The hype train is rolling full steam ahead!
Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) has begun and you can kiss all of your productivity goodbye for the next week. The semi-annual speedrunning marathon, hosted by Speed Demos Archive, has become a fixture in the gaming community over the past few years. With donations smashing past $1 million in just seven days, it also is one of the most successful gaming charity events around. If you have never had a chance to catch a speedrun, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
This years summer event is being held in Minneapolis and will benefit Doctors Without Borders. A top ranked charity, Doctors Without Borders sends qualified healthcare professionals to impoverished nations around the world. Games Done Quick has raised over $10 million for various charities during its lifetime.
Donations are encouraged during runs not only to support the charity and the event, but also to meed donation incentives. These incentives are updated on the donation tracker that runs along the bottom of the stream. Incentives include things like naming characters, save files, attempting difficulty challenges, or at times unlock special runs. One of the most popular incentives is the choice between either saving or killing the animals during the Super Metroid run, a GDQ tradition.
Watch live video from GamesDoneQuick on www.twitch.tv
The event will be live streamed on Games Done Quick’s Twitch pages, as well as selected runs available on the YouTube channel as well, in case you want to check out any you have missed. The event will start at 12:30 pm EST on Sunday, July 2nd and is scheduled to finish around midnight on July 9th. A schedule of all runs is available on the Games Done Quick website.
Summer Games Done Quick will feature a ton of speedrun mainstays like Mario, Metroid and Zelda. A few we are looking out for are:
- Dishonored 2: July 4, 8:15pm EST
- VVVVVV: July 5, 11:21am EST
- Ratchet and Clank: July 6, 7:04am EST
- Chrono Trigger: July 6, 4:31pm EST
- Tetris Grand Master Block: July 6, 9:43pm EST
- Super Mario 64: July 8, 4:22pm EST
- Dark Souls 3: July 9, 12:39am EST
Get ready to enjoy a week of fun and wild runs. Prepare to donate to a good cause and to miss out on a lot of sleep because this party just won’t stop…at least for a week.
