To Turbo Or Not To Turbo

So, on Twitter today, I saw a post about whether or not turbo functions should be allowed in speedruns.  The discussion actually all stemmed from a guy trying to make himself seem cool on youtube who was clearly cheating, BUT I did see an opinion that bothered me: Turbo should never ever be used, not even in the case of a disabled speedrunner.

This "draw a line in the sand" hard and fast ruling kind of bothered me.  I write this counter as someone who has difficulties mashing due to an injury.  I wouldn't call it a disability per say, since there are so many people much more talented than me that deal with so much more physical limitations, but it is a liability/obstacle that I have nonetheless.

Whenever I was about 8 or 9, I ran into a running car trying to catch a runaway basketball.  Hindsight is 20/20, and I should have been nowhere near that car.  BUT, it happened and here I am now.  All things considered, I walked away very lucky: the only real injury was numerous 2cd and 3rd degree burns to my right hand where it got caught between the muffler and body of the vehicle, plus some minor nerve damage from the strain of my wrist being nearly pulled in two.

Life changed a little from that day on.  I was, and still am, right handed.  However, once everything was said and done, I was left with no feeling in most of my right palm and fingers.  At first, I tried to force myself to become left handed, since my left hand had suffered no injury.  I tried to learn to do things one handed, but it just didn't work.  So, I started a slow process of learning to do things with my right hand despite not feeling in it.  Even simple things, such as writing, seemed to take months to grasp again.  Without a sense of touch, I had to stare intently at my appendage that didn't feel like a part of me to get it to cooperate.  But, slowly, I made progress, but it did change some of my loves.  I had loved playing piano before hand and looked forward to my lessons every week, but soon found myself hating those keys.  I couldn't play without a downward gaze, and I banged on the keys like a wild gorilla due to not having a sense of power.  Eventually, I told my parents I was going to stop taking lessons out of frustration and have never touched the piano since.  I had always enjoyed basketball, but found a new sport to put my energy in that didn't require a hand: aggressive inline skating.  I guess this is all side points, but I swear that I will get to turbo functions sooner or later.

But, I was determined to learn to play video games again.  To do so, I had to look at my hand as I played.  Consider something, other speedrunners:  ever notice how easy it is to goof something up when you take your eyes off the screen for just a split second to look at chat?  Now, imagine playing a video game with holding your controller directly in front of your face and only looking at the game for a split second as you practice for hours things like how to press the B button and not the A button again, or how to move your thumb over to the start button without hitting other buttons along the way.  That is what I had to do, and that is why I am able to play video games today.  I still make mistakes with this crazy process, though.  For example, at Buckeye Speed Bash, I died to a boss because I wasn't hitting the X button on my controller to shoot.  I made some excuse as to why it happened, but I actually simply had my hand in the wrong spot.  I THOUGHT I was pressing X, but upon looking down, I wasn't actually pressing anything at all.  Almost anyone else would have felt that their thumb was on the plastic face of the controller and not a button, but not me.

As a result of this, I am very particular about my controllers.  I have not played any new consoles in a long time.  This is a list of what I feel comfortable playing with:
6 button Sega Genesis controller (not the 3)
Japanese Sega Saturn controller
Hori Fighting Commander 4 (button placement is similar enough to the SS that I could learn it)
Super Nintendo, as long as the game only involves the A/B/L/R buttons.  Any more, and my hand gets confused.  I need more practice here.
XBox360 and Logitech F310 (face button are pretty similar, and I'll switch between the two depending on whether I use a D Pad or not)
Nintendo GC (and by extension, Wii games that use the GC controller or motion controls)
N64, but on the ugly Super Pad Plus (This thing) http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/0/8/performance-super-pad-64-nintendo-64-controller-rare-n64-superpad-f811c2f97301c4cbc254c92345730db6.jpg

All in all, it's actually a fairly big list up there, and I should be able to keep playing a lot of PC games with just the XBox360 and Logitech F310.  But, some may wonder why in the world I learned to play on the Super Pad Plus.  The reasoning is fairly simple: it had Turbo.

Yes, that cheater's device.  Turbo.  BUT, I wanted to play Mario Tennis and Paper Mario on the N64.  I quickly realized a big problem: to run from a battle in PM or hit the ball in MT, I needed to mash.  Mashing remains very difficult for me to do to this very day.  My hand drifts around and I eventually wind up hitting the wrong thing.  But, with turbo, I could actually play and have fun!  I didn't need to worry, and life was good.  My friends never bugged me about it, as they knew that my hand didn't work like theirs and that turbo made it possible for me to play along.

Which is why I am now circling back around.  To me, speedrunning has always been about fun.  I don't care about records, I care about having a good time.  As it turns out, only one of my speedgames requires mashing, and I did find a way for me that works.  I pretty much karate chop a keyboard repeatedly.  I map out so that the space bar is an accepted input, turn my hand sidways and quickly thrust my entire arm up and down.  It is not pretty, but I actually have gotten to a fast enough speed this way to run the game effectively.  Sometimes, for peace of mind, I will mash the keyboard with my right hand and an Xbox360 controller with the left, but the run already requires dual input for optimal movement, so I see no harm in dual mashing.  Besides, I'm the only person that has completed runs in the game, so I didn't really need to answer to anyone for it.

Some people just need a little extra help to be able to perform.  That's the way it is.  If you happen across a speedrunner using Turbo or something like that due to a physical restraint they have to deal with, please don't bug them any further about it.  They're already pretty passionate about speedrunning to try to attempt it in the first place despite everyone else having an advantage over them.  They're already probably pretty self aware over the whole issue anyway and don't need a reminder of that fact.  If it REALLY is an issue, just note it on leaderboards that certain adaptions or turbo was used, or separate it out as it's own category.  But, if speedrunning is all about having a good time and making friends while getting better at a game, I don't see the issue.  Please never call people out on what they have to do because the love video games.  If you think that opinion is unfair, please put a giant rubber glove on your hand so that you can't move your fingers swiftly nor feel the buttons.  If you can still get a better time than me at my speedgames while playing at what is effectively my level, I'll take back what I have said here.

Thanks for reading all of this, and everyone please stay awesome.