Awesome Games Done Quick and its’ summer variant act as a sort of gateway into speedrunning. Since they’re big events done for the sake of charity, a lot of eyes in the gaming community turn to look at people showcase their speedrunning skills. Yet, there’s a great figure in the speedrunning community, whose own content gives a clear understanding of speedrunning and the history behind it: Summoning Salt.

Summoning Salt is a speedrunner that specializes in running Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. Much of his early videos on Youtube are his Punch-Out runs… as well as a few joke videos on a Spongebob game. In fact, at the time of writing, Summoning Salt currently holds the world record for single segment, RTA and Another Circuit runs.

Then, in January 2007, he started his World Record Progression videos. These videos delve into the known histories of speedrunning in a game, from the earliest speedruns to the most recent record at the time of making. The videos provide a basic strategy on approaching a run and, as Summoning Salt starts delving into the timeline and the people that keep beating the record, discusses new tech that was discovered over the years that helped bring the record down. These videos show off the culture of speedrunning and the hard work that goes toward clearing a game as fast as possible, providing a detailed yet digestible look for people normally not into this stuff.

The first World Record Progression video was on, of course, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. From there, Summoning Salt bridged out into other games that are popular to speedrun. There have also been a few videos done on a few specific things to speedrun, like the Rainbow Roads throughout the Mario Kart series and level 4-2 of the original Super Mario Bros, which has been a roadblock for any% speedruns.

Speaking of which, Summoning Salt has recently released a video on the history of “Warpless World Records” for Super Mario Bros. Unlike any%, this record demands that players go through all the levels as fast as possible, rather than encouraging players to go through the least possible levels. While runs like these are less popular, they’re still fascinating to watch and I think it’s great that Summoning Salt has highlighted this type of run.

Of course, the videos are flawed in that they become irrelevant with the passage of time, as people in the future beat what was previously thought to be insurmountable runs. Consider the fact that, a mere month ago, a player going by tavenwebb2002 became the world record holder for an any% run of Super Mario Bros; this doesn’t even account for the record juggling between then and Summoning Salt’s first Super Mario Bros. video.

However, I think this dissonance highlights just how lively speedrunning communities are; which is a sentiment that I feel Summoning Salt wants to impart. His videos show that records are not set in stone, and often enough, those records are toppled by a newcomer coming out of nowhere. In a sense, it feels that these videos reach out to viewers to encourage them to be that newcomer.

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