So I'm going to take a shot at a few world records but besides actually having an account on twitch and youtube, I have no experience whatsoever in streaming or even speedrunning itself. Can you guys recommend software and as many tips / advice as possible?

Thanks!

Hey there, welcome!

If you're looking for a software to record your runs, there's a few options that work pretty well, but to name two:

• Open Broadcaster Software, or OBS for short, is the one most people use (including myself) and it's completely free. Might look a bit daunting at first if you're new to this, but test it out for a bit and soon enough you'll get accustomed to its layout.
• If you happen to have an NVidia graphics card, NVidia Shadowplay is also completely free. It works seamlessly and you barely even notice it running in the background, but it does lack some features that OBS has.

You'll probably also want to download Livesplit, which is the digital timer most runners use and gets the job done. It's pretty straightforward and shouldn't interfere much with any games you might try to run.

Next, you'll want to find a game to run. Every runner has a different way of finding their speedgames, but my personal advice is to simply find a game you really like to play casually (perhaps a game from your childhood you've replayed quite a few times). Speedrunning usually entails restarting the game quite often, so you'll be replaying the same bits over and over again, so if the game's not all that fun when playing it normally, speedrunning it might exarcerbate the problem.

Once you've found a game to run, you'll want to watch the World Record run and use it as a sort of guide of the entire run. I suggest watching it once before running the game to get the feel of the game, and then start practicing a few levels (or you could do a practice run instead). Once you have a few practice hours under your belt, you can re-watch the WR run and I guarantee you'll find more nuanced strategies that you couldn't notice before due to lack of experience. Rinse and repeat and you'll get your run going in no time!

Anyway, should you have any other questions feel free to ask. Good luck!