Awesome Games Done Quick 2025: $2.56 Million
Sterica
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
Games Done Quick is a charity event brought to you by the Speed Demos Archive that consists of two week-long speedrunning marathons each year. The first, Awesome Games Done Quick, is a winter marathon that donates to the Prevent Cancer Foundation and was the original marathon that started it all. Eventually a summer marathon, the aptly named Summer Games Done Quick, was started up to raise funds for Médecins Sans Frontières known in English as Doctors Without Borders. Both marathons are roughly equal in popularity, and together they raise about $5 million a year for charity. There was also a sister event, Pinball Done Quick, that used to concurrently with both GDQ marathons, although this seems to have stopped around 2018.
2025 marks the 15th Anniversary of the Marathon, and it has had a storied history in that time. It was in 2014 that the first marathon hit a million dollars, and a year later the first summer marathon would also hit that mark. In 2017, AGDQ reached the 2 million milestone. Then in 2019, SGDQ broke three million for the first time for GDQ as a whole. In 2016 a new series debuted, called GDQ Hotfix, that consists of smaller community events such as race tournaments, special runs, and more! All proceeds go towards charity, and offer another way to get your GDQ fix throughout the year. There is no formal schedule for Hotfix, so follow the official Twitch channel and check in from time to time to see if anything is happening. In the summer of 2020, the COVID pandemic forced the marathon to go online-only for a few years before returning to in-person events. That same year, GDQ also launched Frame Fatales, a women's speedrunning group that have their own week-long marathons twice a year: Flame Fatales in the summer and Frost Fatales in the winter. These marathons are a bit smaller in scope, only running in the afternoons before taking a break until the next day. Both marathons contribute towards the Malala Fund, which is a nonprofit focused on education for girls.
This thread in particular is for discussion of the marathon, but during the "off season" (aka the other 50 weeks of the year) feel free to use this place to discuss other speedrunning events going on, or just speedrunning in general.
Below is this list of stream available when a marathon is live. If anything changes, they'll be updated as needed.
Official Twitch Channel
Spanish
French
German
Russian
Japanese
You're inevitably going to miss a run, but all runs are archived at the GDQ YouTube Channel. Note that while uploads are pretty quick (about 12 hours after the run was finished) initial uploads can sometimes be of iffy quality since tech people are still running the marathon. Normally a second batch of runs are uploaded a week or two after the marathon has ended, which tend to fix most issues. If you are super impatient, you can check out the Speedrunning Reddit that is fairly quick at collecting Twitch VODs in one post. Also, please note that the GDQ YouTube channel only goes back a few years, and the older marathons are archived at the old SDA Channel. If you want footage from some of the earliest marathons (and special marathons like the Spooktacular), then you're going to have to search YouTube and pray someone uploaded it. Some runs have simply been lost to time.
The easiest way to donate is to head over to their main site and hit the big donate button. You can leave a comment, but be aware that it is highly unlikely to be read on air unless A] You know the runner personally or B] you donated a truckload of money at once. You may wish to hold off on donating, however, until a certain time in the marathon. Prizes are raffled throughout the marathon, and to enter a particular raffle you must donate during a specific portion of the marathon. For example, some Mario merchandise may be raffled to anyone who donates while a particular Mario game is being run, or some Sonic swag may be raffled during a block of multiple Sonic runs. Check out the main site for a list of the prizes and when they are raffled, and the stream itself will offer regular reminders about upcoming prizes being offered. Regardless of when you donate, there is a "grand prize" that is selected from all donations throughout the marathon that are above a certain amount.
One other thing about donate: bid war and incentives. Some games have inconsequential decisions that the marathon leaves up to you, the audience. Be it character names in an RPG, or what outfit to dress a character in, they offer fun ways to liven up the proceedings and get some extra money in the process. Incentives are a bit meatier, as they actually result in more marathon content when met. This can be things such as increasing the difficulty of an upcoming run, getting a bonus run of the same game, or having a totally new run squeezed into the schedule. You get to decide where you money goes when donating (and it doesn't affect the aforementioned prize raffles), so consider checking out what's available when you donate. It's totally optional, but it can a lot of fun.
There are other ways to contribute!
- The Yetee: every year, a selection of shirts are made available only during the week of the marathon. All profits from sales of these shirts go to GDQ!
- Twitch Subscription: Money from Twitch Subscriptions to the GDQ channel go to the total.
- Fangamer: Various merchandise for the event, a portion of sales going to charity!
