Summer Games Done Quick 2021 promises once again to give audiences a slew of unique speedrunning content all to raise money for the Doctors Without Borders charity organization. SGDQ 2021 is the summer iteration of Awesome Games Done Quick, which raised $2.7 million for charity in January. The schedule for SGDQ 2021 is available to view on the Games Done Quick website, and this summer's offerings will include all kinds of games to be beaten with estimated completion times ranging from 5 minutes to three hours or more.
Unfortunately, SGDQ 2021 will be online-only due to COVID-19 concerns, which makes it the second year the event will be limited to online activities. But SGDQ's 2020 event still managed to raise around $2.3 million for charity, and this year's event looks to break the $2.7 million record set earlier this year. Although there will be several impressive speedruns from a diverse group of content creators, runs for the 1996 platformer Super Mario 64 and the racing game TrackMania Nations Forever will be done with players completely blindfolded.
SGDQ 2021 will start on July 4th and last until July 11. As usual, the event will kick off with a pre-show at around 10:30 a.m. on July 4th which will be followed by the first day of speedrunning content. Video game classics from series like Super Mario Bros., Sonic, and Castlevania will make an appearance during the week-long event as well as some of the most talked-about recent games like Doom Eternal, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The GDQ events are praised by gamers for not only raising millions of dollars for charity but also giving unique content creators a chance to grow their audience. Blindfolded speedruns are some of the craziest runs during the event, and often rely on a player's ability to follow audio cues and tap into muscle memory. 2020's AGDQ event featured the first time that two players beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! blindfolded sharing only one controller. The blindfolded speedrun was a bonus event at AGDQ 2020, and the TrackMania Nations Forever blindfolded speedrun this year will also be a bonus event if donation goals are reached.
The Super Mario 64 speedrun isn't a bonus event and is scheduled to take place around 2:24 p.m. on July 10. Twitch streamer Bubzia will try to do a blindfolded 70 star run of the N64 game on a Wii Virtual Console, and it is expected to take him around 2 hours and 15 minutes to pull this off.
Another great thing about the GDQ events is even if a speedrunner fails to meet their goal, they will still often entertain audiences with unique tricks and information about the games they've mastered. Gamers looking for indoor summer entertainment should check out SGDQ 2021 and be prepared for some incredible feats.
Source: GDQ