The History of Half-Life Speedrun World Records

References, Footnotes and Music: docs.google.com/document/d/1B...
Serious work on this started in late June.

[@Pinsplash]

Hey, I'm okay with reactions if you're someone involved in the video you react to. "What's so bad about reaction channels?" kzbin.info/www/bejne/m37XpXyQf9WZaJo

[@HAV0X_]

i am involved in the video. i am the viewer.

[@locrain7]

@@HAV0X_me too

[@El_Descarriado]

I'm also involved. I'm the Nihilanth.

[@Sockren]

they are NOT gonna listen sadly. they would rather gaslight their fans than credit lmao

[@seeblu]

sharp thinking @@HAV0X_, the viewer of this video.

[@thr0ne1997]

1:03:37 "dude, my demos are older than you" (c) Maxam lmfao

[@tecmaxxd]

i used to spam spacebar in half life and say "yeah i am Speedrunning, best bhop ever"

[@BringusStudios]

Beautifully crafted video, loved every minute

[@Whomobile]

I love the demonstration of progress, such a brilliant visualiation for it

[@lispy0nline]

Hi whomobile!! You should cover uhhh you should cover koth_sneed_pro

[@SUPER_HELPFUL]

The way this edited with more "hype" than most speed run videos really matches the energy of hl1 speed runs. A calm presentation would not have been as appropriate.

[@zephyr1181]

The music is really nice

[@CallOfCutie69]

It’s shame you don’t have a dedicated chapter on the "20:41" speedrun, only mentioning it in passing. While it is a heavily segmented scripted run, it’s arguably the most beautiful speedrun I’ve ever seen, and it amounts to about 69% of my interest in speedrunning. It is also a collective work of most famous and influential hl speedrunners, and is overall highly iconic.

[@K0MMyHuCT]

Yeah, I was really hoping for a segment on that. Collaborative, more technical speedrunning like that has such a different vibe, would've loved to hear that run's story.

[@1996Pred]

Yeah... I thought he would mention about it and break out some strast that are being used there. Especially heavly improved changelevel delay that was used in multiple spots instead of one. Or quick saveloads to use many weapons each frame.

[@Valet2]

Yeah, was waiting for this as well

[@Flaurenn]

Agreed. It also includes YaLTeR, who is the coder of a lot of things such as bunnymod XT. He contributed a loooooot to the HL speedrun community. I wish there was a larger chapter where he talked about the "quadrazid did faster" video

[@cocusar]

Yep, I was actually hoping to see that run mentioned. I know you can't have all runs mentioned on a video but that one was really impressive to not mention!

[@spyperyt6075]

Out of all the speedrunning videos I've seen this one has to be my favorite. The editing, writing and music selection is amazing, it's great to see a speedrunning history video that doesn't try to replicate summoning salt but tries to innovate instead.

[@ryguy-qh2qk]

Innovation is literally what speedrunning as a whole sums down to

[@Vapezizi]

It's so crazy how old many of the current strats are

[@Dopefish]

Wow, this video is simply amazing for going through the history of Half-Life speedruns. Simply awesome work. I personally wasn't aware of my health affecting how cooperative the scientist was in Questionable Ethics (11:36), it just happened to be the health I had at the time, which turned out to be fortunate. Great work!

[@PornografiaAnal]

What, you are alive???????

[@rm_steele]

​@@PornografiaAnal 1:18:25

[@RandomEngy]

Hah, that made me feel better. I spent a long time trying to get that scientist to cooperate like he did in your video but eventually just gave up and killed the headcrabs.

[@parknplay8328]

Whenever I watch a speed run I always think about how it must seem in the world of the game, and Half Life might be my favorite game to do this with because it basically turns into a guy going into work, jamming a rock into a laser at Mach ten, and then immediately rushing out with an obviously pre-planned escape route.

[@RandomEngy]

What a fantastic video. Really brings me back and reminds me what made Half-Life such a beautiful game to speedrun. You're totally right, I didn't know the "below half health" trick for the scientist there. I learned it from this video! I was talking a lot with Spider-Waffle on the SDA forums but I wasn't in contact with Dopefish. Also, by SDA rules my run was also "scripted", since I had a 3hop script on my spacebar, so it would also have been banned by Radix rules anyway. I couldn't stand mousewheel jumping. Anyway, it brings joy to my heart to see such a large and skilled community still at it. I remember thinking the game was old when I ran it over 20 years ago, and would not have dreamed I would be seeing these kinds of records broken in RTA mode so far in the future.

