Personal Best

My game, Personal Best, is a short piece of interactive fiction that allows players to step into the role of a moderator for an active speedrunning community. The purpose of the game is for players to gain first-hand knowledge about the kinds of unique challenges faced by these moderators, the foremost of which is to verify the legitimacy of speedrun videos submitted by the community. Moderators must acquire detailed knowledge about 1. The game in question and 2. The community’s mutual understanding of what constitutes “cheating” or “legitimacy” in this particular context of video game playing. By the end of the game, players will understand that definitions of “cheating” in video games can often be ambiguous or even contentious.

In real life, speedrunning community moderators conduct most of their interactions with players and fellow moderators online, in chatrooms or on forums. It is for this reason that Personal Best is a text-based game. Controls are minimal—simply click on your preferred dialogue option to advance the story—but effective gameplay requires the player to speak to a wide variety of characters, read their words carefully, and be able to determine whose advice is the wisest. The game is broken up into an opening section and four chapters, each of which presents the player with a video clip of gameplay footage from a speedrun. Based on advice received from characters in the game, the player must prudently declare runs “legit” or “fake.” These and other choices made along the way will affect the player’s “Gamer Capital” reputation score (a term borrowed from games scholar Mia Consalvo’s work). This score determines which ending awaits the player.