Uko's "A Glitchless A Day"

Uko's "A Glitchless A Day"

This is something I've wanted to do for a long time... but for whatever reason, and this probably stems from my depression or anxiety or whatever, I've always felt like putting off grinding EarthBound for consistency (as opposed to grinding for a PB) because I've never had an excuse to do it... but now I seriously feel like there's no better time than now.

It's not that I feel washed up by any means, or that I'm losing my game (in fact, I feel stronger in EarthBound than ever before!)... it's just that it's been really hard to find the motivation to stream EarthBound on my own time anymore. It's really hard to enjoy the game and enjoy the speedrun to its fullest extent when it's just reset after reset after reset. I also think this has an impact on my stream viewership... if I have a decent number of frustrating 1-2 hour-long streams that consist of 5-8 Onett resets and 2-3 PRV resets, and they end with an "I can't do this anymore, I'm too tired," it kinda demotivates people to use their time watching my stream. I could be wrong, but that's the way it feels, and I understand if my stream is at times disappointing for that reason.

I've devised my own temporary solution. This is going to be my way of accomplishing a few major things:
1. Enjoying EarthBound, and not being mad at it all the gosh dang time.
2. Helping my stream viewers enjoy EarthBound.
3. Helping my stream viewers enjoy the happy, positive side of me, and not the negative, frustrated side.
4. Strengthening my consistency with my primary, and favorite, speedrun.

For at least one month, maybe longer if I feel up to it, I'm going to attempt to do one full EarthBound Any% Glitchless run, every single day that I have the time. And thankfully, this isn't a bad promise to make anymore, because my work schedule 100% allows this. Some days I may sleep too much and wake up without time, and that's okay... this won't be perfect, and I need to allow myself that kind of leniency so that I don't feel like I'm pushing myself too hard, but other than that every single day I want to try to make time for just one completed run.

As far as setting rules for myself to follow, I only need a few:
1. My choice whether or not I choose to use Onett manip each day. I want consistency in runs both with and without it, and my goal for every run is going to be Sub 4 and Sub 4:10, respectively. I won't meet that every time of course, but I want to get as close to that as I can. I want to prove that I'm capable of this level of consistency.
2. Required safety saves include Fourside Dept. Store, Kraken, and Stonehenge. Those are the only three spots where if I die, the results are too devastating for me to be able to continue very swiftly. Anything else goes, I can add or subtract safety saves as I please. I'll recommend that I either save before Mani Mani or don't do the text skip because I'm afraid of the softlock, but that isn't required.
3. No forfeits. No giving up, under any circumstances. Giygas must be defeated every single day. As long as I start a run when I feel up to it, and not when I'm forcing myself to due to time constraints, I should have enough positive energy to finish no matter what. The only exceptions are when I use weekly races as my "glitchless a day," I'm allowed to forfeit from those if for whatever reason the timing is bad or if I'm too tired or whatever. However I really shouldn't be forfeiting from those anyway. But again, I've set the rules like this so as to take it easy on myself, and if I break a rule I shouldn't feel too terrible about it.

To anyone that's wondering, yes, I'm going to be taking a long break from Glitchless PB attempts. As soon as I do this for at least a month, I'll consider coming back to the WR grind, but I do need a break, seriously. :P We'll see about Any% though. Still undecided.

Thank you everyone for the support. I encourage that anyone else try this same challenge, if for whatever reason they feel the need, we can have fun doing it together! Feel free to schedule races with me, I'm always down as long as I'm awake. But you have to promise that we'll both finish.

Love, Uko