How Neon White Lets You Speedrun Speedrunning

Hey there! Every year, I dedicate my last video to the most innovative game from the last 12 months. In the past I've talked about time-travelling detective games, brain-busting block pushers, and time-looping archeological adventures. So, what should I pick for 2022? Well. I've always been interested in speed-running. That's the practice of taking a game, and trying to finish it in the fastest way humanly possible. This requires you to play with impeccable skill.

To understand every facet of the game's underlying design. To research movement tech. To exploit skips, shortcuts, and sequence breaking. And, sometimes, to break the game into a billion pieces. It's a fun part of gaming culture - from annual conventions like Awesome Games Done Quick, to YouTube chronicles like Summoning Salt. But, let's be honest: I'm never going to do it. This requires an unbelievable time commitment - a top Ocarina of Time runner says he spent more than 4,500 hours on the game.

I could spend that time doing much better things, like watching the Shrek the Halls Christmas special 9,000 times. So... what if you made a game that simulated the feeling of being a speedrunner. That gave you the chance to learn a move set, practice running over and over again, find skips and shortcuts, and slowly get better. But without the thousand hour commitment? Well, that would be Neon White. ♫ Upbeat Music ♫ So, at it's most basic, this is a first-person platforming game.

In each level you pick up these carefully placed weapon cards - they can be used to shoot down demons. Or they can be discarded to unleash a special move, borrowed from other platforming games - like a double jump, forward dash, rocket jump, hookshot, or ground pound. And so you must race through each level, shooting demons, discarding cards, and moving with speed and skill. Now, you could finish each level, move on, fast forward through the cringe dialogue, and roll credits in a few hours.

But, that's not really the point. “If you just play to win each level without going back to optimise your time, you’re not really playing Neon White,” says creator Ben Esposito. The game initially began as a first person shooter mixed with a deck builder. You'd assemble a deck of cards, and then get dealt random weapons and powers in the middle of a fight. Which... kinda sucked. But when Ben changed the prototype to have a breadcrumb trail of hand-picked cards, his friends quickly started running through the levels as quickly as possible, trading back and forth their best times.

Which led to Neon White as we now know it. It's a big departure from his previous game - the noodley hole 'em up Donut County, which was designed to appeal to as many people as possible, with its simple gameplay and controls. This time, Ben wanted to make a game that a few people would absolutely love - a strange mix of Counterstrike surf maps, Toonami anime, Dreamcast aesthetics, Visual Novel dialogue and more. Anyway, like Ben says - Neon White is most fun when you play the level, and then try to do it again - but faster.

But during development, this wasn't always obvious to people and they would blast through levels without ever thinking to retry for a better time. So the team developed a system that would encourage players to optimise. It's called Insight - designed, as Ben says, "to orient people to the true 'fun' of the game." So when you start a level for the first time you're given a screen like this. Everything's locked. So you just play the level.

You're probably a tad slow, you might make a few mistakes, you might hesitate - and so you get a bronze medal. WHITE: "Cleared it". This unlocks a leaderboard with your friends' times, and also shows you how fast you'll need to go for a better reward. Each level in Neon White is incredibly short. A stage might only take 20 or 30 seconds to finish. So... they're always quick enough to encourage another go. So you play again.

This round, a timer appears on screen. You play faster, you're more accurate, you know how the level's laid out so there's less hesitation. This time, you get a silver medal... WHITE: "I'll take it". ...and you can now race against your own ghost, to see how you can do it even better. Neon White feels great to play - it has tight, responsive, and reliable movement mechanics, and all the standard forgiveness features, like coyote time and edge rounding.

It's just intrinsically fun to play, so replaying a level never feels like a chore. And it's crystal clear that with just a bit more skill, a bit more accuracy, a bit more practice, you could totally do it better. So you play again. Optimise. Improve. Do better. Get a gold medal! How on earth could I have done that any faster? WHITE: "Didn't even break a sweat". Neon White's visual design and architecture is intended for clarity and zero ambiguity.

It's all clean white buildings, with green plants that point towards where to go, and obvious visual affordances like staircases and archways. Plus, the enemies and cards are placed through the stage like a dotted line from start to finish. But that easy route is also a red herring. Because each and every level has a secret shortcut that can be exploited to get an even better time. And that's the reward for a gold medal: a level hint, which shows you where to break from the obvious route to get a faster time.

So you play again. With a little more practice, some problem solving, and a dollop of skill, you should have everything you need to net yourself the ace medal. WHITE: "It's 'cause I'm the best". But this finally unlocks the global leaderboards - and the temptation to go even faster. Perhaps you'll keep trying. Eke out a few extra seconds. Search YouTube for tips - wait, you can parry bullets in this game to get a speed boost?

What! And if you do that, you just might unlock a fifth, secret, red medal - for times set by Ben himself. And so by going through this process, you get the feeling of being a speedrunner on that specific level - but in mere minutes, or perhaps a few hours. Rather than weeks, months, and years. You get to feel like an AGDQ superstar. Without the time commitment. Of course - none of this is particularly new. Leaderboards have been around since the arcades.

Player ghosts since ancient racing games. And I praised the hidden medals in Assault Android Cactus for how they reward the best players - without demoralising those who can't make the grade. But there's something special about the way Neon White does it. For most games... time trials, speed runs, gold medals, and so on are the exclusive domain of a few elite players. Something that we mere mortals just watch on YouTube.

But that's not the case in Neon White. Practically everyone who talks about this game says the same thing - it's almost impossible to move on without, at the very least, a gold medal. Maybe an ace if you're feeling spicy. And it's no surprise: the short levels make replaying easy. The tight controls make it fun. And the insight system encourages you to do it, by gradually easing you in from a stumbling level finisher, to a slick speedrunning superstar.

And so that's why I'm picking it as the most innovative game of 2022. WHITE: "Not bad for a dead guy, huh?" Some honourable mentions, as always. Like 2019's winner, Baba is You, Patrick's Parabox is a block-shunting Sokoban game that soon gets super meta. This time, the block you are pushing around... might just be the level you are playing in - creating a recursive nightmare of infinite possibilities. Sounds like it would melt your brain, but the elegant and considered puzzle design gently guides you along a journey of surprising twists and a-ha moments.

Citizen sleeper is a micro RPG with an inventive dice-based mechanic. Each morning you'll wake up with a handful of dice showing random values. You can then spend these dots on different tasks, which forces you consider your priorities - which jobs are most important, and which characters do you want to hang out with most? This makes every choice feel more meaningful. Vampire Survivors looks like junk and basically plays itself.

But this automated twin stick shooter is impossible to put down. By lifting the most compulsive parts of clickers, RPGs, musou games, and synergistic deck builders, this game burrowed its way into my brain until I forcibly kicked it off my Xbox. There was also the Non-Euclidean adventure Hyperbolica, the goofy rhythm game Trombone Champ, and Tunic - the game that hides its best mysteries in a vintage instruction manual.

This year had some real gems. And if you want to know my ten favourite games of 2022, then check out GMTK on Patreon - those on the video tier can now check out my game of the year list. Patreon is also the number one best way to support this channel and everything I've been doing this year. Since January I've made videos on topics like invisible choices, economies, combing genres, and solving problems, and games like Deathloop, Hitman 3, Rollerdrome, and Elden Ring.

I've made five dev logs about my magnet game, an interactive video essay, a huge Unity tutorial, minis on God of War and Fortnite, and ran another monster game jam. Thanks to everyone on Patreon who supports this channel, your kindness means the world to me.