Setting World Records in Speedrunning: Technical, Strategic and Psychological Considerations

It should be noted that the following transcends the simple experience of a single player to delve into a multidisciplinary analysis of speedrunning. This practice, often reduced to the superficial definition of "finishing a video game quickly", is actually a complex discipline that lies at the intersection of top-level sports performance, quasi-academic scientific research and a form of artistic deconstruction of a digital work. The speedrunner who aspires to the world record is not just a player, but an athlete-researcher: a pioneer who explores the theoretical limits of a software system, while pushing his psychophysical abilities to the breaking point. The discipline has its roots in the early 90s, with the "par time" of Wolfenstein 3D and, above all, with the introduction of the "demo" function in Doom and Quake. This allowed players to record and share their performances, giving rise to the first dedicated online communities, such as COMPET-N and, later, the famous Speed Demos Archive (SDA), which laid the foundations for the global phenomenon we observe today. Understanding how to set a world record therefore requires analyzing not only the game, but the athlete, his mind, his strategy and the competitive ecosystem in which he operates.