ANY%
A History of Speedrunning
Kat Brewster

A breakneck tour through the fiercely competitive – yet surprisingly collaborative – world of speedrunning, told by a passionate community that breaks, beats, and masters videogames by any means necessary.

224backers £16,048.26of £60,000 pledged

27% funded

Overview

Some people play videogames for fun. Some play to switch off and relax. Others want to explore every nook and cranny that developers lovingly engineer into their favourite titles. Then there’s a select few that get their kicks from going fast. Called speedrunners, this niche group scours every inch of a game with a fine-tooth comb to find exploits, break boundaries, and reach the end faster than anyone else. ANY%: A History of Speedrunning welcomes you to the high-octane world of completing games at lightning speeds.

Kat Brewster delves into the lengths the speedrunning community will go to in order to shave a nanosecond off their time: exploiting bugs, capitalizing on glitches, and mastering precise button timings. It’s high-speed racing, video game-style, with competitors striving to pass the finish line first in record-breaking time. This inimitable, thriving subculture defies genre boundaries to unite speedsters across a diverse landscape of gaming interests. After all, in which other corner of the internet will you find people cheering equally for people playing Elden Ring, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?

ANY% explores the origins of speedrunning from the late ’80s and early ’90s up to the present day, through interviews with runners that achieved the impossible. Dozens of runners and passionate community members give their accounts of what makes an excellent game to run, how the scene originated, what the advent of the internet and streaming sites meant for speedrunning, and where the future of the scene lies.

Whether you’re a die-hard speedrunner, curious about the unsung heroes of gaming’s high-speed subculture, or somewhere between the two, ANY% is an exhilarating exploration of the most innovative and impressive scene in the gaming sphere.

Specification

280 × 210mm
224 pages
Hardcover

Printing in multiple Pantone inks throughout

Standard Edition
Cut-flush hardcover with case printing in 3 Pantone inks
Foil-blocked cover typography

Special Edition
Cut-flush hardcover with case printing in silver and RGB Pantone inks
Die-cut slipcase printing in silver Pantone ink with foil-blocked typography

Welcome to the progress area of ANY%: A History of Speedrunning. Check back soon for development updates.

Estimated delivery
Autumn 2025

Shipping address changes allowed until Aug 29, 2025, 4:30 pm

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Slipcased edition with die-cut details
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How it works

If our funding goal is met before Sep 17, 2024, 5:30 pm GMT this project will commence development. All pledges will be immediately refunded in full if the funding goal is not met.

Estimated delivery

Autumn 2025

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At its core, speedrunning fulfills some of our most basic human needs: a desire to be our best selves, to be among communities of like-minded peers, and to complete things as quickly as we possibly can.

Erica Lenti, Wired

Must go faster...

ANY%: A History of Speedrunning offers a comprehensive history of the speedrunning community, chronicling its decades-long evolution. Showcasing tales from organizers, runners, TASers, routers, and more, this collection dives into the experiences of those dedicated to breaking games apart and putting them back together again – mastering iconic games like Tetris, Super Mario Bros., Celeste, and Metroid along the way.

It will pose and answer questions for the speedrunning curious: do speedrunners prefer older or newer games? Do hacks and cheats give speedrunners new ways to play a game, or alter it into something entirely new? And the ubiquitous question of our time – will bots soon be able to do it faster? Spoiler alert: they’ve already been speedrunning for years! But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Kat Brewster forensically covers every nook and cranny of the speedrunning scene, from the resurgence of ‘awful’ games as speedrunning darlings, speedrunning’s ventures into mainstream late-night entertainment, the diverse community, and events like Games Done Quick that give like-minded speedrunning fanatics a place to convene, plot, and smash records with a baying audience.

Publisher

Read-Only Memory

Profile

Founded in 2012 by Darren Wall, Read-Only Memory publishes beautiful books on videogames and their surrounding subcultures.

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ANY%: A History of Speedrunning has a presentation deserving of the hyperactive world of speedrunning. Devised by Paris-based agency Atelier Müesli, the book is printed throughout in striking RGB inks, bringing to life the detailed illustrations that explain the incredible feats and game-breaking tricks that make up a record-breaking speedrun. The book’s hardcover case is cut-flush to the page edges for a tactile and suitability deconstructed look.

For those that want to level up their version of this speedrunning almanac, the Deluxe Edition – limited to just 250 copies – features an alternate 4-colour design and is housed in a presentation slipcase with silver ink, die-cut segments, and illustrations of key speedruns adorning the inner lining. To top it off, each Deluxe Edition copy will be hand-signed by author Kat Brewster, making it a unique treasure.

Speedrunning has evolved to become a sport that requires unmatched endurance and persistence, we’ve all seen compilations of raging gamers failing a speedrun. But it has also become an incredibly technical, intricate style of gameplay all its own.

Danny Paez, Inverse

For me, speedrunning is a display of the best side of the internet, a welcome relief from a place that is often horrible. The best world-records are achieved by individuals, but are held together by the glue of community.

Joe Koning, The Guardian

Meet the author

Kat Brewster is an academic at the University of Michigan, a sometime game designer and a respected writer, who comprehensively covers the worlds of the internet, online archives, games and particularly the realms in which they intersect. Her words can be found across the internet, from PC Gamer and Read-Only Memory to Vice and Defector, though she’s perhaps best known for her lauded Priceless Play series at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Throughout her career, Kat has tackled a breadth of topics such as the history of computer networking, the history of LGBTQ+ life online, web archiving, and niche online subcultures such as videogame modders, indie gaming communities, and speedrunning. Her insightful analyses and engaging writing have made her a prominent, powerful voice in academic and gaming circles.