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Comment by loganc2342 | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been following this game’s speedrun for years; I never expected to see it on the front page of HN! This post could use a (2021), because this trick was discovered years ago. For anyone interested in speedrunning, this game has some of the most insane tech I’ve seen in any game and is definitely worth checking out.

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> this game has some of the most insane tech I’ve seen in any game and is definitely worth checking out

Given the context of this forum, I'd be interested to hear more about what's so interesting about the technology!

'tech' in speed running is a reference to "technique" rather than "technology". https://glossary.infil.net/?t=Tech

Thank you TIL

Woah, I just realized (because of this comment) that I've been grouping "technique" and "technology" as a single thing in my understanding and calling it "technology"/"tech".

For example, I would describe a method to do something in a video game as "tech" but in my mind I would expand it to "technology" if I thought about it. I didn't realize that the word "technique" would be a better fit in those contexts. Looking at Wikipedia [1], it looks like the words are pretty closely related so I haven't been using the word completely wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

Funnily enough, I had been doing the same thing and it hadn’t even occurred to me that my comment might cause confusion for people who aren’t familiar with speedrunning lol

Is there a good video you could link to that covers this? Or is it apparent just from watching a run, from GDQ or something?

Unfortunately, there isn’t an up-to-date video that I’m aware of that explains the entire run in its totality. But you should get a pretty good idea from simply watching the run. It’s a marvel to watch, especially if it’s a game you’re familiar with. SHiFT’s most recent 100% record is probably a good place to start[1]. He’s the runner mentioned in the article and he’s held the record for every category that matters for 8.5-10 years. (Fair warning, though: he tends to use strong language and he’s almost always in a foul mood.)

If you do want a run with some explanation, GDQ is probably your best bet[2]. Unfortunately, the run hasn’t appeared at GDQ since AGDQ Online 2022, but you still get a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about, even if you don’t get to see how the run has evolved since then. That one is also an Any% run, so you can get an idea of the differences.

[1] https://youtu.be/FzkgU3EI-bk?is=G1NDOumOKUhqRbOU

[2] https://youtu.be/GX7aVH8Q0gg

Thanks!

How close was it technically to Jak2? I consider that the defining technical mastery of that generation

I would consider Jak 3 to be even better than that BUT the darker art direction really hid a lot of what it was doing. Shame really.

Seems to me that hardware modification would be a banned technique.

There are usually separate categories based on various factors, like which console a game is played on (if it was released on multiple), what the win condition is (do you need to 100% the game, or just see the credits roll?), and whether certain glitches are allowed. Those are nearly always software glitches, but hardware glitches aren't unheard of :)

Speedrunning communities generally hate it when having more money leads to an advantage.

If you ban deliberately smudging/scratching the disc, then some runner with a lot of money will just buy a lot of copies of the disc, find the one that glitches the most consistently (because of pre-existing scratches, or even manufacturing defects that aren’t visible)

Allowing some kind of mod is the most equitable compromise.

They typically ban the glitch entirely. For example cartridge manipulation or "CD streaming" glitches in Zelda speedruns are banned, and if you submitted a run containing them while claiming the game did it on its own, they would probably tell you to get a new copy of the game.

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