Inside the Epic 70-Player Super Mario 64 Speedrun at AGDQ
Collaborative challenges have been a staple of Games Done Quick, the biannual speedrunning charity event, but KingJO444 took it to the next level at Awesome Games Done Quick 2026. On January 10 in Pittsburgh, he rallied 70 players for a wildly ambitious challenge: to collect 70 stars in Super Mario 64, each player taking on a single star. Remarkably, they completed this chaotic endeavor in under two hours. Estimating the run time was tricky, as only 15-20 of the participants had significant experience with the game. Many others hadn’t touched Super Mario 64 since childhood, and some were complete newcomers. “You never know how much someone’s going to practice, or what’s going to happen on stage,” KingJ shared in a post-run chat. He initially set the estimated completion time at an hour and 40 minutes, just shy of the world record. “I thought that gave enough of a buffer, but I kind of underestimated how many people would be playing for the first time,” he noted. “Plus, we had blindfolded runners, which added to the challenge.”
In the lead-up to the event, extensive training took place. Experienced runners teamed up with newcomers to ensure everyone could successfully grab their assigned star. One of those veterans, Ad129, who had been supporting KingJ since the planning stages, described the practice sessions: “We spent most of the time in the practice room with multiple setups, and people would come by to either practice or verify they could complete their star. It was amazing to see someone with no experience learn how to get their star.”
During the actual run, things mostly went smoothly. Some stars were straightforward to collect—like those that required just a chat with Toad for freebies—but the seamless transitions between players kept the momentum going. At one point, a series of failures on a specific challenge could have led to a game over, but KingJ had brought extra Nintendo 64 consoles as backups, allowing them to switch to a nearly identical save file and keep the run on track.
KingJ mentioned it would be at least 18 months before they attempt a challenge of this scale again, but he hinted that his next collaborative speedrunning event might be on a smaller scale. “Maybe not 70 people,” he chuckled. “But something like Mario Kart would be a lot of fun. I want to keep it mainstream, something that a lot of people know, so typically Mario is a solid choice.” Regardless of what’s next, the speedrunning community continues to excel in raising funds for worthy causes, having collected over $2.4 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation during this year’s AGDQ in Pittsburgh, with Summer Games Done Quick set to raise money for Doctors Without Borders this July in Minneapolis.
