That One Friend Who Made Mario Look Easy
You know that moment when your friend casually mentions they “got their Mario 64 time down to 18 minutes” like it’s no big deal? Meanwhile you’re still trying to figure out why Mario keeps face-planting into walls when you attempt a long jump. I used to think speedrunning was this untouchable mountain reserved for people with superhuman reflexes and way too much free time.
Then I watched a streamer fail the same jump 47 times in a row while laughing about it. That’s when it clicked. Speedrunning isn’t about being perfect. It’s about getting incrementally less terrible at something you love, and somehow that makes every small victory feel like you just clutched a 1v5.
Pick Your Poison (But Make It Manageable)
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about speedrunning: start with games you can finish in under two hours. Trust me on this. I made the mistake of trying to speedrun Breath of the Wild as my first attempt. Six hours later, I’m still in the tutorial area questioning my life choices.
Games like Celeste, A Hat in Time, or even classic Mega Man X work perfectly. Short enough that you can see your entire run unfold in one sitting, but deep enough that you’ll discover new shortcuts for months. Celeste’s any% run takes about 30 minutes once you know what you’re doing. Those first attempts? Expect to spend 90 minutes dying on the same spike pattern while your muscle memory slowly builds.
The sweet spot is finding something where failure doesn’t mean losing three hours of progress. When you mess up the wall jump in Mega Man X’s intro stage, you’re only 30 seconds in. When you miss a trick in Skyrim, well, hopefully you brought snacks.
Steal Like an Artist (With YouTube as Your Teacher)
Forget trying to discover optimal routes yourself. That’s like trying to reinvent calculus when Wikipedia exists. Find a runner whose style clicks with you and shamelessly copy everything they do. I learned more about Hollow Knight movement in one hour of watching fireb0rn than I did in 40 hours of casual play.
But here’s the key: don’t try to learn everything at once. Pick one trick per week. This week, maybe it’s nail bouncing in Hollow Knight. Next week, dash dancing in Super Metroid. Your brain can only absorb so much technical stuff before it starts leaking out your ears.
Start a notes document. Write down what inputs cause what outcomes. When I was learning Ori movement tech, I had a whole page dedicated to “bash angles that don’t send you into spikes.” Turns out there are exactly three safe zones. Memorizing them saved me probably 200 deaths over the long run.
The Art of Productive Failure
Remember that feeling when you finally hit your first perfect combo in a fighting game? Speedrunning gives you that same dopamine hit, except it’s “I finally made that jump without bonking my head on the ceiling.” Every failed attempt teaches you something, even if that something is “don’t try to buffer a dash while drinking coffee.”
Keep a simple spreadsheet. Date, final time, what went wrong, what went right. Nothing fancy, just enough to track trends. You’ll start noticing patterns. Maybe you always choke on the final level, or maybe you’re consistently losing time on a specific section. Data makes the invisible visible.
Set micro-goals instead of time goals. Instead of “I want to get under 45 minutes,” try “I want to hit that wall jump three times in a row” or “I want to make it through the ice level without falling.” Technique goals feel achievable. Time goals feel like judgment.
Community Without the Intimidation Factor
The speedrunning community has this reputation for being hyper-competitive gatekeepers, but that’s mostly nonsense. Most runners are just people who found a creative way to replay their favorite games. Join a game’s Discord and you’ll find people celebrating personal bests that are hours slower than world records.
Race events are where casual speedrunning really shines. Weekly races in your chosen game create artificial deadlines that push you to attempt runs instead of endlessly practicing the same section. Plus there’s something uniquely motivating about knowing twelve other people are currently struggling with the exact same boss fight.
Don’t worry about splits or fancy timing software at first. Use your phone’s stopwatch. The goal is building the habit and having fun, not optimizing your setup for theoretical millisecond improvements you won’t notice for months anyway.
When Personal Bests Feel Like World Records
Your first sub-hour run of whatever game you choose will feel better than watching someone else get a world record. That’s not hyperbole. There’s something uniquely satisfying about executing a plan you’ve practiced dozens of times and watching it actually work.
The beautiful thing about speedrunning as a casual player is that improvement never stops. Even world record holders are constantly finding new optimizations and tricks. Your journey from “I have no idea what I’m doing” to “I only have a vague idea what I’m doing” contains enough small victories to keep you motivated for years.
What game have you always wished you were better at? Maybe it’s time to find out just how deep that rabbit hole goes.