Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 (AGDQ) is an annual speedrunning week-long event for charity. The action has already started this morning (January 5, 11:30AM PT), kicking off the action with A Hat in Time. The event is taking place all the way over at DoubleTree Hilton, Orlando, Florida.

For last year’s need for speed, AGDQ had over 2.4 million dollars for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Their summertime spinoff version of AGDQ, Summer Games Done Quick, did even better. It managed to raise a whopping 3 million dollars for Doctors Without Borders.

What are speedrunners?

Speedrunners are a unique sub-culture of video games, featuring people who enjoy beating video games in the fastest time possible and those that enjoy watching their performances. Other notable speedrunning annual events are European Speedrunner Assembly (ESA), North American Speedrunners Assembly (NASA) and RPGLimitBreak, so there’s definitely an audience for this brand of gaming.

This year’s schedule is jam-packed with a variety of old-school throwbacks and modern classics. Notable games are Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+, Super Mario Bros 3, Bayonetta 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Hotline Miami, Pokemon Sapphire, Terraria, and Cadence of Hyrule.

Other interesting runs include a six-player team attempting an “All Encounters” run of Destiny 2’s Last Wish raid and a nine-man relay run of the whole Legend of Zelda series. Another notable run is Final Fantasy VIII, which would take about 8 hours to complete.  Speaking of which, make sure to check out the demo leak for the FFVII Remake. We’ll also be covering the launch on our website the moment it goes live.

Variety in Speedruns

Speedrunners use and utilize a huge arsenal of tricks, glitches and exploits to blast through a game from start to finish, but there are some rules that need to be followed. What constitutes the runner “finishing” a game also varies from title to title.

For example, the Amid Evil speedrun is “Any% Out of Bounds” meaning it’s an anything goes run. Players can utilize any glitches and bugs, irregardless of how gamebreaking they may be. A 100% run requires the player snag all the “optional” odds and ends to complete a run. Some runs even have interesting twists, such as Bid Wars (viewers bid on which character the runner will play as), 1 player 2 controllers (what it says on the tin) and Blind runs (where the player is literally blindfolded).

You can view full schedule for Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 on their homepage. People who donate are also eligible for the sweepstakes. Those that donate over $200 are also automatically entered into a separate sweepstakes for their grand prizes. The whole thing is currently being broadcast on Twitch.