My (robthegamer115)'s AGDQ 2017 experience

A lot of people have asked me my opinions on my adventure at AGDQ2017, so I will put all my amazing fun times here.


Brief PMW summary:

	First off, we have the obvious. Getting to couch for Pac-Man World was the best part of my GDQ experience shockingly. I was very excited and confident as I got on, but after joe started, I began having what I would consider a minor panic attack. I have no reason why this happened, but this was one of the reasons i didn't talk much during the run. Another reason is Joe stated he wanted to do most of the commentary, and as such, I respected his wishes.

More in depth Pac-Man World experience:

	What many of you might be curious about is what exactly went through my mind during Joe's run, and if you aren't, just skip this paragraph. As soon as the run before us was done, joe, beef, and I all went up to the stage. Joe took the runner seat, beef sat on one side of the couch. Wed was already on the couch from the last run, so I got stuck in the middle. Oh well. We all put on mic headsets, joe booted up the game, and we spent the next few minutes balancing the audio coming through our headsets, as both the game audio and each others voices were in it. Once audio was balanced, they gave us the ok, and Joe began. We had talked previously about things to mention, and it was agreed that I would explain level skip, as I had discovered the glitch. Joe went through corsair's cove, and i started getting self-conscious for whatever reason. Joe and Beef didn't leave me with much time to explain level skip, and I feel like I rushed it a little, and faltered towards the end. Fortunately, Beef helped with the ending. Joe continued through the run, and eventually, we were staring at wall. Joe had a tough time with wall, which I kind of blame myself because I absolutely jinxed it. In his last practice run, he got wall immediately, and I said that wasn't good, because that means it won't be quick in the marathon run. Either way, Joe continued on, and I was watching adamantly until about Spin Dizzy when I suddenly got tired. At that point, i was 24 hours with no sleep, and it finally hit me. In the last third of the run, I nearly passed out asleep no less than five times. Fortunately, I failed to make a fool of myself in front of everyone, and then Toc-Man came. Joe messed up Toc-Man, and at that point, all I could think was "get below estimate!" Fortunately, he did. After his run, we left couch, got food, and I slept for two hours. Overall, the Pac-Man run remains my favorite part of my entire GDQ experience.


Other speedruns done on stream:

	While I didn't see all of these runs live, they are what I consider the best that I have seen so, in order of appearance...

Shovel Knight race - a few hours prior, Beef and I played Shovel knight. I had never played it before, and had a rough time playing it. As such, when I saw the race with beef, i was amazed.

Hitman: Blood Money - while I failed to see this run live, hitman speedruns are some of my favorite, as runs of the game show really funny ways to kill people, most of which are simply "accidents".

Super Monkey Ball 2 - this past December, I finally beat this game casually. As such, I truly got to enjoy seeing how many of the stages that took me a long time could easily have been beaten.

Pokemon Emerald - while I admit I haven't seen the entire run yet, pokemon speedruns remain some of my favorite and Gen. 3 is my favorite Gen., so...

Intelligent Qube - ran by a favorite in the Sprash community CaneofPacci, this run confused the hell out of me, and I still only half understand it, despite Cane explaining it to me again after his run.

Road Trip Adventure - this was the run immediately before Pac-Man World, otherwise i wouldn't have seen it. However, it remains my favorite run besides PMW in the marathon. WHEE!

PMW - obvious

The entire Mario block - Mario 1 races were amazing, Lost levels was great, Sunshine was fantastic! Also, i finally had a donaion of mine read at a GDQ event, which was read during Sunshine rooting for AverageTrey.

Halo 2 - Such an amazing speedrun with many really cool skips and glitches.

Mystery Game Tournament - as someone who has been in two tournaments (and will be in MTX), this was amazing to watch. No spoilers, but I will guarantee the three games done you probably have never heard of, or played.

Crash Bandicoot 2 - considering I recently learned this speedrun, it was nice to see it ran.

Crash Team Racing - on of my favorite games that I speedrun, this was a really nice run of the game. A few days after, the run I'd gotten the pleasure of talking to Natty, the runner of the game. Really nice guy, and  really fun speedrun.

GTA Vice City - like the hitman series, the gta series (in particular 3, vice city, and san andreas) are great speedrun games to watch. A very entertaining run with an amazing glitch exhibition at the end.

Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure - The six year old version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, I really enjoy the run for no reason other than the first few lines of the song. "uh huh. Game time. Lil Romeo. Dig it!"

Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom - I have waited for this game to be at a GDQ marathon since 2013. Not only did it get in, but it was done extremely well. Great run with amazing on point comentary by couch and the runner himself

Super Dram World - a kaizo mario world game made by Panga himself, with Panga on couch. Already sounds HYPE!

Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels 2p1c - for those who don't know, 2p1c is two people sharing a controller. this run was amazingly done well, but its the mistakes that are the best, and Big Jon's reactions.

TASBOT Block - kind of a speedrun, just watch. I wouldn't have believed all of that happened without being there in person. When the skype call gets made, look out for my torchic!

Super Metroid Race - the penultimate run, as usual it was HYPE!, despite the comment made.

Undertale - When undertale came out, I refused to play it, adamant I would hate it. In fact, the only reason it's on my list of a hundred games to play is because I just wanted to say I had done it. This run though mad me realize how wrong I was. Look out for me streaming undertale soonish, and maybe even speedrunning it myself, as it looks like a new speedgame i could find myself running.

Note that just because a run is not on here doesn't mean it was bad. In 99% of cases, it means I didn't see it. In fact, there was only one run I saw that I thought did not belong there.


Outside of Stream:

I had an amazing time doing things outside of what was seen on stream. most notably, the following things all occurred.

I got to watch part of a huge Spyro trilogy relay race.

Played a game of Mario Party 3 with people I never met (and sadly don't remember their names). I lost spectacularly.

Learned wall skip, only for a new wall skip to be found two days later.

Played Shovel Knight with the legendary ahbeef himself.

Played Pac-Man Maze Madness (I think?) with joe and ahbeef.

Attempted a crash 2 hundo race with holysanctum

Attempted a mystery mayhem race with the Scooby-Doo community

Completed a relay run of Spyro 120%

Got a new Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly PB by 27 seconds

Rediscovered my love for Dance Dance Revolution, as well as discovered Bisha Bashi.

Met a bunch of people who I had never met in person before, including joester98, ahbeef, caneofpacci, redmoss, shift, wed, frozenphoenix, theguesst, wooferzfg, holysanctum, feranator115, pkfrenchi, fingerquick, Natty, and eddaket (sorry if I met you and you are not on my list, there were so many people it was hard to remember!)

Also, let's not forget the grand total for money raised was nearly 2 and a quarter MILLION DOLLARS! I had a video of my perspective as we crossed the two million mark which will go up on youtube soon.


Overall, AGDQ was an amazing experience, despite me having quite a strange schedule to work around. For those curious, it cost me roughly $550 total ($220 for hotel room for friday and saturday night, $200 for rental car, $50 for registration, $80 roughly for food). I don't know if I would do it again if I had to work around another schedule like that, but if I could go for the entire week, absolutely I would do it, as long as I can get people to room with. That being said, I am sorry to say that the odds of me going to SGDQ are slim. I recently got a summer job, and while taking the time off is not the issue, convincing my parents to let me go is. regardless, If anyone has any questions about my GDQ experience, how GDQ works in person, or anything at all, feel free to message me, and I'll add a Q and A section at the bottom here.