I do not enjoy speedrunning. It’s a hyper-stressful, no-holds-barred precision fest of mega-alertness that I typically don’t care to partake in. This is doubly so when the subject in question is the entirety of a game, and not just one section. It requires patience, luck, knowledge, foresight, and skill to be able to say that you can beat something quicker than anything else. I hate it. Unfortunately, Prodigal is a game I played for review recently that I fell in love with, so when developer Colorgrave announced via Twitter that they were holding a speedrunning contest—with prizes to boot—how could I say no?
The details can be seen with the tweet directly below:
At the time of writing, I have already clocked in a best time of 1:06:58 (that is one hour, six minutes, and fifty-eight seconds) and have a video recording of my doing so, but have yet to edit/upload it. It was my fifth attempt at a speedrun and beat my previous, first-time attempt of 1:12:40 (not recorded). According to the (albeit limited) recorded times via speedrun.com, I am well ahead in terms of time. Whether this time will hold or not remains to be seen. Have I mentioned that I hate speedrunning? Doing those five attempts really took a lot out of me mentally…
But despite that, I may hold off on editing my current run’s video, because I believe I can do better. The end date is November 30th, so I have more than two weeks to tweak my time down further. It’s funny; I hate speedrunning, yet I keep thinking back to my runs and say, “I could totally do better… I kind of want to do better… I’m gonna do better.” I’ve stated a couple times on my blog that I’m quite competitive, even if I don’t generally like the competitive atmosphere. Maybe it’s less that I don’t like the pressure of competing and more that I don’t like the pressure of fulfilling my own skyward expectations. Who knows?
Aside from bragging(?), that’s about it for the point of this post. If you want to check out the game for yourself, you can find it on Steam for about as much as you would spend on takeout pizza. If you would like more in-depth detail, I have a review on KeenGamer you can also read, though I should note that the bugs have been ironed out considerably since I first played it. I would highly recommend it, particularly if you like retro-styled games, puzzles, or adventures.
And if anyone reading this happens to have the game and wasn’t aware of this speedrunning contest, you’re welcome and good luck. I want me that pixel portrait.
Thank you for your time. Have a great day.
The Visualist's Veranda 
whoa, speedrunning is crazy. I don’t do them myself but I have watched several. It’s like an art form. I’m impressed
Good luck!