Part of the bi-annual ‘Games Done Quick’ events that raise millions for charity every year, Summer Games Done Quick 2019 kicked off last night and has no sign of stopping until it has raised a remarkable amount of money throughout the week.
This time the event is raising money for Doctors Without Borders – a humanitarian NGO that helps provide medical care to conflict zones and other countries in crisis. Its a deeply noble cause and if you want to throw your weight behind it, you can watch this week’s events on Twitch right here.
The event centres around the speedrunning community – a once fringe part of games that has exploded in popularity in the past few decades, resulting in these bombastic showcases of ultimate skill, where gamers from around the globe fly into put their money where their mouth is and perform a speedrun of their chosen game in front of an audience – a high-intensity shift from bedroom streaming on Twitch.
The joy of Games Done Quick is caught up in the variety of games on show. There’s something for everyone here, from Devil May Cry to Portal 2 to Contra III: The Alien Wars, the schedule is always full of surprises and often special incentives for each game that are met via charitable donations. Even Shrek Extra Large is getting some airtime this year – sharing a day with Resident Evil 2, a game with an already very serious speedrunning community despite the fact the remake only dropped earlier this year. You can check out the full schedule here and find your favourite games.
If you cant quite keep up with the action due to work commitments or timezones (it is based in America, so some games may not be played within your waking hours if you’re in the UK) all the runs are uploaded as Twitch VODS and to the official GDQ YouTube channel where you can enjoy them after hours in all their tense glory. Who knows, there may even be a world record broken on the show floor – those are always incredibly exciting.
The event will run all the way through to Sunday, June 30th, wrapping up with Chrono Trigger. Make sure you tune in and support the stream if you can manage – the event always creates such an incredible buzz in the gaming community and hey, it’s for a very good cause!
