scores and I'm still doing speedruns. I've done a number of both which I will post in the appropriate sections.


I have more I want to say about the competitive scene and my thoughts on a variety of subjects within the community, but those can wait for another day.