[@EzoFuzz]

An hour and a half long video on half-life speedrunning with a constant banger playlist of 90s / early 00s Drun n' Bass? I think the algorithm has never blessed me this much tbh, hope to see more in-depth videos from you man!

[@giberic]

Half-Life 1 will always be my favorite speedrun out of any game. The movement and the glitches are all so satisfying to watch.

[@15braincellsremaining]

Based Otis pfp

[@giberic]

@@15braincellsremaining otis orb

[@ItsCooper]

Brilliantly done! I love how the runs were showcased, letting the gameplay speak for itself unless otherwise necessary.

[@thedittoguy1]

This is one of the best speedrunning history videos I've ever watched. And the fact that it only has ~2k views right now is criminal. At points it felt better than a summoning salt video (which is saying a lot considering it felt a lot of inspiration seems like it is from him)

[@rebel6301]

The music choices for this video are audaciously funky. Absolutely grooving.

[@Totino.The.Pizza-Boy]

This is one of the best speedrunning vids I've seen on KZbin in a LONG time, and the fact that you gave it real subtitles... you're a gentleman and a scholar. Please keep it up, my good man. You're earned yourself a sub today.

[@Grilled_Cheese2023]

This whole video was like "WOAH WTF." The sound design was so cool. Also the timeline visual helped a LOT.

[@oil_moon]

I'm watching this the day after going to a drum&bass night and it's making me extra extra appreciate your choice of background music

[@LolonOnline]

Incredible presentation! Not even the biggest speedrun documentary channels have citations and are fully captioned, I really appreciate the extra work you put in for that!

[@basicassusername]

This is one of the best Speedrun documentary out there. You got my heart pumping for 1h straight. Amazing editing, well research, awsome music, great timing and delivery. I only wish that you would've put the name of the runner and date on screen at all times.

[@WolfmanDude]

I am so hyped for this! These typed of videos are always so interesting and you are the perfect person to do a video like this on half life!

[@goon-705]

Back in roughly 2017 I was really into hl speedrunning, I did some myself, I never uploaded any mainly because they were never sub 50:00 and I really saw it as redundant after seeing some of the first sub 30 rta runs. But I always loved seeing the progress being made on the wr, and this video sort of brought me back to how it felt to seeing some of these tricks being preformed for the first time.

[@SHUTDOWNOfficial]

Love the music used here :) I feel like you would love the artist Desimal, very awesome 00s neuro DnB (some of his tracks even sample sounds from the HL2 beta according to an old forum post) I recommend Fallen Man in particular, unfortunately he passed away in 2006 but this stuff should not be slept on at all

[@markblacket8900]

thank you for that recommendation, love the dirty growling synths

[@hubertop1247]

These charts are so awesome, you should add a current date to them so they could be used anywhere. Whole video is super professional and engaging, you really do have a high standard. Much love

[@uninable]

appreciate the cool little detail with the different font for HL2 at 1:15:08

[@KrowNN]

I was so involved in the entire video. It was absolutely mesmerizing. Please do same style video similar topic please!

[@Tankfird]

Well made vid and I hope it gets more people interested in running half-life!

[@abandoned_green]

“The mechanics of a self-gauss are way too complex for me to bother understanding” is fucking hilarious in retrospect having watched the absurdly detailed video on the gauss. Lmao

[@meeperest]

the speed run clips feel like old people would say that's how they got to school.

[@christiangrey3645]

Half-Life's first speed run is 20 years old, this very day.

[@hansonkerman7286]

pinsplash's video editing always makes me feel warm and fuzzy. the map name and chapter in the corner as well as the wonderful subtitles make the pinsplash viewing experience so good

[@Kacpa2]

It was very nice to watch, liked the music alot too. Visualizing the progress on the graph was nice too. Would like to see something similar for HL2 and other valve games.

[@NewtGQ]

oh man i cant wait to watch this one. A new video thats 1 hour+ long from a criminally underrated youtuber.

[@scantyer]

Amazing work Pinslash. The soundtrack, the explanations, the visuals. everything is phenomenal

[@gumballegal]

the second you showed that first single segment run- where they just completely skip some of the past tricks you've explained- with that awesome beat on the background, now that was cool

[@nooneinparticular3370]

Oh man, I love watching these, I was hoping to see one on HL some day, and I'm really glad it was you who did it. And the music dude, your choice of music is incredible! It goes well with the video and it sets you apart from other creators.

