“A Good Speed Game”: Interpretation of Mechanics and Subjective Flaws

Frequently, something will come up during discussion on the subject of playing games fast. The concept of what makes a game suitable for the craft, what makes a good “speed game”. Usually statements around this subject are authoritative and inflexible. Not necessarily out of malice mind you, they are usually based off of circumstance and preferences. The seemingly infinite pit these come from could boil down to when you joined the community-at-large, runners that may have influenced you or your personal experiences with different games in the context of speed running. Even what you played as a child could heavily paint your ideals.

For as long as I can remember this has divided parts of the community, thrown people at opposite ends with a borderline mandatory spite for anyone not standing alongside them. Thankfully there are many who understand what I’ll go on to talk about here, but some are so steadfast that they feel the need to broadcast it constantly, shooting those down that won’t concede their feelings on the point.

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Flexibility, Creativity and Cheating the System

At speed running’s core lies mechanical exploitation and problem-solving. Sometimes a technique can lead to huge concept testing sessions. Other times a long, hard train of thought can reveal previously unrealized potential when the dots are connected in a creative manner. These things can be interpreted with neutrality, enthusiasm and sometimes even outright negativity, with no fixed end result. It comes down to the runner in question and their subjective ideals of what makes a game one that they would like to speed run.

While many will relish the opportunity to break a game further, some would prefer a run more representative of how the majority experienced it, in-tact. After all, speed running is both a personal set of challenges as well a form of entertainment for others to enjoy, many of whom aren’t so intimately familiar with mechanics. This is why all too often you hear comments on glitching and sequence breaking being a form of “cheating” (usually with the aforementioned unwavering resolve). I’ve never viewed that type of talk as a personal insult to any given play style, I almost agree with it to a point. Speed runners learn how to cheat engines and the functions within to increase pace for the runs, it’s built into the very concept of it.

Most tend to sit somewhere in the middle, enjoying a generous handful of techniques that can be used but resenting anything that heavily breaks the flowchart you usually progress through to complete the game, at least once the novelty of doing so wears off. Communities routinely split categories when this happens, laying down a simple foundation of one run snapping the game in two as fast as possible, the other progressing through the game as per it’s structure while exploiting all other functions available.

This notion however can be applied very broadly when it comes to a game’s universal rule-set and where the limit ceiling on optimization is located.

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Freedom vs. Restrictions

As I see it, one of the things that drives people to particular games over others is what can feasibly be done within the games rules. Of course there are two ends to the scale, but like flow, the majority sits somewhere inside the two extreme wings.

You can have a game with an anchored top-speed via particular techniques, or a requirement to progress which would result in dead-ending even if somehow overcome. Some games will be forced in play style to a point where movement is simple and the optimization comes from minimal mistakes in basic gameplay. Others can be so open-ended that properly planning can be a nightmare and one simple untested string can unravel parts of the game into entirely different routes and thus obsolete years of previous runs. There is no right answer to which of these is superior, it all comes down to what you personally want to experience.

The faster the idea that a game holds a ranking outside of your own personal preferences is removed, the closer the communities will be to one another, which could only help everyone in the end. More interest in variety, less bias overall. It couldn’t possibly do any harm to concede that others have different ideals when it comes to what games they want to run and how/which categories they do within.

Give others room to do as they please and everyone shall be paid back in kind.

Do you think I’m on-point? Off-base? Have anything to add? Sound off in the comments below, would love to hear how others interpret the concept of speed-game quality!