It's that time of the year again, give or take a month to get a special COVID-enforced online-only version up and running: the Summer Games Done Quick charity livestream event! This is the biannual (that's twice in one year, not once in two years) week-long marathon event that the prolific speedrunning communities of Twitch and Speedrun.com host to celebrate completing games in ways they were often not meant to be completed, all to raise money for worthy causes. This year's summer event starts tomorrow (Sunday the 16th of August, for those coming here late) and runs until the following Sunday (on the 23rd).

I've spoken before about my meager contributions to this magnanimous and Herculean effort, but it boils down to sorting out any problem Giant Bomb Wiki pages that might cause headaches for those organizing the event on Twitch; it's common knowledge that Twitch uses our wiki database for its "now playing" widget. The bare minimum requirement is that all games represented during the event are actually on the wiki (barring ROM hacks and other non-commercial fangames, since they fail to meet the conditions for inclusion), but I usually go a little extra so that any curious visitors don't have complete messes to parse if they wanted a little more info on the games being streamed.

Given there were only two missing game pages and a handful of skeletons to flesh out, I'm just going to focus on the streams I'm looking forward to most. I've compiled a list of twenty (plus) runs that most pique my interest, with an even mix of the familiar and the new/obscure. Be sure to study the schedule over here to plan your own viewing parties, though there's always the archives if you miss any of the streams live.

Demon's Souls

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Sunday 16th, 5:00PM BST (12:00AM EDT).
• Estimate: 1 hour.

My beloved Souls series is well-represented at any given GDQ, though I note with interest that this SGDQ is starting with a speedrun of perhaps the least appreciated and understood: Demon's Souls, the game that started it all. With its lavish PS5 remake on the horizon, this is probably a good time to get reacquainted with Boletaria, Old King Doran, and World Tendencies, while marveling at how anyone can get through the confusing Tower of Latria this quickly. With only an hour for a projected completion time, I imagine this will be quite the show. At least they won't have to worry about invaders, eh?

Related: The other Souls game exhibited is Bloodborne, with an all-bosses showcase appearing towards the end of the SGDQ event on Saturday the 22nd. Most of us were once again privy to the spooky surprises Bloodborne has in store through Jan's recent endurance run of the game, so I could understand anyone being all Bloodborne'd out for the time being. However, I'm personally happy spending a mere 90 minutes watching a master hunter break those eldritch bad boys down to their constituent parts again.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

• Type: All goals and golds, solo.
• When: Sunday 16th, 11:30PM BST (6:30PM EDT).
• Estimate: 35 minutes.

Pro Skater fever has been reignited by the imminent release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, and 2x was itself a remaster of those same two games from much longer ago. We've already seen Jeff Gerstmann shred and grind his way through those levels, of course, but this all goals and golds run promises a similarly thorough exhibition of those games in a much shorter time frame. The all goals run is always fascinating by how runners decide how many tasks to complete in a single two-minute run: can you get the S.K.A.T.E. letters while achieving the three high score goals, or is it best to combine those with something else? Maybe complete the high score targets first and then focus the next run on finding all the collectibles? Could you squeeze everything into one run, even? Either way, it's always fascinating to watch.

Related: We also have runs for Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure, which for a joke game seems to pop up often in GDQ events, and the well-acclaimed first Tony Hawk's Underground. Fans of grabs and flips should be well catered to overall.

Silhouette Mirage

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Monday 17th, 6:30AM BST (1:30AM EDT)
• Estimate: 52 minutes.

Out of the gaggle of relative obscurities I've pulled here, my favorite revelation might be that we have a whole three Saturn games in the running this SGDQ. Silhouette Mirage is the run I'm anticipating most, as a Treasure game I've not really seen before (no EU release for either its Saturn or PS1 versions), though there's also Keio Flying Squadron 2 and Elevator Action Returns: two games I've seen championed elsewhere on the internet (the latter just recently in one of Jeff's MiSTer streams). Fans of classic Sega might want to check in for these highlights from the company's late-'90s "Dark Ages" period. (Seriously, when is Sega putting together a decent Saturn compilation to join the Genesis and Dreamcast ones already on Steam? I realise its reputation suggested otherwise, but it did have some games.)

