Julian Conroy - Tumblr

In addition to his success as a social media personality and content producer, Julian Conroy is a professional musician who has been writing songs and playing, arranging, and producing music for more than a decade. Since 2012, he has played guitar and created music for the heavy metal band Thunderforge, based in his hometown in Massachusetts. Julian Conroy also crafts music for his various online video posts. Mr. Conroy has also excelled in the production of music for video games, serving as a contract musician with Brace Yourself Games for the past 6 years. His work with Brace Yourself Games has garnered a number of industry honors, including a Peoples Choice Award at G.A.N.G./MAGFest and a Best Soundtrack nomination at the Game Awards. To inform his activities as a video game music professional, Julian Conroy has attended or performed at industry conventions ranging from MAGfest and TooManyGames to PAX East and PAX West.

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Two Tips for the Novice Speedrunner

The guitarist for the power metal band Thunderforge, Julian Conroy graduated from Holyoke Community College in 2014. In addition to his music career, Julian Conroy has a Twitch channel, Twitch.tv/FamilyJules, which currently has over 36,000 followers and more than 1,000 paid subscribers. He streams three times per week, with a particular focus on speedrunning popular video games. While every game has its own speedrunning strategies, there are several general pieces of advice that apply to all novice speedrunners. First, spend some time watching and analyzing the best runs for your chosen game and category. This will help you get a handle on the general pathfinding that the top runners use, as well as clue you into the most effective strategies for saving time. Second, avoid the reset trap. While it’s common for experienced runners to reset after a single mistake, they do this because they already understand every aspect of the game they run. Practice is key for a novice runner, so resist the temptation to reset every time you blunder. This ensures you practice the later stages of your chosen game as much as you practice the early stages.