KP: I don't know if you know about casinos and slot machines - they're pretty effective. While Snapshot had very little intentional RNG, Pulver described a common development attitude towards randomness, particularly in games that have a small amount of randomness, but aren't dependent on it. Speedrunners are distinctly aware of RNG, as many runs can be entirely dependent on good luck.

The conversation shifted towards RNG, or Random Number Generators, a term often-used to describe random events that happen in all games. Nightmare47: I do really enjoy good games over good speedgames, but either works. 'You really only notice the bad luck.' It sounds like you want a good game before a good speedrun. I feel like if they try too hard it might not 'run' well.

Naturally, if a developer isn't focused on a speedrun they might add things like auto-scrollers and slow, counterintuitive movement. I feel like if they focus on speedruns, it may not click with me. Do you want developers to think of speedrunners during development? Like, 'Welp, that happens one out of a thousand times and I have no idea what's happening.' Things you don't think are going to be purposefully executed will end up playing a big role for something like a speedrun. I don't think I was ever able to control it to hit the exit of the stage. KP: When I saw that bug in development, I didn't think it'd be useful in a speedrun. It's cool to see aspects of the game that I didn't really know were useful. It was a matter of 'We're finishing the game and there's only so many things we can fix with the time and budget we have,' so that one stayed in there. It's not something you'd normally expect just watching someone play the game.ĭid you know about that glitch before you saw it in the run? So it's really nice to show off, 'Hey, I can do this with your game.' And it's really cool to look at, especially with this game. Nightmare47: I was actually a little excited. Nightmare, were you nervous that a developer was watching you perform the run? I wanted to see everything happen for the first time for the GDQ run. I had no idea what was going to happen for the run. Please, don't have any crazy things happen. One of the things I joke about with other game developers is whenever I see our games on Twitch, it's really cool, but at the same time we're all thinking, 'Oh god. Kyle Pulver: It is both terrifying and exciting at the same time. What's it like watching your game in a GDQ? We talked about speedrunning, game development and the crossover between the two. Joining him was Nightmare47, who speedran Snapshot during Awesome Games Done Quick 2016. We sat down with Kyle Pulver, an indie developer who worked on Snapshot - a sidescroller premised around storing objects in snapshots for later use.

For many runners, it can be a concern as to whether developers actually like the outputs of their hobby, or if they hate seeing their games reduced to optimization and skips. At the same time, most runners are trying to beat a game by any means necessary, and they often work glitches and exploits into an established route. They create the games players speedrun, obviously crucial to the process. Game developers serve an interesting role in speedrunning.

Speedrunners game launch options