Valley

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Monday 17th, 9:15PM BST (4:15PM EDT)
• Estimate: 19 minutes.

When I played (and blogged) Valley some three years ago, I remarked that its fast-paced sections would make it ideal for speedrunning. There's a whole number of "runner" first-person 3D platformers, but the way Valley folds it into its ongoing narrative made those particular sequences exhilarating to play and I've no doubt a speedrunner could do some fascinating out-of-bounds business with that insane momentum. I'm glad that there's a community for it, and that a few more people might be tempted to try it out themselves after watching this run.

Hollow Knight

• Type: Any%, 2-player race.
• When: Tuesday 18th, 1:30AM BST (Monday 17th, 8:30PM EDT)
• Estimate: 41 minutes.

Sadly, there's going to be fewer races this year as I imagine it's harder to make those fair with remote streamers, but of the few we do have I'm probably looking forward to Hollow Knight's the most. I've no idea if there's a preferred path through the game or if the two streamers will break off to challenge more riskier paths for the sake of the race, but like the Souls games above I'm always a fan of watching people way better than I take on these already challenging games and just wreck fools - the same bosses that schooled my ass several times over - like they were nothing. And here's an opportunity to watch that happen in stereo!

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

• Type: Any%, Zangetsu mode. Solo.
• When: Tuesday 18th, 5:30PM BST (12:30PM EDT)
• Estimate: 25 minutes.

The mind truly boggles at the myriad number of ways you could break Bloodstained apart with a speedrun, given the number of character development options at your disposal, though the runner has decided on a more "contemporary" approach with the recently released Zangetsu Mode. I've not seen this mode in action yet, so this stream will be a twofer of learning how the Bloodstained speedrun scene is progressing right now as well as a demonstration of what David Hayter's taciturn samurai is like in the field. Considering the estimate, he's a real zippy son of a bitch.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

• Type: All 48 courses, 3-player relay co-op.
• When: Wednesday 19th, 1:30AM BST (Tuesday 18th, 8:30PM EDT)
• Estimate: 1 hour 29 minutes.

I love speedrun relay races, though I think this is more of a co-operative thing with its three runners taking turns to complete 16 courses each of the 48 available in the most recent (and most loved, it seems) Mario Kart game. I imagine that means they're doing single courses, unless they're only swapping between whole grands prix. Honestly, the logistics of this co-op set-up intrigue me more than the speedrun itself does.

Kousoku Kaitenzushi

• Type: All stages, solo.
• When: Wednesday 19th, 11:45AM BST (6:45AM EDT)
• Estimate: 7 minutes.

This was one of the two gaps in our wiki I talked about earlier. Turns out we didn't have a page for this freeware, zero-budget "Mario Kart but with sushi" racer from Japan. Despite its lack of profile, it appears to have found an audience in the speedrunning community and it's not hard to see why: in addition to the absurdity of racing realistically-rendered pieces of sushi, it's extremely challenging with its combination of high velocity and zero track barriers. Imagine a nightmare 300cc version of Rainbow Road with a bunch of raw fish opponents and you have an idea of what to expect.

Virtual Boy Wario Land

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Wednesday 19th, 2:40PM BST (9:40AM EDT)
• Estimate: 27 minutes.

This might be the first ever Virtual Boy game at a GDQ? I think one of the upsides to this "digital" event is that runners are more inclined to bust out their more esoteric games and consoles, since they don't have to transport them halfway across the country (or world, in some cases) or hope that someone in the tech crew had the foresight to bring a working Virtual Boy. VB Wario Land is generally regarded as the best of an extremely small line-up of Virtual Boy bangers, so if you wanted to see Nintendo's black-and-red eye-searer in action this is probably the run for you. (If you're looking for more Virtual Boy content afterwards, Retronaut and former USGamer editor Jeremy Parish has a complete video series on the device over on his YouTube channel.)

Pacify

• Type: 100%, 2-player co-op.
• When: Thursday 20th, 4:45AM BST (Wednesday 19th, 11:45PM EDT)
• Estimate: 10 minutes.

