Awesome Games Done Quick 2023’s Best
Awesome Games Done Quick is GDQ’s beginning of the year marathon, and Summer’s event is (drum roll please…) Summer Games Done Quick. Each one features hundreds of speedruns from some of the best speedrunners in the world, and the skills on display are amazing, every now and then a world breaking run DOES happen as well.
Alongside the speedruns, there are also competitions for viewers, skits, and prizes to be won.
This year’s event was once again partnered with the Prevent Cancer Foundation and raised $2,642,493!
Let’s dive into the top 5 most watched speedruns (as of 1-15-23) based on viewership while live and post viewership on their VODs and YouTube channel.
Cuphead 300%
"Cuphead is a classic run and gun action game heavily focused on boss battles. Inspired by cartoons of the 1930s, the visuals and audio are painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era: traditional hand drawn cel animation, watercolour backgrounds, and original jazz recordings."
Play as Cuphead or Mugman (in single player or local co-op) as you traverse strange worlds, acquire new weapons, learn powerful super moves, and discover hidden secrets while you try to pay your debt back to the devil!
During the event this run saw the viewer count soar over 90,000+ individuals on Twitch watching live and has been viewed over 43,000+ times in one week since the run was posted on YouTube. Impressive totals to say the least!
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Any%
Forget everything you know about The Legend of Zelda games. Step into a world of discovery, exploration, and adventure in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a boundary-breaking new game in the acclaimed series. Travel across vast fields, through forests, and to mountain peaks as you discover what has become of the kingdom of Hyrule in this stunning Open-Air Adventure. Now on Nintendo Switch, your journey is freer and more open than ever. Take your system anywhere, and adventure as Link any way you like.
Features:
Explore the wilds of Hyrule any way you like—anytime, anywhere! - Climb up towers and mountain peaks in search of new destinations, then set your own path to get there and plunge into the wilderness. Along the way, you'll battle towering enemies, hunt wild beasts and gather ingredients for the food and elixirs you'll make to sustain you on your journey. With Nintendo Switch, you can literally take your journey anywhere.
More than 100 Shrines of Trials to discover and explore - Shrines dot the landscape, waiting to be discovered in any order you want. Search for them in various ways, and solve a variety of puzzles inside. The tasks you must perform in each Shrine varies, and you'll never expect the challenges you'll face until you enter. Some will involve realistic physics, and some will require you to harness the power of nature, including electricity, wind, fire, and more. Work your way through the traps and devices inside, utilizing your runes and think outside the box to earn special items and other rewards that will help you on your adventure.
Be prepared and properly equipped – With an entire world waiting to be explored, you'll need a variety of outfits and gear to reach every corner. You may need to bundle up with warmer clothes or change into something better suited to the desert heat. Some clothing even has special effects that, for example, can make you faster or stealthier.
Battling enemies requires strategy – The world is inhabited with enemies of all shapes and sizes. Each one has its own attack method and weaponry, so you must think quickly and develop the right strategies to defeat them.
What an amazing run this was and had a viewing audience of 86,000+ and well over 55,000+ views on YouTube.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Any% Race
This upcoming adventure for the Wii console marks the first time a second 3-D Mario game has arrived in the same console generation.
In the game, Mario rides his trusty dinosaur companion, Yoshi, to new stars and the fantastic worlds found there. This 3-D platforming adventure provides longtime video game fans with a fresh round of out-of-this-world challenges in the style introduced in the critically acclaimed original. The game is planned for 2010.
Whenever there is a race at GDQ it is always a tense and exciting setting and this run did not disappoint!
What an amazing race this was and had a viewing audience of 74,000+ and well over 38,000+ views on YouTube.
Pokemon Yellow Any% Glitchless
It's the game that started a revolution, but it's not just the fad that convinced gamers to "catch 'em all."
This deceptively simple and child-friendly roleplaying game design is a far deeper game design than it looks. Pokemon features way more strategy and gameplay than it leads on, offering gamers almost infinite gaming possibilities even after the main adventure ends. Pocket Monsters Red was released in Japan in 1996 by mail-order only (the two launch titles were Green and Blue). The franchise arrived in the west in 1998 as Pokemon Blue and Red (Roald Dahl holds the copyright for "Pocket Monsters" in the west, so the title was changed to the Japanese colloquial name). The games could be linked up with each other and with the N64's Pokemon Stadium titles for creature trading.
What an absolutely fun watch this was and had a viewing audience of 80,000+ and well over 36,000+ views on YouTube.
TMNT : Shredder’s Revenge Any% Race Arcade Co-op
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge features modernized gameplay rooted in timeless classic brawling mechanics, brought to you by the beat ’em up experts at Dotemu (Streets of Rage 4) and developer Tribute Games, in partnership with Nickelodeon. Bash your way through gorgeous pixel art environments and slay tons of hellacious enemies with your favorite Turtle, each with his own skills and moves - making each run unique! Choose a fighter, use radical combos to defeat your opponents and experience intense combats loaded with breathtaking action and outrageous ninja abilities. Stay sharp as you face off against Shredder and his faithful Foot Clan alone, or grab your best buds and play with up to four players simultaneously!
With Bebop and Rocksteady assaulting Channel 6 and stealing super gnarly devices to support Krang and Shredder’s latest twisted plan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge sees the Turtles battling across a righteous range of timeless TMNT locations. From Manhattan and Coney Island, to city rooftops and dank sewers, help the fearsome foursome trounce Foot Soldiers, Triceraton Warriors, and Rock Troops all the way to Dimension X!
This one is special to me as I have now been able to be a part of AGDQ 2023 (above) and SGDQ 2019 (Turtles in Time Co-op w/ Dospostmann) and to continue to see TMNT coming back into the mainstream warms my heart and that leftover pizza. I hope to see more and more TMNT titles (that are GOOD) come from this and that together we can all collectively say Cowabunga!!
I was thrilled to be a part of this and floored by the support as this ended up with a viewing audience of 77,000+ and well over 17,000+ views on YouTube.
