ROOPERT83

Drinking the Safe Tea

I'm not one for grinding out a single category for weeks on end. I'd rather just start up a console and see where a run takes me. The marathon-style runs are what really hold my interest - jumping between different games, adapting to their unique physics, and maintaining that focus over hours. It's a different kind of challenge than perfecting one game.

This mindset extends to the strategies I use. In Super Mario Bros. 2, I became known for a safer approach to the Fry Guy kill that commentators started calling "the roopert strat" - not because I invented it, but because I used it consistently enough that the name stuck. I did develop my own approach for World 6-6 in Super Mario Bros. 3 though, where I damage boost through the spikes instead of trying to avoid them all.

The longer multi-game runs are what really hold my attention. The Decathlon - ten games back-to-back - is the ultimate version of this. My first attempt took over eleven hours, but I've gotten it down to just over eight. There's something about switching between different games and their mechanics that keeps it interesting.

As of December 10th, I have begun running my own TikTok Creator Network. A TikTok Creator Network enables you to get free streaming assistance, coaching, tech support, an OBS stream key, and more. You do not have to be a gaming streamer, you do not have to be super popular. If you are interested in improving your stream (completely for free), come check out RTFM.

Featured Runs

Back in my day...

I first discovered the speedrunning community through a charity marathon in the fall of 2012. GDQ was raising money for victims of Hurricane Sandy, and somehow I came upon it. For the next several months, I watched streams without even having a Twitch account, learning about games like SM64 and Ocarina of Time from runners like Siglemic and zfg. I thought maybe this was something I could do, and started practicing offline. It wasn't until March 2013 that I finally created a Twitch account and decided to try racing myself.

My first speedrun was a blind race in Super Mario Bros. 3 on March 30th, 2013, where I competed against established runners Linkdead and Kakusho. I was so nervous my heart was pounding, but I ended up winning that race because I didn't know what "blind" meant in this context. Whoops.

In the early days, we didn't have all the tools runners have today. No practice ROMs, no flash carts, no Discord communities. We used WSplit, IRC, and streamed in 480p. Many didn't have mics, let alone a webcam. The racing scene was incredibly active back then. I did over 800 races on SRL in my first year alone, both through constant pickup races and scheduled weeklies.

While I started with SMB3, I quickly moved into SMB1 and SMW as well due to SRL's seasonal points system. The community was minuscule - just a handful of us racing constantly. Kosmic and andrewg were already established, and darbian started around the same time I did. We'd get off work on a Friday and just do back-to-back-to-back races through the night, hopping on voice chat in Skype or TeamSpeak and racing whatever games people felt like playing until they didn't feel like playing anymore.