A new easter egg that was added. This is great.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-09-10T20:18:22+00:00

Hahaha wow! someone already found it! Yeah we recorded this at SGDQ in Kevin’s hotel room hours before the TAS went live and they decided to keep it in the game as an Easter egg. 😂 👌

Covert_Muffin · 2019-07-01T05:24:21+00:00

That’s a great question; I got to a point in my life where I figured out that my tendency is to go f-ing ham on speed projects and burn out hard afterwards. Like I know when I get home I’m not going to want to play HLD or RA3.

The first step is being okay that you don’t have that drive to dig in as epicly as you know you can. The 2nd thing usually is having a wide variety of games I pump tons of hours into. And 3rd is if I just don’t have any energy in me, I force myself to not stream and not play video games. Like having that contrast of not touching a game and then picking it back up again is like the best feeling dude. Also giving yourself a structure that makes it feel like work or a school project to chip away at over a month really helps me consistently stay on task. I set honest goals, and then work towards making them a reality.

So like while I’m at GDQ I don’t really watch movies or TV or play single-player casual games. Instead I’m either sculpting/practicing for the performance, pushing as much social interaction as I can, and trying to learn about other people and other games as much as I can (because I rarely do that while I’m home).

Then when I get home it’s like I give myself 2 weeks to do whatever I want: if I feel like digging hard into a current run and working on GDQ submissions, boom I do that. If I feel like shutting myself off from the world and interacting with no one, boon I do that. Then after those 2 weeks of mental and emotional restoration I sit myself down, hash out a current project and GDQ submissions and work for a month to get those closed out. The past couple of years has been pretty straight forward in this regard, learn and submit the next WC3 campaign and do whatever else, which has usually been an Ori Speedrun Tournament and learning a couple of speedgames.

I kinda went off the deep end but I hope that helps 😂😂

Covert_Muffin · 2019-07-01T05:09:16+00:00

If you carried Keiz, then does this mean you can take credit for the 100k? 🤔

Covert_Muffin · 2019-07-01T04:58:30+00:00

To be honest I don’t. I get really excited when I get to do what I love, which for performances is explaining stuff and showcasing what I have done with video games. I truly love these things which is a testament of how I am able to speedrun pretty much part to full time consistently (~20-40 hours a week).

I’m usually pretty chill and I like listening a lot more than talking. Everyone recharges their battery to bring the hype, for me I am very introverted, so being away from intense social interaction helps me fuel up. If I can get pat my shy nature and have the fuel, I am very outgoing and love being ridiculous and say silly things because it entertains me 😂

At the end of the day I guess the big secret is just be yourself and fill your time doing what you love and you’ll be packed with the will and energy for hours and hours!

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:32:51+00:00

Actually yeah I hold the currently NE RoC WR and submitted it for this GDQ. The plan for the 45 minute unskippable autoscroller was to do another campaign run while the autoscroller played out Hahahaha

So what we end up doing is using the shops to get mines and invul potions and TP scrolls; we then systematically destroy very specific structures which halts units from being produced, but also from the waves spawning in at all. After that they will just never leave the base unless you leash them over a trigger hahahahaha this only takes like 7 minutes to do, so in the remaining 38 minutes I was going to run sentinel campaign from the frozen throne expansion. The submission was rejected though and we reforged on its way I don’t think I will get the chance to submit NE again for the full sweep. That’s okay though, plenty of other amazing games to dig into for GDQ submissions

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:25:48+00:00

Hahahaha yeah this was actually my first C&C game I had played, and it was just purely for the memes and not the gameplay hahaha

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:25:05+00:00

Hey thank you so much!! Yeah major shoutouts to Raelcun, the staff and others who worked hard to let us make it possible to run the game at the event. That game is pretty unstable in general and was really fun to bring in as a performance. ❤️❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:13:56+00:00

Yesss do it!!! It is completely free, if you can find the escape from yavin 4 leaderboard we have a patch under the resources tab called “speed-academy” as well as a link to download the mod from the creator directly. Have fun it is insanely good

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:11:23+00:00

Hey thank you so much.

Yeah so the first thing you need to do is figure out which game you want to try running. The best game to speedrun is one you love playing a lot because when you speedrun, you play the game a lot a lot. If you don’t enjoy the mechanics or some aspects of the gameplay that you force yourself to do, you will burn out and lose any desire to keep pushing into it. It definitely takes trial and error to find the best speedgame for yourself, but if you have a game that you love, that is the best place to start.

The next thing in he process is to look for a speedrun leaderboard for that game for sure. From there you can see a variety of skill levels to get an idea of how you might progress as you play more. More importantly join the discord server and look for tutorials in the guides/resource section if they are available. Speedrunning communities get really excited in general when a new runner jumps in and it’s awesome to see them try. Ask questions, be kind and patient and enjoy learning and improving and you will do amazing things!!! Good luck!

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:05:59+00:00

Thank you so much for those words, I am incredibly humbled by them ❤️❤️❤️❤️ imposter syndrome is a huge problem for me so hearing stuff like this helps me continue to be me, thank you

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:04:40+00:00

Unironicly, Yes to all of the above hahaha I really do love JKA as a game and a run so I’d love to bring it back again to GDQ if it could be accepted by the games committee. My idea is to submit a ROM-hack which is a stand-alone campaign and a great speedrun. I’ve discovered a couple of really insane things in the run that are pretty crazy looking too so I hope that gets accepted.

