Making a "speed run friendly" game
8 years ago
British Columbia, Canada

I am working on a little game for #1GAM (http://www.onegameamonth.com/) and feeling like it could make a decent speed-run game.

I don't know much about the community, so I was wondering if you know of any articles or first hand knowledge, of what kinds of features make a game "speed run friendly".

Obviously it needs to be a great game, but I am thinking more stuff like:

¤ Built in timer ¤ Ability to reset levels instantly ¤ Run in windowed mode ¤ Etc

I figure there are probably some simple mistakes that I could avoid if I keep them in mind early.

Here is a little video after 1 week into development:

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Germany

The Game looks great :) Love the game mechanics. If there is a built in timer make sure that it has a split function (if possible with autosplit).

United States

Having a good deal of consistency in the game is important as well. There can be some elements that are random (different boss attacks, etc.), but the controls and things like the Blink forwards and boost jump upwards shouldn't be inconsistent or have varying distances. In-game timer is nice, but most of the time people go by RTA and use outside splits anyways, because in-game methods normally don't consider things like lag, loading screens, pause menus. Another thing would be an easy way to skip any dialogue or minor cutscenes, since that can slow the run down and make it take needlessly longer between attempts.

It looks like it would be a very cool execution-based speedrun and I'm sure with some work you'd have some people on here trying it out.

Ohio, USA

Getting a game to be speed run friendly is very hard to do. Just make the game. It's a speedrunner's job to make it speed run friendly. Not the developer's. Do you think the developers knew the BLJ in SM64 was there? Naaaaaah. Just have fun making the game dude, it doesn't matter how it turns out, after all you find speedruns of slow paced games on here. It doesn't have to be fast.

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Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Does "Ability to reset levels instantly" mean aswell that you can load up every level u want after passing them? Because I personally like it to practice every individual level sometimes (especially with bosses and glitches and so on...).

Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Yeah! A hotkey would be totally awesome. This wouldn't interrupt the game flow! Very nice idea :D. He should definetly implement this.

England

It's not a fact of having so many unused keys, it's a matter of having the keys in a usuable position. You don't want to be moving your hand, then having to re-place it where it's meant to be, but you don't want it to be too close to the main controls or you may mis-press it. That's why sometimes it's awkward for computer games to have good feeling controls when there's a lot of game mechanics to use. It's just not ergonomic to do so.

In response to the main topic though, being able to use a gamepad would be good, with direct imput gamepad support too.

Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

It would be enough if he maps the Reset Hotkey on the Select/Back Button or something, so the player can reset the actual stage/map. I think it wouldn't be that comfortable to map a hotkey for each stage/map ^^.

A level selection screen and a fast reset button will do it aswell I think.

British Columbia, Canada

Thanks for all the great feedback! I think I'll stay away from an in-game timer based on what you guys said, and will think about incorporating a quick level picker. The game already supports gamepad and keyboard.

If you want to follow development at all (which wraps in 2 days!) follow me here: https://twitter.com/matthughson

Thanks again! Matt

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