Can't afford to donate? Then you may consider submitting the aforementioned prizes that are raffled away during the marathon. This can include games, relevant merchandise, and even homemade crafts so long as the quality is high enough. You can check out the guidelines for submitting prizes over here. You can also help out by just spreading the good word of going fast, and mentioning GDQ on social media or wherever while a marathon is going on. Hit up the Twitter account to find banners, hashtags, and whatever kids these days are using to advertise.
You can attend a GDQ marathon in three ways: as an attendee, a volunteer, or a runner. The main site covers how to sign up for these various roles, so I'll mostly describe what each entails.
Attendees go to GDQ like you would a small convention or other game-related event. These events are far too crowded to let you get even close to the TV the game is being run on, so you'll be relegated to watching runs on a large projector. If you are really into speedrunning, this may be up your alley: you get to meet some of the biggest names in the community, enjoy really exciting moments in person, and just chill in general with like-minded people for a week or however long you stay. On the downside, it's not like a traditional convention, as runs can happen at any time of day, which may not work out so hot for you if that obscure RPG you love gets run at four in the morning. It also runs for a week in the middle of January/July, so you will either have to take additional time off work or just hope the good runs are happening on the weekend. I also question how long a speedrunning marathon can hold your interest for a few days, much less a week, but that's a subjective thing. More details on attending can be found here.
Volunteers help run the show. This is a lot of work, and you will be assisting with setting up TVs and consoles, breaking stuff down, reading donations, helping attendees, and so forth. This is a charity, so while you won't have pay for registration, you will have to pay for travel and other accommodations. You're also working as this is a job and not a vacation, so keep that mentality when deciding if you want to volunteer. Details on volunteering tend to be on the GDQ forums, so head over there if this sounds like something you'd be interested in.
Finally, the stars of the show: the runners. Obviously the process to be selected for running a game at the marathon is way more demanding, and your odds of getting in are slim. How slim? For AGDQ 2017, over 1500 hours of submissions were declined. That's only 12% of submitted hours actually making it into the marathon. I'm not entirely sure what helps get you in, like maybe a YouTube/Twitch channel to show you can handle being in the public eye? There's no guarantee, however. Even GDQ superstars that make it on the schedule regularly get their submissions declined. Also, keep in mind that runners are volunteers. You're not playing video games for money, and you're most likely going to do a lot of practicing and traveling just to spend an hour playing one game. There is always the chance of attracting people to your fledgling Twitch channel if you really hit a chord with people, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Do it for charity, and not dreams of internet superstardom. You can find a fairly detailed guide on submitting runs over here.
Like any community, a certain amount of jargon gets kicked around during marathons. This section includes lingo for both speedrunning and GDQ marathons. Check out below for any terms you may not understand.
100% - completing a run while grabbing every item, collectible, etc. The definition of 100% varies from game-to-game, although it's usually deigned by the game's own designation such as the game's percent complete, unlocking the best/true endings, collectibles obtained, etc.
any% - completing a run as fast as possible. The only thing that matters is speed, although some games have "warpless" or "glitchless" Any% runs to keep things interesting.
Awful Block - Happening during the winter marathons, this is a block of games typically run one late night during the marathon. It's a series of runs of truly bad/weird games, where the emphasis is less on speedrunning and more showcasing hilariously bad games. It's not uncommon for awful block runs to fail because the game has a tendency to lock up or crash. A tradition of AGDQ, whereas SGDQ tends to have a "weird" games block that focuses on titles that are more niche but necessarily bad.
bonus stream - during older marathons, this was a period after the event where runners would do random runs, play Smash money matches, or even competitive games like Yoshi's Cookie. These would sometimes last a while, like a week of more after the original marathon had ended. As the marathons grew larger, however, the logistics made bonus streams more difficult to manage. They would grow shorter and shorter until they were officially ended in 2015.
damage boosting - taking advantage of the brief invincibility that most games have after you take damage to bypass certain areas quickly. Sometimes the knockback your character suffers from taking damage is also useful in accessing areas.
estimate - The maximum amount of time a runner believes their run will take at the marathon. Estimates are typically a below-average time that gives the schedule a bit of a cushion in case the runner has lousy luck and goes long. Some estimates are more reflective of consistency, and may be tighter because the runner feels they can routinely finish in that time. Failing to finish within in an estimate is something of a mark of shame for a runner. Typically runners are allowed to continue past the estimate, but at a certain point the run can be "mercy killed" and ended prematurely to keep the marathon on schedule.
frames - refers to frames of animation. Tends to be a fancy way of saying "portions of a second" as games tend to animate at 30 or 60 frames per second. So in a 60 fps game, a "frame perfect" technique means you only have 1/60th of a second in which to pull it off. There's also terms like "I-frames" which refers to "invulnerability frames" during which your character (or sometimes an enemy) cannot be hurt.
glitchless - A run that specifically avoids using glitches, usually because a certain glitch or set of glitches makes the run skip over too much of the game or takes away from the core gameplay of the game. Doesn't necessarily mean ALL glitches are banned: just major ones to differentiate things from an Any% run.