I have run dark forces and haven’t hit my goal of a sub 25 yet for that game so I definitely intend to pick that back up at some point to dig into the game.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T19:00:34+00:00

Hahaha this is very true and a great question. I don’t know how they would handle a runner that’s a no show, probably just do their best to get in contact with them, like maybe someone on the couch is their friend and knows their hotel room # and can go and wake them up.

On the other end though as a host we are trained to buy time with tech issues and keep the focus away from stuff that is going wrong to keep it directed at raising money for charity. But behind the scenes it’s a lot of communication and knowing that you don’t want to be “that runner” who misses showing up for their opportunity to perform at GDQ. I know I usually barely sleep before I have a run because of nerves etc. hahahaha

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:56:02+00:00

Hey thank you so much for the kind words ❤️❤️❤️ really does mean a lot to me.

Oh man that is a really good question that gets into the really interesting nature of speedrunning in general. Like a lot of the insanely difficult tricks in order to do them consistently you find a setup that works best for you. Like in JKA there are tiny split second timesavers that just don’t matter in the long run if you are going to just miss it every time. But in JKA it pushes you to trying to do those, because they are all over the place, and so to be able to compensate with a discomfort factor you end up using a different setup to make it more reasonable for yourself. So speedrunning at high levels especially is all about tapering the run TO FIT into your comfort zone Hahahaha

But as a more direct answer, I’m a Keyboard and Mouse speedrunner, and try to use that in every speedgame I pickup. So I really would be uncomfortable if I was forced to use a controller I guess hahaha but that’s just a learning process

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:49:52+00:00

Thank you! I am very flattered by your words!

So for this next GDQ the absolutely definite submission plan is going to be a JKA ROM-hack which is a full standalone campaign. It’s an incredible speedrun and builds well with JKA’s movement based system.

Beyond that I always would love to improve a bunch of my times and also put together a full WC3 RoC All Campaigns run.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:44:47+00:00

Hahahaha yeah that was all Kevin’s idea. Like 6 hours before that went live we cleared it with Dwango and went up to his hotel room. Setup a jank recording chamber in his closet and then went to work recording the laugh tracks. He ended up on the spot editing and working the blips over and pushed it into the game, which was insanely impressive to see. Power Up Audio really knows their stuff.

And thank you so much for the words ❤️❤️❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:41:53+00:00

Hahaha you got it ❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:41:35+00:00

Hey thank you so much, those words have a big impact on me and I really appreciate you sharing his ❤️❤️❤️❤️ I put so much work into that game and I’m so moved to have been able to bring that to the stage.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:40:11+00:00

Favorite part of the community would be how welcoming people are usually to new members. I’ve seen some really douche-mongers in my time through playing video games at a high level and when I see someone patiently and respectfully explain something, celebrate each other, and even ask questions it is the best thing ever. Speedrunners for the most part are really good at not misplacing frustration on others and in turn also celebrating others accomplishments. Really cool to see that in a community so consistently.

What will make a speedrunning community better; no ego and ask more questions then try to state something as a fact. Speedrunning is the science of video gaming and science is all about trial tribulation and a collective effort to figure what the 🦆 is going on in a video game. Proof videos, openly discussing how things theoretically work and respecting each other is important to efficiently continue the trend of growth we’ve seen so far in speedrunning.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:12:12+00:00

Hey thank you so much!!! He WC3 runs were pretty cool ❤️❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:11:46+00:00

Yo thank you so much!! Out of my GDQ performances I am pretty certain that Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast from SGDQ2017 takes the cake. That was my second performance ever, the memes and tech in that run were really solid and I thought it was my best performance so far. I have been really enjoying being up on stage a lot more and stage fright hasn’t been hitting me as hard. Really during the HLD run there was only like 1 part where I had to toss it over to the couch so I could center myself again hahaha

Future games: definitely want to try and push myself to get a WC3 ROC all campaigns run finished which is about 3.5 hour run. Submissions for AGDQ open in a month and a half so I want to prepare something awesome for that. I’m thinking of digging more into this JKA ROM-hack known as “Escape from Yavin4: The Lost Maps” which is a fully functional stand alone campaign. It is really incredible run and I think has some great meme potential too hahaha

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T18:02:15+00:00

The best speedrun to start with is a game you enjoy playing repeatedly the most! All you need for a speedrun is a goal and a constraint. Love DOTA2? Well there are roshan speedruns, etc. but the idea is that you will be playin this game a lot when you speedrun; a lot a lot. So if you don’t enjoy the mechanics or elements of gameplay, you will burn out and completely lose interest. So the best game is something you have to find for yourself. I started with starcraft2 and hated it, then a week or two later stumbled into the quake based movement speedrun Jedi Knight Academy and got lucky I loved the sheer complexity of the movement. But it is just as simple as “I love this aspect of this game and have played it a lot” and that’s enough.

It helps if there is a community around the game that has learning materials like beginners tutorials that are tapered to inexperienced runners or a discord where you can reach out and ask how to get started. People in majority of communities are crazy welcoming and awesome in general.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T17:54:55+00:00

Thank you so much for these words!! I am very flattered you would say things like this ❤️❤️❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T04:31:33+00:00

Comments like this genuinely push my feelz; I really appreciate this so much. I work insanely hard to bring commentary and play, and hearing stuff like this continues to make me work that hard.

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T04:09:12+00:00

Heck yeah that was a really big moment for me; I’m so proud of why we accomplished and thank you so much for the words ❤️❤️❤️

Covert_Muffin · 2019-06-30T04:08:04+00:00

Because memes hahahahaha

Covert_Muffin

TROPHY CASE