# The Gold Split Newsletter - Week #24

The Gold Split offers a free, weekly digest of news from the world of speedrunning and beyond.

This **Story of the Week** is all about all about arbitrary awards to wrap up the year of speedrunning and was featured in this week's issue. The full post includes **more news**, briefly, as well as this week's top times and recent TAS movie publications. Check it out **[HERE](https://goldsplit.substack.com/p/week-24)**.

## ![](https://www.speedrun.com/static/blob/wzxxw3qz.png)

# Story of the Week ✨

After realising that anybody can give out any award for any reason, I thought: why not give it a shot? ***The Gold Split Speed Awards*** (working title) are guaranteed to be subjective and arbitrary.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of people, runs or other entities that do deserve to be mentioned here. I hope the list successfully showcases some of the high points of 2024 and makes it harder to forget them.

I consider myself to be immersed in the scene, but I definitely missed someone or something that should be featured here. Let me know in the comments below!

Next year I’ll plan further ahead and we’ll have a proper ceremony with trophies and booze. Definitely. But without further ado, let’s get into the categories!

## Speedrunner of the Year 🏆

There was never any doubt that this awards wouldn’t go to @Suigi . The entire speedrunning community has been tripping over each other while coming up with new superlatives to describe his most recent achievement, something that has never been done before: holding all five records in all five main categories for *Super Mario 64*. I, too, consider it to be among the greatest achievements in speedrunning history, ever. Nobody else came close this year. 🐐

Check out the main story in *[Week #21](https://goldsplit.substack.com/p/week-21)* of *The Gold Split*, where I use fancy graphs and many more words to explain the when, how and why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP-GOoGqA8w

## Speedrun of the Year 🏆

@Summoningsalt is primarily known for their video essays on world record histories. But they’re also the best at *Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!*, holding impressive records in five of the game’s categories. This year, they achieved a huge improvement in the isolated final fight against *Mike Tyson* himself. It is by far the hardest one in the game and a good time does not only depend on dodging, ducking, and hitting frame-perfect punches, but also on randomness.

In June, @Summoningsalt **defeated *Mike Tyson* in 2:00.00**. This run improved the previous record by eight frames. This might not sound like much, but according to them, the luck necessary to get this time has a 1/6,000 chance of occurring. And even then, it’s still necessary to hit all 21 frame-perfect punches (each 1/60 of a second) and lose as few frames as possible while dodging and ducking.

It is as much about execution as it is about luck, and the persistence to put in tens of thousands of attempts over many years to achieve it deserves a special place here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_wvPExoOg8

## Glitch Discovery of the Year 🏆

I admit that there many other glitches this year that were potentially more impactful, saved more time, trivialised complicated sections, or changed speedruns entirely, but the award goes to the ***Disc 1 Skip* in *Final Fantasy VII***.

While it did also have huge implications for the speedrun, prompting major route changes and saving a good chunk of time, you may argue that it had an even bigger effect on the game’s story. By skipping from the end of *Midgar* straight to *Disc 2* the cutscene in which *Aerith* is killed by *Sepiroth* still plays, but she remains in the party and can be used throughout the rest of the run. I dare say that *Aerith’s* death is one of the most iconic ones in video game history. And the fact that this glitch saves *Aerith* and is actually useful in the speedrun at the same time makes it the winner in this category.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bANC9Nqdyf8

## Video Essay of the Year 🏆

In 2024, @Summoningsalt alone put out five high-quality long-form video essays, and it’s awesome to see the amount of content creators who put in so much effort to explain glitches, strategies, or the history of world records in any given game.

The award this year goes to the crazy scientist that brought you *Super Mario 64’s* parallel universes: ***[pannenkoek2012](https://www.youtube.com/@pannenkoek2012)***

Their **[lecture about invisible walls in ](https://youtu.be/YsXCVsDFiXA)*[Super Mario 64](https://youtu.be/YsXCVsDFiXA)*** not only captivates casual players and viewers, but it’s something even the most seasoned veterans of *Super Mario 64* speedrunning can still learn from. Outstanding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsXCVsDFiXA

## Speedrunning Game of the Year 🏆

For me, ***[Chained Together](https://www.speedrun.com/Chained_Together)*** is the best game for speedrunning released in 2024. It has everything you might look for in a tense run and more. Tough execution, high stakes, no downtime, and a good *Any%* runtime all contribute. In addition, the game’s coop feature is hilarious and it’s been a while since I’ve seen good coop speedruns from a new game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3s0STN7bb4

## Non-Video-Game Speedrun of the Year 🏆

In May 2024, ***[Baking](https://www.speedrun.com/IRL_Baking)*** was invented. More specifically, baking twelve chocolate chip cookies. As fast as possible. Popularised by streamer @QTCinderella, it quickly gained some traction on its leaderboards, but it took a few months for the ruleset to be well defined. Too many corners were cut to get ahead of the competition. By now, the recipe no longer containes quantities, just a set of mandatory ingredients, and each cookie must be measured and tested for quality control.