I'd never heard of Pacify before pounding the cold, hard wiki streets for the sake of this event, and as far as I can tell it's a mid-budget multiplayer survival horror game that seems to have found a pretty big audience, possibly because survival horror seems to do well with the usual YouTube streamer crowd. Given the multiplayer focus, this is a two-person 100% run: I assume that means they're working together to complete the game quickly, maybe splitting up as they can do more damage that way. (Splitting up is usually not a great idea for horror, but speedrunners know what they're doing.)

Pringles: The Video Game

• Type: All "A"s, solo.
• When: Thursday 20th, 5:50AM BST (12:50AM EDT)
• Estimate: 5 minutes.

Sadly, I couldn't build a page for "Pringles: The Video Game" because as far as I can tell this was never a real Genesis release. Unlike their rivals Doritos, I don't believe Pringles themselves ever made a video game (the closest they got was this ridiculous chip-feeder gamer headset) so I'm guessing this was spawned from some unholy corner of the 16-bit homebrew community. It doesn't look half bad, honestly, though I'm not sure the farty sound effects is doing the presentation (or my desire to eat more Pringles) any favors.

Ribbit King

• Type: All courses, solo.
• When: Thursday 20th, 7:20AM BST (2:20AM EDT)
• Estimate: 23 minutes.

I only know about Wii game Ribbit King secondhand - it's a perennial favorite of those grumpy goofballs The Game Grumps - but it's something I'd like to see given a higher status, maybe to the extent of garnering a new Switch remake/sequel. Featuring the sport of Frolf (or frog golf), the goal is to bounce a frog into a target hole, hitting various score zones and power-ups along the way. It's as Japanese as games tend to ever get, and I'm wondering what type of tech speedrunners might employ to finish the game quickly. I mean, getting the frog into the hole with the minimal amount of strikes seems the most obvious route, but there are many directions that game can take a single drive or putt with the amount of chaos involved.

ALF

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Thursday 20th, 10:00AM BST (5:00AM EDT)
• Estimate: 13 minutes.

I guess someone decided to stream the Master System game ALF, based on the TV show ALF. I might only tune in for this to hear the streamer explain what the hell ALF is to an audience of mostly 20-somethings who only know him as that weird alien puppet that dissed Geoff Keighley that one time. Or maybe from this cursed video. Either way, there's a lotta history here.

Warframe

• Type: Boss showcase.
• When: Thursday 20th, 6:55PM BST (1:55PM EDT)
• Estimate: 23 minutes.

I bounced off Warframe harder than a powerball loosed in a spring factory (I really need to start outsourcing my similes) so there's a huge swathe of the game's late-game content I never got to see. This Warframe run isn't so much speedrunning Warframe - that would take several months in real-time and/or hundreds of dollars' worth of premium currency - but a showcase of every boss fight in the game, completed as quickly as possible with what I imagine are boss-killing specialist warframes specced with maxed-out mods. It might be even be worth watching more for these crazy warframe builds than for the bosses themselves.

Yakuza Kiwami 2

• Type: Any% solo.
• When: Thursday 20th, 8:25PM BST (3:25PM EDT)
• Estimate: 2 hours 10 minutes.

I don't think I've ever seen a Yakuza game at one of these events. Even skipping past every incidental piece of content, I can't imagine anyone beating a Yakuza game in around two hours (the projected estimate for this run). I've not played Kiwami 2 but I know the story well enough from playing the original Yakuza 2, and I've only just completed Yakuza 6 which has the same Dragon engine as Kiwami 2, so I have enough of a sense of this game to be curious to see how a speedrunner might break it wide open. I'm particularly interested to see how they'll finish all those boss fights and massive crowd melees in a matter of seconds. Will it be all Tiger Drops? Probably not, but a guy can dream at least.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

• Type: Randomizer, 2-player co-op.
• When: Thursday 20th, 11:00PM BST (6:00PM EDT)
• Estimate: 3 hours.

Those that follow my prodigious amount of blogging might know that I recently took it upon myself to try the Ocarina of Time randomizer, with a few extra settings I would come to deeply regret activating. This two-person randomizer co-op is a little more gentle, and they'll be helping each other out frequently, though given the amount of techniques and general skill up the sleeves of these runners I can't imagine it'll be boring to watch. OoT is filled with exploitable speedrun glitches, and we only ever tend to see a portion of them in the usual any% categories - having critical items like the Bow or Hookshot spirited away to inconvenient locations means these players will have to bust out every trick in the book to maintain momentum.

