I mentioned speedrunning before in the context of mastery, but there is the other side of speedrunning that’s equally interesting: that utilizing bugs (or, glitches) to get the fastest possible time.

This 17-minute video by Msushi covers “one of the most loved and broken glitches in Portal 2” and the strange relationship the community has in following a bug to its conclusion – which, in this case, is not fixing it, but creatively using it to shave of speedrunning time. (There is an element of mastery there too, with spawning and despawning, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)

September 6, 2014, was a landmark day in speedrunning history.

I like Summoning Salt’s videos about speedrunners because they manage to add a great dose of storytelling to what otherwise would be boring, mundane events, and this one about Punch-Out is no exception. It’s Rocky meets Moneyball, in a way.

This pairs well with the previous review of the “Pilgrim in the microworld” book because speedrunning feels very connected to mastery and to quality – whether it’s because of the old-fashioned grind to be better, or by exploiting all sorts of glitches in the game to shave off sometimes milliseconds. The video above is in the former category, or what speedrunners would call “glitchless.” It’s also just really fun to watch. (The book wasn’t fun to read.)

If you’re new to learning about speedrunning/​glitchless, this video about “rolling” in Tetris (which itself is kind of mindblowing), and then this one about new Tetris developments from aGameScout are a great entry point.