Starting the Comeback
Hello! I’m feeling a bit re-energized. Let’s talk speedrunning.
I haven’t streamed since March 7. That was SO incredibly long ago. Not only that, I don’t think I did a single second of speedrun anything since the end of that last stream. In the weeks that followed that last stream, I started prioritizing game dev work and tried to work speedrunning in where possible as a second big project. That balance never happened. That balance may in fact be impossible. We may never know. Or maybe we’ll know but remain in denial about it. There’s a lot of options available to us.
What I do know is this - for the time being I’m going to switch the primary focus of my attention over to speedrunning. In fact I’ve already started - my setup is officially plugged back in:
If that CRT scan line doesn’t get you PUMPED I have no idea what will.
Indeed as I start dusting off my speedrunning skills, I’m noticing a few things. First of all, I’m very excited about getting back into this. As I analyze this excitement, I feel like a big part of it stems from the fact that I’m now working on something that individual people like me actually do work on. There’s a realistic nature to this project that game dev lacks. People speedrun and stream on Twitch. I can talk to them and get advice from them and motivate them as they motivate me and so on and so forth. I am in a league that feels like it’s appropriate for me - a solo person - to be competing in.
In contrast, game dev often feels like I’m trying to pull off something more akin to a minor miracle. How many solo people have actually created an entire video game from beginning to end? This isn’t one of those things where yeah we all have that one friend who made an entire video game. Game dev feels like it’s a very, very difficult challenge - just objectively analyzing it.
Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that this game dev environment that I am in is my own creation. No one forced me to start doing this. Also, I could have collaborators if I wanted to go out and find some. I choose not to prioritize that. Weirdly, at the same time, I have a sense deep down that I will one day happen upon a person to combine video game making efforts with. Do I have ESPN? We’ll see.
Anyway, my point is that I’m feeling a renewed sense of energy now that I’m looking at a set of goals (speedrunning goals) that I can realistically see myself achieving. I have walked this road before. I am good at speedrunning. I feel like I can take action right away.
And of course, game dev is not permanently over, nor do I think it ever will be…but, it’s on the back burner.
SO. With all of that said, let’s turn the page and start getting into the second half of 2026. What can we do in speedrunning the rest of this year? When we left off with Mega Man 4, we were sitting in a tie for the #45 spot on the leaderboard at 39:10. It seems to me as if the minimum goal here should be to at least get a 38:xx. Traversing the rest of the 38th minute is a big undertaking and looks like this:
A 38:59 would put you in leaderboard spot #44
A 38:45 would put you in leaderboard spot #36
A 38:30 would put you in leaderboard spot #33
A 38:15 would put you in leaderboard spot #25
A 37:59 would put you in leaderboard spot #18
WR is 36:53 by Aurel509, set on 3/24/2026 (recent! Congrats Aurel!)
Longtime readers of the blog will remember that the first step of a speedrunning project is The Library. This will probably an abbreviated Library era comparatively speaking, since we’re not starting from scratch. For newcomers: I speedran Mega Man 4 in February + March earlier this year, then took a break until right now.
By my count, Mega Man 4 has 171 rooms. The bulk of this project’s Library era is going to be spent timing myself completing each of those 171 rooms in a practice environment and comparing those to the fastest human-played times I can find. Non-speedrunners (or even some speedrunners) might wonder: why didn’t you time yourself doing each room and compare it to the best possible time during the first Library era back in February?
I actually DID try to immediately jump to the step of timing each room as my first step of learning Mega Man 4 in late 2025, and it crashed and burned. I was stuck in the first level trying to replicate ideal room times with a low skill level and banging my head against a wall. When I regrouped and took another crack at Mega Man 4 in February, part of my strategy was to emphasize more gradual improvement. We slowly climbed to the point of being here today - #45 and summoning the spirit to regroup and keep ascending.
And note, I don’t even think the above is advice. I think you could learn the game the way I failed to, and be successful with it. I even think that I myself could be successful doing that in a future project (especially a future Mega Man project), since I’ll be a more experienced speedrunner in the future. I think the only advice is to not bang your head against a wall. Different projects need different approaches. I’ve been banging my head against a wall with game dev recently.
In terms of personal chitter chatter, I think enjoying getting back into fitness is still the main thing happening with me. I LOVE working out and it should never fall out of my lifestyle again. It’s crucial for me. Also, I’m an idiot for taking such a long time away from it.
I think I’ve even successfully had my first workout injury, which is pretty important to me. McLepke historians know that my last fitness era came to a disastrous end with a rotator cuff injury, and it’s safe to say I have a lot of anxiety about workout injuries now. It’s PTSD-ish. Actually maybe it’s just PTSD.
I woke up last Sunday and my lower back was not feeling good at all. Not that it was serious - it’s a muscle strain. But, it re-conjured that experience of having working out be a MAJOR pillar of your life, and then getting injured and having that pillar be out of order for a totally unknown amount of time.
One of the things I told myself going into this workout reboot is that if I get injured, I’m going to keep my head on straight and not wildly crash out as I did last time. I think I’m doing that. I took the week off, and mainly focused on rehab, stretching, and exercises specifically for my back. This was a week where I really appreciated having my 55 year old trainer Chris (aka the Cult Leader), who has a specific interest and focus in longevity. Chris has been invaluable to guiding this rehab process.
Also, I wish everyone could afford an awesome longevity trainer like Chris. Practically no one can and I feel for you all out there. Like everything, exercising is 1000x easier if you have money, which is sad and frustrating. I’m rooting for everyone out there to find the time and space to exercise enjoyably.
In other news, now that I’m re-entering my Twitch life it’s also feeling more meaningful to chit chat with my usual Twitch crew of friends. I enjoy supporting my Twitch friends year-round, but it’s all definitely more fun and meaningful when I’m an active participant. I’m excited to actually go live and be on camera again and have that whole social experience back.
I also took some time today to fill out my emote slots. I’ve had empty emote slots for my entire Twitch career thus far, and given that I’ve made tons of pixel art in my life, it’s kind of easy to fix. I added some of the recent enemies I had made during game dev as emotes. They’re cute. I also added some still-frames of emotes that I previously only had as animations. Twitch limits your animated emote slots, so uploading a one frame modified version is a good way to feature the spirit of animated emotes that aren’t currently in the active rotation.
ANYWAY that is all for now. Until we meet again, have a great day and thank you for joining me here for the latest and greatest of my one teeny tiny individual life. Good luck out there; I believe in you.