The Old-School Speedrunning & Gunning Appeal Of DUSK

Some of the more adrenaline-packed examples of speedrunning out there have been on id Software’s games, specifically Quake. Back in the TechTV days, there would be some speedruns shown in a corner while other shows were on and the Quake runs were fascinating. The players rockets to alter momentum to take what would take several hours down to just a few minutes. Recently, we came across a game called DUSK, which is a new game built with the classic ideas and visuals of those classic first-person shooter pc games of the 90s. We looked up what a speedrun might look like, leading me to tons of runs by a variety of players. 

Before diving into things, know that DUSK is currently in Early Access with two episodes and a multiplayer mode available, so techniques can and likely will change as the game comes closer to full release. DUSK speedruns go either two ways thanks to the game’s built-in timer. Some players will go for records for each level, while others find ways to complete the whole game in one swift go. Both are incredible to watch, particularly with the use of exploits to hop over boundaries. 

We asked DUSK Producer Dave Oshry about what he thought of the speedrun scene building around the game. 

“DUSK wasn't intentionally designed with speedrunners in mind, but as we got into development we found that it lent itself very well to speedrunning. For that reason, we included ways to track your time and tended not to fix ‘fun exploits’ that let players finish the levels faster. It's a lot of fun to watch.” 

After getting that insight from Oshry, we sought out viewpoints from runners in the DUSK community. This led me to a little group of those running DUSK on Discord. A DUSK speedrunner under the handle Runner Don’t Touch The Door had some hands-on thoughts to share with us on the game.

“The incredibly fast and fluid movement of the game, as well as the classic feel overall” is what brought him to DUSK. He also mentioned messing around in Half-Life and Goldeneye 007. I then asked what sort of techniques he found interesting, which he was happy to share. “Out-of-bounds clipping is really neat to me since Goldeneye currently has no out-of-bounds strategies in use currently, but just the overall speed of hopping is quite addicting.”

Even for casual players, mastering the ability to pick up speed with well-timed hops can feel exhilarating no matter what game it happens to be in. It’s also a technique that has roots in games of the past. These things translate to some stellar performances in DUSK. Don’t Touch The Door shared his latest record on the first level of DUSK, coming in at just below 10 seconds. That’s some lightning fast execution! 

This particular level could be done faster too, according to Don’t Touch The Door.

“When I announced my goal was sub-10 seconds people thought I was a little crazy for wanting it, but after playing the level for a while I really felt it was possible. I sometimes feel like, when I rewatch my run, I could maybe save another few tenths possibly.”

On the DUSK Discord channel, we talked about what inspired these players to mess around in DUSK. Yorrick had chanced upon the game during QuakeCon. 

“I got into it because of a network failure at Quakecon this year,” Yorrick recalled. “New Blood Interactive had showed the game off at Qcon a few years ago and that's how I first heard about it. When they said it was available that weekend, (episode 1 only) I snapped it up, played it for about 90 minutes, and beat it. Then the entire LAN Party went down for the better part of an evening. I needed something to do, found some cool tricks online, and have been running the game (first game I've ever run) since August.”

Yorrick also added that events like GDQ definitely kept the idea of running the game in the back of his mind. With the advent of video sharing and livestreaming, sharing runs is fairly easy to do as well. While chatting with the rest of the DUSK runners, we got on the topic of just how niche speedrunning used to be in the Quake and Doom days. Another player, brainfluid, is one of the moderators for the DUSK speedrun community at speedrun.com and said that the scene is really active at the moment. He shared his experience on the old id Software speedrunning days

“The speedrunning scene was really different back then,” brainfluid recalled. “It was very underground. Back in the late 90s/early 00s it was basically demo sharing.” 

Demo sharing was the process of saving a file that the game could then recreate, making it a much smaller file and easier to share with slower speed internet. 

“People have recorded runs of their games in closed communities since forever,” brainfluid added before speaking of the buzzing activity in the DUSK scene. “I check speedrun.com every other day and every time it's around 6 or 7 runs awaiting verification.” 

Right now, a lot of the runs are coming in as individual levels, especially with the episodic nature of the game and the in-game timer at the end of each level. Runners have already gotten creative too, doing things like carrying a bar of soap through the game in their runs. There’s a lot of opportunity and ways players can get creative in their play. For those looking for a 90’s style first-person shooter to run, DUSK is looking like an increasingly appealing choice. There’s plenty of competition and a steadily growing vibrant community that seems pretty eager for new runners. 

DUSK is $20.00 on Steam Early Access with no final release date set just yet. You can also follow the game for news and updates on Facebook and Twitter.