One night nostalgia took over and I got the urge to play Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo system.  Holding down “B” and forward, Mario ran quicker than I could remember.  I was hooked on making Mario go fast but wasn’t prepared to find out there is a decades old community of “speed runners” doing the same.

Speed running is the sport and game of completing video games as quickly as possible.  According to Twin Galaxies, an online score tracking community, the current world record for Super Mario Bros is a run of 5:09 completed by Trevor Seguin.  The run is theorized to be as good as it gets but Andrew G, who tied, believes he can shed an extra second on it.  It is that attitude of always better, Meliora as my university motto puts it, that makes speed running so addictive. 

Before trying speed running, I watched Trevor’s record video.  It documents the execution of near-perfectly timed jumps.  Mario’s moves seemed like they were choreographed.  The route probably took literally thousands of tries to hone and get just right. 

What if you could be a better Super Mario Bros. speed runner?  In the first world, 1-1, Trevor’s champion Mario captures the castle’s flagpole with 369 remaining on the clock.  When my Mario followed Trevor’s exact route, except for one coin picked up in the pipe coin room, he improved from 363 to 367 and finally a competitive 369. 

To master a course, you must break down your goals.  Skills like jumping twice instantly in a row were challenging for me.  Sometimes I set the bar too high trying to copy a move I wasn’t ready for.  A good balance was achieved by dividing a world into sections so Big Mario could focus on strategies, be creative, and attend to details.  You really get to know an environment close enough to appreciate its well-placed obstacles, like those goombas that pop-up at just the right moment and are activated when they get on screen. 

Improvement was more important than winning.

As I got tired the speed runs got worse.  You need to refresh yourself, whether you are playing on a computer or TV.  Take breaks, for at least for a minute, every hour or so.  To avoid eye and wrist strain, look at the ceiling or out a window for at most 30 seconds or stretch out your wrists and back.  It’s also fun to make Mario dance or smash every block in sight. 

Taking a mental break and doing stretches will help you shave seconds off your time because speed running is an intellectual activity as much as it as about mastering techniques.  Doing something to inspire your creativity between runs will pay off in the long term. 

You can try speed running any of your favorite (non-race car) games.  Even Diablo 2 and Kirby’s Dreamworld.  You might start with my other favorite, Goldeneye 007 for Nintendo 64 which has a built in timer feature.  Emulators are discouraged but I like using the save points, particularly in the RockNES emulator for the original Nintendo, to aid practice.  As you design the most minimalist route and Mario runs it why not keep a blank tape in the VCR?

Archive.org’s collection of speed runs
A similar collection from SpeedDemosArchive
Trevor Seguin’s 5:09 run
Twin Galaxies (Official World Records) Forum