Speedrunning isn’t just about finishing a game fast — it’s about dissecting it. Professional speedrunners treat games like intricate systems of rules, physics, and memory that can be bent or broken to save frames. Every second shaved comes from hundreds of hours of experimentation, reverse engineering, and community collaboration.
This guide explains the real science behind speedrunning: the psychology, the tools, the techniques, and the game-breaking mechanics that make the impossible possible.
Contents
What Speedrunning Really Is
At its core, speedrunning is a form of applied mastery. It’s not about luck or reflexes — it’s about optimization. Players map every possible movement, action, and load transition to identify the shortest theoretical path from start to finish.
Speedruns are usually organized into categories, such as:
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Any%: Finish as fast as possible by any means necessary (glitches included).
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100%: Complete all objectives legitimately.
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Low%: Beat the game with the bare minimum of items or upgrades.
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Glitchless: No unintended bugs or exploits.
The discipline sits at the crossroads of science, art, and endurance. To the casual player, a run might look chaotic. To a speedrunner, it’s a carefully choreographed ballet of micro-optimizations.
Frame Theory and Time Saving
Speedrunning lives in the domain of frames. Most games render at 30 or 60 frames per second. Shaving even one frame — 1/60th of a second — from an action means a faster run.
Runners analyze game code and physics to determine:
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Animation frames: exactly how many frames each action consumes (attack, jump, reload, etc.).
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Transition frames: the length of loading or cutscene triggers.
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Input frames: the earliest possible moment a command registers after a previous one.
By combining precise input timing with shortcuts, runners “chain” actions so that animations cancel or overlap. This is called frame-perfect execution.
Example: In Ocarina of Time, Link’s “Backflip + Roll Cancel” reduces travel time between dashes by exploiting a single skipped recovery frame — saving fractions of a second every few meters, adding up to minutes over an entire run.
Route Planning and Optimization
Routing is the intellectual core of a speedrun. It’s the process of charting the most efficient possible sequence of objectives, items, and movement paths.
Professional runners don’t just play — they build spreadsheets. They calculate:
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Which key items are mandatory versus skippable.
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When to collect resources to minimize backtracking.
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How random elements (enemy spawns, RNG, drops) affect timing.
Routes are tested through hundreds of practice seeds or segments. When one new trick is discovered, it can invalidate an entire route. That’s why the community constantly evolves — every new “skip” means a full reroute.
Case study: Super Mario 64.
Originally, the fastest 16-star run required Bowser throws in three stages. When runners discovered “Backwards Long Jump” (BLJ) to bypass locked doors, it cut down to 0-star completion — effectively rewriting the run category.
Glitches: Controlled Chaos
Glitches are the crown jewels of speedrunning. But contrary to popular belief, they aren’t random. Every glitch is a consistent, reproducible event caused by predictable interactions in the game engine.
Common glitch categories include:
1) Clipping
Forcing the player model through walls or floors by overlapping geometry or exploiting movement momentum.
Example: Elden Ring’s “zip glitch” — runners manipulate memory timing with frame-perfect inputs to teleport huge distances.
2) Wrong Warps
Tricking the game into loading an unintended location by altering save or load data mid-transition.
Example: Ocarina of Time’s “Door of Time Skip” lets Link bypass entire dungeons through precise zone loading.
3) Menu Storage
Keeping a paused or inventory state active while moving in-game, causing overlapping mechanics.
Example: Resident Evil 4 runners perform “Inventory Dupe” to duplicate grenades or cancel reload animations.
4) Out-of-Bounds Movement
Using movement tech to escape the playable area and travel behind map walls.
Example: Halo 2’s “ledge clipping” lets runners bypass checkpoints by leaving the map and re-entering further ahead.
Mastering glitches requires understanding memory behavior — not just execution. Many runners study decompiled code or use emulators with frame advance tools to isolate exact timing windows.
The Tools of Speedrunning
Modern runners use a blend of hardware, software, and community tech to test every possibility.
Frame Advance
Allows slow-motion single-frame input testing in emulators to find perfect timings.
Memory Watchers
Read live game memory addresses to reveal values like position, velocity, and animation state.
Input Recorders
Save precise input sequences for training or TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun) production.
Split Timers
Programs like LiveSplit track segment times in real-time, showing whether a runner is ahead (“green splits”) or behind (“red splits”) relative to their personal best.
The community’s devotion to precision borders on scientific research — runners analyze assembly code to find milliseconds of improvement.
Psychological Mastery: The Human Factor
No matter how perfect the route, execution remains human. The best runners develop near-meditative focus — every decision, every jump, every attack is muscle memory and mental flow.
Top runners use:
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Mental partitioning: dividing the run into mental zones, focusing on one segment at a time.
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Controlled breathing: synchronizing breath cycles with difficult inputs.
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Pre-run rituals: repeating consistent warm-up actions to establish rhythm.
Speedrunning isn’t just about reflex — it’s a discipline of flow state engineering.
RNG Manipulation: Controlling Chance
RNG (random number generation) controls everything from enemy drops to spawn positions. But even randomness has patterns.
How Runners Exploit It
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Seed Prediction: Using frame count or in-game timers to know when RNG changes.
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Frame Delay Inputs: Waiting specific frame counts before triggering actions to manipulate outcomes.
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Save-Reload Loops: Reloading at exact frames to “re-roll” RNG tables.
Example: Pokémon speedrunners exploit RNG manipulation to guarantee perfect crits or shinies using frame-counted save files and emulator synchronization.
It looks like luck — but it’s math.
The Role of Communities
No runner operates alone. Every major game has a dedicated Discord, subreddit, or leaderboard hub (like Speedrun.com) where runners share discoveries. Collaboration turns chaos into consistency.
Someone might find a 0.2-second improvement, post it in chat, and within hours the entire leaderboard resets. The culture thrives on iteration — small discoveries scale into revolutionary new records.
When Glitches Become Art
The beauty of speedrunning lies in turning technical errors into choreography. Watching a runner “zip” across the map or manipulate physics to fly feels like watching jazz — spontaneous yet precise.
A perfect speedrun is part science experiment, part performance art. It’s the intersection of logic and creativity where mastery transcends design.
Games aren’t just meant to be played — they’re meant to be understood, broken, and rebuilt better by the people who love them most.
