Page 24 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #38 FREE Edition

number, most players agree that reentering no more than twice beyond the first time is fair. Not everyone in the community agrees with this assessment though. If you leech “too much” you run the risk of players voting no, or abstaining from voting on your submissions altogether. What I’m trying to explain is that unfortunately, the leeching rules are pretty vague at best, and can be interpreted by voters in a lot of different ways.
In the other category are games that have an In-Game Timer. Castlevania is a great example of how leeching rules are different when there is a timer in place. Enemies can be respawned in Castlevania pretty easily and in some of the sections you can respawn item candles as well. Generally this would be frowned upon, but since you can only do it for a limited amount of time, the restrictions are totally lifted. It is considered “point pressing,” a term coined by arcade players. It means you are using a strategy to maximize the amount of points you can score in a given stage, within the limited time frame imposed by the game itself..
WHY DO PEOPLE PREFER SPEEDRUNS?
In 2023, high score competitions are not in the spotlight nearly as much as they used to be when contrasted with speedrunning. This is because speedrunning has become very popularized through the efforts of organizations such as Games Done Quick (GDQ) that broadcast speedrunning marathons that benefit various charities. There are also
a lot of players using the streaming platform Twitch to broadcast their speedrun attempts. While high score competitions are still happening, because of the amount of time required, these sorts of events are not nearly as watchable from a casual perspective. There are many games where a truly skilled player focusing on getting the maximum number of points in a game could literally play non-stop for dozens of hours, which is pretty far beyond the endurance of the casual fan! I believe this is why high scores have fallen out of the spotlight when contrasted with the flashy tricks and sometimes shockingly short completion times of speedrunning. Similar to the rise of TikTok and other short-form video platforms, being able to consume content in bite-sized chunks rather than in a long running format has become the norm.
Another large factor is the world’s current obsession
with instant access and instant gratification. While
the restrictions for speedrunning do vary from game to game, there is a very strong focus in the speedrunning community to keep the entry point as low as possible. This means that you do not have to own the original hardware, original controllers, or original cartridges to submit runs. You can play the games on a piece of software called
an emulator that replicates the NES hardware. These emulators can be found disguised in hardware as well, like the RetroN series of clone hardware by Hyperkin and even inside the NES Classic Mini that was made directly by Nintendo. All of this different software running on totally different hardware is compared against original
O O
hardware, all in the name of accessibility. A while back, the Super Mario Bros. Any% speedrun world record was set using an emulator and a computer keyboard, but that is a topic for another day. The point is that you can upload a speedrun in almost any form and have it verified by a moderator in a few days or weeks at most. This instant access is why people tend to prefer speedruns over high scores.
In contrast, high score competitions tend to be sticklers for making sure that the scores you get are achieved on original, unmodified hardware. That makes it difficult for a casual player to compete, especially considering that Nintendo stopped manufacturing and selling the NES
in 1995! Tracking down a reliable, working NES and the cartridges for the games you want to play is expensive and difficult. While Twin Galaxies has created separate categories for high scores achieved on emulators rather than original hardware, it’s important to note that I have never seen them compared against each other like they are in speedrunning. In fact, I find that in the high score community, emulated scores tend to be looked down upon and considered second class when compared with original hardware scores. There are also additional steps that are required when providing evidence for high score runs
on original NES hardware. This usually includes video
of your cartridge being put into the system, video of the system being powered on with the television in frame, and evidence that your controller is actively controlling the game you are playing sometime during the video. While large speedrunning sites use a moderator system that gives key people in the community the ability to approve or deny runs, high score sites use a community voting system that allows anyone on the site to vote or voice their opinions about your score. This is a much slower system and can sometimes take many months to get your scores approved. These different factors combine together to make high score competitions far less attractive to the average person, both for participants and for viewers.
All that said, there are still some restrictions in the speedrunning world. For example, the largest events at Games Done Quick (GDQ) do not allow emulators to be used when performing runs. Similarly, in the scoring space the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) requires the use of original NES hardware, cartridges, and controllers. At the end of the day though, this is a hobby! Each person has to decide for themselves what things matter the most to them when they are putting large amounts of their time into something. In my case, I really value the ability to compare my runs against others that played on the same type of equipment. I appreciate the fact that a person has to commit more seriously to a high score on a real hardware NES by submitting more evidence, and having the correct hardware to corroborate their achievement claims. Regardless of how I choose
to play, I am glad that there are a lot of ways to compete and experience the Nintendo Entertainment System today, almost four decades after its original release, and I appreciate all of them.
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