Friends, i have been watching speedruns and loving the communitity ever since I discovered it a few years ago. I have been an avid gamer since childhood (mostly Nintendo related gaming) and speedrunning seems like such an attractive way to set and meet goals in an environment I love. However, i have a job, and a kid, and a family. The time that i get to spend gaming, i spend it gaming with my brothers online (PC mostly, playing the latest what-have-yous of PC gaming), and the other time i spend with family. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so i have a great desire to become a savant at the game i wish to speedrun! Therefore when i get in the mindset of learning a speedrun, i get dicsouraged that i will need to invest some time if i’m to get anywhere to my level of satisfaction. I feel the easy answer is to just choose an easy, short game, and that is probably what I will do in the end. But this post is more of a curiosity for other Dads/parents out there- how do you fit speedrunning into your schedule?
I feel your pain, when I became a dad suddenly the chances of me sitting down in front of a PC / console in the evening / weekend to speedrun vanished and I can only run when the moons align, i.e.
(i) at lunchtimes at work; (ii) when the wife is out, the baby is asleep and I don't have stuff I have to get done; (iii) when the wife is out with the baby and I don't have stuff I have to get done; (iv) when I'm in bed and the wife and the baby are asleep (late night / early hours).
(ii) and (iii) are rarities so I'm mainly left with (i) and (iv), neither of which are PC/console friendly. My answer was mobile games and if you take a look at my profile you will see that somehow, despite dadhood, I manage to get a lot of speedrunning into my life. I discussed it a bit more here https://www.speedrun.com/Speedrunning/thread/d8s5v .
Obviously emergencies will occur, but I would definitely explain to your spouse when you start your first run. Nothing is more frustrating (or run killing) than trying to explain in the middle of a run that runs have to be single segment etc...
Anyway, I have a question for you Dad runners (although I guess it could apply to anyone with a girlfriend or mom or anyone who doesn't play videogames). How do they feel about it? Do they get it? E.G. If I had picked up speedrunning two years ago, my then-girlfriend would have thought it was silly, and would have been very vocal about it.
@Eggwink My wife definitely doesn't understand why I do it and ribs me a bit for it, but she is happy that I enjoy it. That said, we are both busy generally so if there is an evening / time at the weekend when we are both free, speedrunning is most definitely not permitted! Hence, I have to wait until she is either out or asleep, and then there is the baby factor...
@Eggwink Nice profile picture.
I have two furry perma-toddlers that have picked up on the fact that headphones and computer time is not a good time to bring over squeaky toys. As long as you enforce when the "don't bother me" time is and isn't, it's all good.
When we first started dating, my girlfriend tuned into my streams and didn't get it at all. She asked a lot of the same questions we usually get asked- "why can't you just pause it for a sec?"- I handed the game over, showed her some of my times and asked her to do better. She stopped asking questions after that. I'm pretty sure she still has no idea what I'm doing, but she likes that I like it, and that is good enough for me. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm like Pewdiepie in the internet realm, which is kinda funny.
@Eggwink My wife is a fellow nerd, but of course not to the degree I am. She knows the ins and outs of what it’s all about so she will be able to manage baby things when i need to do a run. Of course, the amount of time i will have to do runs is of course up to whatever priorities we have otherwise.
Slightly off topic, I have toyed with the idea of getting my 18mo to do a speedrun of a kid's game that can just be key spammed and posting it on src, as I imagine that would make her the youngest official speedrunner in history? Or does it count if the runner doesn't actually know what's going on and has no intention to finish the game quickly? If that counts as child cruelty then I'm joking.
[quote]If that counts as child cruelty then I'm joking.[/quote]
That's the spirit ;)
I don't see why that couldn't work. Although, if you made her her own account, I think there are rules about websites accepting information on kids under 13 yrs but, I wouldn't be the person to ask about that.
@Eggwink Thanks and I hadn't even considered the legalities. I read into it a little and I think given there would be parental consent it would be fine. Tbh it probably won't happen as I'm not sure how the wife would feel about me getting the littlun to do it.
I have been a bit busy so I have been doing short games as well as a lot of testing on one, when practicing you also don't need to do the whole game at once chapter by chapter basis is good too. :) I am not a parent but wanted to give some advice :)
@MelonSlice Thanks man for the input!
@drgrumble MAKE IT HAPPEN MAN haha.
Hey, I've just found this thread and hit near home. I'm 35 and I work full time as a school teacher and I know how difficult is to find time to practice/stream/run. I never got really serious about speedrun until the last 2months where I had a long holiday and I was feeling kinda bored and since I really didn't want to work in the house I spent time playing old NES games. I choose short games that can be practised for 1 hour or 1 1/2 hour a day and they don't require much investment. Right now for example, I'm running Donkey Kong Jr. which is a 1:30 seconds game and I practice at night probably for 1 hour, which is "me" time. I know it's hard when you have a family but if they support you and love you they will understand your new hobby. Just go for it!
Absolutely man I agree! And since the genesis of this post, i actually have become a rather active streamer and speedrunner now. This being because i have incorporated my stream into my family time. If you watch my stream you’ll see that unlike most streamers, i’m chilling with my family at the same time i am doing runs and such. I’m pretty lucky because my wife (who is rad as all heck) actually likes me streaming/speedrunning better as opposed to my normal PC gaming habits haha. This is because i am able to interact/get up and help with the kiddo alot easier in general.
That's awesome Blinkdor, a really novel approach.
From the partner's perspective, I guess there are plenty worse habits than speedrunning - some of my friends vanish to the pub straight after dinner and aren't seen again until bedtime. Speedrunning is pretty harmless in the scheme of things.
As someone who's only just discovered this thing I've come to realise that simply being an adult with a job and a girlfriend makes it hard to fit this in, so I can't imagine it being easy with children too. That said if you want something enough you'll find a way.