Related: There's a few other Zelda runs, but coming in second after the above is a Zelda II: The Adventure of Link "Reverse Boss Order" run (Monday 17th, 3:30PM BST/10:30AM EDT). Most Zelda games let you delve into a dungeon far enough to get its item - usually needed to reach the next dungeon - so I imagine the runner will be bouncing in and out of temples until they fight Thunderbird (who I think is the last boss that won't just end the game like Shadow Link) and start working backwards. Very technical run, I imagine, and one that will demand some high level of skill to reach and complete the Great Temple with minimal stats. (There's also a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild stream on Friday night that sounds interesting. What's an "All Dog Treasures" run?)

Baba Is You

• Type: True ending, solo.
• When: Friday 21st, 1:15PM BST (8:15AM EDT)
• Estimate: 27 minutes.

Like many last year, my bean was thoroughly freaked by the lateral thinking programming puzzles of Baba Is You, and so the appeal of this run is more about watching someone complete all the solutions very quickly and taking mental notes. I suspect we'll see a lot of non-developer-intended shortcut solutions too, and it should be a run that will keep a lot of us guessing throughout. I'm wondering how vindictive it sounds if I say that I'm only watching this stream to see Baba Is You get thoroughly destroyed as revenge for all the brain melting it caused?

Super Hark Bros

• Type: 100% levels, 3-player race
• When: Friday 21st, 3:40PM BST (10:40AM EDT)
• Estimate: 25 minutes.

GDQ has many mainstays: Zelda games, Souls games, Sonic games, at least one outing for the TASBot, and last but not least, homebrew Super Mario kaizo hacks. At this point, most of the new kaizo Mario games are the same dozen or so profoundly good Mario speedrunners creating levels to challenge their equally talented peers, while the rest of us are left to scratch our heads wondering how completing any of these levels could be considered feasible. Three runners will be taking on this hack in a 100% levels race, and even though I'm sure they've all had plenty of practice it won't be an easy ride.

Metroid Fusion

• Type: 1% Hard mode, 2-player race.
• When: Friday 21st, 9:30PM BST (4:30PM EDT)
• Estimate: 1 hour 45 minutes.

It also wouldn't be a GDQ without Metroid. This Metroid Fusion race seems the more interesting of the two Metroid streams (the other, of course, is Super Metroid, since we always need a "save/kill the animals" bid war) in part because both runners will be hamstrung by a 1% item limit. I believe that means they can only get the critical items needed to make progress or those that can't otherwise be avoided, and no other upgrades (including energy tanks). Seems like the kind of race that might unexpectedly end early for one or both of the runners, not that I enjoy the schadenfreude of everything going wrong during a marathon. Much.

Pump It Up!

• Type: Showcase.
• When: Saturday 22nd, 4:20AM BST (11:20AM EDT)
• Estimate: 1 hour.

Pump It Up, I'm told, is a Korean Dance Dance Revolution ersatz that increased the number of dancin' arrows from four to five. The streamer will be showing off their own PIU LX Model cabinet, presumably with some kind of challenge involved so it doesn't all come off like an episode of Cribs (seriously, who has the room for dance-off arcade machines in their own home? I just hope they don't live in an apartment complex above someone else).

The End!

Those are my picks, though I'm sure I've missed many other highlights to come. Please feel free to respond in the comments with whichever SGDQ speedruns and streams you're looking forward to most and why, or the great runs that have since aired since this was blog was published. I'll admit I'm not too familiar with the speedrunning community, so there might be a few great personalities or a lot of exciting new skips and glitches regarding some of the runs I'm less excited about - let us know about them here and elsewhere on the Giant Bomb forums.

Either way, I think we could all use this event to brighten our summers a little, so be sure to tune in for whatever happens to grab your fancy.

Lots of good stuff in that schedule: Metroid Fusion, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Sly Cooper 1, just to name a few.

I wonder what the strats for a Hypnospace Outlaw speedrun even are? And considering how rough of a mess something like Quest 64 is, I bet there's some wild shit in that run.

