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Few genres of gaming videos offer more sheer enjoyment than watching devs react to speedruns of their games, and REPO's offering some very good material in that space right now. The devs at semiwork are so impressed by what the speedrun community is doing that they're even considering adding official speedrun seeds.
In a recent video hosted by REPO marketing head Pontus Sundström and, in the tradition of the game's slapstick YouTube presence, a semibot with the "mind of one of the developers," the pair watch a (now-former) world record level 10 speedrun from LLMarkerz. There are some fun techniques here, including self-destructs to get through the shop faster, but much of the run seems to be about reacting to the content of the procedurally generated levels.
"Watching this really makes me want to add official speedrun seeds so that everyone gets the same playing field," the semibot dev suggests.
"Yeah, we should do that. I know that Lethal Company did," Sundström says teasingly as he evokes the rival co-op horror game. That brings out a stern "Hey! Hey!" from the semibot.
A speedrun seed would essentially set a single non-randomized set of levels for runners to challenge, allowing them to practice the same tricks against the same set of obstacles every time. It'd dramatically change the skillset needed to do a successful run, but it would almost certainly help runners massively shave down their times.
The idea of the speedrun seed keeps coming up over the course of the video, with the devs throwing out thoughts like keeping a consistent shop in every run. But, even as Sundström says "I'm really hyped for a speedrun seed now," he adds that "this is a 'would be cool' list, to be clear. We're just talking now."
But hey, getting devs talking about potential new features is how things eventually get added to an early access game, so who knows what the future holds. "That was amazing," semibot dev says at the conclusion of the video. "Really impressive. Makes me want to add speedrun seeds. Makes me want to think about speedrunners more. Makes me happy to see."
If you're looking for more games to play with friends, check out our guide to the best co-op games of all time.
