ADHD & Speedrunning: An Amateur’s Guide to Start a Speedrun
Written by MasterMeowzer
Published on August 17th, 2024
Getting into speedrunning presents a few obstacles in addition to the need of near-perfect timing and a mental headspace for repeated deaths until mastery. Repetition can be difficult, especially for those of us with the gift of ADHD, and it can be frustrating to try to work through loss of focus from repeated attempts at the same tactic or section of a run. I began my quest of speedrunning in earnest a few months ago, and I have a few tips to pass on from my failed and successful attempts!
Don’t start with a game you treasure.
In my experience, starting with Dragon Age: Origins was truly distressing. Despite having played it for several years and knowing it inside and out, revisiting it with an emphasis on speed was difficult. It actually nearly turned me away from speedrunning altogether. To play a game I treasured, bypassing stories and characters that I hold close to my heart, was sacrilegious. I was repeatedly distracted by the delightful, rich content I love, and as a result, I failed to make much progress within the game for a long time. When I decided to step away from the Dragon Age speedrun, I found another game to attempt—one still in my top ten favourite games, but without a world with so much deep and varied content. The distance from intense story arcs and well-developed characters that I was attached to allowed me to refocus to what really mattered for the speedrun—learning tactics, shortcuts, and well… speed!
To start, choose a shorter game or one with self-contained levels.
Attempting the Dragon Age: Origins speedrun first taught me that the game’s sheer size and story complexity presents an intense hurdle for a new speedrunner. There was not a specific path I was supposed to take (after Ostagar, at least), and there was a whole lot of game in between me and the finish line. Getting there was daunting, and potentially a several-hours-long process that introduced a variety of problems in memorization of techniques and shortcuts. Rather than easing myself into the art of researching and developing a speedrun, I was distracted by attempting to learn each quest’s tactics and glitches, as well as the optimal combat strategy for enemies I was unable to bypass. I reached the four-hour mark without much progress into the game or learning its optimal tactics, and the frustration was enough to cause me to avoid picking it back up.
In the meantime, I decided to try the Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. The format of the game, six self-contained levels within each of the six storylines for the Star Wars movies at the time, allowed me a feeling of accomplishment every time I completed a level with a new time or having learned a new strategy. That sense of accomplishment helped me to feel like I was successfully chipping away at decreasing my overall game time without a daunting open world to navigate between each mission. The ability to see quantifiable progress within an hour or two made the detailed and precise process much more bearable!
Give yourself achievable goals!
I went into my first speedrun on a bit of a whim (hence this being an ADHD guide) and did not give much thought to any benchmarks or goals. That definitely played into the difficulty with Dragon Age. Looking for commonly-used goals online helped out somewhat, but I had trouble finding my rhythm with goals I did not set myself. Lego Star Wars’ levels gave a very natural point of benchmarking, but if you choose a less structured or segmented game, then make sure to place some benchmarks where they make the most sense to you! These could be where you stop to take breaks or where the game pauses for cutscenes or room changes, but the most important part is to find your own rhythm with where you choose to take stock of your time and progress.
Fight the urge to hyperfocus and take breaks!
As I’m sure my fellow ADHD folks know, hyperfocus can take over before you even realize it has! The best way to combat this that I found was to set up a timer for 30 minute increments and then pause for a break as soon after as possible. Some other options could be to rest after you clear a level or another benchmark. Make sure to stretch and drink water when you do!
And finally, find a partner or a group.
If the game you select has a co-op option, you can try out a co-op speedrun! Motivation can be hard to keep up throughout learning your speeedrun, and it helps to have a partner or community to help keep things going. If your chosen game is solo, don’t be afraid to post your progress online or find a speedrunning Discord. These can also be great places to find advice or new tactics!
Speedrunning can be tricky to pick up, but once you break through the initial hurdles it reveals an entire new world of gaming and game experiences! Some tactics take you into areas of the game that most people don’t get to see, and some give you a new perspective of how the game runs and was developed. There is a whole community of speedrunners to learn from, and it’s incredibly rewarding to learn games in a new way that pays off in a quantifiable way. Remember, go easy on yourself, take breaks, drink water, and have fun!
Written by MasterMeowzer