[@cloacky4409]

Man, this is such an amazing video, probably one of my favourite things that were ever uploaded to youtube. I hope we're getting a HL2 version soon :)

[@kobacats]

i genuinely love the editing you did on this and the amount of work you put into the information given is so good, i love the visual style and choice of music you made here too (i never heard of Concord Dawn so you got me hooked into listening to them lol), i'd love to see more content like this from you, thank you for making it!!

[@StereoBucket]

30:48 Fun fact about using infinite health door with armor, if you keep doing it for long enough, the game eventually crashes, but won't crash without armor. Depending on how much armor you have, the hud icon for armor changes, and if you keep going past 100, other game icons will start getting used instead, which can look weird (such as toxin and weapon icons), and at some point the large icon for text Half-Life gets shown on your hud, and not long after that, and a few more icons, the game crashes since there aren't any more icons (presumably). This crash also occurs on mods that do fancy things and implement custom icons for the health + (Example: MMod uses custom icons for health, and if you take it too long, it will crash. However amount of health needed is less than what's used in runs).

[@eljestLiv]

Fantastic video, loved every second of it! I only with HL21 was covered too, considering how much time was spent talking about segmented runs

[@x8c8r]

Perfect editing and music choice. I honestly never thought how speedruns of my fav speed game started, but now I understand that it's story is as unique as the run itself.

[@pomino255]

wonderful video, thanks for putting so much work into it. things like this are why relatively small game communities can thrive

[@MrDirt]

I love the way you incorporate the PBs of all the speedrunners.

[@Adamek1926]

48:25 - Appears out of nowhere - Posts one run that's just a second behind WR - Refuses to elaborate - Leaves Godspeed, Wacky.

[@alehzanderh]

I appreciate your dedication to the game. This kind of video definitely took a lot of it. I also appreciate the dnb tunes you used in the video. You sir, are a man of good taste.

[@keyboardofsteel]

the segmented joke at 8:30 is hilarious

[@dominikcz198]

Half-Life is still a cool game. The gameplay holds up today, but most importantly, these old graphics give me that nostalgic charm.

[@ryguy-qh2qk]

Thanks for documenting this awesome history while also sharing such great music !

[@420Messiah-MusiKit]

This type of music with bhopping in the background is just... So beautiful to watch

[@Insomn3s]

Very well done! Great editing and style as always

[@hiwhatname4127]

Bro released a whole ah- movie. Wow, just wow. The amount of effort this must have taken 0.o

[@hitelbevettborsgaminghun2053]

This is a very well put together video. Nice job! :D

[@WafflesASAP]

I imagine it took a long time to grab relevant clips and edit them all together (from the various runs mentioned in the video) and I really enjoyed what you showed us here. Thanks for the time and effort you put into this, homie.

[@Wyattporter]

Didn’t know I needed this, this is awesome, thank you

[@CatEarsYT]

I love the way this whole thing is put together! Great work Pinsplash!

[@ConcasicoWoodworks]

Very interesting topic and history for one of my favorite games. Excellent taste in music btw.

[@Eold]

Good watch. Was so fun to learn about hl1 lore that I couldn't witness first hand

[@tashi32_]

i love how the text looks like HL text in game, awesome editing touch

[@potkor]

thats some banger dnb during the replay of the runs

[@AlbertHamik1]

Cubeface was basically my entry into speedrunning, so it's nice to learn he had a noteworthy role in the history of one of the most popular PC speedgames of all time.

[@Neometalll]

80 min vid and you still subtitled correctly like a boss

[@dumbo1950]

20:44 music synced with the bunny hops. Pretty cool

[@balcsida]

I never imagined that I would be so invested in a video where someone talks about speedrunning. I'm now watching this video for the second time, it is amazing. Great music selection as well, I don't know how could I have lived without listening to Concord Dawn. Thank you, Pinsplash 🙇‍♂

[@HapppyMann]

sad that this vid got so many less views than ur other ones, it's for sure one of my favorites

[@DanielEhlmann]

It’s my sleepover, and I get to choose the movie.

[@AlekDjRo]

4:14 nice song

[@TheArzonite]

I can't wait for the full game TAS run(s). Quadrazid has some absolutely _insane_ individual level runs, but man, the full game run (with commentary) would be to die for.

