2024 Writeup

Hi everyone! Figured I'd just give everyone an update on how my life's been going, and what you can expect going forward if you're a fan of my work. I'll try to be brief :D

MOVING:

In august of 2022 I decided to move in with my friend Dexz who i had met through Jak speedrunning. He lived in Finland though so i had so say goodbye to my homeland for a while, which i was willing to do. I had been living with mom previously, and while I love my mom, we're honestly way too different and our life values differ heavily, it was time to move out. In the summer of 2023, another Jak runner called Raccoon joined Dexz and I up here in Finland. The three of us have lived together for about half a year now and I think it's been great overall :). Lots of fun memories. Dexz did however express interest in wanting to live alone eventually, as before my arrival, he had already been living with someone else, he just wants to focus on his own stuff, and try to be by himself for once, which i fully respect. This "Jak house" thing we got going, was merely temporary. - So, going into 2024, I will be moving back to Denmark for the forseeable future. I will be moving after ESA Winter 2024, so the end of February. I will be moving in with WarDrums. WarDrums is a danish runner who i met during ESA 2018, and we click really well and have a lot of similar hobbies. On top of that I will also be able to speak the language! Which is not something i'm used to haha.

But to sum up my experience in Finland, it has been really great. I didn't really have too many friends in Denmark, and up here, I managed to leave my house a lot more than before. Tons of board game nights, great rounds of disc golf and I even went clubbing which is not something i typically have the guts to do. I do really like it here, and I have some slight thoughts about getting an apartment here, but I think i want to move back home for now and then i can maybe gauge things better. You don't know how much you love something until it's no longer there.

CONQUERING JAK 3:

The Jak 3 series is currently on ERA IV as i am writing this and i'm overall very happy with it all so far. Obviously I want the ERAs to release faster but this is 100% going to be my magnum opus in life. I likely will never do another long multi part series of any game ever, so I'm taking my time with this one. I'm definitely not working on it all day every day either, but I think that is also ok. It's not exactly something I am looking to be "done with" I want it to be thorough, and I am going to be taking each part one at a time. I know they're not exactly raking in millions of views, but I'm also very ok with that. All I care about is telling the games story from start to finish from how i experienced it. It was the second game i ever tried to speedrun and it's the only one that I have taken this seriously. I'm currently in the writing process of Era V, and i'm doing a ton of revisions. It's turning out a lot better this time around as oppose to the initial draft. Despite not wanting to rush things, I do want to get this out in 2024, and after it is done, I will continue to make speedrun documentaries about other games. Some you have already seen on my channel, and some you have never seen.

MY SPEEDRUNNING CAREER:

Going into 2024, it will be my 13th year in speedrunning. I've been at it for 12.5 years which.. is a lot now. I guess the obvious question on everyones mind is, do i still enjoy it and am I gonna keep doing it? Let's talk about that here.

Yes, I do still enjoy speedrunning but for the majority of my time spent with the hobby, it was through grinding. Practicing, going for top level times, and getting records. While I do still care about that, I now have other priorities that I care just as much about. I care about the growth and surviviability of the scene. Creating content is huge for keeping speedrunning alive and I care about that more than anything else. I want to create fun activities for people at ESA to make their time there very memorable, and make the people feel welcome in the scene. I feel like I'm extremely bad at putting myself first in a lot of these cases. I could easily profit off of my size more than what I do currently, but I just care too much about whether or not speedrunning eventually dies off. When everyone gets too old to run PS1/PS2 games, then what happens? I don't wanna know, and I'm scared to find out, so I do what I do in order to keep the scene running.

That isn't to say I'm done with being a sweaty nerd. I still have my fair share of speedrunning goals ;)

Yu-Gi-Oh FM:
I wanna get an All Duelist time i know i am capable of getting. A part of me feels like I am 1 PB away, but I know deep down I would love to get sub 1:40. Who knows if the game will let me have it though. I have the skill and knowledge, now i just need the luck.

Jak 3:
Going into 2024 i doubt I will be playing any Jak 3. I don't know if I'm retired from the game, but a part of me really wants to wait for OpenGOAL until i touch the game again. I do randomly get the itch sometimes though. If i do play before OpenGOAL again it's likely gonna be all missions, but keep your expectations low

Crash Team Racing:
Picked this up as a sidegame, and I'm currently just having fun with it. Sub 1 would be nice, currently at 1:00:53.

Jak & Daxter: The Forgotten Lands:
I've been meaning to learn how to speedrun Kuitar's Jak mod, The Forgotten Lands. The mod is not fully done, but so far 100% is only 20 minutes, which is a nice length. Haven't found the motivation to learn this quite yet. Check out a preview here: https://x.com/ThaRixer/status/1732886056079421615?s=20

Mega Man X4:
This game got accepted into ESA Winter 2023, so i'm gonna return to grinding this game fairly soon. My 42:50 is a very good time for me, and I genuinely had issues beating it for a few weeks after I got it. But if I can manage to break through, I will be very happy.

In 2024 I will likely also find a new speedgame that will catch my eye. Who knows what its gonna be?

Also I want to win a Trackmania Cup of the Day!! I've gotten 3rd, 4th and 5th a few times, so i'm gonna get one eventually with the right map.


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But yea that's pretty much it. :D

Gonna keep doing my thing, and just try to thrive to the best of my abilities.

Merry christmas and happy new year everybody!

- Ricky