Summer Games Done Quick 2025 wrap-up

[Trysdyn]

SGDQ is in its final day.

(Awesome|Summer) Games Done Quick is a twice-yearly charity event that spends a week showcasing live speedruns to benefit charity. AGDQ benefits the Prevent Cancer Foundation, SGDQ benefits Médecins Sans Frontières AKA Doctors Without Borders. At this point GDQ has settled into a comfy routine of raising about US$2.5m for each charity each year. It's pretty great.

Curious to hear thoughts from folks and trade around recs for runs to catch if you missed them. I don't think I missed much; I tend to spend the entire week with it on the TV and watching VODs of missed runs during less interesting runs, hah.

Free-for-all discussion desired here :)

My recs though...

Peak vibes award: Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
(CW: violence, gore, frank discussions of fascism)
Anarchy is the head show runner of the "Black in a Flash" GDQ side-event for POC. She and her couch blast through Wolfenstein with some very direct and frank commentary.

I found it very cathartic.

"What the heckie just happened" award: AEW: Fight Forever
A wrestling game, with fairly dry repetitive strats. So the runner and couch punched it up by bringing an indie league professional wrestler and speedrunner on the couch to work the crowd and install their own isolated kayfabe for the run. Amazing crowd involvement, hilarious run to watch. 14/10.

Amazing race award: Super Metroid Low% race
Super Metroid is a staple of GDQ and the runs are amazingly well executed and technical. This one picks up the absolute minimum items required to beat the game, so at all times the runners are in danger of dying because they have 3 E-tanks.

I won't spoil the race itself but it's a must-see.

Cute Vtuber award: We Love Katamari
Harutomo's Vtuber is just cute and Harutomo runs cute games. I've long been a fan and Katamari speedruns are just super comfortable to watch and vibe with.

[Ja'aran]

Oh yeah, I pretty much watch SGDQ/AGDQ every single year because what else am I gonna do? One of the highlights for me was Blue Prince, as well as Sonic Advenutre 2 for some reason. I dunno, I just liked the vibes. Edit: Also, all of the Super Mario speedruns lol

[Trysdyn]

I swear I was in Streams when I created this... Oops. Mea culpa; I'm hoping a mod can move. Sorry!

[Trysdyn]

One of the highlights for me was Blue Prince, as well as Sonic Advenutre 2 for some reason. I dunno, I just liked the vibes.

SA2 is always an amazing time. I've got a friend group who does Archipelago multi-randos using the same rando they used, and it can do some wild madcap stuff and I love it so.

Blue Prince I missed actually; I should add that to my very short go-back list!

[Cayman]

I'm gonna have to check out the Control run, one of my favorite games to see run. Alas it aired at 3:30 AM my time.

[Moot]

it’s this time of year that I plug https://gdqvods.com/ which is probably the easiest way to catch up on stuff you missed or filter through to games and/or runners you like

[DarkOverord]

as well as Sonic Advenutre 2 for some reason. I dunno, I just liked the vibes.

As someone who semi-regularly in multiworlds does SA2B it was honestly great to see it

[Cayman]

Anyone else watching the final Deltarune run?

[Trysdyn]

Anyone else watching the final Deltarune run?

Oh yeah. I'm not a huge UT/DR fan myself but I'm always here for the energy of the finale. It always gets me revved up.

Revved up to what? I don't know. I always leave a GDQ asking myself "well what now?"

[Cayman]

I just love the energy of the finale. I’m a big Deltarune fan so I’m pretty jazzed to see it!

(Fun fact: my given name is Kris.)

[Cayman]

I’m so glad to see the goal met for the new chapters of Deltarune! Let’s see if they can stretch it

[Trysdyn]

I've been eyeballing a comparison graph site and it looks like we might barely blurp up to $2.7m. I don't recall a big massive drop from one of the sponsors like they usually do at the end of the event this time either.

Usually between GDQ donating overage, and Twitch doing something, and such they just toss another $100k+ in the pot.

I was saying elsewhere though that GDQ has kind of settled into a comfy sustainability POV, or at least I think they have, and are probably happy to hit 2.5m each event or a little over. I think that's good and healthy; trying to push bigger every year eventually caused some nasty issues with scheduling and optics.

But really? Anything is still an obvious good thing.

[Enbyeon]

(Moved thread to "Streaming." subforum. Carry on, I'll comment once I catch up on VODs this coming week.)

[Trysdyn]

Thanks for the move. Complete brain fart on my part.

I've been eyeballing a comparison graph site and it looks like we might barely blurp up to $2.7m.

We ended up with a total around $2.46m and missed the final incentive. I was surprised until someone pointed out the big $100k+ bomb "Twitch" usually drops didn't come this year because they changed things so you can donate straight through the site in lieu of (or in addition to?) subbing. So that probably tied into no big vendor drop at the end.

Still "Around $2.5m" is a great total and what I think they aim for every event and MSF needs it so direly right now.

I stand by my recs from yesterday but want to add Monkey Ball, because Monkey Ball is always a fun time on the big stage.

I've got a lot to go back and watch but from what I saw I think this was a top 3 for GDQs.

They also announced Games Done Queer in October and heck, I might dust off Hachiemon and participate in that myself. More details are coming; all they announced was a name and a month in the finale credits.