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The Speedrunning Reader

♦Articles♦

Animal Crossing

Inside the relaxed, RNG-packed world of Animal Crossing speedrunning by Steven T. Wright

The Wild World of Animal Crossing Speedrunning by Jack Yarwood

Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie and the Golden Repair of Speedrunning by David R. Howard

The Body and Speedrunning

The Art of the Blindfolded Speedrun by Elizabeth Henges

Breaking VR with the Half Life: Alyx Speedrunning Community by Jay Castello

Do Speedrunners Experience Flow? by David R. Howard

Players Are Pushing Their Bodies to the Limit Speedrunning Nintendo's Fitness Game by Patrick Klepek

Celeste

How 'Celeste' Found Success in Embracing Speedrunners Who Broke The Game by Patrick Klepek

How Celeste Was Designed With Speedrunning in Mind by Caty McCarthy (See also: Design for Speedrunning)

How Failing a Speedrun World Record Taught Me To Enjoy Gaming by Mira Lazine

How The Celeste Speedrunning Community Became Queer As Hellby Jeremy Signor (See also: Queerness and Speedrunning)

Some Thoughts on Celeste and Ludonarrative Dissonance by David R. Howard

Crash Bandicoot

We Talked to 'Crash Bandicoot' Speedrunners About the Remake's New, Messed-Up Jump by Leif Johnson

Design for Speedrunning

The Game Developers Who Enable Speedrunners To Break Their Games by Alicia Haddick

First Person Shooters

An Oral History of ‘GoldenEye 007’ on the N64 by Quinn Myers

How a Speedrunner Broke ‘Prey’ in Three Days by Danielle Riendeau

SMASHING THE CLOCK by Benjamin Turner

Games Done Quick

The Cosmic Horror of Games Done Quick by Cameron Kunzelman

If Esports Are the Sports of Video Games, This is the Parkour by Rami Ismail

I'm Running as Fast as I Can: Inside Summer Games Done Quick by Bob Mackey

GDQ proves that glitches can be a great part of games by Jay Castello

The Life of Speedrunners with (and without) GamesDoneQuickby Omri Wallach

General

A Research Agenda For Speedrunning by Andrew J. Hunsucker

Don't die: livestreaming turns video game speedruns into a spectator sportby Andrew Webster

How to Explain Speedrunning to Your Parents by Emanuel Maiberg

Play it faster, play it weirder: how speedrunning pushes video games beyond their limits by Joe Koning

the secret life of video games: on the magic of speedrunning by Carolyn Petit

Speedrunning’s starting line: An intro guide to gaming’s seemingly intimidating subculture by Jhaan Elker

Why Do Gamers Love Speedrunning So Much Anyway? by Erica Lenti

The Legend of Zelda

A Brief History of Speedrunning by Kat Brewster (See also: First Person Shooters)

In Break the Game, a Legend of Zelda speedrunner cracks under online abuse, then rebuilds by Molly Lipson

The ongoing debate over amiibo in Zelda speedrunning by Luke Winkie

Sequence Break: The Dadaism of Speedrunning by Callum Angus

Watching Other People Play Zelda Gets Me Through My Day by Danielle Riendeau

Mario

The 33-Year Quest for the Perfect Run of 'Super Mario Bros.' Is Almost Over by Patrick Klepek

Mario Maker Taught Me How to Speedrun by Patrick Klepek

Mitch Fowler and the brain-bending world of 'speedrunning' by Nick Taylor-Vaisey

People Are Speedrunning 'Super Mario 64' on the PlayStation 2 by Patrick Klepek

The Pull of Nostalgia: Speedrunning and NES Games by Natalie Schriefer

Speedrunning Mario has transformed the way I play games by Daniel Lipscombe

Neon White

I can't stop trying to go faster in Neon White, even with a record time by Alice O'Connor

Neon White is an anime speedrunner full of camp, cards, and colour by Ed Nightingale

Neon White Is Designed With Speedrunning In Mind, But Isn't Just For Pro Speedrunners by Jordan Ramée (See also: Design for Speedrunning)

Queerness and Speedrunning

BURN THE GLITCH?: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF DIGITAL QUEERS by Florence Smith Nicholls

