A historian of video game speedrunning, Summoning Salt does more than just set speedrun world records, he turns the characters, competition, and strategic innovations behind those world records into stunningly engaging stories. and has over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
Each video in his World Record Progression series details how a speedrunner broke world records to complete a video game as fast as possible.
Summoning Salt is playing “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out” on Running With Speed.
As Summoning Salt explained to me in a recent interview, speedrunning’s broader appeal is part of its amazement and nostalgia for the game. People have lowered records…and also familiar game ideas you’ve played at a casual level that are obliterated and destroyed by tons of glitches or a really clean glitch-free playthrough. It’s fascinating to see a great game played on a level you never imagined possible. ”
Summoning Salt has not revealed his name or face for privacy, but his voice has become synonymous with speedrunning for so many people. He doesn’t really like hearing his own voice, but he gets used to it over time.It’s great that people associate me so strongly [speedrunning]It’s not something I sought out, but I think it’s only natural that after you’ve been doing it for six years and have a pretty big endorsement.
his familiar voice made him a logical choice for narration Run at Speed: The Fastest Gamer on the Planet, The latest feature-length documentary about speedrunning, directed by Patrick Rope and Nicholas Moss.
The documentary (available for purchase from the official website) not only provides an excellent introduction to the origins and evolution of speedrunning, but also includes a wealth of intimate behind-the-scenes footage with community figures. How much It makes sense for people and means that large-scale speedrunning has become a new form of entertainment.
Hosted by Red Bull Mario Runner GrandPooBear was featured shortly after the Speedrun Sessions tour, with fans flooding barcades across the country to witness his elite skills. super mario bros 3 Record holder MitchFlowerPower Late Show with Stephen ColbertMuch of the documentary follows Games Done Quick (GDQ), a marathon speedrunning event, growing from a basement couch into a biannual gaming mogul that has raised more than $41 million for charity. We also focus on how.
These days, the event attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers, but since its humble beginnings 13 years ago, the event has become a cornerstone of the community. “It’s huge,” Summoning Salt said. I used to watch GDQ every year and was excited. It’s still huge today — the speedrunning community has grown from 15x he’s to 20x he’s, but GDQ is still the biggest live speedrunning event. ”
Summoning Salt was first featured as a documentary world record holder. Mike Tyson Punch Out!! However, the directors soon approached him again to join the project as narrator and advisor. From me and my thoughts on each segment, I’ll record the narration and send it back. ”
In the future, Summoning Salt would like to contribute to the following projects: run at speed Which “occupy a significant position in the community,” However, he plans to stick to World Record Progression videos on his own channel. Most recently, he published his The History of lego star wars World Records is a 91-minute chronicle of how passionate runners worked together to compete and break world records.
Screenshot showing part of a document that Summoning Salt has vetted … [+]
The video itself is quite interesting, but I was equally captivated by the behind-the-scenes video shared on Summoning Salt’s second channel. lego star wars community members who helped him. This close-knit group of runners tracked videos of their runs and helped explain the game’s intricate tricks and techniques.
Few of his videos were created without close collaboration with each game’s community, but every group of runners Summoning Salt has worked with is slightly different.
“A lot of these communities are very tight-knit, they’re kind of competitors, but they’re really great friends, and they’re each trying to break records. I just did the video. lego star wars All of those guys were on a Discord call when the video dropped. Because they were all excited and wanted to see themselves and their community friends in the video. Some have tightly woven tops like this, [like Super Mario 64’s community] It’s a bit more decentralized and people are doing their own thing. There is still camaraderie in the community, but not all top 10 runners know each other as well as they do in smaller communities…”
While many of speedrunning’s most popular games are driven by gamers’ nostalgia for the 80s or 90s, the new generation of speedrunners nostalgia for games from a completely different era. lego star wars. But Summoning Salt believes the classics will stick. Super mario bros Also ocarina of time Immediately, or a game like that. they will always be there. Like you said, I think these games that were a bit more recent, like 10-15 years ago, will become more nostalgic over time and make people want to do them more. And they weren’t as optimized as they used to be, so it’s a game that people end up spending a lot of time optimizing. ”
YouTuber MoistCr1TiKaL recently tried his hand at a (terrifying) game called Amok Runner. Players who break the world record after two weeks will win $10,000. While some communities will resist the idea of his hugely popular YouTuber creating a sudden influx of newcomers, Summoning Salt thinks it’s good for speedruns in general.
“I think it’s great for speedrunning. Anytime you create hype around an event where a lot of people can try it and contribute, I think it’s really good. I’m of speedrun.com. I think I feel a little sorry for the moderators doing a lot of running, but I think a lot of times those situations are sorted out in advance, a lot of moderators are ready All in all, I think it’s really good and I hope there will be more events like this.”
The music used throughout his videos is as recognizable as Summoning Salt’s voice and meticulously researched scripts. It’s time to land 90s synthwave band Home welcomes viewers in nearly every video, carefully selected tracks to accompany key moments throughout feature-length content.
“I think music is something I spend a lot of time on, but I don’t think people do it all the time. To get there, it takes a lot of time and effort to find the artist, contact them, get their permission, and very carefully select the tracks that match the mood and feeling of a particular scene in the video… Music sets the tone you want your audience to feel. If you know a big moment is coming, you can tell your audience without saying anything… Music often speaks louder than words when it comes to conveying the emotions you want out of a scene. And I think it would be good for YouTube if people focused more on adding the right music to their videos to make them feel the way they want to feel. ”
Summoning Salt cites Jon Bois as a major influencer for his YouTube channel. The reason is both his skillful use of music and the way he transforms videos about sports into highly engaging stories for a more general audience.
“John Boer and I make videos about stories. His story happens to be about sports and mine happens to be about speedrunning. But they are both very similar in type of video. …I think it’s the same way he chooses very carefully what music he wants to use in each scene and uses it to create parts of the story, so he’s got a lot of influence. I started watching him around the same time I started making my own YouTube videos and yeah, he’s probably the biggest influence on me.”
Summoning Salt’s dedication to research, production quality, and most of all, storytelling has made him one of the most watched gaming channels on YouTube.He’s a narrator who knows the joys and heartbreaks that come with speedruns, and he embodies the role of a dedicated historian within the communities he works with. (I Did it Listen), his 1.5 million mesmerizing subscribers and I are sure to tune in.