Ash Parrish, The Verge:

Games Done Quick’s schedule is set up to have the most popular games or gimmicky runs take place during the early evenings and weekends — the time when folks are most likely to tune in. But I’ve found some of my favorite runs are of games I’ve never heard of played well outside those primetime hours. I’ve developed a deep an abiding love of Mr. Bones, a Sega Saturn game I have never played, because I found it during a bout of January 6th-induced insomnia. The Ratatouille run from Summer Games Done Quick 2023, one of that year’s stand-out runs, happened on a Tuesday at 11AM.

Great little article about the joy that is Games Done Quick. GDQ is something I got into during COVID, a week long celebration of video game speedrunning, where talented people take advantage of exploits and bugs to complete video games as quickly as possible.

They push things further, by having really incredible runs – last Summer, you could see a Good Good Dog complete a game of Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, and last night, a player completing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, using a motion controller on their head and feet, while playing the score of the game on piano. These make for massive crowd cheering moments, on par with some of the greatest moments in sports.

But at the same time, there are bizarre and surreal runs which introduce you to games you’ve never seen, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Yesterday’s Batman Forever run, and last night’s Inspector Gadget: Gadget’s Crazy Maze, are perfect examples of the punch drunk joy of experiencing bad games with good friends.

If you have any interest in gaming at all, you owe it to yourself to watch Games Done Quick at least once. You might get hooked.

EDIT: Let’s go ahead and add last night’s run of Golf With Your Grandmother as a surreal must watch.