Put simply, speedrunning is gunning for a best time while playing a video game. Play a game from start to finish, time how long it took to do, and see if you can do better on the next attempt. Compare with others and see just how quickly a game can be beaten. It’s long-since escaped niches thanks to widespread interest, popular events like Games Done Quick, and just for being around for so long.

Most games have leaderbaords maintained online, and can be found over at speedrun.com. Check out my profile to find a list of all my best times, old and new!

In speedrunning communities, I’m known as TheDoctorBlue. It’s a name that has no meaning (I am not a doctor, nor am I blue) that I came up with on the spot one day. You can find any speedrunning content by me under that alias!

Current Goals

• The Legend of Zelda (NES), Any% No Up+A: 28:29 or better

The Legend of Zelda (NES)

My first and primary game for speedrunning. I’ve been running this game for years and have gotten really good, to the point where I’m, at this time of writing, in 15th place on the leaderboard. My current personal best time is 28:55.333, which can be watched here:

For more info about me running Zelda, check out this blog post!

Big 20 #17

The Big 20 is an event held twice a year by the “Best of NES” community. It’s an event where you run 20 NES games back-to-back, marathon-style. The list of games and the categories being run are announced several weeks in advance. Participants are given all the resources necessary to play the games and the knowledge needed to succeeded. Then race day happens where everyone races each other to gain the fastest time.

Of course, like any marathon, simply completing the event is an accomplishment on its own!

On September 9th, 2023, I partipated in the 17th Big 20 event. The games and goals ranged from Castlvania III: Dracula’s Curse to Contra to DuckTales to Mega Man 2 to The Legend of Zelda.

Quite a fun list!

It was one of the more approachable lists, particularly since Zelda was the sendoff game (and, in my opinion, the most fun part of that run). So I joined! And with an official time of 4:13:11 I came in 33rd place. I’m very proud of this one! You can find the full set of race results, live racer reactions, and more here.

I don’t know if I’ll do another Big 20, but part of me wants to try.

Other Games to Run

There’s a lot of games I want to get very good at running. There’s a certain set of goals I want to reach in particular: The Zelda Trilogy 30-80-90 goal. That is:

• A time under 30 minutes for The Legend of Zelda (done!)
• A time under 80 minutes for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
• A time under 90 minutes for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I have a few runs in each of the latter two titles, but still have a lot of work to put into them if I want to succeed. It’s a definite goal I want to complete!

Where to Watch

You can catch any live streams that I do up on my Twitch streams. Any PBs and other VODs are posted to my YouTube channel. It maintains a playlist of all my current PBs, which is available here.