What were some of your highlights from AGDQ 2022?
Sure thing. At the time of this posting I’ve had the opportunity to watch fewer than a quarter of AGDQ2022′s runs, so I’m no doubt missing some real gems; these are the ones I’ve most enjoyed so far.
Casio Mario World is great if you're into Kaizo hacks, as well a being one of the better-commentated Kaizo runs I've encountered. Bonus points for an inexplicable choice of final boss that isn't just a meme for once – I can't even imagine how technically challenging it must have been to get that to work in ROM hack!
Darkman is an odd one for me. I’m typically not into Awful Block – a game being amusingly bad can’t make up for a lack of interesting tech for me – but this one’s just so player-hostile in its fundamental design that I have trouble looking away. There are bad licensed NES games, and then there’s whatever this is supposed to be; it’s less passively mediocre and more actively hateful toward the player.
EarthBound is a mostly typical out-of-bounds glitch run, with some interesting analysis of exactly how the game handles its endgame triggers – they're a lot less linear than you'd expect. There are also several fun demonstrations of RTA-viable RNG manipulation, including an impressive first-try execution of getting a major boss to proc an instant death attack on itself, in a way that's technically legal (albeit very unlikely) by the game's intended mechanics.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a visually beautiful game whose run pairs the usual OOB shenanigans with some really fun looking in-bounds movement tech. In spite of a couple of major resets, it’s one of two runs on this list that managed to set a live world record, along with Webbed, below; it’s also not too long if you’re in a hurry, clocking in at twenty-eight minutes.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a bit of a slog in parts, and there's not much in the way of interesting skips, but it's a guy playing a melee-combat-focused open world action platformer blindfolded, with only sound cues to navigate by, and still completing it in less than one-tenth the time of a typical casual run.
The StepMania showcase is, of course, objectively insane. It starts out a little slow, which gives the commentators breathing room to share some of the history of the dance-pad fangame scene. The bonus incentive block (which begins around the one-hour-thirty-five mark if you're pressed for time) is where things get really unhinged. One of the few GDQ runs I've seen that qualifies as an athletic achievement as well as a technical one!
Webbed is great fun if you're into physics platformers, as well as a good run to catch if you've got limited viewing time to work with, weighing in at a lean seventeen minutes. The commentary is excellent for both its technical detail and some fascinating anecdotes about the game's development history from its co-developer; I’d love to get the full story some time behind how something that apparently started out as a Just Cause 2 fan-game turned into this.
