Learn the Basics of Donkey Kong Country Speedruns with Snowman Gaming

Speedruns come in a variety of forms from straightforward runs of Super Mario World to the more wacky runs of Dog’s Life. Basically any game ever created can become a speedrun, but some might be better designed with speed in mind. Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 on the Super Nintendo are two of those games that are laid out in a way complimented by going fast. Learning speedruns can be tough as well, with many runners putting in hundreds of hours into their craft. This is why when we come across two recent guides for DKC 1 and DKC 2 from Snowman Gaming, we had to share them.

Both of Snowman’s guides to these runs cover the basics of folks picking up these games will need to know. He does this by going through every level in the route, unless they are incredibly straightforward without any major tricks to learn. The first category covered by Snowman is the All Levels category in Donkey Kong Country.

For Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest there are a few more options than just leading with Diddy, making it a really interesting run. Snowman again goes into all of the skips in each world, as well as a few more complex tricks that fool the game into spawning goals or just hopping out the level entirely.

We got a hold of Snowman Gaming through Twitter and asked what inspired him to put these guides together. “I just have been running the first two for awhile now and always wanted to give an opportunity for other people to give it a go if they were hesitant about starting speedrunning. They are really speedrunner friendly, and I wanted to show that it's not that hard to pick up with a step-by-step guide to the basics.”

He did add that he doesn’t have any plans to cover Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! as a speedrun.

Again, while these are not the most extensive guides to reach world record potential, they are excellent starting points that deserve praise. Aside from these two guides, Snowman Gaming does a bunch of critical looks at various games. It’s definitely a channel to keep an eye for those looking to take deeper dives into why the games covered are worth talking about.

He also links a bunch of additional resources for those looking to take their game further.

Want to see more of Snowman Gaming? You can find him on his channels at YouTube or Twitch.

We've got more speedrunning action as well. Check out our recent interview with Ragnell, talking about speedruns through God of War 3 and the future of speedrunning in the recently released God of War.