Games intentionally made with speed running in mind?

[Avoozl]

So as we know speed running is a thing with most games now, but is there any games which are officially made with speed running in mind as an actual game mechanic?

[Arctangent]

Metroid: Zero Mission immediately pops to mind. It's surprising how many skips and stuff were intentionally designed into it.

Not sure if this counts, but Super Meat Boy is scored based on your time on each level, and keeps track of each best time for each level. A lot of its levels are designed to be able to be done ridiculously fast if you do them right.

[geo]

Speed Runners
Volgarr the Viking
AVGN: The Game

[Maes]

Many games by TAITO allowed a good (or lucky) player to dash through what would be otherwise pretty longish games (for arcade games, anyway):

Bubble Bobble, the New Zealand Story, Liquid Kids and to a lesser extent Rainbow Islands all allowed taking some sort of shorcut, usually as a reward for precise and "good" gameplay.

Also, Cadash: that Castlevania-like RPG-ish arcade game, also by TAITO. It was possible both to take it slow and careful, or to take quite daring shortcuts (at the expense of greatly increased difficulty, counter-intuitive choices and far lowered forgiveness).

[Memfis]

uhh how about millions of racing games

[dannebubinga]

Crash Bandicoot 3 for PS1 had a special gem that required you to compete against firstly the clock and for a second time compete against your own best time. It isn't really speed-running, but it was the first time I was introduced to actually completing a normal level in a game as fast as possible when it wasn't really the original goal of the level.

[Da Werecat]

Memfis said:

uhh how about millions of racing games

I'm surprised you didn't mention Elasto Mania.

[Gez]

Morrowind. No plot immunity for characters you have to kill only after some plot event is triggered. Lots of exploits to use and abuse so as to get able to face the big boss at level 1.

[Mithral_Demon]

In some way I feel Star Fox (Snes) and 64 were kinda meant for Speed Running since you can't just "save and quit" and come back later to that level like Zelda titles. (Although I do speed run A Link to the Past, 3 hours 20 min SNES, 4 hours and 10 minutes GBA with cheated Four Swords part because WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO DO THAT PART TO UNLOCK ONE AREA?! Only cheated so I can go into Palace of the Four Sword, and god it's fun).

[Pencil of Doom]

Quake is an excellent example of a game made for speed running.
And also fighting games with the use of TAS too.

[fraggle]

Portal 2 has a time challenge feature for all its levels IIRC

[Kontra Kommando]

Goldeneye for N64. You were only able to unlock certain "cheats" by beating a time par.

Resident Evil. If you beat the game in under 3 hours with just a knife; you could play as Tofu

Super Mario Bros. and thousands of other games with a level timer. If the time runs out; you're dead.

[scifista42]

The original Prince of Persia. Adventure platformer providing a really extensive complex of mazes, and you're only given one hour to reach the end of the game. That's an unusual gameplay mechanic at least (up to feeling like an after-thought), but it adds pressure and I think even replay value, despite the fact that the mazes are always the same (not randomized).

[kristus]

Games like "Dust force" where the mission is literally to be the fastest.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Memfis said:

uhh how about millions of racing games

Can that be considered to count? I always thought the idea of "speed running" was to be an alternate play style that often deviates a lot from "normal" play with various tricks and exploits, not a game where "do it fast" is the primary goal in the first place.

[Maes]

And the winner is.... *drum roll*

Doom.

C'mon, why do you think Romero would put in those apparently unrealistic or barely possible par times?

Even though all(?) of them have been beaten by now, some by pretty ridiculous margins.

[nxGangrel]

Quake 1 is the only game that comes to mind when I think of a speed run. Even compared to the other games in the series.

[scifista42]

nxGangrel said:

Quake 1

But was the game actually made with such a rocket jump abuse in mind?

[nxGangrel]

scifista42 said:

But was the game actually made with such a rocket jump abuse in mind?

I.. don't know...?

[kristus]

No. Rocketjumping was actually an unintended side effect.

[nxGangrel]

It's still pretty cool as hell though. And I wonder why they never fixed it to begin with.

[Devalaous]

Axiom Verge has a dedicated Speedrun mode

[Archi]

Many Sonic games, obviously.

[Da Werecat]

kristus said:

No. Rocketjumping was actually an unintended side effect.

Remember that small hole in the floor to stick your grenade into and propel yourself into a teleporter hanging above?

[Jaxxoon R]

Sonic CD had a built-in time attack mode.

[kristus]

Da Werecat said:

Remember that small hole in the floor to stick your grenade into and propel yourself into a teleporter hanging above?

No. But I know that the rocketjumping mechanic was discovered by accident by one of the Id employees while they were playtesting in DM. Don't recall who exactly. But he was being hunted and decided to just fire the rocket against the floor to kill himself and anyone in close proximity. Instead he were boosted out of the corner he was in.

[Phml]

DeadCore. Bonus points: you probably won't be able to complete the game if you aren't a speedrunner yourself. I got through I Wanna Be The Boshy but I can't touch this.

But I know that the rocketjumping mechanic was discovered by accident by one of the Id employees while they were playtesting in DM.

Sounds odd, considering the secret exit in Doom E3M6 was supposed to be reached through a rocketjump.

Granted, that's the horizontal dimension. Perhaps developers had a blind spot regarding the vertical axis.