Back in 2008 I went to this vintage game shop in the next town over with my family to pick up an NES with a copy of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt with Jaws and Monster party because I watched the youtube reviews of the Irategamer back then. Anyways getting home I would play SMB so much learning all of the world skips and little secrets that was in the game that I started trying to run through as fast as possible. I died a lot and was nowhere near optimal but I discovered my obsession with the "flow state" you get in games. Looking at the game now where people are almost at a level of play where the game can't theoretically be played any faster unless  there's a new skip or glitch that is discovered. With certain titles it can completely transform the game into something entirely new turning glitches or exploits into mechanics that are practiced and built into the mythos. A game I found that scratched the exact itch I'm talking about is Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated funny enough. I played the game casually and had an alright time but didn't feel an urge to pick it up anytime soon  until I played it on call with my gf Sophia. This time I followed a speed run tutorial and learnt every skip and glitch that ranged from long jumps that skipped certain sections to completely game breaking strats involving Sandy Cheeks ( My fav part of the run tbh) that would let you fly horizontally to skip entire levels. With resources out on the internet and communities out there encouraging others to participate in the practice or to simply spectate I found it hard to step away. Some Games I got sucked into the communities of featured Neon White, Marble it Up Ultra and Trackmania (for a brief period)

With Marble it up Ultra the thing that truly sucked me in was the ingame leaderboards that featured a replay of their run. I would spend a good half an hour or so grinding out my best time to get a diamond medal before checking out the top 5 best runs and spend the next hour replicating it to the best of my ability with varying luck but it was so exciting seeing the level of precision and clever thinking with the ingame physics that begs to be optimized at its core. I loved it so much I made my first proper video essay about my experience with the game.

With Neon white it started the same way as Marble it up Ultra with trying to get every diamond time medal with 0 outside resources which was a lovely 30 hour experience collecting every secret present. After my first diamond run of the game I showed my close friend the game and it clicked for him. We spent the next 3 hours passing the controller back and forth shaving milliseconds off a 11 second level. That was when I discovered the magic of the developer time medals and I replayed the entire game feeling even more passionate than ever. By the end of the dev times I caved and started modding the game to get community medals for dev+  which consumed me. This game was built for speedrunning.

Apologies for the dookie recording I lost my files and only have these snapchat clips I sent to a friend:(