QUEER MODDING: REVEALING A PLACE FOR QUEERNESS IN GAMES THROUGH ALTERNATE READING, PLAY, AND REMIXING by Katelyn Campbell

Speedrunning Undertale helped me understand my gender better by Madison Schmalzer

your homosexual lover is in another castle – a year of interviews with jeffrey auburn, #1 by Eric Lockaby

Role-Playing Games

Speedrunsby Games That Exist

This Guy Spent 342 Hours Speedrunning a Card-Based JRPG by Patrick Klepek

What Drives This Speedrunner to Master Long, Grueling JRPGs by Patrick Klepek

Your Spoony Speedrunner by Levi Rubeck (See also: Games Done Quick)

Spelunky

A breakdown of 2013's most fascinating video game moment by Douglas Wilson

How Players Used Shotguns to Tear Open the Fabric of Reality in 'Spelunky' by Patrick Klepek

Inside the world of the Spelunky record-chasers by David Owen

‘Spelunky’ Fans Expose 8-Year World Record Holder as a Cheater by Patrick Klepek

Tool-Assisted Speedrunning

Gamers Divided Over Freakish Feats Achieved With Tool-Assisted Speed Runs by Stephen Totilo

How Tool-Assisted Speedrunning Reveals The Inner-Life Of Video Games by Steven Messner (See also: Mario)

Tool-Assisted Speedruns Are a Display of Skill by Tia Kalla

Tool-Assisted: Console Emulation and Platform Plasticity by Nathan Altice

TOOL-ASSISTED TOOL-ASSISTED SPEEDRUN by LeeRoy Lewin

Misc.

Barney, Shrek, and Other Monsters: The World of Obscure Speedruns by Mark Hill

Edge Case Scenario: On Possibility Space, Speedrunning and Parallel Universes by David R. Howard (See also: Games Done Quick, Mario, Tool-Assisted Speedrunning)

Gollum Players Fight For World Records In 2023's Worst Game by Levi Winslow

The Heart of the Cards: RNG and Speedrunning by Jason Coles

The loneliness of the long-distance speedrunner by Jeffrey Matulef

Meet the Person Who Is Speedrunning Disneyland by Caty McCarthy

Meet the Players Who Render Games Unplayable by Yameen Hameed

My Speedrunning Career Lasted A Bit Less Than A Week by Ian Walker

My Speedrunning Journey with Demon Turf by Caleb Pisoni

Routers Are the Pros Who Make Speedrunning Possible by Matt Sayer

Saving Speedrunning and Digital Communities by Alexis Eva

The Speedrunner Who Wasn’t: How a Community Dealt with an Elaborate Cheater by Patrick Klepek

Walkthrough vs. Speedrun: On the spectrum of play between contemplation and corruption. by Nathan Altice

The 8-Year Journey to Solve an Obscure 'Chibi-Robo' Fan Theory by Patrick Klepek

♦Academic Articles♦

"The aesthetics of speedrunning: Performances in neo-baroque space"
by Emilie M. Reed

"An Inclusive Perspective on Gameplay: Towards a wide understanding of gameplay in theory and praxis"
by Björn Jahn and Sebastian Möring

"“ANY% NO SKETCH GLITCH”: SPEEDRUNNING FINAL FANTASY VI AND EXPANDING “WELL PLAYED”"
by Lucas Cook and Sean Duncan

"A Practiced Practice: Speedrunning Through Space With de Certeau and Virilio"
by Rainforest Scully-Blaker

"Automating Speedrun Routing: Overview and Vision"
by Matthias Groß, Dietlind Zühlke and Boris Naujoks

"Between Invention and Discovery: What Video Game Speedrunning Can Teach Us about Mathematical Practice"
by Noel Arteche

"Breaking The Stack: Understanding Videogame Animation through Tool-Assisted Speedruns"
by Madison Schmalzer

"Catch and Release: Ludological Dynamics in Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly"
by William Huber

"Code is Law: Subversion and Collective Knowledge in the Ethos of Video Game Speedrunning"
by Michael Hemmingsen

