Every gamer has certain games that have transformed them into the gaming nerd they are today. Therefore, it is not unusual to have played these titles dozens of times and experienced them repeatedly. Our tech author Jan Hartmayer now reveals a method for how he has breathed new life into his favorite games.
As an absolute nerd and hardware collector, I play my favorite games over and over again. In the beginning, I thought: “These games are so good; they will never get boring.” But after thousands of hours of gameplay, the time came. I was done with them. At least, I thought I was.
Until I came across so-called challenge runs. In this type of playthrough, additional rules are set that must be strictly followed. The most well-known of these are No-Hit, Deathless, and Speedruns.
This usually makes a game much more challenging. At first, I was skeptical whether this was something for me and thought: “Only crazy people do this.” What can I say, a short time later, I was one of them.
No Pain, no Gain
The beauty of such runs is that they are extremely flexible, and you set the conditions yourself. If you want a little more action and pressure, try a speedrun. If you’re looking for a test of patience and endurance, then try a Deathless run. Because as soon as you die, it’s back to the start. You set the rules, and there is no right or wrong. It’s just about having fun, or in my case, challenging yourself.
It doesn’t matter whether you record a playthrough on video or work with save games or other aids. Personally, I don’t even use an overlay to time myself; I just let a simple stopwatch on my phone or PC run.
The community is very active in many areas, and there are many sites like Speedrun.com and Challengerun.net, which deal with this topic daily. If you don’t want to play yourself but would rather watch others, I highly recommend the Games Done Quick marathons.
But I realized early on that to succeed in many popular challenge run categories, you should have a high level of frustration tolerance. Because dying just before the end in a game that takes 10 to 20 hours to complete and having to start over is incredibly annoying.
It’s Worth It!
By now, I regularly play my favorite games again and look forward to investing the next thousand hours into them. Because with the additional rules, I am constantly forced to explore new strategies, playstyles, and methods to reach my goal.
This way, I experience these titles in a way that would have never been possible in a regular playthrough. Furthermore, I now love pushing my gaming limits, and every successful run is a new achievement for me. But even I wouldn’t attempt some monumental challenges: Player sets an insane speedrun record in an old MMORPG, taking only 711 hours
Do you also play with additional rules? Do you find challenge runs nonsense, or do you think they are as exciting as I do? Feel free to share in the comments.
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