"Awesome Games Done Quick 2024" has already been a delight, and not just because it raised over $1 million for the Cancer Prevention Foundation. The recent "Doom" (2016) speed run for the game, which featured the game's creative director, Hugo Martin, as a guest commentator, was a great success.

During the speed run, the BFG 9000 made an appearance, BFG stands for "Big Fucking Gun," if that is any indication of what this thing does. In the game, this plasma weapon obliterates everything it aims at, and according to the game's wiki, a direct hit does 6000 damage.

An important part of the speed run, runner Raitro_ (who goes by J0ker in the stream) asked Martin how id Software's team balances weapons like the BFG, to which Martin replied matter-of-factly: "And Martin I'm not sure how to do it," he said. He said, "It's very tricky. ...... great gun that represents the franchise, but it's the button that kills everything," he stated."

For something like the BFG, it is honestly an admirable design concept. What is the appeal of this iconic weapon: ...... Yes, it is a gun so big that it must be abused; any attempt to make the BFG a little more benign would completely ruin this weapon. Instead, Martin claims that the use of this weapon is "left to the discretion of the player, and if he wants to kill everything, he can. [because] Martin's commentary is hilarious and really funny.

An hour and 16 minutes into the show, Martin asks: "Is there a gaming tournament or something this week?" To which Raitro_ replies: "Yes," to which Raitro_ replies: "I'm not sure. Martin also casually goes to buy coffee and cheerios at one of the places.

Martin seems to be genuinely at this festival, even though he somehow unknowingly stumbled upon it: "I turned [the stream] on and it was like the middle of the week and there were a lot of people. Is this like your QuakeCon? To which Raitro_ replied: "This is the QuakeCon of speedrunning.

Later in an AMA thread on the speedrunning subreddit, Raitro_ wrote It was about 3 months of preparation from the time I contacted Tokyo until the run: ...... I gave Tokyo all the event info, so I think the manager thought Hugo knew or some miscommunication happened."

Yet, I still had about 3 months of preparation time before I contacted Tokyo to run .......

Still, Martin's gentle bewilderment did not dampen the mood. After all, the entire Ratatouille speedrun is an event colored by dozens of "yes chefs". If the atmosphere does not resemble the Twilight Zone, AGDQ is wrong.