Any dedicated speedrunning fan knows this community is divided into two irreconcilable camps. The first are ardent discipline lovers who always comply with the rules and make it their priority to play the game fairly, relying only on the originally available features to score the best time. The other type of players are so-called tool-assisted speedrunners who exploit all sorts of cheats, hacks, and glitches to optimize their game completion time. The user nicknamed Olenoname fits into that latter category perfectly, as proved by the crazy 17-minute Stardew Valley speedrun we saw last week at AGDQ 2022.
Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2022 – an annual charitable speedrunning event – was held between Jan 9th and Jan 16th, 2022. This year’s marathon helped raise a record-breaking $3.4 million for Prevent Cancer Foundation.
The speedrun was off to a somewhat weird start, where Olenoname chose to type out a name for the character that was simply too long. The idea of using long names in AGDQ is to squeeze in as many item codes as possible for other game residents to use these hidden codes to donate various items.
Olenoname then leveraged a glitch that granted him access to the inventory menu. There, the speedrunner immediately removed all the tools and replaced them with a bunch of valuable items like mega bombs. Scattering mega bombs all over the garden, Olenoname was able to cut all the trees in one go and demolished a neighbor’s house in the process. Whoops!
There were other exciting tricks to marvel at, so anyone who did not get to watch the live run on Twitch is highly recommended to do so now.
What are your thoughts on the Stardew Valley run-through by Olenoname? What other AGDQ 2022 speed runs caught your attention? Speak up in the comments and share this post with friends!
