Gamers speedrun Crash Team Racing and Pokemon Sword/Shield in under 10 hours for charity

’Tis the season for giving, and a group of local gamers are doing what they love for the greater good: raising funds for the Singapore branch of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 

Lion Speedrunners Assembly (LSA) is a homegrown community of speedrunners — folks who play through and complete entire video games as fast as they humanly can. Think of it as a kind of racing event (in which records for fastest time completed can be set and broken), but involving video games. Dark Souls, Fallout 3, and other games that would typically take at least more than 10 hours have had folks speeding from the start screen to the end credits in less than an hour. 

The entertaining aspect of such feats make for great live-streamed videos, and the huge number of viewers has led to speedrunning marathons being held to raise money for charity. And the relatively niche phenomenon has been hugely successful too. The Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon live stream back in June in the US raised more than US$3 million (S$4.06 million) in a single week for Doctors Without Borders. 

In the spirit of giving, a charity event called The Mistletrio Christmas was jointly organised by three local communities — namely The Obsidian Empire, The Bear Army and The Corner, of which all three are a collective of local gamers and streamers alike.

The fundraising event yesterday (Dec 15) saw participants from LSA completing both Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled and Pokemon Sword/Shield in less than 10 hours.

For reference, it would typically take about eight hours to beat Crash Team Racing's story mode, while it would take 16 hours at least to blaze through the new Pokemon title without getting sidetracked by sidequests. 

The charity drive kicked off on Dec 13, hitting $100 in donations within the first two hours of its launch at 4pm. It reached a respectable $359 during the course of the Pokemon Sword & Shield speedrun showcase.

ilyas@asiaone.com