2015 Speedyear in Review

Hello friends, I started running games in 2014, so 2015 was my first full year of speedrunning. I thought it'd be fun to review my progress in all my games as I've seen others do. Obviously most of the games I've run I also learned this year, so there's going to be mostly new times here. Maybe next year there will be more improvements...



Skyrim Any%: 39:32 -> 37:57
How could I start with anything else? This is the game I properly started speedrunning with and still the one I've put the most time into by far. As a result, I've completely burnt myself out of this category. I had a ton of fun competing with everyone and it was really awesome seeing the time go down, but I don't think I'll be able to do it ever again. This run is effectively dead with a run being submitted today for the first time in months. I've had this record for months and all I want now is for rexy to take this after being shit on by the game so much since I know what that feels like and he deserves closure :(

Skyrim All Daedric Quests: 2:02:07
Now while any% is shit I still do love this game. I haven't yet found a game that's as good for dicking around and making dumb categories in. Routing this run with everyone was one of the most fun series of streams I've ever had. This category ended up being pretty neat and I really enjoy showing it off at marathons. And of course this lead to the most important category...

Skyrim Marriage%: 4:57
This has got to be the dumbest sounding category ever and yet it works so amazingly well. My absolute favourite meme category that accidentally happened during daedric routing and ended up being the most optimized Skyrim category. This one category is the reason I will forever stream science.

Oblivion: 5:19
Did this for TESA and realized what a dumb run it is. Got a shitty time and moved on. At some point I'll try no oob which looks much more interesting.

Morrowind: 6:50
Also did this for TESA, also got a shitty time. I really want to do AMQ but I am extremely intimidated by it. SOON

Daggerfall: 2:18:06
WHERE THE FUCK IS THE WOLF??? This is actually a real cool run if it weren't for the RNG. I did this as part of the 12 hour challenge along with Arena and had the absolute worst experience ever. I'll come back to this eventually but I need to work myself up for it slowly and I'll eventually get there...

Arena: 46:39
This run is very boring. I'll do it again whenever I next do TESA, never on its own.

TES Anthology: 4:01:21
Did this for the 12 hour challenge and had a completely horrible experience. I did it so poor Puri didn't have to be on his own and man do I regret it. I'll come back to this at some point but I'll actually prepare ahead of time and practice Daggerfall so it's not a complete fucking disaster again.

Fallout: some horrible time -> 7:19
This was actually the first run I ever did, though it wasn't particularly fast. It's a really dumb speedrun that relies entirely on RNG. It was also my first ever GDQ run, so that's kind of neat. I had WR for awhile until someone got perfect luck, which I never seemed to get. Oh well. I have no idea when I'll do this next, but I know I'll never bother grinding it.

Fallout 2: 17:50
Ugh. In a series of bad speedruns this manages to be the worst. Ridiculous amounts of RNG and also likes to crash. The only way I'll ever do this again is if I do Anthology, which isn't likely...

Fallout 3: 16:47
This run would be fun if it wasn't a terribly inconsistent video game. I grinded this out for a couple days to get sub rexy for fun. I may come back to this if the new "consistent" speedcripple thing works out.

Fallout New Vegas: 26:11
It was interesting seeing this go from an extremely boring run to something with actual strats. I kind of want to come back to this since my time is incredibly bad but speedcripple is keeping me away. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to grind that.

Fallout 4: 1:27:15
FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUck this run. Because of Arc I got real excited to break and route a brand new Bethesda game. Oh god was I wrong. I ended up getting so goddamn frustrated with the lazy design of everything. Eventually, however, we did end up breaking this game real bad. It did feel good to find a major skip but all the incredibly stupid workarounds we had to go through soured it pretty bad. The run's gotten a lot better than it was originally but it's still not very good. I probably won't come back to this unless the anthology happens.

Fallout Anthology: 1:21:30 (invalid tho)
I did this for the meme (and stole it from canopenerdude). It wasn't worth it. The only reason I'll come back to this is if someone routes Tactics and it's not completely cancer. In that case I'll done one dumb run to please the dumb masses.

