In its various forms, Games Done Quick is a wonderful exposition of enthusiastic and skilled gamers demonstrating those skills for charity. It’s amazing. AGDQ 2020 just ran, and they upload most (all?) of their videos to their YouTube channel for later perusal.

I find I get the most enjoyment out of the ones for which I’ve played the game for or at least have some familiarity. This year’s slate had a few highlights for me.

The Legend of Zelda 100% No Source Requirement

It’s three hours long, but this is an insane demonstration of how the landmark 3D Zelda game is as glitchy as hell. This video shows a cool collection of the state of the art techniques that players can perform without tool assistance. They can manipulate the game’s memory to give them items they shouldn’t have or clip through the walls to teleport right to the boss. It really is astounding.

“One Mind” Super Mario World Co-op

This is mind blowing. A hacked Super Mario game that switches control of the character between the two controllers every 30 frames (approximately every half second). The players need to be incredibly fast and they need to react to each other’s cues and miscues. This video is both funny and entertaining. Worth a watch.

Celeste Farewell

I enjoyed Celeste as a game, but the game caps out at difficulty higher than my ability. But man is it a fun game to watch a player who is good at the game destroy some of the most difficult levels I’ve ever seen.

Other Stuff

There were some other cool moments, like VVVVVV being open sourced, or the standard Super Mario 3 or Mega Man races. But if you have any interest in video games, there’s likely to be a run or two that would interest you here.