Yet another entertaining speedrunning video from Karl Jobst – this one about a recent new discovery in Quake:

What was really fun about this one was the fact that the design of the level puts a splinter in player’s head – you see a bridge above on the left, and you just have to wonder: is it at all possible to, somehow, concoct a jump to get there, and skip a lot of the normal level progression?

Turns out, it is – it just takes a lot of imagination, practice, and determination.

Which is another fun thing, only half-acknowledged in the video: I’m pretty sure that the speedrunner, Muty, did something that the creators of the game never thought was even possible. I haven’t personally made many video games, but even for “serious” software, it’s a special, always interesting, and often great to witness your user squeezing more from what you made than you yourself imagined or planned for.

(I write “often” because sometimes people’s hacks or creative solutions on your platform become your future maintenance problem… but that’s a story for a different post.)