During Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), a Stardew Valley speedrunner managed to complete the game in just 17 minutes – though he did have to blow up his farm and bin his tools to get the job done.
The run was carried out by Olenoname (thanks, PC Gamer), who opened his speedrun by claiming that “This run’s gonna move pretty fast and it’s gonna get started really quickly, so I hope you’re ready.”
Olenoname wasn’t lying. The steps to beat the game began right from the start, when he typed out a name for his character that was so long it went reeling off-screen. The name was so long because it was crammed with item codes for the game, which play an important part in Stardew Valley speedrunning.
This is because throughout Stardew Valley, fellow residents of Pelican Town can swing by to gift you items – and the items they will gift are determined by the item codes hidden away with your name. This means that when Olenoname gets into the game proper, he destroys all of his tools to make room for an ominous housewarming present of Mega Bombs.
These are used exactly as you’d expect – within the first minute of the Stardew Valley speedrun, Olenoname methodically blows up his farm and completely annihilates nearby trees, rocks and plants. Olenoname doesn’t stop there, either – after sprinting to Leah’s house to buy a chicken coop, the speedrunner then blows Leah’s house (and himself) up to get into town faster.
The commentators do a great job of explaining why the bombs are necessary for the speedrun and there’s a lot of clever bugs that have some interesting effects on the game. There’s also some chickens and a cute cat involved in the speedrun, so the full run (watch it here) is well worth the watch.
In the end, Olenoname finishes the game in just over 17 minutes. AGDQ started off with £1,035,633 in donations at the very start of the run, and it wrapped up the short run with just over £3000 raised for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
In other news, the God Of War PC port should run on the Steam Deck at launch.
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