Looking forward to this; tomorrow's supposed to be a super hot day, so I plan on being in front of a fan, drinking ice water and watching GDQ all day.

I think they're running about an hour late, so add an hour to all these start times. Unless they catch up. Best laid plans, etc., etc.

As much as I loved watching GDQs in the past, so much of the fun for me came from the "super bowl" aspect with the massive crowd of fans. It's better than no event at all, but this year's setup obviously can't land the same way. I haven't watched much of the stream. I'll probably check out vods after the fact.

I revisit them every few years to see how the speed tech's advanced. I don't have the time to follow along like I used to and .... I'm ... sick of the memes.

Thanks for putting this together! Always interesting to catch some of the weirder runs or lesser-known titles.

That Doom Eternal run is really something.

I'll post some reviews, since I managed to catch about half of these live (and will catch the rest later, probably) (reviews are out of 3, where 1 = less exciting than I'd hoped and 3 = more exciting).

• Demon's Souls [2]: It was fun seeing all those bosses again, briefly, but it was a very by-the-numbers run for the most part. An exception was that amazing, precise Tower of Latria skip.
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X [2]: Runner ran (or skated) into a bit of trouble a few times, but it's remarkable how well mapped out every aspect of that run was. I also liked that the runner and their commentators didn't care for the new 2X additions and didn't even try to hide it.
• Valley [3]: I knew it was going to be a fast run given the time, but there was a huge amount of out-of-bounds that was really fun to watch play out. The super high running/jumping momentum you can get in that game must've been hell for a small dev team to QA.
• Hollow Knight [2]: An exciting race, though I only caught the second half. It's a real fast game, especially when you're skipping large swathes of it. Made me eager for Silksong to come out soon, at least.
• Yakuza Kiwami 2 [3]: I thought this was a very fascinating run, because the runner - an affable chap with a rising inflection - not only discussed everything they were doing to move fights along faster (it involves a lot of soft drinks, apparently) but they also went into detail on how all the other Yakuza games are typically run and the problems each one presents. Definitely hope to see more Yakuza in future events.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [3]: Probably my favorite run of the bunch. True to randomizer Sod's Law (Dos's Awl?) they managed to go over what they thought was a very generous estimate, and the two runners and the always ebullient SpikeVegeta as the commentator were constantly giving each other gentle ribbing for mistakes. Great atmosphere and actually kinda suspenseful with all the bottlenecks.
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link [2]: This was cool. There's a lot of weird glitching involved with Zelda II runs, turns out, and warping around the world via bugs was how you could topple late-game bosses without half the items or spells you'd otherwise need. Very informative.
• Super Hark Bros [2]: I was kinda staring dumbfounded at this race. The commentators made the point that half the fun of kaizo games - seeing players fall for obnoxious traps - doesn't really apply to speedruns where the runners have plenty of practice with the games. I hope they bring back the "blind run" Super Mario Maker tournament next year; very obvious reasons why they couldn't this time.
• Bloodborne [2]: Not a whole lot of surprises, beyond the boss order for this all-bosses run, but it was remarkable seeing how quickly the runner took all those DLC bosses out. A running (so to speak) theme with this year's SGDQ was talking up items most casual players don't even register as absurdly overpowered: for Bloodborne that was the beast blood pellets (absolutely brutal damage) and for OoT above it was those darn deku nuts.

Other scattered streams I managed to catch: a fun pair of Super Mario Bros./Super Mario Bros. 2 (Lost Levels) races, the latter particularly exciting because of how the race leader kept switching as runners fell afoul of SMB2's many piles of BS; a neat blindfolded Super Smash Bros. 64 "Hit the Target" exhibition that was probably way harder than it looked (not that looking is allowed); a Super Mario Odyssey run, which always have a lot of crazy Cappy maneuvers to sequence break past everything; a rapid-paced Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix level-1 boss rush which, like the games' stories themselves, I could barely follow; typically painstakingly-choreographed Portal and Portal 2 runs; an entertaining Metal Gear Solid run that ripped the game's progression into ribbons and made several bosses just vanish into thin air; and, while I've yet to see all of it, the Half-Life: Alyx stream was apparently the one to watch this year - absolute chaos and many near-injuries afoot.