Nevertheless, applying the speedrunning formula to real-life tasks is hilarious to me and something every speedrunner can probably relate to. What do you mean by you’ve never tried to speedrun your shopping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sO9cK2hWG0

## (New) Speedrunning Event of the Year 🏆

This was a tough category and I considered not including it. In order to avoid AGDQ or SGDQ taking the top spot on metrics every single time, I felt like I had to restrict it to events that newly arrived to the scene in 2024.

Amongst those, ***[Fast50](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOQLqxudEz9N4JcPpvniPlYHNqn1PkL6e)*** stands out to me. It broke with a lot of conventions, but in doing so it did an undeniably great job at bringing speedrunning to an almost entirely new audience. It successfully combined live speedruns with reaction content from popular streamers and raised $250,000+ for a good cause on top of being incredibly entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FLs_lPfvvY

## Non-Speedrun Achievement of the Year 🏆

Many feats of gaming excellence qualify for this category, but I can’t think of a better one than beating the (potentially) final milestone in a 35 year old classic: @dogplayingtetris**[ achieving ](https://youtu.be/fXhbti5SneE)*[Rebirth](https://youtu.be/fXhbti5SneE)*[ in NES ](https://youtu.be/fXhbti5SneE)*[Tetris](https://youtu.be/fXhbti5SneE)***.

*Rebirth* is considered the true end of *Tetris* happens when the player finishes level 255. The level counter rolls over and resets the speed and score multiplier. There are many challenges on the way there though. Starting at level 29, pieces come in at the maximum speed, and it is a long and tough battle to get all the way to 255. This is further aggravated by level 235, where the player needs to clear 810 lines to advance instead of 10 like on any other level. Additionally, after level 138, pieces start to no longer appear within the standard colour palette and are sometimes barely visible against the background. The entire run took @dogplayingtetris more than 80 minutes, clearing more than 3,300 lines, most of them at ridiculous speed.

The video below does a good job at putting this insane achievement into context and expanding on some of the intricacies that led to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z97tkKKlWA

## Top Dog of the Year 🏆

Shiba Inu ***Peanut Butter*** and his human @JSR_ entered the big speedrunning stage with a [remote speedrun of ](https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8)*[Gyromite](https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8)*[ at ](https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8)*[AGDQ 2024](https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8https://youtu.be/wwP5N44Lcd8)*.

At *SGDQ 2024*, it was then time for the literal stage. *Peanut Butter* showcased the speedrun for *Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB*, putting all that training and practice to the test, demonstrating nerves of steel and absolutely [knocking it out of the park](https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/1dvmobh/the_game_winner_from_best_boy_peanutbutter/). What a good dog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2FZKJ4QBdA

## Personal Quest to Perfection Award 🏆

This award solely exists because @Bubzia showed up every other week whenever I did research for *The Gold Split*, continuously pushing for more optimisation and better times in his blindfolded *Super Mario 64* speedruns.

Many thought the pinnacle was reached two years ago when he collected all 120 power stars blindfolded in 11 hours, 22 minutes and 43 seconds. But he was just getting started with optimising strategies and categories and has not stopped throughout the whole year. This would already be impressive, but is topped off by his showcase of *Super Mario 64 Randomizer* at *SGDQ 2024*, where @Bubzia was able to show off not only execution, but also the learning and memorisation elements of his blindfolded speedruns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfzOc97vYEk

![](https://www.speedrun.com/static/blob/rz251jdz.png)

Thank you for reading! If you're curious about more of this week's news or would even consider subscribing to the newsletter, you'll find the full post over **[HERE](https://goldsplit.substack.com/p/week-19)**.

