(Marathon is now live! click the banner to watch!)
What is Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ)?
AGDQ is a 7 day charity gaming and speed-running marathon organised by
Speed Demos Archive (SDA) to raise money for the
Prevent Cancer Foundation. Speed runners will play continuously through 115 different games, as fast as possible during the event. The event will start on
Sunday, Janurary 6th - 13:00 EST (18:00 GMT). If you'd like, you can check out a
trailer here.
How can I watch the event?
Simply click on over to the
Speed Demos Archive home page during the marathon - you will be re-directed to the marathon stream page. When the marathon is live you will be able to see the streams & the chat - you will also be able to see how to donate, if you wish to do so.
What games will be featured?
To name just a few:
Amnesia, Starcraft 2, Portal 2, Super Mario 64, Mega Man Games, Castlevania Games, Super Meat Boy...
You can view the
full schedule with times (and prizes) here. Don't worry if you miss a game you want to see, as after the marathon recordings will be uploaded and available to get!
Do I have to donate to watch?
Watching the marathon is free! However, if you donate - as well as helping out a good cause - you may also be in the draw for some awesome prizes (see the
schedule) and can choose to add a comment to your donation which may be read out on stream. Furthermore there are also game specific challenges, goals and bidding wars (for things like character names) too. Note that there is typically a small minimum donation amount for prizes (last year it was usually $5/$10 depending on the prize).
There was a marathon last year?
Yes, and it raised
over $145,000! There have been others too, and if you would like to check out any of the videos & schedules from previous marathons they can be accessed
here. If this is your first time watching the marathon,
here is a huge collection of highlights from last year which you can check out.
Sounds cool - but what's a speedrun?
A Speed run is just playing through a game as fast as possible, often abusing glitches or flaws in the game to do so. In this marathon all the games will be played on the original hardware and no cheats will be used.