Sometimes you love a game so much that you don’t want it to end. Even completing all of the challenges it has to offer just aren’t enough and you need to come up with something more. I’ve just spent the last week at Awesome Games Done Quick but speedrunning is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fully exploring a game you love. How do you do it?
For me, the answer is mostly speedrunning. It started with a love of Spelunky that devolved into grinding out no gold speedruns of the game after several hundred hours of play. That eventually lead to my discovery of Trauma Center as a speedgame, which I’ve played for hundreds of hours so that I could understand and master every single aspect of the game. It culminated with me travelling across the world to be on stage at AGDQ playing a game that I love, surrounded by friends and strangers cheering me on as we raised money for charity. I don’t think I’ll get more out of Trauma Center than that.
At Awesome Games Done Quick, there were more than a few people like me there but there were also a bunch of people who would do all sorts of silly challenge runs to explore the deepest depths of the games that they loved. Dark Souls and Elder Scrolls are both series with bizarre challenge runs that include everything from beating the game without getting hit to beating the game by only using a dodge roll as an attack.
Unlocking achievements, multiplayer and simply playing the game again and again are all great ways to get more out of your games so what’s your preferred method of getting the most from your favourite games?
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