Finding new stories to cover can be challenging. I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should be taking a look at, go ahead and **[submit them here](https://forms.gle/F1VJ4PG68FTZKqn49)** or in the **[Gold Split Discord](https://discord.gg/SpbFCgsYkU)**! 📨

The Gold Split is a free weekly newsletter focused on speedrunning. This week's main story is all about arbitrary awards to wrap up the year of speedrunning.

The Gold Split Week #24: The Gold Split Speed Awards

# The Gold Split Newsletter - Week #13

The Gold Split offers a free, weekly digest of news from the world of speedrunning and beyond.

This ***Story of the Week*** is all about the new *Low%* route in *The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker* and was featured in this week's issue. The full post includes **more news**, briefly, as well as this week's top times and a fun fact. Check it out **[HERE](https://goldsplit.substack.com/p/week-13)**.

![](/static/blob/wzxxw3qz.png)

## Story of the Week

Most of the time, new discoveries make a speedrun go faster and that makes sense. However, runners of the ***Low%*** category must feel a little bit anxious about them. The goal of *Low%* is to beat the game while completing the fewest objectives and acquiring the least number of items possible.

And in this reference frame, a new discovery could mean the obvious: saving time through a new trick or a route change. But it could also mean that another objective and/or item became redundant in order to beat the game and therefore needs to be eliminated. And only acquiring as few items as absolutely necessary is the ultimate requirement of *Low%*.

An infamous example of the lengths that *Low%* runners have to go to is *The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess*. It was found that the idle animation while picking up an item is missing a frame. And that missing frame moves Link ever so slightly in one direction while ignoring collision with anything. By picking up a rupee in a certain spot close to a closed gate or door, Link will very slowly start moving into it over the course of the next few hours. This strategy is called a *Rupee Slide* and takes up **over** **ten hours** of the game’s current *Low%* route. These images were taken from [Anorakkis' former record](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB26JegZ1Bo):

![Two screenshots from the game Twilight Princess side by side. The left shows Link in front of a door in the Rupee pickup animation, the right screenshot shows the same Link, but now slightly clipped inside the door after ten hours have passed](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F486bd9df-fef2-4a27-9379-449aa168aad7_3018x1026.jpeg)
Left: Before the Rupee Slide | Right: After the Rupee Slide

After that introduction, these are the news: let’s say (hypothetically), that it was assumed that nine items were absolutely necessary to beat a game and that it couldn’t be done with fewer. This run would take roughly one hour, not too different from *Any%*. But now, a new discovery makes one of these items redundant. It is now possible to finish the game with eight items. Even if that run is infinitely more complicated and takes **13 hours** to complete, it is now the new *Low%* standard and also the new record.

This is exactly what happened recently to ***The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker***, and so far Swiss speedrunner ***[Aloakirby](https://www.twitch.tv/aloakirby)*** is the only person to complete a run with the new route. It took them just a little over 20 hours, but the run also includes a good seven hours of healthy sleep.

The item that is now no longer necessary is *The Wind Waker*, a conductor's baton giving *Link* various powers when conducting the right songs, not too dissimilar from the *Ocarina of Time*. But more importantly, it was also used to set up glitches and make other tricks more consistent. This is a full list of items acquired during *Low%* now, at the time of writing:

- Bombs
- Bomb Bag (30)
- Deku Leaf
- Magic Meter
- Master Sword
- Hero's Shield
- Fully Charged Master Sword
- Mirror Shield

This makes the entire run way more complicated, longer, and reliant on RNG. Due to a lack of space and… well… knowledge, I can’t go into full details, but here are a few of the resulting consequences that stand out. I’ll link the speedrun after explaining the three glitches and add a timestamp for each of them.

### **All *Superswims* have to be performed manually**

Superswimming is the speedrunner’s preferred way to traverse the ocean. Simply put, it enables *Link* to swim backwards, and extremely fast. With *The Wind Waker*, players were able to perform a glitch called *Dry Storage*, making *Superswims* consistent and relatively easy to perform. But without this crucial item, they now have to set up each *Superswim* by using one of the following options, or a combination:

- Executing frame-perfect pause-buffering (pausing, unpausing, and immediately pausing again on the next frame) and changing *Link’s* direction on every pause
- Changing *Link’s* direction by 180° on every frame by flicking the joystick **30 times per second** (the game runs at 30 frames per second)

Performed in the run at: **[39:25](https://youtu.be/8T-42gsjGbQ?t=2365)**

Speedrunner ***[gymnast86](https://www.youtube.com/@gymnast86)*** has a great video on the evolution of the *Superswim*, and there’s no better time to watch it than right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32bxtKtXxM

### The run now includes a 1-hour long *Zombie Hover*

A *Zombie Hover* allows *Link* to theoretically gain infinite height and also some horizontal movement, while having no health. This sounds great on paper, but there’s two downsides:

1. Unless *Link* manages to land in a loading zone or increase their health, they will just die as soon as they touch land or water.
2. It is necessary to hit the B-button many times per second throughout the entire duration. The faster you can hit that button, the more height you gain. If you don’t hit it fast enough, you lose height.

