NintendoThere are people who are into speedrunning, and then there are people who are really into speedrunning.
Reddit user Fbomb2F is definitely the latter, as they’ve just offered a $4,000 reward to anyone who can set a new world record for N64 classic Super Mario 64.
Potential candidates have until December 31 to livestream a successful run and beat the previous record of one hour, 39 minutes, and 19 seconds, which is held by Allan “Cheese” Alvarez. Hell, if Alvarez himself can shave a second off his last attempt, he’s just made himself a tidy sum.
NintendoFBomb2F shared this unusual offer, along with the conditions that need to be met in a Reddit thread in March. Candidates will have to submit their videos on speedrun.com, run the game on an original N64, and livestream the whole thing to ensure no cheating has gone on. Hopeful runners will also need be aware that FBomb2F is looking for the 120 star run of Super Mario 64, so just getting to Bowser won’t cut it.
In the Reddit thread, FBomb2F originally stated that Alvarez would get the reward if no one could beat the record, but later decided that probably wasn’t a great idea and said they’d figure something else out for Alvarez.
It’s not entirely clear how legit this whole thing is. This is the internet after all, so it’s incredibly likely that this guy doesn’t actually have $4,000 to give away and is just a bored speedrunning fan looking to raise the stakes.
With that said, FBomb2F seems aware that some might question the legitimacy of this whole thing, and confirmed he’d look into an escrow service to hold the prize money until the end of the year. Again though, we’re just taking him at his word at this stage.
FBomb2F described himself as a trucker who fell in love with speedrunning back in 2014:
I just drive and watch youtube when I’m parked. It’s kind of how I got into watching speedrunning. I saw siglemic’s 120 star run at SGDQ 2014 and I was hooked on it. Youtube kind of knows that I like speedrunning now cause I leave autoplay on when I go to bed and no matter what I fall asleep watching, I always end up waking up to a speedrun or race of some kind.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to beat the world record on Super Mario 64 and fancy pocketing a tidy lump of cash, you can get in touch with FBomb2F on discord at FBomb#5989.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.