"The complexity of speedrunning video games"
by Manuel Lafond

"From NES-4021 to moSMB3.wmv: Speedrunning the Serial Interface"
by Patrick LeMieux

"Fully Optimized: The (Post)human Art of Speedrunning"
by Jonathan Hay

"GAMEPLAY VIDEOS AND FAIR USE IN THE AGE OF TRICKS, GLITCHES AND GAMER CREATIVITY"
by Howard S. Chen

"High-performance play: The making of machinima"
by Henry Lowood

"Illegal deposit: Game preservation and/as software piracy"
by James Newman

"The impacts of live streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry"
by Mark R. Johnson and Jamie Woodcock

"Live-Streaming Changes the (Video) Game"
by Thomas P. B. Smith, Marianna Obrist and Peter Wright

"Negotiating Textures of Digital Play: Gameplay and the Production of Space"
by Justyna Janik

"On Game Art, Circuit Bending and Speedrunning as Counter-Practice: 'Hard' and 'Soft' Nonexistence"
by Seb Franklin

"Player power: Networked careers in esports and high-performance game livestreaming practices"
by Emma Witkowski and James Manning

"Playing along and playing for on Twitch: Livestreaming from tandem play to performance"
by Rainforest Scully-Blaker, Jason Begy, Mia Consalvo and Sarah Christina Ganzon

"Playing with(out) Power: Negotiated conventions of high performance networked play practices"
by Emma Witkowski and James Manning

"PLAY WHILE PAUSED: TIME AND SPACE IN VIDEOGAME PAUSE MENUS"
by Madison Schmalzer

"The right way to play a game"
by C. Thi Nguyen

"Running With the Dead: Speedruns and Generative Rupture in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2"
by Fraser McKissack and Lawrence May

"See You Next Mission: An Analysis of the Super Metroid VARIA Randomizer"
by Michael Iantorno

"The Significance of Jeep Tag: On Player-Imposed Rules in Video Games"
by Felan Parker

"Speedrunning for Charity: How Donations Gather Around a Live Streamed Couch"
by Stephen Tsung-Han Sher and Norman Makoto Su

"The Speedrunning museum of accidents"
by Rainforest Scully-Blaker

"Straight Paths Through Queer Walking Simulators: Wandering on Rails and Speedrunning in Gone Home"
by Bo Ruberg

"“Twere Well It Were Done Quickly”: What Belongs in a Glitchless Speedrun?"
by Martin Ricksand

"Videorec as gameplay: Recording playthroughs and video game engagement"
by Gabriel Menotti

"“We Need Radical Gameplay, Not Just Radical Graphics”: Towards a Contemporary Minor Practice in Computer Gaming"
by Seb Franklin

"Wrong Warping, Sequence Breaking, and Running through Code: Systemic Contiguity and Narrative Architecture in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Any% Speedrun"
by James Newman

♦Books and Book Chapters♦

"Curiositas and Critical Glitches: Speedrunning The Legend of Zelda"
by Ethan Smilie in Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda

"Game and Watch: Machinimas, Let’s Plays, Streams, and the Linearization of Digital Play"
by Riccardo Fassone in Intermedia Games—Games Inter Media

Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames
by Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux

"Platformizing Nostalgia" in Who Are You?: Nintendo's Game Boy Advance Platform
by Alex Custodio

"Play against Control" and "Pokémon Plays Twitch" in Ludopolitics: Videogames Against Control
by Liam Mitchell

Speedrunning: Interviews with the Quickest Gamers
by David Snyder

Speedrun Science: A Long Guide to Short Playthroughs
by Eric Koziel

"Speed Runs, Slow Strolls, and the Politics of Walking: Queer Movements through Space and Time" in Video Games Have Always Been Queer
by Bo Ruberg

"Superplay, sequence breaking and speedrunning" in Playing With Videogames
by James Newman

"The Transformative Power of Speedrun: Deconstruction and Recodification of Pokémon Games’ Communicative Structures"
by Fanny Barnabé in Japan’s Contemporary Media Culture between Local and Global

"Tool-Assisted" in I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer/Entertainment System Platform
by Nathan Altice