Despite being able to pause and take breaks, doing this for over an hour is incredibly physically demanding, and nothing any doctor would recommend as a workout. To make matters worse, at the end of this particular *Zombie Hover*, a frame-perfect trick is required to achieve the desired result. *Link* needs to land in the water to be teleported to the upper entrance of Forest Haven, but also needs to pick up a heart on land just before. But if *Link* touches the land before falling in the water, they aren’t teleported.

The way this is achieved is insane, but so cool: at the apex of the *Zombie Hover* and above the desired location, *Link* starts to fall. At exactly the right moment during the fall, they pull a bomb out of their pack and hold it above their head, which now starts its fuse. If this was done correctly, the bomb explodes after they pick up the heart lying on the ground below, but before they touch the ground. The force from the explosion pushes them into the water, teleporting them to the entrance.

Performed in the run between: **[1:11:10](https://youtu.be/8T-42gsjGbQ?t=4270) - [2:20:00](https://youtu.be/8T-42gsjGbQ?t=8400)**

### **Skipping Puppet Ganon is complete RNG**

I won’t pretend to fully understand this, but it involves a complicated *Zombie Hover* and dropping bombs into a pot from above while being attacked by *Puppet Ganon* and *Keese* at the same time. This skip alone took *Aloakirby* more than eight hours of attempts during their run.

Done successfully in the run at: **[9:26:00](https://youtu.be/GScAu8Iun8g?t=33960)**

This is a condensed version of the full run, shortened to two and a half hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCFTA8Ddhg

But if you are actually curious about the entire run, you’ll find it on YouTube in two parts: **[Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T-42gsjGbQ)** | **[Part 2](https://youtu.be/GScAu8Iun8g)**

There is of course plenty of room for improvement. After all, the run still contains seven hours of sleeping and eight hours of attempts at skipping *Puppet Ganon*. An optimally performed run might only be three hours long. However, it’s very unlikely that many players will attempt to complete it using this route, considering how physically and mentally demanding it is.

Now, apparently it’s technically possible to beat the game with just seven items. But the glitches required to pull that off have been proven too inconsistent even for the most hardcore *RTA* runners out there. The tool-assisted speedrun even gets away with collecting only five items, and experience taught us that it’s only a matter of time until an *RTA*-viable route is found for seven and even less items, pushing the limits of *Low%* even further.

![](/static/blob/rz251jdz.png)

Thank you for reading! If you're curious about more of this week's news or would even consider subscribing to the newsletter, you'll find the full post over **[HERE](https://goldsplit.substack.com/p/week-13)**.

Finding new stories to cover can be challenging. I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should be taking a look at, go ahead and **[submit them here](https://forms.gle/F1VJ4PG68FTZKqn49)** or in the **[Gold Split Discord](https://discord.gg/SpbFCgsYkU)**! 📨

The Gold Split is a free weekly newsletter focused on speedrunning. This week's main story is all about the new Low% route in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Gold Split Newsletter #13 - Minimalist Link

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Fatzke

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies

Submissions will be available 2 weeks after the official release (November 8th). These 2 weeks serve to help the moderation team create main categories, the IL leaderboard and respective rule-sets. Until then feel free to join and help the community with your findings and personal bests on the freshly opened SXS Generations-[Discord](https://discord.gg/M6CyCfC6M7)

Shadow Generations

Submissions will be available 2 weeks after the official release (November 8th). These 2 weeks serve to help the moderation team create main categories, the IL leaderboard and respective rule-sets. Until then feel free to join and help the community with your findings and personal bests on the freshly opened SXS Generations-[Discord](https://discord.gg/M6CyCfC6M7)!

Sonic Generations (2024)

The leaderboard is under an embargo period for 2 weeks after release. This is to allow players to enjoy the full experience of the game casually without feeling like they have to rush into developing the speedrun right away. Please take your time and enjoy the game!