Part 5: SniperKing

Chris 

Hometown: Southeast Michigan 

Currently Living: Southeast Michigan 

Primary Speedgame: Super Mario Sunshine 

Q:  What's the first speedrun you ever watched? What got you into speedrunning? 

A:  The first speedrun I ever watched was Talon2461 running 180 Emblems in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. I was strolling through the Twitch game directory and found SA2, which is a game that I loved as a kid, and Talon's run blew my mind. I decided to try my hand at speedrunning with a game I thought I was already decent at, Crash Team Racing Any% (now Any% Warpless), which was my first speedrun. After watching only him for a few months, I followed him on a raid to a streamer formerly known as FireDragon764 (now known as simply FireDragon) who was speedrunning Luigi's Mansion. In the same stream, I followed Fifi's raid to SnarfyBobo playing Super Mario Sunshine. I fell in love with Snarf's stream and the chill smooth vibe of the SMS speedrun. After watching these three streams for a few weeks, I saw Snarf do SMS Bingo and knew I needed to pick up the game to partake in the chess match that is SMS Lockout Bingo. I went to Summer Games Done Quick 2015 and everyone I met there encouraged me to stream and were incredibly supportive. So, when I got home, I ordered a copy of SMS and a capture card and the rest is history.

Q:  Many artists, athletes, and technicians describe the thing they do in terms of another skill. Examples include describing writing like music, or music like math, or soccer like chess. Is speedrunning “like” anything, in your mind? 

A:  This is a little obscure but speedrunning is like the X-Games events to me. You're constantly learning new tricks and improving old ones along with your basic technical skills. With each new skill or trick learned and cleaned up basic movement, your score gets better. Your goal is to improve your personal best. And you don't really compete with other people until you've learned enough to be really good. 

Q:  What are you currently working on? 

A:  Sub 1:20 in SMS will perpetually be my goal, but I have a few main things I'm working towards achieving by the end of 2017: Sub 3:30 in SMS 120 Shines, Sub 1 hour in Crash Team Racing, and I'm learning Hollow Knight Any% No Major Glitches. I'm really looking forward to learning Hollow Knight well enough to Bingo! Seriously, Bingo is the best thing in speedrunning!

Q:  Who's another runner that doesn't run your games that you admire and why? 

A:  Seraphim is a speedrunner that I really respect outside the world of Mario. He has world records or top times in many competitive speedgames all while balancing schoool, friends and now a full time job. The dedication and skill he displays are incredible and show in his constant improvement and impressive times. He's one of the nicest and friendliest people I've ever met and he definitely deserves more attention. An amazing role model for any speedrunner in skill, attitude, and personality. Perfect example of this in his AGDQ 2017 SA2 run where he showcased Big The Cat in every level, sacrificing time to bring more attention to Jerkro's Sonic Adventure DX run that was up next and hadn't met its incentive goal yet. It hit the goal because of him and the run was still super entertaining. He's a champion. 

Q:  What does the ideal speedrun look like to you? 

A:  This is definitely different for everyone, but for me, the ideal speedrun balances cool glitches with smooth, fluid movement and has little luck based elements. I also think that a great time for an average run would be around an hour and a half with either a few short cutscenes near the middle of the run or none at all. An hour and a half is a great run length for races and no-resets for people of all different schedules; it's not too long and not too short. It's hard to keep 100% mentally focused for a long period of time and small breaks from that help a lot, I think. Usually, the longer the run, the more frustrating random luck events are, so I prefer shorter runs.

Q:  One of your beginning mottos when you started on Twitch was "Hakuna Matata could change the world", and you still have those words on your Twitter and Twitch page. Can you speak to that? 

A:  Speedrunning should be about having fun, not about what time you have, or who you're better than, or what place on the leaderboards you are. It's really easy to forget that when you're struggling to meet one of your goals. My motto is a fun reminder of what's important. That's not only true for speedrunning, but for all of life. Taking a deep breath and calming down can be hard to do, but it is always beneficial. I think most misunderstandings and mistakes in the world could be prevented if everyone just took a step back and evaluated what was really important, calmed down, and relaxed. The phrase helps.

Q:  How do you think our generation will incorporate video games and speedrunning into middle and old age? 

A:  I think Twitch is a huge example of how video games and speedrunning are here to stay. Even people in the older generation have taken to Twitch and speedrunning. It's an amazing way to share knowledge and passion about whatever games and runs you like. I don't see people completely quitting this community if they're really passionate about it. Life changes and time is hard to find, but we will all always love games. 

Q: Lastly, is there anybody who you'd like to shout out or plug their stream? 

A:  Absolutely! Shoutouts to Pearstrike who is the gem of Twitch more people need to know about. He's an amazing speedrunner and an all around hilarious guy. Shoutouts to Bounceyboy the SMS speed king who has been super supportive of me since day one. Shoutouts to Kungfufruitcup and YellowKillerBee for being amazing female voices in the speedrunning community and leaders of the female speedrunning team Girls on Fire. Finally, shoutouts to Iateyourpie for all the support he's given me and helping me feel more comfortable streaming things other than speedruns.

Thanks, Chris.