IL - Individual Level. These means a run of just a specific part of the game, which means when something goes wrong there's less to lose because restarting is less painful. As a result, runners tend to use riskier strategies and tricks since flubbing them means you just go back to the beginning of that stage instead of having to start the whole run over.
low% - the opposite of 100%: completing the game while grabbing only the bare minimum of items necessary to finish, sometimes even sequence breaking (see below) to avoid what would otherwise be mandatory items.
marathon luck - normally invoked with some sarcasm, but basically odd flukes of (usually bad) luck that only seem to happen when you are streaming in front of an audience of tens of thousands. Usually followed by statements of "this didn't happen in practice"
manipulation/manip - doing a particular set of actions to manipulate a quirk or portion of the game's code. One example is item drops in the original Legend of Zelda, where a runner will kill a specific enemy after killing an equally specific number of enemies because it is guaranteed to result in a bomb dropping.
mercy kill - to end a run before it is complete. This is a rare occurrence for when a run goes well beyond the estimate, and is done so that the marathon stays on schedule.
OOB - Out of Bounds. To leave the intended playable areas of the game, which can allow the player to skip large chunks of the game. Some games have No-OOB categories because, in many cases, you can go out of bounds so much you're not really playing the game anymore.
PB - Personal Best, the fastest run a particular person has done for that category. During something like GDQ, a runner tends to use their personal best as a metric to judge how well they did for their run at the marathon.
race - Multiple players do independent runs at the same time to see who finishes first. The quality of these can run hot or cold, as sometimes one person takes a lead and dominates whereas others they get very neck and neck. Races can lead to exciting moments not see in normal runs, as a trailing player may be encouraged to do high-risk, high-reward strats in order to catch up.
RNG - Short for Random Number Generator, aka randomness. Basically, an aspect of the game that is not determined by anything but the game selecting a random number, such as when an NPC spawns, the actions enemies take, or which items spawn in a level. Due to how computers handle randomness, sometimes RNG can be influenced or outright predetermined by performing certain actions or waiting a specific amount of time (see manipulation).
RTA - Real-Time Attack. Basically the opposite of a TAS, where you do the run in real-time and have to rely on your own weak human reflexes. Also refers to using an actual timer instead of relying on any in-game timers.
safety strats - (aka "marathon strats") doing something that slows you down, but will save you a considerable amount of time if you mess up a particularly difficult upcoming section, such as grabbing extra health or taking time to hit a checkpoint
save/kill the animals - A very old donation bid war for Super Metroid runs. During the final moments of that game, there is a room you can detour to in order to free some animals. Normally this wouldn't be done in a speedrun, but it's been used as a bid war where people can vote with their dollars to save or "kill" the animals by going to or skipping the room. Super Metroid is no longer run every single marathon, but when it is you can expect this battle to begin anew
sequence break - Performing a trick or exploiting a bug so that you do an unintended skip over large chunks of the game, or go through segments of the game as unintended by the designers. For an extreme example, using a glitch in Ocarina of Time to jump straight to the Ganon fight.
Silly Block - Happening during the summer marathons, this block is the counterpart of AGDQ's Awful Block. In this block of late-name runs, the games aren't necessarily bad, but tend to have strange or esoteric gameplay mechanics alongside strange plots, characters, or settings.
TAS - Tool-Assisted Speedrun, in which the runner uses an emulator when running the game. Normally involves having the game play at very slow speeds, sometimes frame-by-frame so certain strategies can be pulled off that would be impossible or extremely difficult with normal human reflexes. Obviously very dull to watch live, but there is a usually short segment during the marathon to show some recordings of neat TAS stuff.
warp - skipping directly to a level. Can be intentional (the numerous warp zones of Mario) or through glitches (Ocarina of Time's "wrong warp")
warpless - A run that doesn't include warping to skip levels or major sections of the game. Can include warps intended by the developers or unintentional glitches.
