GAMING: A quick interview with a Pokémon speedrunner

It beggars belief that holding the world record for speedrunning Pokémon HeartGold can come down to how quickly you catch a rare Magikarp.

It’s a notoriously pathetic monster, mocked both in-game and in the long-running anime series. But in HeartGold there’s an incredibly rare variant that’s set at level 50. Capturing it, and boosting it by one level leaves you with a very strong Gyarados that allows you to steamroll the rest of the game. The only wrinkle: finding it is totally down to chance.

This is one of the cool insights I learned from talking to Australian speedrunner JTMagicman – who is pretty sure he discovered this strategy – earlier this year. He’s ranked #22 in the world for his fastest run of the game, behind fellow Australian speedrunner werster, who holds the world record title.

JTMagicman streamed a run of the game as part of the Superhero Streamers event in July. AusSpeedRuns, a group that conducts speedruns for charity, raised around $51,000—just shy of their goal of $75,000 (they are still accepting donations), contributing over one third of the event’s total $151,000 donations pool. All funds go towards cancer research, via Game On Cancer.

Building on a piece I ran last year on the speedrunning for charity trend, I chatted with JTMagiciman about how he got into speedrunning, tips and tricks for new speedrunners, and the frustration and excitement of running a game where your final time can simply come down to chance.

Here’s a edited transcript of our chat:

Harrison:
First question—and this might take you back—but how did you actually get into speedrunning? What’s the story behind it?

JTMagicman:
Oh, my story. I watched a YouTuber called Marriland. They were streaming on Twitch, so I signed up for Twitch and started browsing. I clicked on Pokémon HeartGold and saw a speedrunner called E-cast.

I was really, really interested in what he was doing. I reached out to him for notes and advice, and probably a couple of weeks later, I started practising myself—looking at notes, strategies, and structures. That’s really how I first got into speedrunning. I was just fascinated by how he could complete the game in five hours, when casually, it would take me like 25. I’ve been fixated on it ever since, I guess.

Harrison:
When you say you got his notes, how involved is it to actually map out a run? And how much does the community work together on that?

JTMagicman:
There’s a Discord server where the community comes together to share ideas—asking things like, “Oh, would this be possible?” or “Would that be faster?” We all pitch in. For example, a few years ago we discovered a trainer in the Radio Tower in HeartGold that we thought we had to fight—but it turns out we didn’t. Shout out to MK Dasher for that one. All optimisations over the years, I guess.

Harrison:
Why do you think people love watching speedruns in particular?

JTMagicman:
I’d say it’s because they’re exciting. You always want to know what’s going to happen next. Depending on the game, anything can happen, you could die, or lose time certain RNG [random number generation or in layman’s terms: chance] aspects. It also brings back nostalgia. If someone’s playing a game you played as a kid, I feel like you’re a lot more invested. It’s always exciting to see runners do things like glitches or things that you didn’t know existed.

Harrison:
On that nostalgia point, what percentage of games would you say are older versus newer in the speedrunning scene? Obviously people race new games too, but how much of the community focuses on older titles?

JTMagicman:
That’s a very good question. I’ve never actually thought about it, but I’d say probably 75% older games, 25% newer ones. But it’s hard to put a number on it.

Harrison:
Fair enough. What do you reckon it takes to be a successful speedrunner? What advice would you give someone who watches your streams and wants to start?

JTMagicman:
My advice is to pick a game you have knowledge on or think would be fun. Then reach out to the streamer or community around that game. In my experience, 99 per cent of speedrunning communities will welcome you with open arms. They’ll answer your questions, happily share notes and be very receptive to that. That’s what I did, and everyone was very, very welcoming to me.

Harrison:
It’s interesting—on one hand, it’s very competitive because you want to be the fastest and hold the world record. But on the other hand, it seems very collaborative. Can you talk me through that balance?

JTMagicman:
Yeah, exactly. Obviously, you want the best time, but you also want to help new people coming through. You don’t want to turn them off or make them feel excluded. It’s a hard balance—focusing on your own PB [personal best] or world record, while still being open to helping others. I’d never knock back someone asking for advice.

Harrison:
I’m guessing your favourite game to speedrun is HeartGold, the one you started on?

JTMagicman:
Yeah, I did Pokémon HeartGold for this event [Superhero Streamers]. I’ve been running off and on the past 11 years. It’s still my favourite game by a longshot. I grew up with it and loved to pieces and still do to this day. Though I do have moments where I’ve wanted to tear it to shreds, so don’t get me wrong. I still find it really enjoyable. The category I ran [for this event] was “Baton Pass,” using 22 different Pokémon through major fights. It’s a pretty cool run.

Harrison:
That’s sick. Have you personally discovered any exploits or tricks that you’ve contributed back to the community?

JTMagicman:
Funny you ask—we were just talking about this the other day. We’re not 100% sure if it was my idea, but we’re about 90% sure. There’s a level 50 Magikarp near the Lake of Rage. It’s a 1% encounter. It was either my idea, Jimmy’s, or werester’s idea to use it. But I was the first to do a full run using that Magikarp—giving it a Rare Candy to evolve into Gyarados and using that for the rest of the game. So yeah, that’s probably my little contribution. Spoiler alert: it’s really good.

JTMagicman finding the notorious Magikarp in a recent run.

Harrison:
It’s funny that Pokémon is your speedrun game of choice, because it’s so reliant on RNG. Is that your main point of frustration—that a perfect run could be wrecked by something like not getting that 1% encounter?

JTMagicman:
That’s correct. You do get used to it over the years, but yeah, it can still be frustrating. My advice is to keep playing and remember why you’re doing it. But you still encounter some frustrations, don’t get me wrong. But we know what we’re getting into so it’s never going to be perfect.

Harrison:
When you’re doing a speedrun for a charity event, does it add extra pressure?

JTMagicman:
I honestly felt that way in my first event, because I didn’t know what to expect. But now I’ve gone to four, or five, or six, maybe 10? I don’t really feel that pressure anymore. But you still really want to perform well on the big stage and showcase the run in the right way. So there is an element of pressure there, but I try not to put this on myself. I just think: “This is just another stream”. But in the back of your mind you are like: “This is for charity, it’s a showcase run”. Many people watching would have never seen this run before. So it’s still there, but nowhere near as bad as what it used to be.

Yeah, that Raticate never stood a chance.

Harrison:
How challenging is it to keep up the showmanship—talking to chat, answering questions—while still focusing on the game?

JTMagicman:
It can be a little bit, but not too bad. I practise runs while having someone talk to me, so I can get used to answering questions mid-run. And with Pokémon runs, there’s usually downtime between battles, so its really not that bad. If I were doing an action game where stuff is constantly happening, I’d say that would be harder to do, but I don’t really have experience with that.

Harrison:
Final question from me: how do you think space has evolved over the past decade? Are more people speedrunning now? Is it more diverse?

JTMagicman:
Yeah, it’s definitely evolved over the past 10 years—especially at ASM in particular. We’ve built a really diverse here, we’re very inclusive. Everyone here is very very friendly. It’s still growing, which is good. There’s still a lot of interest in it. After 10 years, I’d say it’s being pushed in the right direction, I would say.

Do you watch gaming speedrunners or have an interest in getting into it? And what was the most interesting thing you picked up from this chat? Let me know in the comments.

• Harrison Polites writes the Infinite Lives newsletter. Follow him here.

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