"What Would Foucault Think About Speed Runs, Jeep Jumps, and Zombie?”
by Felan Parker in Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved

♦Conference Presentations♦

"“But First We Need to Talk About Parallel Universes”: Vectorizing Trans Power in Videogames"
by PS Berge

"GENERATE RANDOMIZED GAME: THE AMBIVALENCES OF ONLINE ROM-PATCHING APPLICATIONS"
by Michael Iantorno

"On Becoming “Like eSports”: Twitch as a Platform for the Speedrunning Community"
by Rainforest Scully-Blaker

"Spectacularization of Play in Live-Streaming Speedrun Marathons: From Performance to Mediation"
by Fanny Barnabé and Sacha Bernard

"Speedrunning: Transgressive play in digital space"
by Dom Ford

♦Theses and Dissertations♦

"Born to Run: A Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community"
by Christopher G. Brewer

"(Broad)casting the Game: The Spectacle of Real in Representing and Narrating Video Game Play"
by Tero Kerttula

"Computers Can’t Get Wet: Queer Slippage and Play in the Rhetoric of Computational Structure"
by Sandra L. Nelson

"Critical Breaking"
by Christopher Kerich

"Expanding Livestream Experience and Interaction Design Through Examining the Videogame Speedrunning Subculture"
by Stephen Tsung-Han Sher

"Game and Metagame: About a precarious ludological Relation"
by Sebastian Otto

"Game Randomization: Emergent Gameplay Communities"
by Celeste Clark Jewett

"Gotta go fast: Measured rationalities and rational measurements in the context of speedrunning"
by Marcus Schmidt

"How to Go Fast: Ways to Model and Approach Speedrun Routing Algorithmically"
by Matthias Groß

"I, GAMER: ADDRESSING TOXIC LUDOLOGY AND NARRATOLOGY IN THE GAMER DISCOURSE COMMUNITY THROUGH REINTERPRETING VIDEO GAMES AS HYPERTEXTS"
by Andrew S. Latham

"Playing on the periphery: Metagaming and transgressive play"
by Patrick S. Love

"Playing Pacifism"
by Robert Budac

"The Polymediated Experience of Broadcasting and Consuming Highly-Skilled Video Game Gameplay"
by Benjamin Luttrull

"Medium of Modulation: The Contradictory Configurations of Power in Video Games"
by Byron Tuck Fong

"Mode and tempo of cultural evolution in video games"
by Ivan Dmitriy Ortiz Sánchez

"Re-curating the Accident: Speedrunning as Community and Practice"
by Rainforest Scully-Blaker

"Transformative Gameplay Practices: Speedrunning through Hyrule"
by Kaitlin Elizabeth Hilburn

"Transition Games: Speedrunning Gender"
by Madison Schmalzer

"Why Speed Matters: Collective Action and Participation in Speedrunning Groups"
by Juan Escobar-Lamanna

♦Non-English♦

"Die kulturelle Aneignung des Spielraums. Vom virtuosen Spielen zum Modifizieren und zurück" (German)
by Alexander Knorr

"Framework analysis of Speed-running: Towards a Comparison Between the Normal Gameplayer and Speed Runners" (Korean)
by Araujo Silva Thiago and Seung-Keun Song

"Geronimo! Oder: Eine kurze Kulturgeschichte des Speedrunnings." (German)
by Sebastian Standke in Time to play. Zeit und Computerspiel

"Le speedrun, pratique compétitive du jeu vidéo" (French)
by Vincent Bézaguet

"Le speedrun: pratique compétitive, ludique ou créative ? Trajectoire d’un détournement de jeu vidéo institué en nouveau game" (French)
by Fanny Barnabé

"Modding: Künstlerische Forschung in Computerspielen" (German)
by Thomas Hawranke

"'Schwester, ich entferne nun die Narration!' Ein Selbstversuch. Über das Verhältnis von Speedrun und strukturell bedingtem Flow" (German)
by Sebastian Standke in Flow aus Spielen: Optimale Erfahrungen durch Computerspiele

"Speedrunner as a Virtual Naturalist" (Russian)
by Vladislav V. Kirichenko