Simultaneous Time Attack

A 'time attack', or 'time trial', is a competition format where individuals compete against the clock and try to complete some task in the shortest amount of time. The most common form of speedrunning is Real Time Attack, or RTA, where speedrunners race through their games as fast as they can without stopping or pausing and measure their completed time based on wall time.

Generally these time attacks are completed on your own time with unlimited resets and as much intervening practice as you like. Speedrunners compete asynchronously from their homes, recording their attempts and submitting them to a centralized leaderboard. This style of speedrunning competition has lead to some incredible stories that can span decades.

However, their is another form of speedrunning competition that has some distinct differences. Simultaneous Time Attack, orSTA, speedrunning competitions are characterized by having multiple speedrunners competing at the same time on individual setups. Each speedrunner starts their attempt simultaneously with their competitors, and the winner is the one who finished the speedrun first. No resets are allowed, so runners are forced to adapt their strategies and tactics to this fundamentally different format where consistency is king.

In a RTA environment the speedruns are characterized by continuously incorporating riskier and more difficult strategies to bring down the overall time. A RTA speedrunner at the highest level might incorporate hundreds of small improvements to their runs that all have a non-zero probability of failure due to randomness inherent in the game or operator error. This leads to hundreds or thousands of resets when just one trick goes wrong. But in a simultaneous time attack environment resets are off the table, and if a trick goes wrong you have to know how to adapt and continue on.

STA for live events

The Simultaneous time attack format is well suited to live speedrunning events when a group of speedrunners congregate and want to engage in some friendly competition. By having runners compete simultaneously new strategies are warranted and a different skillset is engaged. Strong nerves, and the ability to handle pressure are required. It can be a much more intense environment where the stakes are higher.

"The last events have been an absolute blast and attending them was the most fun I've had in a very long time!" -Niftski

Success in a simultaneous time attack tournament requires a wide skillset and the ability to adapt to how the other competitor's speedruns are progressing. Past competitors have described simultaneous time attack tournaments as incredible rewarding, challenging, and most of all: Fun! This is in part because of the strong potential for incredible comebacks, upsets, and exciting moments.

Live simultaneous time attack tournaments can also offer additional opportunities and rewards for speedrunners that may have a substantial prize pool. This creates exciting opportunities for rivalries and extended competition over many years.

The technological challenges

There are practical and technological challenges with the simultaneous time attack format. Chiefly, it can be very hard to watch - unless custom technology is used to improve the experience. It is simply not viable to display each runner's individual game capture side by side.

Unless you have an extremely intimate understanding of the speedrun route and are paying extremely close attention you will be unable to follow everything that is going on. Putting a bunch of individual game captures up on screen and expecting the audience to follow, let alone enjoy, the experience is unrealistic. Therefore it is vital to synthesize and combine that information into a format that is approachable, understandable, and exciting.

This is the motivation behind Static, which is an open source platform for simultaneous time attack events. We are continuously improving and developing Static to make the simultaneous time attack format possible.

Why not just call it 'racing'?

Yes, I admit the 'Simultaneous Time Attack' name is a little bit strange when people have been doing this for years and calling it racing, of course without the custom technology.

The fundamental difference between a simultaneous time attack and a race is that in essentially every kind of race the competitors are able to directly influence one another. That is, in a car race you can literally cut infront of someone and force them to adapt because if they don't slow down or turn they're going to hit you. But in a STA the speedrunners are competing on individual isolated setups which do not interact directly. Each runner is playing the game as if they were just completing a normal speedrun at home.

However, there are interactions between the runners outside the game as they respond to what is happening in the game. A runner who knows that they are ahead of the competition might decide to adopt a safer, but slower, path through a level in order to maintain their lead without risking it all for a second or two. Conversely a runner who knows they are just a bit behind their friend might decide to risk the faster, but less consistent, tactic in a last minute bid to win.

So, because speedrunners in this format are limited to only indirect interaction with one another and because we want to emphasize our connection with the real time attack format, 'simultaneous time attack' seems like a great option. But yeah, racing isn't wrong either.

The live time attack format

Another great time attack format that is well suited to certain live competitions is the Live Time Attack format. In a live time attack event speedrunners are given a set amount of time within which they must complete a faster speedrun than their fellow competitors. They are allowed to reset as much as they want, just as if they were at home doing a normal RTA. The alloted time for the LTA generally far exceeds the normal time of a single speedrun, to that they can complete several runs and bring their times down over the course of the event.

A live time attack tournament is a great way to showcase riskier strategies and more impressive tricks while still retaining the competitiveness and excitement of live events. It's not uncommon for a speedrunner to put up a reasonable time quickly and then work to defend it over the rest of the tournaments as other speedrunners increasingly go for more difficult routs in order to beat it. Whereas a STA is will suited to a more general audience a LTA requires a longer time investment to enjoy, potentially several hours.

What now

So are you interested in being part of a simultaneous time attack event? You can join the Discord, or get in Contact. Throw your email in the mailing list as well to ensure you're notified of upcoming events.