Top 7 Indie Games To Speedrun
Gotta go fast.
The best things in life are fast. Well, if you’re a speedrunner they are at least. The process of learning and memorising a game’s intricacies in such detail that they become mere thumb flicks has punters all over the world glitching their way through their favourite games to earn highly-coveted world records. The spectacle originated in breaking family favourites like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in order to cheat through various levels and warp zones and set eye-watering completion times for each game.
Today, the art of zipping through platformer levels and coaxing secrets out of hidden game code has matured into a well-respected industry pastime, spawning events and celebrities of its own. At the centre of this bubble, however, lay a few independent titles that are quickly becoming major players in the speedrunning scene.
7. Dustforce
It seems that Hitbox’s janitorial action platformer was destined to become a cult speedrunning classic. With in-game finesse meters scoring completion on the minutiae of your precision movement and areas only unlocked by achieving blistering speeds in previous levels, the speedrunning ethos is hard-baked into this easy to pick up, insane to master run and jump adventure.
Dustforce doesn’t feel too dissimilar from Super Meat Boy, and it’s certainly worthy of the comparison in its level of difficulty and reliance on twitch reactions. Nevertheless, this is a title that comes with its own nuance and strategies to take advantage of. With a smaller competitive community than Super Meat Boy, but with no less of a need for the required skills, Dustforce is a perfect starting point to start training those thumbs for glory.
6. Inside
Puzzle platformers aren’t usually the first pick in the speedrunning arena, but Inside’s snappy response times and extraordinary game feel have set this title up for a dedicated community of runners. In fact, it’s the joy of remembering each puzzle combination at lightning speeds, along with the hidden rooms and easy post-death checkpoints, that keeps bringing its adrenaline-fuelled racers back.
The mysterious atmosphere and lack of prescribed narrative direction that serves it so well in a more thoughtful, interpretive setting also make it perfectly barebones to ensure speedy clear times. Punters can bounce, swim and sprint their way across a playthrough without many pesky cutscenes or dialogue chat boxes to cheat out of. So, while Inside isn’t your standard speedrun collection of glitches and high octane precision moves, it’s a puzzler that delights in bringing its own unique mechanics to the racetrack.
5. Ori and the Blind Forest
If you’re looking to start your speedrunning career with an easily accessible title through which you can shatter that skill ceiling with dedicated practice, then Ori and the Blind Forest is for you. While you can practice your finger twitch reactions with impressive wall jump and feisty manoeuvres, Ori also offers a simple introduction to glitching the game, either to play through your run with a strong cache of skills already loaded up or manipulating different cells to your needs.
The speedrunning community behind Ori and the Blind Forest has grown exponentially since those first few players started unlocking its secrets. And thanks to its debug mode allowing runners to tinker with the game’s components to their heart’s content, it doesn’t look like those secrets will run out any time soon.
4. Super Meat Boy
Like many games on this list, Super Meat Boy was almost built for speedrunning. It’s a game that rewards precision with fast-paced gameplay, invoking all the hallmarks of a compelling speed-based challenge. You’ll need expert experience, faultless perseverance and in-depth knowledge of the game if you ever hope to succeed.
Watching the best is a blood-soaked blur of perfection as you watch our smiling hero hurtle around the tight platformer at speeds you could never imagine. For a game where death comes so often, it has a cool mechanic to show it off – all your deaths are replayed at the end of a level – Super Meat Boy lends itself well to the pursuit of perfection speedrunners often crave.
It’s a great starting point for any would-be runner and offers a nice mix of fast-paced precision and game knowledge to create an interesting challenge for expert and novice alike.
3. Dead Cells
The rogue-lite Metroidvania Dead Cells hit the speedrunning scene with a bang thanks to its exciting mix of difficulty and replayability. As with many popular speedrunning games in the indie community, there’s also a fine sprinkle of RNG that makes every run compelling to watch in awe.
Famed for its difficulty, due in part to its Souls-like elements, Dead Cells makes an interesting prospect for runners of all levels, although the skill levels reach crazy heights if you want to be the best. It’s fascinating to watch, mostly due to the intricate avoidance methods some of the best runners employ. It seems that beating a game where any enemy can land a killing blow at speed is more about how to stay away from them than mastering the combat system.
The mix of weapons and items do add an interesting twist on each run, but prepare to dodge roll, a lot, if you want to tame the castle in this brutal 2D Souls-like adventure.
2. Cuphead
If one thing is for sure, it’s that Cuphead is not for the faint of heart. This game is challenging to beat normally and looks like absolute sorcery to speedrun. An expert understanding of the game is a minimum requirement as well as in-depth knowledge of all the boss patterns. Even then, pro-level runners can be scuppered by the game’s unforgiving RNG, sending a flawless run back to the start line.
Don’t be perturbed though, it’s a glorious game to master, and although challenging, brilliant to watch or achieve. Things have gotten a little bit harder since the game’s launch with the patching of a few bugs, including the coveted weapon swap glitch, but it’s still a regular guest on the speedrunning leaderboards. So, if you fancy something a little more testing then Cuphead’s frantic bullet-hell boss rush might be just the game for you.
1. Celeste
Celeste has become the indie darling of the speedrunning world since its release in 2018. Whether that’s down to its impeccable game feel, or maybe it’s because the team developed their action platformer with the running community in mind, the community surrounding this enigmatic title’s leaderboard is going strong. Don’t let the fact that Celeste has speedrunning features like a timer built-in lead you to believe this can be a soft introduction, however. Celeste is still renowned for its difficulty and the need for movement so fast it’s barely a thought process.
The beauty of Celeste, however, is in your own failure – the entire game, at least the speedrunning side of things, is designed around failure. If you’ve failed, you’ve learned something, and that takes you one step closer to the world record in Celeste’s eyes.
Indie games are world-renowned for their creativity. Often the passion projects of small teams with a unique idea and the dedication to making it real, it’s easy to see why these titles have gone hand in hand with speedrunning over the last few years. The two pursuits share considerable similarities in their exploratory nature, supportive and creative communities, and reliance on out the box problem-solving.
Perhaps more important than any of these shared traits, however, is the ‘what if’ attitudes that keep both scenes on their toes. From digging through debugging in Ori and the Blind Forest to reducing a movement to mere milliseconds in Celeste, that curiosity and determination continue to bridge the gap between developers and players through the speedrunning communities we are celebrating today.