Get hyped for this weekend, because Games Done Quick (GDQ) is back.
The semiannual speedrunning marathon hosted by Speed Demos Archive becomes more popular every year. The last couple marathons have surpassed $1 million in total donations over seven raucous days, all while giving us some mind-blowing runs. If you’ve never watched a speedrun before or are a speedy veteran, this is one event you won’t want to miss.
The year’s summer event (SGDQ) is being held in downtown Minneapolis and will benefit Doctors Without Borders. Doctors Without Borders’ mission is to send qualified healthcare professionals to impoverished nations around the world, and the charity has a top ranking from Charity Navigator, a charity rating website. Since 2011, GDQ has raised over $10 million for various charities.
Related: The best GDQ speedruns of all time.
As always, the global audience is encouraged to donate during their favorite runs both to support the charity and the event, but also to meet various donation incentives, which will be updated once the even goes live on the donation tracker. Incentives include things like having runners attempt difficult challenges, naming characters or save files, or even to unlock a run. Don’t know what incentive to pledge your donation to? There’s always the bidding war between saving and killing the animals in Super Metroid, a GDQ staple.
As always, the event will be live streamed on GDQ’s Twitch Page, and runs will be available on the YouTube channel as well, so you can catch any that you missed. The marathon will start at 12:30pm ET on Sunday July 2 and is scheduled to finish just past midnight on July 9. A schedule of all runs, coded for your local time, is available on the GDQ website.
SGDQ will feature some speedrun staples like Mega Man, Metroid and Zelda. A few of our favorites include:
- Halo: Combat Evolved: July 2, 3:10pm ET
- Half-Life and Half-Life 2: July 4, 7:22pm ET
- Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Wii: July 6, 7:58pm ET
- Tetris: The Grand Master, two players, one controller race: July 6, 10:25pm ET
- Super Mario 64: July 8, 4:22pm ET
- Dark Souls 3, July 9, 12:39am ET
Really, there’s no way to list all the great runs you’ll want to watch. So leave the stream on and try to catch them all—and yes, Pokemon is on the schedule!
Published: Jun 27, 2017 03:12 pm