WR - World Record, the fastest time known for that category. Extremely uncommon during a marathon, as you don't tend to play the game near perfectly in one run. Still, every marathon tends to have one or two WRs occur, typically in more niche or less popular games.
X% - some games have special runs that have been found fun to run. This can involve grabbing all of a specific item that may not count towards 100%, playing as certain characters, or restrictions regarding glitches.
zip - causing your character to fly through a stage or segment. Usually done by trying to squeeze your character into the stage itself (like a block or the ground) so they get stuck and the game forces them out by warping you at high speeds. Tends to be rather tricky to pull off.
any% - completing a run as fast as possible. The only thing that matters is speed, although some games have "warpless" or "glitchless" Any% runs to keep things interesting.
Awful Block - Happening during the winter marathons, this is a block of games typically run one late night during the marathon. It's a series of runs of truly bad/weird games, where the emphasis is less on speedrunning and more showcasing hilariously bad games. It's not uncommon for awful block runs to fail because the game has a tendency to lock up or crash. A tradition of AGDQ, whereas SGDQ tends to have a "weird" games block that focuses on titles that are more niche but necessarily bad.
bonus stream - during older marathons, this was a period after the event where runners would do random runs, play Smash money matches, or even competitive games like Yoshi's Cookie. These would sometimes last a while, like a week of more after the original marathon had ended. As the marathons grew larger, however, the logistics made bonus streams more difficult to manage. They would grow shorter and shorter until they were officially ended in 2015.
damage boosting - taking advantage of the brief invincibility that most games have after you take damage to bypass certain areas quickly. Sometimes the knockback your character suffers from taking damage is also useful in accessing areas.
estimate - The maximum amount of time a runner believes their run will take at the marathon. Estimates are typically a below-average time that gives the schedule a bit of a cushion in case the runner has lousy luck and goes long. Some estimates are more reflective of consistency, and may be tighter because the runner feels they can routinely finish in that time. Failing to finish within in an estimate is something of a mark of shame for a runner. Typically runners are allowed to continue past the estimate, but at a certain point the run can be "mercy killed" and ended prematurely to keep the marathon on schedule.
frames - refers to frames of animation. Tends to be a fancy way of saying "portions of a second" as games tend to animate at 30 or 60 frames per second. So in a 60 fps game, a "frame perfect" technique means you only have 1/60th of a second in which to pull it off. There's also terms like "I-frames" which refers to "invulnerability frames" during which your character (or sometimes an enemy) cannot be hurt.
glitchless - A run that specifically avoids using glitches, usually because a certain glitch or set of glitches makes the run skip over too much of the game or takes away from the core gameplay of the game. Doesn't necessarily mean ALL glitches are banned: just major ones to differentiate things from an Any% run.
IL - Individual Level. These means a run of just a specific part of the game, which means when something goes wrong there's less to lose because restarting is less painful. As a result, runners tend to use riskier strategies and tricks since flubbing them means you just go back to the beginning of that stage instead of having to start the whole run over.
low% - the opposite of 100%: completing the game while grabbing only the bare minimum of items necessary to finish, sometimes even sequence breaking (see below) to avoid what would otherwise be mandatory items.
marathon luck - normally invoked with some sarcasm, but basically odd flukes of (usually bad) luck that only seem to happen when you are streaming in front of an audience of tens of thousands. Usually followed by statements of "this didn't happen in practice"
manipulation/manip - doing a particular set of actions to manipulate a quirk or portion of the game's code. One example is item drops in the original Legend of Zelda, where a runner will kill a specific enemy after killing an equally specific number of enemies because it is guaranteed to result in a bomb dropping.
mercy kill - to end a run before it is complete. This is a rare occurrence for when a run goes well beyond the estimate, and is done so that the marathon stays on schedule.
OOB - Out of Bounds. To leave the intended playable areas of the game, which can allow the player to skip large chunks of the game. Some games have No-OOB categories because, in many cases, you can go out of bounds so much you're not really playing the game anymore.
PB - Personal Best, the fastest run a particular person has done for that category. During something like GDQ, a runner tends to use their personal best as a metric to judge how well they did for their run at the marathon.
race - Multiple players do independent runs at the same time to see who finishes first. The quality of these can run hot or cold, as sometimes one person takes a lead and dominates whereas others they get very neck and neck. Races can lead to exciting moments not see in normal runs, as a trailing player may be encouraged to do high-risk, high-reward strats in order to catch up.
