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I think you're on to something that bothers me a little too. Games like Celeste are certainly playable as an ordinary gamer who doesn't want to practice and mem

I think you're on to something that bothers me a little too. Games like Celeste are certainly playable as an ordinary gamer who doesn't want to practice and memorize precise inputs, but it's a popular game to speedrun because the collision detection in the game is complete trash. You can jump straight through some obstacles, get additional dashes, etc. that the developers didn't originally intend. There's something un-fun to me that is hard to explain about all this. I don't like spending hours retrying a single challenge when I know there's a super precise series of inputs elite players or a TAS could use to get through in 5 seconds. I realize that's a very subjective thing and this is still fun to some players. I've moved to playing mostly puzzle games like The Witness, puzzle platformers like Braid, and challenging "simple" platformers like VVVVVV. What I like about VVVVVV is that the inputs are incredibly easy to learn. You will die a lot, and there are people who can make it through the whole game in deathless mode, but I'm okay with that because it just means I need to get better at the game, not get better at memorizing a precise series of inputs and strategies.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
It's seems odd to be bothered by knowing someone out there is tremendously better at a game than you are. Whenever I play tennis, I'm aware that my skills are laughably bad compared to even a mediocre pro, but who cares?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The greatest women's tennis player in the world happily earns millions of dollars despite intentionally not play thousands of people who would utterly defeat her in a match. In fact the whole pro league is set up to support that.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
    Seems unrelated.
lonelappde 7y ago
Why does the existence of speedrunners playing differently ruin the fun for you? Why sabotage yourself by setting unfun time limit challenges for yourself? I will never be a chess grandmaster. That doesn't make chess unfun.
rcthompson 7y ago
The thing about Celeste is that it's essentially two games in one. The first game is when you play it with only the abilities explicitly taught by the game up to that point (for most of the game, just jump, climb, and dash), and the second is when you go back and replay it from the beginning, having learned about wallbounces and hyper dashes and such. The level layouts of the "second game" are all identical to the first, of course, but the traversal becomes completely different with the mobility allowed by these newly-learned moves. (More recently, you could argue a third game has developed around un-taught and unintended tech like ultra dashes and demodashes, but you get the idea.) But at least for me, the existence of this second game (and third) does not in any way detract from the quality or enjoyability of the first one. The speedrunners are basically playing a different game, and unlike most other video games, in Celeste this is by design.
- bscphil 7y ago
  > un-taught and unintended tech like ultra dashes and demodashes These are the things I had in mind. It's quite astonishing to see a TAS or even some runners skip straight through an obstacle or jump off of a spike.
  - rcthompson 7y ago
    I guess I don't understand how it takes away from the casual experience when challenges in a game can be skipped through strategies that you would never even think of in a casual playthrough. Does the existence of a 17:01 world record for Ocarina of Time Any% that skips 95% of the game via a wrong warp make the game not worth playing casually?
badamp 7y ago
> need to get better at the game, not get better at memorizing a precise series of inputs and strategies. Seriously though, what does this even mean? I love platformers, but strategy and muscle memory pretty much sums up most action oriented games.
steveklabnik 7y ago
Celeste fan and speedrunner of it here. > You can jump straight through some obstacles, get additional dashes, etc. that the developers didn't originally intend. Most of these techniques were intended; the game was designed to have them in. The game actually teaches you most of this tech extremely late in the game. It's a replay-ability thing. There's an extremely good talk at GDC a few years back about Celeste level design, incidentally... There have been a few situations where runners did find an actual glitch, and the devs patched them out, because they weren't intended. There have also been one or two where they've left it in, because it's healthy for the running community overall. I haven't played much VVVVVVV, but isn't it basically the same as celeste? Or is it Celeste's lack of randomness that makes it worse for you; I thought VVVVVV didn't have any randomness either, but it's been a few years.
- bscphil 7y ago
  > Most of these techniques were intended; the game was designed to have them in. As another reply reminded me, I'm thinking of stuff like demodashes that definitely weren't intended. In any case, the comment I'm replying to is also criticizing design styles that benefit speedrunners over the average player, so my comment is kind of a reaction to that. > I haven't played much VVVVVVV, but isn't it basically the same as celeste? The difference with VVVVVV is that the controls are simple, instead of having runner-friendly combos that get extremely long or involve glitches. The game is played with arrow keys: up / down flip the direction of gravity, and left / right move the player character at a constant speed to the left or right. That's all there is to the controls. Similarly, Super Hexagon has exactly two inputs: left and right, which move an arrow around in a circle. In contrast, games like Celeste put an enormous amount of complexity behind input combos. The air dash mechanic alone took me hours to learn with any precision. The complaint I have (and maybe the parent comment too) is that as a casual player it's hard to shake the feeling that these games were designed for someone who has a lot more time to train finger memory on a bunch of precise input combinations than you do. So it's not the existence of speedrunning that bothers me (I watch a bunch of GDQ, actually), it's the experience of playing games that are easy to exploit and "beat" if you have time to practice frame-perfect inputs, but aren't so rewarding casually. As I said in my comment you replied to, I realize this is all very subjective and probably won't bother most people (and I actually, I like Celeste quite a lot). But it's also the reason I find games like Smash very frustrating as a casual.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