Dishonored: 37:35 -> 34:42
The 2nd game I learned proper and the one I've spend the 2nd most time with. I picked this up in short bursts a few different times. I recently picked this up again and finally actually got good at the game. WR is actually within view for the first time but I don't know if I want to press for it. Runs are starting to become a chore. Also is walrus comes back I can kiss that potential WR goodbye. In any case this is probably the most execution heavy run I do and I'm pretty happy with where I've gotten it.

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death VS. DEATH: 30:06 -> 28:29
Ah, my baby. The 30:06 I started the year with was the result of me and pen having a good time and routing the game. Then some other people came and turned this into a real speedgame. Now I honestly can't bring myself to grind out this game because the start is so fucking cancer and I hate what people have done to it. Oh well, it's still a lot of fun to just play at marathons.

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death CO-OP VS. DEATH: 30:55 with Seren -> 25:17 with Dread
We had a niceme.me going where I'd do one run with someone new and smash the old time. Then Dread had to go and actually grind this out with me. We pushed this category really hard and got a really damn nice time with it. Most of the timesave is RNG and the next chunk is Dread not fucking up :^). The only reason I was able to grind this out was because it was coop. I don't know if I'd be able to do it again to squeeze out those last few seconds...

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death JURY: 45:35
The classic marathon category. This is always fun to do and seems to be really popular. This run from Shots Fired was actually a pretty decent run and the record is no longer completely free.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Any% NG+: 26:51
I don't know what it is about solo in this game but I just can't seem to enjoy it. There's a ton of new strats since my PB but I may never come back and improve this.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Any% NG+ Co-op: 18:56ish with Bunny
Coop, however, is still a lot of fun. Everyone make sure to check out Bunny and my run at AGDQ or I'll bully you. We've focused mostly on consistency rather than going for PBs so this time isn't as good as it could be. I actually really enjoy just casually running the game with Bunny so I don't know when we're going to press for a good time. We'll likely take a long break after AGDQ.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Any% NG+ Co-op: 18:36 with Dread
Dread likes to press for times so this one is better. This is a pretty decent time but I'm sure we could push it down a lot more if we grinded. I don't know, Temple of Light resets scare me.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: 50:20 -> 43:48
Timesave here is mostly from all the new strats the game got over the year. Something always felt kinda off when doing this run and I could never enjoy it for long. If I do come back it'll probably be for just another quick PB and then I'll drop it again.

The Wheel of Time: 23:22
This game is cool and interesting and a massive goddamn pain to make runnable. The only reason I came back to this was to not be last, so my PB uses a ton of safe and slow strats. I could easily PB with new strats but the game is in that really painful period of old games that are annoying to get working right on modern computers. Quicksave corruption was the last nail in the coffin. I really wish I could play this honestly :/

Risk of Rain Any% Co-op: 11:32 with Dread
We did this run for two days, got a completely free WR that didn't very long, and dropped it hard. Fun casual game but horrible RNG filled speedrun. It was enjoyable for a couple days but never again.

Eldritch: 4:02
This is easily the most stressful run I've done. It's got surprisingly fun movement but oh my god it gave me a heart attack every run. Roguelikes do NOT make good runs.

Two Worlds: 2:20
This speedrun is so dumb but FUCK YOU I WON THE MEMEATHON RACE

Left 4 Dead 2 Main Campaigns: whatever we got in Rookathon 2
Nearly forgot I did this. A pretty relaxing let's play of a speedrun to do with speedfriends.


Holy heck I did a lot of runs. I may have had a lot of salt along the way but honestly it's been a pretty fun ride. Met a lot of neat peeps (like you reading this rn :o) and played lots of vidya. Goal for next year is to have less salt and just kinda enjoy doing runs more. I'm honestly already tired of WR grind, I think I'm gunna focus more on routing dumb shit and learning neat runs.

Also I didn't proofread any of this shit and I've been up for a long time whatever man.