Awesome Games Done Quick 2021 has wrapped up after a full week of speedrunning. The event raised an impressive $2,764,437 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This is the second-highest amount raised at AGDQ, only beaten by last year’s total of over $3 million.
AGDQ 2021 was held online this time around due to the continuing covid-19 pandemic. Participants streamed games from their own homes while viewers watched online. This year’s event had some exciting highlights. Early in the week, two different Sonic world records were set by two different speedrunners, back to back.
Another runner beat all of the Celeste c-side levels using a Dance Dance Revolution dance pad. I still can’t wrap my head around that one. The run also started with a cheat code that unlocks all the levels in the game.
Another great run happened in a game called Mr. Bones, one many folks probably haven’t played or even heard of. The run happened during AGDQ’s annual “Awful Games Done Quick” block. This is a part of the event where, as the name implies, people play awful games very quickly. The run was so fun to watch that it helped our own Ash Parrish cope a bit better with the terrible events of the last week.
I’ve always been a big fan of Halo speedruns, and this year we got a great Halo 3 speedrun in the recently released PC port of the game. Growing up, Halo 3 was a game that took me over a week to beat; watching someone demolish the game in under an hour and fifteen minutes, using various gravity hammer and grenade tricks, was a blast. Young teen Zack wouldn’t believe it.
If you want to feel tired and sore, watch this speedrun of Beat Saber on expert+. Runner Kungfufruitcup does a great job explaining the game and then making it look easy to beat on the HARDEST difficulty. The best part of this speedrun might be at the start when, halfway through the first song of the run and in the middle of hitting dozens of notes in a matter of seconds, she says “We’re starting a little simple.”
AGDQ 2021 has uploaded all the speedruns onto its YouTube channel, so you can easily watch any of these runs or countless others whenever you want. You can also still donate to the event.
GDQ is already teasing this year’s upcoming Summer Games Done Quick event and will have more information to share at a later date.