I would like to start speedrunning again. But not the games that I have on my profile (30 seconds lol). I would like to start speedrunning more serious games (Examples: Probably any game from the Super Mario series). But most Mario games are too long, and/or need too many glitches. One category that I am considering speedrunning is Super Mario World 11 exits, doesn't need many glitches and apparently short. But what other games would you recommend for me to play? I like mostly platformers, but also puzzle games. Length, around max 30 minutes is fine I guess. Thanks!

Super Mario Bros. 1 You can play the any% category which takes about 5 minutes, or the Warpless category which takes about 20 minutes. Not many glitches required, it's serious because oh hey look the WR holder and former WR holders get like hundreds of viewers in their streams, and millions of views on their runs.

I recommend being dedicated

If you're into puzzle games, especially from the NES era, try checking out Mendel Palace. It's a fun but difficult mix of action and puzzles, all based around flipping tiles. The run for it is around 23 minutes, but its focused around a whole lot of memorization. It's actually made by Game Freak, y'know, before they did Pokemon. The run stays at high intensity the whole time, so I'd say it counts as serious, but it is rather obscure so don't expect to immediately pull in tons of people with it.

I recommend it often just because I like to see people run the game. I tried running it in the past considering its place as one of my childhood favorites, but intensity + the NES controller wasn't a good match for me as a runner.

If you are very determined that 30 minutes is your upper limit, I could recommend you run individual levels of Lemmings, I have found the Master System version very good for having the more challenging control system (no mouse, no button based increasing/decreasing RR). The very first thing I ran was SMW 11 exit back when there were no glitches, and I think that would be a great fit. You could also look at various disney platformers: Castle of Illusion, Quackshot, etc. If you want to be very obscure, I'd love to have more runners on C64 Flimbo's Quest - short, but tough.

Kirby runs are always pretty fun, its a pretty easy and fun speedgame. Nightmare in Dreamland has one of the most active communities and also has 30 - 45 min runs. You can also do IL's which are shorter. Here is the link if you want to check it out (https://www.speedrun.com/knidl)

Start with a game from your childhood, time a blind run, try to beat your times with strats you've researched.

I started speedrunning only a month ago, and just submitted my first run tonight. If it gets accepted, I'll be in 80th place of a pretty popular game (Contra on the NES). I choose Contra for various reasons:

1. It's a game I love to play, and have played hundreds of times during my childhood, so I already was kind of a "half-speedrunner" at it and didn't even realized it (XD);
2. It's pretty short (10 - 15 mins);
3. There are various guides for it, like the one on YouTube I studied the most, from AngryLanks, the current WR holder;
4. There are various categories to speedrun, so you have some variety on that;
5. It's emulator friendly, as long as you follow the emulation rules and use the acceptable emulators, which means it's way easier to practice those nasty segments with the use of save-states until you nail them. . So yeah, most importantly, choose a game you won't get easily bored playing. For starters, I would recommend Super Mario World, it has some short categories and a very active community, which means it would be easy to find some detailed guides for it. And while watching and studying guides and stuff may sound like a chore, it was actually the most fun part of it all to me, watching an excelent runner completely dominating the hardest parts and doing stuff I didn't even realized was possible. And most importantly, teaching wannabe runners step by step how to do all of it.

E saudações BR aí, fera! ;)

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!

@AfricaByToto147 tamo junto! qualquer coisa chama la no discord pra gente conversar sobre speedrun :)