Hometown: Northeast Quebec
Currently Living: Northeast Quebec
Primary Speedgame: Diddy Kong Racing
Q: What's the first speedrun you ever watched? What got you into speedrunning?
A: While I was in college, my friend who was sitting next to me in our coding class showed me a Super Mario 120 Star speedrun on Youtube. I couldn't believe it was not cheating. This must have been around 2012. The next day on Twitch, I saw that SM64 was near the top of the game list, so I went to check it out. Siglemic was doing 120 Star runs and he was the same guy from the video my friend showed me. It blew my mind. Seeing what he was doing on a real Nintendo 64 in real time was just completely shocking to me.
For a while, I watched him and other runners on Twitch, until I found FireDragon playing Mario Kart 64, which I thought was impossible because it was a racing game. Watching him run MK64 was when I decided that I would start speedrunning and I was going to start running MK64. I downloaded an emulator and Wsplit and did my first All Cups run, which ended up being around 45 minutes long.
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: I think the closest thing to speedrunning would be running an actual marathon. They both take a lot of perseverance and practice if you want to achieve a great goal, but you can also take it slow and casual and complete it at your own pace.
Q: What are you currently working on?
A: I am currently working towards taking the world record back in Diddy Kong Racing 100% and possibly pushing it to a 1:47. My next goal after that would be to get back into Donkey Kong 64 and run No Levels Early to get the Nintendo 64 record and to practice for the upcoming 301% race in January, which includes Banjo-Kazooie 100%, Banjo-Tooie 100%, and DK64 101% back to back to back.
Q: Why did you decide to stick with Diddy Kong Racing over Mario Kart?
A: The reason I left Mario Kart 64 behind is simply because I just enjoyed running DKR much much more. I just loved how fast you could go and how much optimization there was left to do and the idea of beating runners like toufool and 0xwas, which in my eyes are two legends of speedrunning, was just way more appealing to me than trying to save a couple minutes in a game that was already a ton more optimized with very little room left to improve. I also liked the idea of running an actual game file with bosses and collectibles rather than just doing four cups in a row.
Q: What is your favorite and least favorite track in DKR and why?
A: My favorite track would be Darkmoon Caverns. I don’t think it’s the best track in the game, but this is the first track where I myself found a faster strat than what was being done at the time. It was also the first track where I got the time trial record and the individual level record, so it’s always been a special track for me. On top of that, I was my favorite casual track because I thought the loops were very cool.
My most disliked track would be Fossil Canyon. The random physics that can happen, the AI blocking you or putting oil slicks in your way, and I think the music is one of the worst tracks in the game. It's just not enjoyable. It’s really a shame that we have to do it seven times in 100% and Any%.
Q: Who's another runner that doesn't run your games that you admire and why?
A: I have a ton of respect for Puncayshun. He just never gives up on the Super Mario 64 grind. He is the king of perseverance and because of that he gives me a lot of motivation to keep going myself with my endless grind towards DKR 100% World Record. It also takes an outstanding person to go beat and beat a legend like Siglemic and keep the record for as long as he did.
Q: What does the ideal speedrun look like to you?
A: I think the ideal speedrun length is about two hours. It needs to be very hard to master and also have minor RNG elements to deal with. DKR 100% fits in that description which is why I run it most. But I would also consider stuff like SM64 120 star or DK64 No Levels Early to be good runs as well. I think those type of speedruns bring the most hype and show the biggest display of skills from the runners.
Q: How do you think our generation will incorporate video games and speedrunning into middle and old age?
A: I think people that truly enjoy speedrunning will still do it for many years. I don’t think we are going to speedrun as much because most of us will have a family and other responsibilities, but I don’t think our current generation will ever completely vanish. If you like something, there’s no reason to stop. Taste in game might change depending on what are the new games and systems coming out, but there will always be people that come and go and others that will stay and speedrun until they're tired of it.
Q: Lastly, is there anybody who you'd like to shout out or plug their stream?
A: I would like to give a huge shoutout to dkr_paddy. He is the first friend I made in the speedrunning community and he showed me how to become better. He was pretty much my coach for Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing in the early days of my speedrunning career. I truly believe that without him, I probably would have dropped it after a couple weeks after starting and would have missed out on so many great friendships.
Thanks, Max.
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