It's seems odd to be bothered by knowing someone out there is tremendously better at a game than you are. Whenever I play tennis, I'm aware that my skills are laughably bad compared to even a mediocre pro, but who cares?

lonelappde 7y ago
The greatest women's tennis player in the world happily earns millions of dollars despite intentionally not play thousands of people who would utterly defeat her in a match. In fact the whole pro league is set up to support that.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
  Seems unrelated.

lonelappde 7y ago

Why does the existence of speedrunners playing differently ruin the fun for you? Why sabotage yourself by setting unfun time limit challenges for yourself? I will never be a chess grandmaster. That doesn't make chess unfun.

rcthompson 7y ago

The thing about Celeste is that it's essentially two games in one. The first game is when you play it with only the abilities explicitly taught by the game up to that point (for most of the game, just jump, climb, and dash), and the second is when you go back and replay it from the beginning, having learned about wallbounces and hyper dashes and such. The level layouts of the "second game" are all identical to the first, of course, but the traversal becomes completely different with the mobility allowed by these newly-learned moves. (More recently, you could argue a third game has developed around un-taught and unintended tech like ultra dashes and demodashes, but you get the idea.) But at least for me, the existence of this second game (and third) does not in any way detract from the quality or enjoyability of the first one. The speedrunners are basically playing a different game, and unlike most other video games, in Celeste this is by design.

bscphil 7y ago
> un-taught and unintended tech like ultra dashes and demodashes These are the things I had in mind. It's quite astonishing to see a TAS or even some runners skip straight through an obstacle or jump off of a spike.
- rcthompson 7y ago
  I guess I don't understand how it takes away from the casual experience when challenges in a game can be skipped through strategies that you would never even think of in a casual playthrough. Does the existence of a 17:01 world record for Ocarina of Time Any% that skips 95% of the game via a wrong warp make the game not worth playing casually?

badamp 7y ago

> need to get better at the game, not get better at memorizing a precise series of inputs and strategies. Seriously though, what does this even mean? I love platformers, but strategy and muscle memory pretty much sums up most action oriented games.

steveklabnik 7y ago

Celeste fan and speedrunner of it here. > You can jump straight through some obstacles, get additional dashes, etc. that the developers didn't originally intend. Most of these techniques were intended; the game was designed to have them in. The game actually teaches you most of this tech extremely late in the game. It's a replay-ability thing. There's an extremely good talk at GDC a few years back about Celeste level design, incidentally... There have been a few situations where runners did find an actual glitch, and the devs patched them out, because they weren't intended. There have also been one or two where they've left it in, because it's healthy for the running community overall. I haven't played much VVVVVVV, but isn't it basically the same as celeste? Or is it Celeste's lack of randomness that makes it worse for you; I thought VVVVVV didn't have any randomness either, but it's been a few years.

bscphil 7y ago
> Most of these techniques were intended; the game was designed to have them in. As another reply reminded me, I'm thinking of stuff like demodashes that definitely weren't intended. In any case, the comment I'm replying to is also criticizing design styles that benefit speedrunners over the average player, so my comment is kind of a reaction to that. > I haven't played much VVVVVVV, but isn't it basically the same as celeste? The difference with VVVVVV is that the controls are simple, instead of having runner-friendly combos that get extremely long or involve glitches. The game is played with arrow keys: up / down flip the direction of gravity, and left / right move the player character at a constant speed to the left or right. That's all there is to the controls. Similarly, Super Hexagon has exactly two inputs: left and right, which move an arrow around in a circle. In contrast, games like Celeste put an enormous amount of complexity behind input combos. The air dash mechanic alone took me hours to learn with any precision. The complaint I have (and maybe the parent comment too) is that as a casual player it's hard to shake the feeling that these games were designed for someone who has a lot more time to train finger memory on a bunch of precise input combinations than you do. So it's not the existence of speedrunning that bothers me (I watch a bunch of GDQ, actually), it's the experience of playing games that are easy to exploit and "beat" if you have time to practice frame-perfect inputs, but aren't so rewarding casually. As I said in my comment you replied to, I realize this is all very subjective and probably won't bother most people (and I actually, I like Celeste quite a lot). But it's also the reason I find games like Smash very frustrating as a casual.