(Header photo credit: Michael Kire.)
This summer, I used my vacation days to attend the European Speedrunner Assembly Summer 2018, an event held from 21–28 July in Malmö to raise money for Save the Children. On my return to Hamburg, I was feeling a little exhausted, but also thoroughly motivated. I had just spent a week around a bunch of people who pull games apart, using an intense level of attention to detail; were it not for the fact that the people were endlessly friendly and encouraged me to take part in social activities, my attendance could have turned into some sort of extreme crash course on speedrunning. As it happened, I missed a lot of the live action thanks to stuffing my face with Swedish fast food, sunbathing on a shopping mall rooftop and, you know, sleeping, so the first thing I wanted to do when I arrived back in Germany was to put on Twitch and catch up on VODs that I missed.
A combination of sitting in on my new friends’ speedruns and watching what I missed made it very difficult to narrow down a list of highlights from the event, but I think I’ve managed it. I can’t recall a single run I watched that I didn’t learn something from. In fact, a lot of the entries to my list aren’t record-breakers, but were instead entertaining or made me feel a level of admiration for the runner for other reasons. ESA wasn’t just a ton of fun, but educated me on games I had no idea about and gave me the tools to start speedrunning properly (no, my very messy run at the event does not count). Due to my day job, I’ll probably not be able to go to the bigger US events any time soon, but ESA next year is already in my diary – if you fancy a European holiday, maybe it should be in yours, too.
Source: Destructoid Here are my highlights from the European Speedrunner Assembly