[@containerseightandnine9756]

wow , nice edit , I remember being amazed the first time I saw a speedrun of this game in 2007 or something right here on YT . it blew my mind the way the guy jumped down the elevator shaft onto the ladder to cancel fall damage in the beginning of the game . I couldn't even defeat the end boss in the game when I had played it in the early 2000's . still had fun playing it though

[@alika3651]

amazing work pinsplash this video goes so hard its the hardest video i ever watched

[@markblacket8900]

Fantastic music, it fits Half-Life's visuals really well

[@Benethen_]

such a high effort video, loved it!

[@name2589]

Came for the video, stayed for the great music. Splendid video dude!

[@NuclearPlum]

Great video with a equity great soundtrack.

[@matejmizak7585]

The music be buggin' me tho, but anyways, great vid!

[@alika3651]

THANK U FOR THIS VIDEO AAAAAAAA pinsplash u r one of my favourite youtubers

[@1e1001]

cool video! although i feel like maybe you're spending a bit too much time on the "speedrun montage" parts, and your text could maybe do with some background color in some parts

[@pvt171]

beautiful, wonderful, fantastic video! i loved everything about it, from your personal involved knowledge with the game, to the visuals, and to top it all off every drum n bass track was poppin. my question for you, mr. pinsplash, will you create a video like this for HL2 speedrunning?

[@antimozg2686]

With this "unreal tournament" music this video getting so much better. Also old speedrun looking very cool even it's not so fast.

[@killingtimeitself]

this video is incredible, partially reminiscent of the recent BobbyBroccoli nortel duo. Outstanding work. should've watched it a month ago but i wasnt feeling an hour and twenty minutes at the time i guess.

[@MrGamon]

Awesome material!

[@Monody512]

"Utilizing an NPC in this way became known as NPC Abuse. In Questionable Ethics..." Nice segue there. XD

[@Cats-TM]

Oh! So this is what you were working on! Really impressive, will watch either tonight or tomorrow but knowing that you have never done anything like this before, congratulations. Also, great way to avoid reaction videos and lazy reuploads. I approve, mostly because it does not detract from the content any.

[@bibbly1571]

audio mixing's a bit off but i'm enjoying the rest of the production (i like the feel of the gameplay montages). the little asides about SDA or the speedrunning culture at the time were nice, too. its nice to have that little bit of context on how people were acting at the time

[@bodhi4886]

the most underrated video on youtube...

[@bingodeagle]

Im glad you included the notable WRs from maltemller in the hl1 expansions and hl2 + episodes, its a shame that he did not get the full six game WR sweep, but let us not forget how close he came. I wonder if anybody out there will ever be as close as he was, let alone achieve the full HL sweep

[@farquhaad3209]

Holy crap nice music choice. Amazing video too

[@iguananovick9946]

I love the music you used for this video

[@rulebreaker666]

OMFG man, that was amazing.

[@BobTheMartin]

I really like your choice of music troughout the entire video

[@caittastic]

i enjoy how this video talks about the relevant culture of speedrunning at the times

[@AndrewDasilvaPLT]

Thank you for your work.

[@MegaZeta]

If someone had asked me who I wanted to record a history of Half-Life speedrunning, I would have said "Pinsplash"

[@greg.skvortsov]

Awesome piece of history! I think you should've added something about software used - speedrun HL builds

[@raul_adan]

Great video. Music, script, narrative. You made Half-Life speedrunning the most interesting topic in the world for 1:20 hour.

[@vittorioromeo1]

Fantastic work.

[@Sythka]

wth I didn't even know about this vid Pog. There was a lot more time to save on the 32:50 run at the time but I was busy irl so I had to stop, I also never used splits and this was the first game I did speedruns for. I think without splits I didn't really grasp how much time could be saved overall, like with sum of best segments (pretty dumb in hindsight, I dont really know what my brain was doing in teenage years lmao). They merged hard and easy % into one category after I stopped playing and I didn't know; like months later I checked speedrun leaderboards for fun and saw I had the sweet succulent gold trophy, I was like wtf LMAO. Anyway, sorry for the essay, just reminiscing. Great vid. Edit: Also in the era I was playing, we were pretty much just trying to implement as much from half-life 20:41 into rta as possible. Like we just started using edgebugs (shoutout maxam he told me to try using them), and certain selfgauss (20:41 inspired). Then when I stopped playing, it was proto test chamber skip era (20:41 inspired), then people started using fish jump in Apprehension (20:41 inspired), etc. Had to give some respek

[@sh4dowde]

Do you make a video about speedrunning or do you wan‘t to show of your sick mixtape? Pinsplash: yes

[@Splarkszter]

This video is so good that i sleeped trough the last 1/3 of the video.