RNG - Short for Random Number Generator, aka randomness. Basically, an aspect of the game that is not determined by anything but the game selecting a random number, such as when an NPC spawns, the actions enemies take, or which items spawn in a level. Due to how computers handle randomness, sometimes RNG can be influenced or outright predetermined by performing certain actions or waiting a specific amount of time (see manipulation).
RTA - Real-Time Attack. Basically the opposite of a TAS, where you do the run in real-time and have to rely on your own weak human reflexes. Also refers to using an actual timer instead of relying on any in-game timers.
safety strats - (aka "marathon strats") doing something that slows you down, but will save you a considerable amount of time if you mess up a particularly difficult upcoming section, such as grabbing extra health or taking time to hit a checkpoint
save/kill the animals - A very old donation bid war for Super Metroid runs. During the final moments of that game, there is a room you can detour to in order to free some animals. Normally this wouldn't be done in a speedrun, but it's been used as a bid war where people can vote with their dollars to save or "kill" the animals by going to or skipping the room. Super Metroid is no longer run every single marathon, but when it is you can expect this battle to begin anew
sequence break - Performing a trick or exploiting a bug so that you do an unintended skip over large chunks of the game, or go through segments of the game as unintended by the designers. For an extreme example, using a glitch in Ocarina of Time to jump straight to the Ganon fight.
Silly Block - Happening during the summer marathons, this block is the counterpart of AGDQ's Awful Block. In this block of late-name runs, the games aren't necessarily bad, but tend to have strange or esoteric gameplay mechanics alongside strange plots, characters, or settings.
TAS - Tool-Assisted Speedrun, in which the runner uses an emulator when running the game. Normally involves having the game play at very slow speeds, sometimes frame-by-frame so certain strategies can be pulled off that would be impossible or extremely difficult with normal human reflexes. Obviously very dull to watch live, but there is a usually short segment during the marathon to show some recordings of neat TAS stuff.
warp - skipping directly to a level. Can be intentional (the numerous warp zones of Mario) or through glitches (Ocarina of Time's "wrong warp")
warpless - A run that doesn't include warping to skip levels or major sections of the game. Can include warps intended by the developers or unintentional glitches.
WR - World Record, the fastest time known for that category. Extremely uncommon during a marathon, as you don't tend to play the game near perfectly in one run. Still, every marathon tends to have one or two WRs occur, typically in more niche or less popular games.
X% - some games have special runs that have been found fun to run. This can involve grabbing all of a specific item that may not count towards 100%, playing as certain characters, or restrictions regarding glitches.
zip - causing your character to fly through a stage or segment. Usually done by trying to squeeze your character into the stage itself (like a block or the ground) so they get stuck and the game forces them out by warping you at high speeds. Tends to be rather tricky to pull off.
And remember...
Sterica on
+7
Posts
Oh, oh no
DEER FORCE
https://gamesdonequick.com/schedule/52
They were doing breath of the wild in 40 minutes within a few months of release, being able to just go fight the last boss immediately if you want and can actually do it is part of the intended design. Half the run is just getting the basic powers from the tutorial plateau shrines so you can leave the plateau.
i don’t like races because i feel like they’re impossible to commentate and so i just feel lost. similar problem to randomizers.
https://theyetee.com/collections/agdq
It took me a while to get what was going on with You Will Never Find Your Friends. It's a Superman 64 shirt!
I'm "kupiyupaekio" on Discord.
SHIKA
SHI KA
I might have to buy this shirt
i'm actually playing oddsparks right now which is like pikmin + automation game and i've been enjoying it a lot
kirby air ride city trial speedrun is a weird mode to speedrun
Luigi.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
the new wind waker any% route is really great, I love watching it
I completely forgot about this
Super pumped!
Starts wednesday night just before 1130 eastern at this point.
It ends with what I assume is Macaw45's hilarious Waterworld fan game (based off the Simpsons joke)
PSN:Furlion
It being 25 minutes is about what I expected, given how easy it is to break the game.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know what the strategy is for it, and it's definitely going to get a bad ending, but...
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yeah I think most people figured out the “strategy” if you can call it that. And if they didn’t then hoo boy will it be hilarious to see.
PSN:Furlion
Sonic eating it right after scalpel after messing up so early in the previous races was brutal. Redemption story gone awry.
PSN:Furlion
the singing is driving me fucking crazy.