How to Start Speedrunning: A Beginner's Guide
Speedrunning is the sport of finishing a game as fast as possible under an agreed set of rules. It turns a game you already know into a puzzle about the game itself: which fights can you skip, which menus can you clip through, where does a two-second shortcut hide behind a wall you never thought to walk into. You don't need a fast PC, a capture card, or a single unusual button input to start — you need a timer, a game, and the willingness to lose the same first thirty seconds two hundred times. This guide gets you from "I like this game" to a run submitted on a public leaderboard.
What the categories actually mean
A game rarely has one speedrun. It has categories — different finish lines the community agreed are interesting. Learn these four and you'll understand almost any leaderboard:
- Any% — reach the ending by any legal means. Usually the fastest and most glitch-heavy category, because skips and sequence breaks are fair game.
- 100% — complete everything the game counts as completion: all collectibles, all bosses, whatever the game's own percentage counter tracks. Longer, more about consistency than tricks.
- Glitchless — finish without using bugs. Rules define exactly which tricks count as glitches, so read the category notes before your first attempt.
- Low% / category extensions — finish with as little progression as possible, or oddball challenges the community invented for fun. Great low-pressure entry points.
Pick the category, not just the game. A 12-minute Any% and a 3-hour 100% of the same title are completely different hobbies. New runners almost always have more fun starting with a short category they can complete in one sitting.
Picking your first game
The best first speedgame is one you already enjoy and one with an active community. Open speedrun.com, find your game, and check three things: how many runs were submitted in the last month, whether there's a tutorial or route document pinned, and how long the top runs are. A game with a 15–40 minute Any%, a written route, and runs coming in weekly is ideal. Avoid, for your very first run, marathon 100% categories and games where the world record is a frame-perfect input chain — you can graduate to those later.
Timing: RTA vs IGT, and load removal
Two clocks matter. RTA (real-time attack) is wall-clock time from start to finish, the moment you press start to the moment the run ends. IGT (in-game time) is the timer the game itself keeps, which often pauses during loading screens. Some leaderboards rank by RTA, some by IGT, and some by load-removed time — RTA with loading screens subtracted so runners on slow hardware aren't penalised. Always check which one your category uses before you grind, because it changes your route: if loads don't count, a longer path with fewer load screens can beat a shorter one.
Tools you need
The standard timer is LiveSplit on Windows (LiveSplit One runs in a browser and works cross-platform). It gives you splits — checkpoints within the run — so you can see whether you're ahead or behind your personal best at each stage rather than only at the end. Bind a hotkey to start/split, load a splits file for your category (often shared by the community), and you're recording. To submit a run you'll usually need video proof, so a screen recorder like OBS Studio is the second tool — the same one you'd use for streaming to Twitch or YouTube.
Routing and practising segments
A route is the ordered plan of everything you do, turn by turn. Don't invent one from scratch — start from the community's route, run it slowly, and only optimise once you can finish. Then practise in segments: isolate the one room or fight that keeps ending your runs and rehearse just that piece until it's automatic. Speedrunning rewards this brutally focused repetition, and it sharpens the same skills covered in improving your reaction time — recognising a cue and executing the trained response before you consciously decide to.
Submitting to leaderboards
When you have a finished run with video, submitting is simple. On speedrun.com, open your game, hit "Submit run," pick the category, paste your video link, enter your time (matching the category's timing method), and add notes if a moderator asks for them. A human verifier watches the run against the rules and either approves it or replies explaining what's off. Your first accepted run puts your name on the board — even if it's near the bottom, it's a real, ranked time you can now chip away at.
Community etiquette
Speedrunning communities are small and generous, and they stay that way because people follow a few unwritten rules:
- Read the pinned rules and route docs before asking questions the FAQ already answers.
- Credit the people whose routes and tricks you use — most discoveries have a name attached.
- Don't accuse someone of cheating in public; report concerns to moderators with timestamps.
- Cheer for other people's PBs. The board goes faster when everyone shares what they learn.
The bottom line: Pick a short category in a game you love, grab LiveSplit and OBS, learn whether your board uses RTA, IGT or load-removed time, and run the community route until you can finish clean. Practise the segments that keep killing you, record a full run, and submit it. Your first ranked time is the hard part — after that it's just a series of small, addictive improvements.