SpeedRunning Life

By Kory Jhorga - Published 2019-12-29

Hello, I am a speedrunner, a Life Speedrunner. A speedrunner is someone who attempts to completes a game or competition in the quickest amount of time possible, in this case, Life. Life is one of the most played games in the universe, even surpassing my board game. I have been speedrunning this game for 24 years, although I have attempted it many times, and I am taking a quick break and put Life on pause to teach others about the wonders of SpeedRunning Life.

Not many feel the need to speedrun Life. Some say “it is pointless”, or a “waste of valuable time”, or “What? Why? How!?”. These people just don’t understand art. I plan to get a world leaderboard score for completing life.

In my speedrun attempts, I have came across several glitches that can be used to give you boosts or get you closer to winning. For example, during a solar eclipse, and while an earthquake is happening at San Francisco, you can drink a cup of tree sap to cut a few frames off your time.

There is a glitch on the moon, where if you run and jump while on the edge of a cliff and land on your knee caps, you can glitch 20 seconds forward. This works by manipulating an obscurity in Life’s code where it does not check for time making any sense in the knee-cap code. This works other places, but you get the best timing on the moon.

Also, if you do a squat and bounce up and down while shaking your head and scoot backwards, you can achieve mach 3.

I have also noted that by banging radios and other objects on the heads of people walking, you can accelerate the story more quickly. This is important because there are nearly 10 years worth of non-stop dialog, and by banging things on peoples heads, they will quickly stop talking to you so you can get on with the story.

And, while sprinting, you can run into this specific wall in italy surrounded by mushrooms. You will glitch a single atom into it, and it will skip 20 frames when you get to the other side.

There is also an exploit where, when driving a vehicle fast enough, it is possible to glitch through the walls of buildings, but be wary this leaves visible marks on the walls and may make NPCs angry. 

One of the most long and boring parts of the game is the yearly encounter that many players have given the name of “Taxes” to, because it is taxing on your sanity. You can skip the majority of this part by writing random numbers down, however there is a glitch in the IRS system where the NPCs will hunt you down.

I have also learned of a glitch that allows you to interchange license plates with any NPC. The glitch allows anything you do to be pinned on the NPC, instead of you.

There is also a secret in the game where, by traveling fast enough, you can accelerate time to the 31st century, when time travel is possible. This was originally only meant for the developers to playtest the game, but it made it into final release. You can use this to fast forward most of the story and get to the end quicker.

Now I don’t want to spoil too much. You should discover all of Life’s secrets, bugs, and exploits on your own. Just play. Try different things, do things the way they are not meant to be done. That is the best way to find the path to the global leaderboard of speedrunners and high-scorers. Good luck, and have fun.

GG.